tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/sublime-design-10434/articlesSublime design – The Conversation2014-09-18T20:24:11Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/301962014-09-18T20:24:11Z2014-09-18T20:24:11ZSublime design: the geodesic dome<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59126/original/t7qnygq7-1410849898.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The geodesic dome speaks to us of science fiction futures and transformative living.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Montreal Biosphere, Wikimedia Commons </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>From hippie houses and kids’ play frames to military radar stations and mountaineering tents, the geodesic dome has fascinated people as a way of building. </p>
<p>Why? Simply because it is so extraordinarily different from standard forms of shelter. The latticework frame of a geodesic dome is at once an incredibly efficient structure and an exotic, beguiling form.</p>
<h2>What is a geodesic dome?</h2>
<p>The term “geodesic” comes from <a href="http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/geodesy.html">geodesy</a>, the science of measuring the size and shape of Earth. A geodesic dome is a partial-spherical shell structure that is composed of triangular elements derived from geodesics.</p>
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<span class="caption">Radomes (radar-domes) at the Misawa Security Operations Center, Misawa, Japan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>The attraction for building is that geodesic domes are both strong and light. The triangulated three-dimensional skin is extremely structurally efficient. The struts that make up the dome work in both compression and tension – spreading the forces on the structure. That means a geodesic dome can be built to span a large distance and be very strong, with a lot less material.</p>
<p>The small scale of the components needed to build a geodesic structure is also an attraction. The struts and connectors for a dome can often be made and transported to a site much more easily than conventional columns and beams.</p>
<h2>A design classic?</h2>
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<span class="caption">Buckminster Fuller.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>Given geodesic structures derive from regular geometric forms that can be recognised in nature, it might be argued that the geodesic dome wasn’t “designed” by anyone. </p>
<p>But the dome found a charismatic champion in American architect <a href="https://bfi.org/about-fuller">Buckminster Fuller</a>. He wasn’t its inventor, but he did the most to systematise and develop the mathematics for building geodesic domes, even taking out a patent in 1954.</p>
<p>“Bucky” was himself a phenomenon – an inventor and visionary whose enthralling, rambling lectures spanned technology, engineering, environmentalism, philosophy, life and the universe. He caught the attention of everyone from military generals to hippie commune dwellers.</p>
<p>Bucky pitched the geodesic dome as a device for freedom: a wholly new form of lightweight structure that, theoretically, could be placed anywhere. Largely through his non-stop promotion, the geodesic dome’s appeal grew dramatically through the 1960s and 70s.</p>
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<span class="caption">Spaceship Earth at Epcot, USA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>Domes were put to use by governments across the world as weather stations, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Fylingdales">long-range radar stations</a> and storage depots. Fuller even designed the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Biosph%C3%A8re">US pavilion</a> at the 1967 World Expo in Montreal as a 76-metre diameter geodesic dome. Its adventurous design and engineering, like that of the <a href="https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/attractions/epcot/spaceship-earth/">Epcot Center’s “Spaceship Earth”</a>, opened in 1982, offered a thrilling vision of the future.</p>
<h2>The Hippie Dome</h2>
<p>For all the visual drama and excitement of such “space age” structures, the geodesic dome’s most powerful impact has been as a <a href="http://www.dropcitydoc.com/#!about/c10fk">symbol of alternative living</a>. Made popular by publications such as Lloyd Kahn’s Domebook 1 (1970) and Domebook 2 (1971), by the 1970s no self-respecting counterculture radical would be seen without the components of a dome in the trunk of their VW Beetle.</p>
<p>Geodesic domes gave form to desires for living differently. They were understood to be an architecture that fused a sense of the self with a sense of the cosmos.</p>
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<span class="caption">Drop City was a counterculture artists’ community that formed in southern Colorado in 1965.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>Where corners and square buildings restricted the mind – domes supposedly expanded them. Domes became common first shelters in alternative, self-build communities from Nevada, USA to Nimbin, Australia, where they were intended to help create communal, self-supporting, non-hierarchical ways of being. </p>
<h2>An eternal curiosity</h2>
<p>They also leaked. A lot. They overheated, and people got cranky living together without walls. This was not the connection with the universe that most had imagined. So the fad passed and we’re not all living communally in domes delivered by helicopters.</p>
<p>Still, it wasn’t the end for this quixotic adventure in design. It’s not hard to find examples of its enduring appeal. The geodesic dome is a recurring subject of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdUytgQDOw0">student architecture projects</a>. My daughter’s school playground features a geodesic climbing frame and a whole <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/01/03/education/20100103TREND-ss_index.html?ref=multimedia&_r=0">new generation</a> is discovering the dome as a crucible for alternative living. </p>
<p>The geodesic dome still fascinates, speaking to us of science fiction futures and spaces of transformative living.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/sublime-design">Read more articles in the Sublime Design series</a>.</strong></em>
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<p><strong><em>Is there a design classic – industrial, graphic, urban, architectural, interior or landscape – you would like to write about? Contact the <a href="mailto:paul.dalgarno@theconversation.edu.au">Arts + Culture editor</a>.</em></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30196/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lee Stickells does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From hippie houses and kids’ play frames to military radar stations and mountaineering tents, the geodesic dome has fascinated people as a way of building. Why? Simply because it is so extraordinarily…Lee Stickells, Associate professor, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/275872014-07-27T20:25:16Z2014-07-27T20:25:16ZSublime design: Varvara Stepanova’s unisex sports uniform<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54510/original/vzv3vh2t-1405995025.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A utilitarian, no-waste ethos was at the heart of Stepanova’s fashion and design ideas. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://valleyofomsk.blogspot.com.au/">Designs by Stepanova in LEF magazine, 1923.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A peculiar thing happened in Russia in the early 1920s. Abstract art, often considered the pinnacle of elitism and high art, was instead employed by artists as a testing ground for ideas that promised to change society for the better. </p>
<p>In 1928, Russian artist <a href="http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=5643">Varvara Stepanova</a> (1894-1958) designed a unisex sports uniform with a striking geometric design that accentuated the movement of the athlete. With bold lines that echoed the jumping, running, ducking and weaving of its wearer, the boxy shape, utilitarian design and block colours precipitated the minimalist look of contemporary fashion labels such as Alpha 60, Kuwaii and Above. </p>
<p>Stepanova’s design was part of an experimental Russian art movement, <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/education_social_work/learning_teaching/ict/theory/constructivism.shtml">constructivism</a>, that aspired to no less than the revolution of society. </p>
<h2>Constructivist imaginings</h2>
<p>The constructivists’ abstract, geometric compositions were not created to explore space and material in a gallery but instead became models for new industrial designs. Artists used their skills and imagination for architecture, urban space, clothing, graphics and social activism. </p>
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<span class="caption">Stepanova with her husband Alexander Rodchenko in the 1920s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikipedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>The dream was a modern world where men and women from all walks of life could work productively, side by side, in an egalitarian society. “Composition” became “construction” and artists became artist-engineers. Many of these wild and wonderful ideas were never realised in mass production, and in fact could not be realised, based as they were on abstract dreaming rather than engineering principles. </p>
<p>The austere workings of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalinism">Stalinism</a> preferred realism and propaganda to the imaginings of the constructivists. And yet their spirit of art-making at the intersection of design, with a vision for social transformation, resonates strongly with the values of contemporary art today, particularly in the wake of what is known as the “<a href="http://www.artnews.com/2014/04/07/art-of-social-practice-is-changing-the-world-one-row-house-at-a-time/">social turn</a>” or socially engaged art. </p>
<h2>Stepanova’s design</h2>
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<span class="caption">Designs by Stepanova in LEF magazine, 1923.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://uselessmathematics.wordpress.com/">uselessmathematics.wordpress.com</a></span>
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<p>Stepanova was a prolific and influential artist in the constructivist movement, a graphic artist and textile designer who championed principles of function, simplicity and respect for materials. </p>
<p>Stepanova’s design was characterised by a fundamental honesty; her textile prints drew attention to the material quality of fabric, including the weave of thread and the shape of the material in its simplest form. Her clothing design responded to how the body moves in space, considering the function of the clothing above aesthetics – with no superfluous elements that might detract from the pure fundamentals of how the fabric and garment would be used. </p>
<p>This utilitarian, no-waste ethos was at the heart of Stepanova’s ideas about “construction”. Stepanova created uniforms for specialist workers, actors and athletes, each designed to best accommodate the physical movements of the wearer. Strong geometric lines emphasised the garment’s structure including the seams, pockets, buttons, fabric bias and weave. </p>
<p>The results were striking with bold colour contrasts and optical flickers in the fabric print that force us to look again and more closely. The finished items were theatrical in spite of their strict logic, partly because of the literal intentions and partly because of the almost absurd link between abstract art and useful design.</p>
<h2>Sustainability in fashion design</h2>
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<span class="caption">Stepanova poses in sports clothes of her own design, 1923.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://uselessmathematics.wordpress.com/">uselessmathematics.wordpress.com</a></span>
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<p>Why would such humble design principles resonate nearly a century later? At the core of Stepanova’s design is a quality that is of increasing importance today – sustainability. In fashion, sustainability is linked to the use of garments. The more useful a garment is, the more likely we will keep it, repair it, sustain it. </p>
<p>In Stepanova’s textiles, the print reminds us that the fabric has been woven together, the seams remind us that pieces of fabric have been sewn together, and the geometric lines remind us of the ways in which the fabric will bend, flex and move with our body in space. </p>
<p>Considering the origins, the process and the endurance of a garment makes us more likely to care about who made it and the conditions of its production. We are more inclined to spend money to ensure a living wage is paid to those who produce it, and we are more likely to take the care to hand wash, dry clean, repair and care for that garment in the long term. </p>
<p>At the time Stepanova was designing, issues of environmental sustainability were only a shadow on the horizon. What was at stake for the constructivists was human sustainability – care for workers, respect for people across class divisions, opportunities for women, a society that could provide equally for all. </p>
<p>Stepanova’s sports uniform was stylish in its simplicity, bold in its utilitarian design, playful and functional. And in this recipe we find the ingredients for sustainable fashion today. </p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/sublime-design">Read more articles in the Sublime Design series</a>.</strong></em>
<br></p>
<p><em>Are you an academic or researcher? Is there a design classic – industrial, graphic, urban, architectural, interior or landscape – you would like to write about? Contact the <a href="mailto:paul.dalgarno@theconversation.edu.au">Arts + Culture editor</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27587/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Grace McQuilten is affiliated with The Social Studio.</span></em></p>A peculiar thing happened in Russia in the early 1920s. Abstract art, often considered the pinnacle of elitism and high art, was instead employed by artists as a testing ground for ideas that promised…Grace McQuilten, Honorary Fellow, School of Culture & Communication, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/279952014-07-17T05:32:30Z2014-07-17T05:32:30ZSublime design: the KickStart MoneyMaker pump<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54038/original/y4fvq5g5-1405554453.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">While design alone cannot solve global poverty, the Moneymaker pump is making a difference for many Africans.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Esther Havens/ Kickstart.org</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Designers aim to change peoples’ lives, ideally for the better. The American co-founders of design and development company <a href="http://www.kickstart.org/">KickStart</a>, Martin Fisher and Nick Moon, set themselves a particularly difficult challenge: to design something that could change the lives of poor Kenyan farmers. </p>
<p>The resulting product, which has proved instrumental in creating wealth, improving health and developing businesses in sub-Saharan Africa, is a water pump.</p>
<p>As the name suggests, the <a href="http://www.kickstart.org/products/super-moneymaker/">KickStart MoneyMaker pump</a>’s ultimate function is not irrigation. Rather, it functions as a tool to move some of the poorest people in Africa from subsistence to commercial farming. To tackle extreme poverty, Fisher <a href="http://www.qatar.cmu.edu/iliano/courses/07F-CMU-CS502/papers/Fisher.pdf">argues</a> “income is development”, and the MoneyMaker was designed for “farmerpreneurs”.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zIDzBQ6meYY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A MoneyMaker pump promotional video by the late Maasai rapper Mr. Ebbo.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Designing products to alleviate poverty in the developing world is not new. Viennese designer <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/arts/16iht-design16.html">Victor Papanek</a>, in his 1971 classic <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/190560.Design_for_the_Real_World">Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change</a>, chastised Western design professionals for focusing solely on superficial products for wealthy consumers. </p>
<p>Following the “<a href="http://www.self-help-approach.com/AppropriateTechnology.aspx">Appropriate Technology</a>” approach, Papanek advocated designing low-cost, small-scale, locally made products for third world needs. An exhibition at New York’s Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum in 2007, <a href="http://www.designother90.org/solutions/?exhibition=12">Design for the Other 90%</a>, revisited these issues, encapsulating the new wave of (re)thinking design and development.</p>
<p>Fisher and Moon began working in aid and development projects in Kenya in the mid-1980s. Disillusioned with the existing infrastructure’s dependence on overseas aid and gifts, they also had first-hand experience of Appropriate Technology’s failings. </p>
<p>Though well-intentioned, Western designers usually resorted to a universal solution regardless of local needs or context. The resulting products were either too expensive or, if locally produced, of poor quality. And giving away products, usually intended for communal rather than individual ownership, meant that often no one took responsibility for them. </p>
<p>With the entrepreneurial individual rather than the “poor victim” in mind, Fisher and Moon founded a non-profit in 1991 that aimed to design products and create a profitable business model. After designing low-cost pit latrines and a brick press, they noted that subsistence farmers in Kenya were relying on seasonal rainfall and carrying buckets of water from wells to irrigate their crops. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52944/original/f2x4bhgs-1404367544.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52944/original/f2x4bhgs-1404367544.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52944/original/f2x4bhgs-1404367544.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52944/original/f2x4bhgs-1404367544.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52944/original/f2x4bhgs-1404367544.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52944/original/f2x4bhgs-1404367544.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52944/original/f2x4bhgs-1404367544.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52944/original/f2x4bhgs-1404367544.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">MoneyMaker pump shop in Kenya.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rowan Simpson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Inspired by a bamboo treadle pump developed by <a href="http://www.ideorg.org/">International Development Enterprises</a> (IDE) in Bangladesh, KickStart developed several iterations of an irrigation pump for Kenyan conditions. The original MoneyMaker, launched in 1996, was a treadle-operated metal pump that could pull water up to seven metres from a well to an adjacent field. </p>
<p>The next iteration, the Super MoneyMaker, had both this suction capability plus a pressure capability to push water through a pipe and spray it across two acres of land. With such an irrigation tool, a subsistence farmer with a small plot could grow crops all year round, expand production and sell surplus crops. </p>
<p>The design requirements were challenging. The pumps needed to be durable, functional and mass manufactured yet also portable, easily repairable and culturally acceptable. And to avoid the dependency trap, they had to be sold, but at a very low cost. Designed in Nairobi and initially manufactured locally, larger production facilities and lower costs in China eventually shifted much of KickStart’s pump production offshore. </p>
<p>Even so, at US$95 for a large treadle pump, or even $35 for a less powerful hand-operated version, the MoneyMaker is a significant – but apparently worthwhile – cost for an African farmer. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/53490/original/8d6kvm48-1404960482.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/53490/original/8d6kvm48-1404960482.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/53490/original/8d6kvm48-1404960482.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/53490/original/8d6kvm48-1404960482.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/53490/original/8d6kvm48-1404960482.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/53490/original/8d6kvm48-1404960482.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/53490/original/8d6kvm48-1404960482.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">KickStart</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But increasing agricultural income is only part of KickStart’s aim. Establishing a profitable supply-chain in which distributors and retailers also profit by selling pumps is another, and this too has proven sustainable. A major challenge, however, is marketing the pumps to a semi-literate population with little access to modern communication channels. </p>
<p>To date, the most successful marketing has been live demonstrations in villages, a relatively expensive strategy. Although ideally aiming for a completely self-sufficient market, KickStart still relies on grants to subsidise both marketing of the pump and research and development of new products. </p>
<p>In sub-Saharan Africa, almost half the population live on less than US$1.25 a day, according to the UN’s <a href="http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/report-2013/mdg-report-2013-english.pdf">Millenium Development Goals 2013 report</a>. The majority of these people live in rural areas, making agricultural growth crucial to any viable development strategy. </p>
<p>As of May 2014, KickStart have played a role in the Millennium Development Goals project by selling over 240,000 pumps in Kenya, Tanzania and Mali, resulting in over 150,000 new businesses being created along the supply chain. Most importantly, they have reportedly lifted 790,000 people out of extreme poverty. </p>
<p>While design alone cannot solve global poverty, the Moneymaker is clearly making a difference for many Africans. </p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/sublime-design">Read more articles in the Sublime Design series</a>.</strong></em>
<br></p>
<p><em>Are you an academic or researcher? Is there a design classic – industrial, graphic, urban, architectural, interior or landscape – you would like to write about? Contact the <a href="mailto:paul.dalgarno@theconversation.edu.au">Arts + Culture editor</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27995/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>DJ Huppatz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Designers aim to change peoples’ lives, ideally for the better. The American co-founders of design and development company KickStart, Martin Fisher and Nick Moon, set themselves a particularly difficult…DJ Huppatz, Senior Lecturer, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/262322014-06-29T21:25:33Z2014-06-29T21:25:33ZSublime design: the PB/5 pedestrian button<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52139/original/tntntbhg-1403660661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Irrespective of your button pressing technique, unfortunately the wait will always be the same.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dave Young</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We are more likely to thump this instantly recognisable design, on a daily basis, than to give it much thought. The PB/5 pedestrian button, a type of “Audio-Tactile Pedestrian Detector” (ATPD), is a successful Australian design that has been populating towns and cities across Australia since 1984 and exported to countries including Ireland, the US, New Zealand and Singapore. </p>
<p>The button, commissioned by the then NSW Department of Main Roads, addressed pedestrians’ safety at traffic light crossings and, most notably, the growing concerns for the safety of vision and hearing-impaired pedestrians. </p>
<p>Successfully commercialised manufactured products are always the result of many people’s efforts. The team behind the PB/5 pedestrian button was led by industrial designer David Wood from <a href="http://www.nielsendesign.com">Nielsen Design Associates</a>, acoustical engineer Louis Challis, and roads and traffic authority (RTA) engineer Frank Hulscher. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52140/original/jvf93d5q-1403660790.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52140/original/jvf93d5q-1403660790.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52140/original/jvf93d5q-1403660790.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52140/original/jvf93d5q-1403660790.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52140/original/jvf93d5q-1403660790.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52140/original/jvf93d5q-1403660790.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52140/original/jvf93d5q-1403660790.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52140/original/jvf93d5q-1403660790.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An inconspicuous design classic, the PB/5 pedestrian button.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rory Murdock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Audio design</h2>
<p>The PB/5 pedestrian button embodies an audio-tactile device combining a two-rhythm buzzer, a vibrating touch panel, and braille direction arrow. Earlier attempts at an audio signalling pedestrian button in the 1960s incorporated a bell and buzzer audio signalling feature. In addition to the green “walk” signal, visually-impaired pedestrians were meant to cross when the sound of a ringing bell changed to a buzzer. </p>
<p>Unfortunately these earlier audio pedestrian buttons caused confusion due to their inconsistent installation from location to location and the sound transition was far from intuitive as a signal to “walk”. Furthermore, when the bell mechanism malfunctioned it could be mistaken as sounding like a buzzer and cause deadly confusion.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xhekXntyyfA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Chirp, chirp, tck-tck-tck-tck.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1976, in response to these concerns, acoustic consultants Louis A. Challis and Associates were tasked to redesign the audio signalling. They devised the now familiar two-rhythm buzzer and added a vibrating touch panel. The slower rhythm transitioning to a faster rhythm indicates a positive walk (cross) signal. A locating tone, that can adjust automatically to compensate for ambient road noise, assists users to find the push button and unmistakably indicate a “don’t walk” phase. </p>
<h2>Industrial design</h2>
<p>The design that we are familiar with today unifies the audio-tactile signalling features with a distinctive and robust form expressed as a diecast aluminium housing and polished stainless steel button. A braille and printed arrow on the vibrating plate indicates the direction for crossing.</p>
<p>The product form was derived from the shape of traffic lights. The epoxy power-coated aluminium castings and tamper proof fasteners ensure that the design is weather and vandal proof. Carl Nielsen (of Nielsen Design Associates) later referred to this need when designing products for public environments as “pre-vandalising” - leaving nothing to fail when installed. </p>
<p>The distinctive push button was designed to withstand millions of pushes. This was achieved by mechanically isolating the movement of the button from the electrical switching mechanism. The button floats on a sliding shaft. Magnets offer the button an initial resistance when pressed before sliding in on its shaft. A change in magnetism of this action triggers an electronic reed switch initiating the request to “walk”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51322/original/b7926xbq-1402986739.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51322/original/b7926xbq-1402986739.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51322/original/b7926xbq-1402986739.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51322/original/b7926xbq-1402986739.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51322/original/b7926xbq-1402986739.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51322/original/b7926xbq-1402986739.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51322/original/b7926xbq-1402986739.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51322/original/b7926xbq-1402986739.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alex Proimos</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So it matters little if you lightly press it once or give it quick succession of light jabs. The designers were well aware of human behaviour, our impatience and tendency to overestimate the time we actually wait for the lights to change. So, irrespective of your specially developed button pressing technique, unfortunately the wait will be the same.</p>
<h2>A design classic?</h2>
<p>Given its success in improving pedestrian safety at crossings and its longevity as a widely used design, it certainly demonstrates the qualities of a good design. The PB/5 pedestrian button is unlikely to be on many people’s “top ten” lists as a “design classic”, but it does possess a number of classic design attributes, including: form, function, safety, sustainability, quality, commerciality and innovation.</p>
<p>I would like to add an extra attribute: inconspicuous. A product design should do its job quietly and efficiently without drawing undue attention to itself. So my inconspicuous design classic is the PB/5 pedestrian button … even if using it won’t change the lights fast enough.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/sublime-design">Read more articles in the Sublime Design series</a>.</strong></em>
<br></p>
<p><em>Are you an academic or researcher? Is there a design classic – industrial, graphic, urban, architectural, interior or landscape – you would like to write about? Contact the <a href="mailto:paul.dalgarno@theconversation.edu.au">Arts + Culture editor</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26232/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Miles Park does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We are more likely to thump this instantly recognisable design, on a daily basis, than to give it much thought. The PB/5 pedestrian button, a type of “Audio-Tactile Pedestrian Detector” (ATPD), is a successful…Miles Park, Industrial Design, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/272252014-06-17T05:01:11Z2014-06-17T05:01:11ZSublime design: the Queenslander<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51239/original/sstngd3b-1402965185.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The classic Queenslander, whose design can be easily modified to suit our contemporary lifestyles.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Queenslander house is a classic piece of Australian architectural design. With its distinctive timber and corrugated iron appearance, it breaks the monotony of the bland, master-planned display villages on the peripheries of our cities. </p>
<p>It’s also a great example of “vernacular architecture”, a term first coined by American writer/ architect Bernard Rudofsky in his 1964 book <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Architecture_Without_Architects.html?id=F_khGKj2sKwC">Architecture Without Architects</a>. Vernacular architecture is best described as a traditional or indigenous type of architecture, one that has evolved over time in response to local climatic, environmental, building resources and cultural human needs. It is reflective of a very specific local context and is a functional and practical design response. </p>
<p>In Queensland, timber and iron vernacular houses emerged in the mid-19th century as a response by European migrants to the new subtropical climate. Wide verandas provided relief from the lengthy, hot summer days, punctuated by heavy afternoon downpours of rain. <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/freeland-john-maxwell-max-12511">John Freeland</a>, a former professor of architecture at UNSW <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Architecture-Australia-history-J-Freeland/dp/B0007ISTIA">describes</a> the Queenslander as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the closest Australia ever came to producing an indigenous style.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>What makes the Queenslander so distinctive?</h2>
<p>The classic Queenslander is typically a single detached house made of timber and iron, and located on a separate block of land. The floor plan consists of four or six rooms, which branch off a centrally located corridor, and which are adorned by external shading verandas. Queenslanders are ideally located on the peaks of hills, which allow for both views and cooling ventilation. They are purposefully designed at a human scale and to provide a sense of place in the Queensland context.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51163/original/fbfrqj8y-1402893330.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51163/original/fbfrqj8y-1402893330.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51163/original/fbfrqj8y-1402893330.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51163/original/fbfrqj8y-1402893330.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51163/original/fbfrqj8y-1402893330.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51163/original/fbfrqj8y-1402893330.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51163/original/fbfrqj8y-1402893330.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51163/original/fbfrqj8y-1402893330.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">House in Emerald, Queenland with a short-ridged roof and a generous wraparound veranda, probably built between 1880s and 1890s. This home features acroteria on the edges of the roof and veranda, and carved veranda posts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Veranda and roof</h2>
<p>British colonial traditions previously developed in India and elsewhere influenced the adoption of extensive deep shading external verandas on two, three or four sides of the typical Queenslander. These protected spaces provide a refuge from Queensland’s extreme summer sun and rain deluges, while also functioning as clever breeze scoops to direct cooling natural ventilation through the house. </p>
<p>The veranda provides a unique multi-purpose space, which is neither indoors nor outdoors. Often used as an extension of the indoor living space, verandas have also been adapted to act as sleep-out areas, or protected areas to hang the laundry. </p>
<p>The wrapping of the house in verandas encourages the house to face outwards, rather than the inward-facing design approach of houses more appropriately situated in cooler climates. Steeply pitched corrugated iron roofs are lightweight, durable and fire-resistant, and allow for high cooling ceilings below.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51248/original/ns3khkh5-1402966159.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51248/original/ns3khkh5-1402966159.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51248/original/ns3khkh5-1402966159.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51248/original/ns3khkh5-1402966159.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51248/original/ns3khkh5-1402966159.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51248/original/ns3khkh5-1402966159.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51248/original/ns3khkh5-1402966159.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51248/original/ns3khkh5-1402966159.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A high-set Victorian era Queenslander with large veranda in New Farm, Brisbane.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Windows and doors</h2>
<p>Double hung windows and doors typically open to outside verandas, and line up internally. Generally left open in summer, with the assistance of the flanking veranda breeze scoops, they encourage cooling breezes into the house and move the hot humid air of the interior spaces out. Movement of air through the house not only provides a welcoming cooling relief, but it also serves as a necessary protection against interior mould growth, which is synonymous with a humid climate. </p>
<p>Facades without verandas typically have limited roof overhangs. On these facades, timber and sheet metal window hoods with perforated decorative side fins provide shading and divert rain, all the while releasing trapped rising hot air, thus helping to further cool the inside of the house.</p>
<h2>Stumps</h2>
<p>The Queenslander “touches the earth lightly”. The light timber-framed structure is elevated above ground on stumps, which allows it to be placed on a variable terrain; from the hilly areas in South East Queensland, through to the wetter earth in the more northern Tropics. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51253/original/v3pyq96z-1402966556.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51253/original/v3pyq96z-1402966556.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51253/original/v3pyq96z-1402966556.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51253/original/v3pyq96z-1402966556.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51253/original/v3pyq96z-1402966556.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51253/original/v3pyq96z-1402966556.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51253/original/v3pyq96z-1402966556.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51253/original/v3pyq96z-1402966556.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A single-storey Queenslander ca. 1935.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are a number of advantages to this approach. In addition to merely allowing a flat floor to be built on a sloping site with minimal ground excavation. Raising the house allows high level prevailing breezes to be captured inside, and ventilation or a cool pool of air beneath the floor, helps to cool it from below. It also provides the timber with protection from white ants.</p>
<h2>Lightweight materials</h2>
<p>Their light timber frames and corrugated iron materials make Queenslanders simple to modify and adapt to the changing needs of the occupants. They can be raised or simply transported to another site on the back of a truck. Surely recycling a house is the ultimate sustainable design solution?</p>
<h2>Decorative features</h2>
<p>Unique decorative features on the Queenslander are not only aesthetically pleasing, but also functional. These include cast iron or timber balustrades, gables and column brackets, and timber screens, louvres, fretwork and battens. Battened screening and coloured glass provides privacy for occupants, while simultaneously directing breeze movement and/or reducing solar radiation.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51252/original/bfbqgmqk-1402966400.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51252/original/bfbqgmqk-1402966400.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51252/original/bfbqgmqk-1402966400.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51252/original/bfbqgmqk-1402966400.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51252/original/bfbqgmqk-1402966400.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51252/original/bfbqgmqk-1402966400.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51252/original/bfbqgmqk-1402966400.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51252/original/bfbqgmqk-1402966400.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sami Keinanen</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A return to the vernacular?</h2>
<p>Modern Australian architecture turned its back on the vernacular in the name of “progress”. The outskirts of each of Australia’s capital cities are now adorned with developer-driven display villages, where prospective homeowners can select a house and land package, and indulge in the great Australian dream of home ownership. </p>
<p>These homes largely do not address the local context or climate, and are driven by a desire to maximise the ratio of the footprint of the building to its site, while keeping initial building costs to a minimum.</p>
<p>But with recent concerns about high-energy consumption and costs, architects and planners are once again embracing the importance of energy-efficient sustainable design and selection of local building materials. </p>
<p>While technology enables us to source affordable building materials globally, architects are now taking embodied energy, lost through transporting these materials to the building site, into account. Not only is there a concern about initial building costs, but whole life-cycle costs are now also on the radar and efficient climate responsive designs are valued.</p>
<p>For those of us living in the sub-tropical or tropical contexts of Queensland, this means a return to and perhaps a reinterpretation of, the essential and architectural traditions of the classic Queenslander, whose design can be easily modified to suit our contemporary lifestyles. </p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/sublime-design">Read more articles in the Sublime Design series</a>.</strong></em>
<br></p>
<p><em>Are you an academic or researcher? Is there a design classic – industrial, graphic, urban, architectural, interior or landscape – you would like to write about? Contact the <a href="mailto:paul.dalgarno@theconversation.edu.au">Arts + Culture editor</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27225/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lindy Osborne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Queenslander house is a classic piece of Australian architectural design. With its distinctive timber and corrugated iron appearance, it breaks the monotony of the bland, master-planned display villages…Lindy Osborne, Transformation Fellow + Senior Lecturer in Architecture, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/276422014-06-12T03:10:50Z2014-06-12T03:10:50ZSublime design: the Mini<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50346/original/rh7c328t-1401946577.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In 1999, the Mini was voted the second most influential car of the 20th century.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Car enthusiasts say the <a href="http://www.mini.com.au/index.html'">Mini</a> has endured because it is fun - fun to drive and fun to look at. However, as a design, the Mini endures because of how its designers worked within the constraints they were set and in how the design relates to the world around it. </p>
<p>Now as a brand that has a completely different focus, the original Mini is a design classic that has endured even though the world around it has changed.</p>
<h2>The compact car</h2>
<p>The 1959 Mini (or, properly the Morris Mini-Minor, or Austin 850, among several other variations) was a response to a very specific threat to the British motor industry in the 1950s. </p>
<p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/26/newsid_2502000/2502691.stm">A fuel crisis</a> had prompted an interest in German “<a href="http://www.micro-cars.info/">micro cars</a>”, like the <a href="http://www.carbuzz.com/news/2013/4/24/Three-Wheeled-Cars-Messerschmitt-KR175-7714028/">Messerschmidt</a> and <a href="http://www.microcarmuseum.com/tour/isetta-3wheel-special.html">BMW Isetta</a>, and the British Motor Corporation (BMC) didn’t have a competing product. </p>
<p>Car designer <a href="http://designmuseum.org/design/alec-issigonis">Alec Issigonis</a>, who had previously designed the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Minor">Morris Minor</a>, was called back to BMC from Alvis Motors, and given the brief to design a small car “with a proper body and a proper engine”, to fit inside a footprint 10’ long by 4’ wide by 4’ high.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50345/original/8z24q5m2-1401946464.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50345/original/8z24q5m2-1401946464.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50345/original/8z24q5m2-1401946464.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50345/original/8z24q5m2-1401946464.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50345/original/8z24q5m2-1401946464.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50345/original/8z24q5m2-1401946464.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50345/original/8z24q5m2-1401946464.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50345/original/8z24q5m2-1401946464.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Morris Mini-Minor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The design began with the timely and novel “east-west” drivetrain arrangement, involving an extremely compact four-cylinder engine and gearbox assembly, and left Issigonis and his team with the problem of fitting four people inside a space not much bigger than 8’ by 4’. This restriction was a response to the German micro-cars, most of which couldn’t seat four people and had two-cylinder engines. </p>
<p>The interior layout was achieved through what we’d today call <a href="http://www.telono.com/en/articles/lo-fi-vs-hi-fi-prototyping-how-real-does-the-real-thing-have-to-be/">low-fidelity prototyping</a>, a method of using simple materials to help think about more complicated solutions. At the time of the Mini’s creation, designers called it “putting seats on the shop floor” and having people, from secretaries to factory workers, sit in them and indicate how much space they’d need inside a car. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50361/original/5wxp6pzw-1401950637.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50361/original/5wxp6pzw-1401950637.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50361/original/5wxp6pzw-1401950637.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50361/original/5wxp6pzw-1401950637.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50361/original/5wxp6pzw-1401950637.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50361/original/5wxp6pzw-1401950637.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50361/original/5wxp6pzw-1401950637.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50361/original/5wxp6pzw-1401950637.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sir Alec Issigonis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This process helped the Mini’s design team to know how to arrange the parcel shelf under the dashboard and how to size the door bins. There are, of course, some quirks or personal touches to the Mini’s design. The door bins are infamously sized to accommodate a bottle of Gordon’s Gin and, while the first Mini had no provision for seat belts it was equipped with an ashtray - Issigonis was a chain smoker. </p>
<p>Even the iconic look of the Mini, simultaneously modernist and friendly, is a result of Issigonis’ response to the restrictions in the brief. A monocoque construction with the panel joins on the outside of the body, rather than hidden, mostly to gain precious quarter-inches inside, and a body shape that clearly says “the engine is <em>here</em> and people sit <em>here</em>” lend the Mini an honesty perhaps only matched by the <a href="http://www.volkswagen.com.au/en/models/beetle.html">Volkswagen Beetle</a> and its sibling the <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/porsche/911/">Porsche 911</a>.</p>
<h2>Driving the tides of change</h2>
<p>If the first Mini was a response to the world around it, later Minis were swept along with the tides of change. By 1967 Issigonis wanted to see his proposed replacement, the 9X prototype, enter production. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50356/original/2h79kvsg-1401949718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50356/original/2h79kvsg-1401949718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50356/original/2h79kvsg-1401949718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50356/original/2h79kvsg-1401949718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50356/original/2h79kvsg-1401949718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50356/original/2h79kvsg-1401949718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50356/original/2h79kvsg-1401949718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50356/original/2h79kvsg-1401949718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mini X prototype, Heritage Motor Centre Gaydon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">By Mark Brown, Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The 9X was smaller than the Mini, more efficient in its use of materials and easier to build. However, many competing interests, not the least the nationalisation of the British motor industry, got in the way and instead the Mini was updated but never really re-designed. It continued, mostly visibly unchanged until 2000, with a remarkable 41 year production run.</p>
<p>In the 1970s, the Mini remained in production even as BMC (by this stage known as British Leyland) took the same concept and modernized it, first with the the larger Allegro in the early 70s and then the mini-sized but far more modern-looking Metro in the 80s. Through this period the Mini remained competitive during the 80s against far more modern competitors by virtue of its small size and low cost.</p>
<h2>The Mini revival</h2>
<p>A revival of interest in the Mini in Japan in the early 80s led to continued interest in the UK and a second revival in the 90s led to niche sales across Europe. It was at this time that the Mini began to be appreciated as a classic in its own right, no small feat for an economy car, with the always strong enthusiast following achieving a critical mass.</p>
<p>Further, or perhaps continued, turmoil in the British Motor Industry led to the eventual sale of the Rover sub-brand and the rights to the Mini to BMW in the early 90s. When, in 2001, BMW launched the “new Mini”, or “MINI” as they used to insist, it mimicked the styling but not the human-centred design of the original Mini. The new MINI is a response to changing pressures in the automotive market. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50363/original/4h328khk-1401950966.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50363/original/4h328khk-1401950966.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50363/original/4h328khk-1401950966.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50363/original/4h328khk-1401950966.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50363/original/4h328khk-1401950966.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50363/original/4h328khk-1401950966.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50363/original/4h328khk-1401950966.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The new Mini.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The new MINI, now in its third re-design, is positioned as a premium car, rather than a car for everyone, and competes not on efficiency but on image. The MINI is undoubtedly successful but the entire industry has changed and the specific challenges the Mini addressed in 1959 are no longer relevant.</p>
<p>The Mini endures as a design classic because of how it responds to the world around it and the specific vehicle demands, whether economic or aesthetic, of the time.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/sublime-design">Read more articles in the Sublime Design series</a>.</strong></em>
<br></p>
<p><strong><em>Are you an academic or researcher? Is there a design classic – industrial, graphic, urban, architectural, interior or landscape – you would like to write about? Contact the <a href="mailto:paul.dalgarno@theconversation.edu.au">Arts + Culture editor</a>.</em></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27642/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Kraal receives funding from the Australian Centre for Health Services Innovation (AusHSI).</span></em></p>Car enthusiasts say the Mini has endured because it is fun - fun to drive and fun to look at. However, as a design, the Mini endures because of how its designers worked within the constraints they were…Ben Kraal, Research Fellow, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/270182014-06-08T21:12:00Z2014-06-08T21:12:00ZSublime design: Lego<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50357/original/9fd86gpy-1401949764.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Lego brick has now become a basic module of virtual “brickworlds”. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andreas</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Danish design” usually conjures up images of mid-century modern furniture – functional yet sculptural – but Denmark’s most successful “design icon” is a humble plastic brick: Lego. </p>
<p>In 2013, the <a href="http://aboutus.lego.com/en-us/lego-group/company-profile">Lego Group</a> manufactured more than 55 billion Lego pieces. By the time you have finished reading this article, another half a million plastic bricks will leave Lego factories in Denmark, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Mexico for export to more than 130 countries. </p>
<p>But the plastic bricks now comprise only part of the story, and Lego’s recent success in licensing, video games <a href="https://theconversation.com/brand-connection-and-the-lego-movie-whats-going-on-22936">and films</a> means the physical bricks are now inseparable from their (and our) interactions with virtual media. </p>
<p>Once a basic module of a construction system for children’s play, the Lego brick has now become a basic module of virtual “brickworlds”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50310/original/bfyxq5zk-1401933195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50310/original/bfyxq5zk-1401933195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50310/original/bfyxq5zk-1401933195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50310/original/bfyxq5zk-1401933195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50310/original/bfyxq5zk-1401933195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50310/original/bfyxq5zk-1401933195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50310/original/bfyxq5zk-1401933195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lego HQ: the inside of the building in Billund, Denmark where 150 Lego designers develop new products.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lego Group</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Play well</h2>
<p>Lego’s story begins in 1932 in Billund, Denmark, when carpenter <a href="http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/Ole_Kirk_Christiansen">Ole Kirk Kristiansen</a> founded a wooden toy business. Still based in Billund and still owned by the Kristiansen family, the Lego Group is currently the world’s largest toy manufacturer, with <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/feb/21/lego-builds-profits-new-products">profits measured</a> in the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/feb/27/lego-builds-record-profit">hundreds of millions</a> of dollars. </p>
<p>The name Lego is a conjunction of the Danish words “leg godt”, meaning “play well”. The initial focus was wooden toys but, following the second world war, Ole’s son <a href="http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/Godtfred_Kirk_Christiansen">Godtfred</a> took over the business and bought their first plastic moulding machine. By 1949, Lego was designing and manufacturing around 200 different toys, including a forerunner of the plastic brick. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50304/original/nyfqvms5-1401932497.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50304/original/nyfqvms5-1401932497.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50304/original/nyfqvms5-1401932497.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50304/original/nyfqvms5-1401932497.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50304/original/nyfqvms5-1401932497.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50304/original/nyfqvms5-1401932497.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50304/original/nyfqvms5-1401932497.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50304/original/nyfqvms5-1401932497.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1953 Lego Mursten set.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://aboutus.lego.com/en-us/news-room/media-assets-library/images">Lego Group</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A major turning point came in 1958, with the patent of Lego’s “stud-and-tube” coupling system. The simple construction system comprised interchangeable plastic bricks designed to interlock in various combinations. A play system that was non-violent, non-gender specific and stimulated children’s creativity and imagination proved so successful that by the late 1960s, Lego’s expanding range of plastic brick sets was a rapidly growing global export.</p>
<h2>Mediatisation</h2>
<p>The intersection of advertising, children’s television and toy manufacturers in the 1960s and 1970s meant children were increasingly associating toys with characters and narratives derived from television. </p>
<p>For Lego, the launch of minifigures (minifigs) in 1975 was a significant turning point in the progression towards more narrative play sets, with <a href="http://brickset.com/sets/theme-Space">Space</a> and <a href="http://www.mocpages.com/directory.php/10">Town and Castle</a> sets creating a new dimension for the bricks. No longer limited to building anonymous structures, children could now construct homes for knights and spaceships for astronauts. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50306/original/qstwqcwg-1401932829.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50306/original/qstwqcwg-1401932829.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50306/original/qstwqcwg-1401932829.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50306/original/qstwqcwg-1401932829.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50306/original/qstwqcwg-1401932829.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50306/original/qstwqcwg-1401932829.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50306/original/qstwqcwg-1401932829.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50306/original/qstwqcwg-1401932829.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lego minifigure heads in the processing facility.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://aboutus.lego.com/en-us/news-room/media-assets-library/images">Lego Group</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1998, a <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB893892521217187000">Star Wars licensing agreement</a> meant that children were playing with not simply generic astronauts or cowboys but specific characters from popular films. <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/E/bo5530575.html">Described by film and media studies professor Stig Hjarvard</a> as <a href="http://www.sfu.ca/media-lab/cmns320_06/readings/hjarvard_bricks_to_bytes.pdf">mediatisation</a>, this process began Lego’s shift in emphasis from designing physical toys to designing media entertainment. </p>
<p>The plastic bricks remained, but became inseparable from their virtual “brickworlds” – from Harry Potter to Lego’s own fantasy world of <a href="http://bionicle.wikia.com/wiki/BIONICLE">Bionicles</a>. </p>
<p>While the shift from a simple construction system to integrated cross marketing with popular films, videogames and associated merchandising has caused <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/02/10/why-i-wont-see-the-lego-movie/">some concern</a> among parents, it has proven enormously profitable for the Lego Group. </p>
<p>Did the shift from an open construction system of bricks without a script, to a “mediatised” set with instructions and narrative represent a limiting of children’s imaginations and a narrowing of possibilities? Has integration into a wider commercial media culture meant that Lego is now, as one <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/02/10/why-i-wont-see-the-lego-movie/">media critic Philip Kennicot</a> recently put it, “commercialised play that encourages a nexus of pre-packaged narrative and consumerist desire in kids”?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50359/original/34sj4cqy-1401949890.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50359/original/34sj4cqy-1401949890.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50359/original/34sj4cqy-1401949890.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50359/original/34sj4cqy-1401949890.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50359/original/34sj4cqy-1401949890.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50359/original/34sj4cqy-1401949890.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50359/original/34sj4cqy-1401949890.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50359/original/34sj4cqy-1401949890.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tara Faul</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lego mash-ups</h2>
<p>As I was unsure of how Lego is perceived by its users, I asked a six-year-old expert (my son) why he liked Lego. “Because you can make anything you want, smash it up, and then make something different,” he replied. After a lengthy conversation about Lego, I realised he didn’t mention Star Wars, Harry Potter or <a href="https://theconversation.com/brand-connection-and-the-lego-movie-whats-going-on-22936">The Lego Movie</a> (even though he has Lego sets from all of these) but kept returning to the process of making and remaking. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50312/original/j25q3ss7-1401933354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50312/original/j25q3ss7-1401933354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50312/original/j25q3ss7-1401933354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50312/original/j25q3ss7-1401933354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50312/original/j25q3ss7-1401933354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50312/original/j25q3ss7-1401933354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50312/original/j25q3ss7-1401933354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50312/original/j25q3ss7-1401933354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">See the movie. Buy the lego.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://cache.lego.com/r/aboutus/-/media/about%20us/media%20assets%20library/products/the%20lego%20movie/highres_super_xcycle_chase_package.jpg?l.r=359300910">Lego Group</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unlikely to keep the original instructions and recreate exact movie scenes, children still create their own structures and stories using Lego bricks. </p>
<p>Lego’s original construction system of interchangeable units has been cleverly adapted to the new media culture in the past two decades. Just as children recycle and remix Lego bricks and minifigs into new constructions and personal narratives, so too <a href="http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2014/02/lego-the-other-movies-10-great-brickfilm-shorts.html">Lego’s video games and films</a> mash up pieces of popular culture. </p>
<p>In The Lego Movie, for example, Batman, Abraham Lincoln, Dumbledore and Wonder Woman inhabit the same Lego brickworld. </p>
<p>Constructing, deconstructing and appropriating characters and scenes from popular culture are also evident in the popularity of Lego stop-motion animations. With these, children can create their own versions of Star Wars or Harry Potter stories and share them <a href="http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2014/02/lego-the-other-movies-10-great-brickfilm-shorts.html">online</a>.</p>
<p>Similarly, the <a href="http://www.thebricktestament.com/home.html">Brick Testament</a>, a lego-isation of The Bible, and The Guardian’s Lego adaptations of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sport/series/brick-by-brick">great moments in sport</a> recreate adult stories with Lego. </p>
<p>Ultimately, Lego’s ongoing success lies beyond bricks for construction and deconstruction: Lego bricks have also become basic units for popular storytelling. </p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/sublime-design">Read more articles in the Sublime Design series</a>.</strong></em>
<br></p>
<p><strong><em>Is there a design classic – industrial, graphic, urban, architectural, interior or landscape – you would like to write about? Contact the <a href="mailto:paul.dalgarno@theconversation.edu.au">Arts + Culture editor</a>.</em></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27018/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>DJ Huppatz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>“Danish design” usually conjures up images of mid-century modern furniture – functional yet sculptural – but Denmark’s most successful “design icon” is a humble plastic brick: Lego. In 2013, the Lego Group…DJ Huppatz, Senior Lecturer, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/266252014-06-03T04:42:27Z2014-06-03T04:42:27ZSublime design: Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50067/original/ncvzk3mj-1401765288.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Le Corbusier drew influence from the machine age for Villa Savoye, inspired by his fascination with steamships.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">End User</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Some 33 kilometres outside of Paris, in the town of Poissy, sits a true “design classic”, Villa Savoye. The work of seminal Swiss architect Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye is a constructed experiment, a manifesto to <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-modernism-24534">modernism</a>. </p>
<p>Designed and built between 1929 and 1931, the house represents one of the first constructions of modern architecture, redefining classical elements to respond to technological advances and the changing needs of the 20th century. It was a complete departure from the traditional architecture of the time.</p>
<p>This house is more than simply a modern take on a French country house – it was an opportunity to apply a standardised design system which would ultimately produce what Le Corbusier defined as a “Machine for Living”. Like a car and its parts, where each component is necessary to its function, the house would work as efficiently as possible. </p>
<p>In 1926, Le Corbusier published a manifesto entitled <a href="http://www.learn.columbia.edu/courses/arch20/pdf/art_hum_reading_52.pdf">Five Points Towards a New Architecture</a> in which he defined a set of universal principles that could standardise an architectural approach, allowing for a model of architecture that could be reformulated to respond to different requirements such as location and climate. </p>
<p>Villa Savoye became the first test site for these principles.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50069/original/35wdzjj5-1401766314.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50069/original/35wdzjj5-1401766314.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50069/original/35wdzjj5-1401766314.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50069/original/35wdzjj5-1401766314.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50069/original/35wdzjj5-1401766314.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50069/original/35wdzjj5-1401766314.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50069/original/35wdzjj5-1401766314.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50069/original/35wdzjj5-1401766314.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Villa Savoye.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">End User</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Le Corbusier’s five points of architecture</h2>
<p>The first principle, a grid of “pilotis”, French for a post or column, replaced the typical load-bearing wall which produced a “free plan”; the second principle, allowing for flexibility in wall placement. A “free façade,” the third principle, separated the structure (the <em>pilotis</em>) from the façade of the building, allowing for a continuous, uninterrupted horizontal “ribbon window,” principle four. The fifth principle, a “roof garden” enclosed by a screen, framed the landscape while allowing light to enter the house. </p>
<p>These five principles, which have since become part of a universal architectural language, were reinterpreted and defined by the context. In the case of Villa Savoye, this included a meadow enclosed by trees with views orientating north and west.</p>
<p>A white cubic volume, stripped of any unnecessary ornamentation, is elevated over the centre of the meadow as if an alien ship is about to land. The domestic activities are literally lifted off the ground, separated from the outside world. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50070/original/qytpgfg5-1401766365.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50070/original/qytpgfg5-1401766365.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50070/original/qytpgfg5-1401766365.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50070/original/qytpgfg5-1401766365.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50070/original/qytpgfg5-1401766365.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50070/original/qytpgfg5-1401766365.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50070/original/qytpgfg5-1401766365.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50070/original/qytpgfg5-1401766365.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Villa Savoye.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">waywuwei</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The ground level is organised with machine precision, determined by the turning capability of a car, which carves out the ground’s interior volume. This space is arranged to control the sequence of movements through the house; a stair that creates direct vertical connections and a ramp generating a gradual unfolding procession into the house which synthesises the three levels of the villa and produces direct relationships between inside and outside. </p>
<p>Ribbon windows frame views, almost like a camera obscura, bringing the outside context of the house inside. A roof garden, which replaces the exterior space taken over by the mass of the building, allows light to penetrate all spaces of the house.</p>
<h2>A trailblazer</h2>
<p>Distinctly ahead of its time, Villa Savoye has become great inspiration for architects and designers and many of the ideas and concepts have evolved and been imitated by others. Le Corbusier foresaw material innovation with the introduction of industrial materials. Previously, houses were perceived as solid and heavy structures where stone, timber and bricks were commonly used. </p>
<p>Conversely, Le Corbusier drew influence from the machine age, inspired by his fascination with steamships. He introduced steel, glass and reinforced concrete, a shift away from what he saw as impractical materials and methods of the time. Villa Savoye is constructed from reinforced concrete and masonry units. White plaster unifies the house and hides the fact that individual pre-fabricated parts were used to construct the villa.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50068/original/66npk6bm-1401766213.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50068/original/66npk6bm-1401766213.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50068/original/66npk6bm-1401766213.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50068/original/66npk6bm-1401766213.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50068/original/66npk6bm-1401766213.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50068/original/66npk6bm-1401766213.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50068/original/66npk6bm-1401766213.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50068/original/66npk6bm-1401766213.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye in minifig scale.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Matija Grguric</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The assembly of standard components saw a progressive rise for pre-fabrication in architecture, which still has major influence on the practice today. The move towards a more standardised process of forming and making has been further informed by current technological advances, including laser cutters, 3D printers and robots. </p>
<p>These technologies have facilitated the evolution of pre-fabrication, from furniture to building scale. Le Corbusier’s ideas have endured, still influencing efficiency and innovation in the 21st century.</p>
<p>Villa Savoye represents one of the most significant architectural projects constructed. The people at LEGO, one of the world’s most successful brands agree, adding it to their “<a href="https://theconversation.com/block-party-how-architecture-helped-rebuild-lego-18604">architecture series</a>”, in good company with the Sydney Opera House, the Empire State Building, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water and 14 other iconic buildings around the world. </p>
<p>Villa Savoye’s basic principles transcend time and scale. They have been incorporated into a single family home, as demonstrated by the villa, but have been just as easily applied to large-scale residential buildings such as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit%C3%A9_d'Habitation">Unité d'Habitation</a> in Marseille, France. </p>
<p>Even after 85 years, this timeless icon of architecture is a model that is still central to architectural and spatial thinking.</p>
<p><br>
<em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/sublime-design">Read more articles in the Sublime Design series</a>.</strong></em>
<br></p>
<p><strong><em>Are you an academic or researcher? Is there a design classic – industrial, graphic, urban, architectural, interior or landscape – you would like to write about? Contact the <a href="mailto:paul.dalgarno@theconversation.edu.au">Arts + Culture editor</a>.</em></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26625/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Feuerman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some 33 kilometres outside of Paris, in the town of Poissy, sits a true “design classic”, Villa Savoye. The work of seminal Swiss architect Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye is a constructed experiment, a manifesto…William Feuerman, Course Director (B Des Arch), Senior Lecturer, School of Architecture, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/262402014-05-26T20:10:40Z2014-05-26T20:10:40ZSublime design: the London Underground map<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49338/original/b6pwfkhb-1400813516.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When is a map not a map? When it's a diagram.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roger Wollstadt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What makes a design “classic”? That it stands the test of time through continued use, critical recognition and popular approval? Or is it simply that its vision and innovation results in it being regarded as the basis or benchmark for all future designs?</p>
<p>In evaluating innovation it is often difficult to comprehend the quantum leap certain designs made when first created, when in their continued use they are so ubiquitous and accepted as part of the visual culture of everyday life. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/standard-tube-map.pdf">The London Underground map</a> is a classic design – however, probably few people question why. Certainly the fact that it has stood the test of time through its adaptability, and its ease of use are factors in its success. But its impact beyond its original setting should also be considered as a factor, for despite its humble beginnings, it can undoubtedly claim to have influenced information design on a global scale.</p>
<p>In understanding its design, the first thing to realise is that its popular description as “The Underground Map” is misleading, for it is actually a diagram (or schematic), not a map. Technically it could be claimed that the term “underground” is also erroneous, with 55% of the network’s 270 stations and 402km of track being above, not underground.</p>
<p>Designed and sketched in 1931 upon the double-page spread of an exercise book by the 29-year-old electrical draftsman <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Beck">Harry Beck</a>, the diagram was initially rejected as too radical a departure from traditional mapping and too revolutionary for public adoption. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49340/original/w8x3ww56-1400814102.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49340/original/w8x3ww56-1400814102.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49340/original/w8x3ww56-1400814102.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49340/original/w8x3ww56-1400814102.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49340/original/w8x3ww56-1400814102.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49340/original/w8x3ww56-1400814102.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49340/original/w8x3ww56-1400814102.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49340/original/w8x3ww56-1400814102.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Henry Beck’s map design in 1933 for London Underground.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tricia Wang</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Reconsidered by London Underground a year later, the design was bought for a small sum (reputedly between 5-10 guineas) and publicly released in 1933. For the last 81 years it has formed the basis of all London Underground diagrams, and despite the expansion of the network to accommodate double the lines than the original seven that Beck designed for, the original design has enabled adaptation to occur without significant compromise.</p>
<p>It can be claimed that Beck’s career as an electrical draftsman influenced his design by enabling him to perceive of the individual rail lines as wires, the interchange stations as connectors and to conceive of the entire network as an integrated and interconnected diagrammatic system much like an electrical circuit board. </p>
<p>Beck’s desire to create a “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Becks-Underground-Map-History/dp/1854141686">common sense device</a>” relied upon simplification, legibility and ease of use by not only the local population, but also its constant influx of visitors. The conceptual shift from map to diagram essentially created an ease of navigation and connection through graphic rationalisation rather than the tradition of geographic accuracy. </p>
<p>The innovation of this is evident when comparing Beck’s initial diagram to <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/36844288@N00/4857828795/in/photolist-">F.H. Stingemore’s map</a> released one year earlier, that whilst geographically accurate, lacked the ease of connection across the system and was as difficult to navigate as a plate of spaghetti.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49344/original/7rcfvyz3-1400818716.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49344/original/7rcfvyz3-1400818716.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49344/original/7rcfvyz3-1400818716.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49344/original/7rcfvyz3-1400818716.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49344/original/7rcfvyz3-1400818716.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49344/original/7rcfvyz3-1400818716.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49344/original/7rcfvyz3-1400818716.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49344/original/7rcfvyz3-1400818716.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prior to Beck’s version, London Underground map, 1908.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Duncan Hull</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Seven steps to heaven</h2>
<p>Beck understood that his aim was a conceptual diagram, where the clear purpose of ease of navigation to destination was crucial, but above ground features were not. </p>
<p>To achieve this, a modern logical system was created that has proved stylistically ageless with functionality and aesthetics equally balanced, enabling passengers to not only make visual sense of their isolated subterranean journey, but also importantly to memorise it. </p>
<p>To understand the graphic and conceptual impact of Beck’s thinking and design, consider the following design steps – taken from Beck – and applied to most other metro systems in the world in a way that now seems intuitive:</p>
<p>1) Create an octagonal grid that enables connections to be established between lines, and a clear balance between the lines, stations, connections and the space in between them.</p>
<p>2) Simplify the geographical mapping of meandering train tracks into a system of three linear variants: horizontal and vertical lines and 45-degree diagonals.</p>
<p>3) Develop a clear system of graphic devices to clarify line interchanges.</p>
<p>4) Suppress all topographical features other than a graphic representation of the River Thames (in the case of London) that defines the north-south divide of the city. With the central section of the network being underground and majority of stations named after locations (eg. Oxford Street, Piccadilly Circus) and landmarks (eg. Westminster, St. Pauls etc.), geographic locations are unnecessary.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49341/original/qjrzb2fw-1400814200.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49341/original/qjrzb2fw-1400814200.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49341/original/qjrzb2fw-1400814200.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49341/original/qjrzb2fw-1400814200.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49341/original/qjrzb2fw-1400814200.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49341/original/qjrzb2fw-1400814200.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49341/original/qjrzb2fw-1400814200.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49341/original/qjrzb2fw-1400814200.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A scaled, geographically correct map of the London Underground.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gerard McGovern</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>5) Prioritise order over distance. When differences in distances between central stations are minimal (the shortest being the 20 second journey between Leicester Square and Covent Garden), accurate representation is unnecessary.</p>
<p>6) Recognise and address the need for clarity in a network where the central stations are geographically congested within a small area, compared to the relationships of outer suburban stations over greater distances. Beck did this by applying a graphic magnifying glass, enlarging the centralised area and compressing the distances between outer stations, enabling ease of use over physical accuracy. This of course was of benefit to London Underground, by subliminally enhancing the perception that central London was quickly and easily accessible.</p>
<p>7) Apply colour coding to each rail line. Although this had already occurred in other London mapping systems from at least 1911 (and even earlier in other above ground railway networks), the creation of the defining colours and graphic shapes of each line facilitated an ease of recognition, navigation and interchange not previously achieved.</p>
<p>These all seem so obvious now. To consider that there ever was or might ever be another way of designing a metro map is akin to questioning the design of the paperclip. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49345/original/vwzq289v-1400819002.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49345/original/vwzq289v-1400819002.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49345/original/vwzq289v-1400819002.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49345/original/vwzq289v-1400819002.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49345/original/vwzq289v-1400819002.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49345/original/vwzq289v-1400819002.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49345/original/vwzq289v-1400819002.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49345/original/vwzq289v-1400819002.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">nicholas babaian</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In designing a schematic alternative to the map, in 1931 Beck created a design template for the vast majority of metro maps that exist throughout the world in 2014 … if still unconvinced, simply select a major city and Google its metro “map”.</p>
<p>For 8 million Londoners, the underground “map” is embedded within them, like the name of a seaside town through a stick of rock. It is their blueprint, their organiser, their connector: the subterranean guide to the arteries of the body of the city. I suspect more Londoners could successfully produce a fair approximation of the underground map, than an accurate drawing of the outline of their country. </p>
<p>If asked to draw a map of London and its districts, many would do so not based on any geographical knowledge, but simply from a schematic coding of the proximal relationships between the neighbourhoods based on the vision of Harry Beck.</p>
<p><br>
<em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/sublime-design">Read more articles in the Sublime Design series</a>.</strong></em>
<br></p>
<p><strong><em>Are you an academic or researcher? Is there a design classic – industrial, graphic, urban, architectural, interior or landscape – you would like to write about? Contact the <a href="mailto:paul.dalgarno@theconversation.edu.au">Arts + Culture editor</a>.</em></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26240/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise McWhinnie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What makes a design “classic”? That it stands the test of time through continued use, critical recognition and popular approval? Or is it simply that its vision and innovation results in it being regarded…Louise McWhinnie, Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning), Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/264602014-05-19T20:23:48Z2014-05-19T20:23:48ZSublime design: the Moog synthesiser<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48587/original/jtyv58bp-1400133508.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Moog, 2014 Model Sub 37 – producer of squelchy bass lines and distorted expressive solos.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The classic sound many of us imagine when the word synthesiser is mentioned is the sound of the Moog – the warm, solid propulsive groove of its bass sound and the distinctive sweep of its patented <a href="http://www.moogmusic.com/products/moogerfoogers/mf-101-lowpass-filter">lowpass filter</a> closing down or opening up. </p>
<p>If you’d like to be reminded, here is a famous synth-pop example from Gary Numan in 1979:</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qXEu1odjKZM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Gary Numan, Cars, 1979.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>American engineer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moog">Robert Moog</a> (pronounced to rhyme with vogue), who founded <a href="http://www.moogmusic.com/">Moog Music</a> in 1953, didn’t invent the synthesiser but he did standardise, popularise and importantly make portable what were once <a href="http://createdigitalmusic.com/2014/04/moog-really-recreating-keith-emersons-modular-biggest-analog-relaunch-ever/">wall-sized units</a> that cost as much as a house. </p>
<p>Moog began by producing large hand-built modular synthesisers for well-heeled clients that included Wendy Carlos of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi5-WRgA5GI">Switched On Bach</a> fame, and they can be heard also on The Beatles’ <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kjfeXv4Zmg">Abbey Road</a>, but the turning point came when he designed and released the <a href="http://www.moogmusic.com/products/minimoog-voyagers">Minimoog</a> in 1971. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48125/original/y63kwjsk-1399607103.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48125/original/y63kwjsk-1399607103.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48125/original/y63kwjsk-1399607103.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48125/original/y63kwjsk-1399607103.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48125/original/y63kwjsk-1399607103.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48125/original/y63kwjsk-1399607103.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48125/original/y63kwjsk-1399607103.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Minimoog Model D Synthesiser.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Canada Science and Technology Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Using <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor">transistors</a> rather than vacuum tubes, the relatively petite Minimoog (pictured above) used a fixed synthesis architecture. In contrast to modular systems in which “patches” where produced by patching cables in a bewildering variety of combinations to produce sound. </p>
<p>The fixed synthesis method of the Minimoog closed down sonic possiblities but also made the process much less daunting for musicians. The way this was laid out on the Minimoog has become the default design workflow for synthesisers both in hardware and software.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48152/original/2cpr5hpn-1399618191.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48152/original/2cpr5hpn-1399618191.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48152/original/2cpr5hpn-1399618191.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=153&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48152/original/2cpr5hpn-1399618191.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48152/original/2cpr5hpn-1399618191.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=153&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48152/original/2cpr5hpn-1399618191.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=193&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48152/original/2cpr5hpn-1399618191.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=193&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48152/original/2cpr5hpn-1399618191.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=193&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Minimoog control panel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Reading left to right across the panel (see image above) there are two, sometimes three, sound source voltage controlled oscillators. These are modulated (pitch and loudness are changed) by low-frequency oscillators that usually produce no sound but exist to effect the sound sources. </p>
<p>The effected sound is then fed to a filter that can sweep through a range of frequencies that give Moog synths a recognisable sound. Lastly, the signal goes through some shaping envelopes that control the attack, decay, sustain and release (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesizer#ADSR_envelope">ADSR</a>) of a note and how it interacts with the filter (see graphic below). All of this is classic “subtractive” synthesis – meaning sounds are sculpted by removing frequencies from the original raw sound of the oscillators.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48466/original/qjy256jw-1400047904.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48466/original/qjy256jw-1400047904.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48466/original/qjy256jw-1400047904.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48466/original/qjy256jw-1400047904.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48466/original/qjy256jw-1400047904.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48466/original/qjy256jw-1400047904.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48466/original/qjy256jw-1400047904.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons=</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At first, the appeal of the sound was all about novelty and many Moog-heavy albums were released, such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYTu__hhMws">Music to Moog By</a> (1969) by German American composer Gershon Kingsley, which took three years to score a worldwide number one when the track Popcorn was covered by the band Hot Butter in 1972:</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KX_lnmb1Moo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Like many synthesisers of the period, the Minimoog could only produce one note at a time and this led to styles of playing and composition that worked within this monophonic restriction. </p>
<p>Let’s consider six key tracks that represent the evolution of this new kind of sound.</p>
<h2>1) Chameleon, Herbie Hancock, 1973</h2>
<p>There was an adoption of the instrument by funk and jazz musicians as a producer of squelchy bass lines and expressive often distorted lead solos. American keyboardist and composer Bernie Worrell of Parliament-Funkadelic was a key proponent but it was also popularised by jazz players such as pianist Herbie Hancock. Listen to the bassline that opens the first track of his 1973 album, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPdPK_rIseY">Head Hunters</a>:</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FPdPK_rIseY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p><br></p>
<h2>2) Autobahn, Kraftwerk, 1974</h2>
<p>The Minimoog was used in developing the technique of simple, almost naïve, melodic lines that became a feature of synth-pop in the late 70s and early 80s, based heavily on the example of the German electronic music band Kraftwerk. You can hear this approach, with the addition of the Moog <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrcmEaetliw">step sequencer</a> firing notes in a relentlessly repeating order to drive the bass, in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gChOifUJZMc">Autobahn</a> from 1974:</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gChOifUJZMc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p><br></p>
<h2>3) Ricochet, Tangerine Dream, 1975</h2>
<p>The step sequencer, with its robotic repetition of interlocking one-note-at-a-time layers, made possible a trance-like electronic style that still echoes through contemporary electronic dance music. In the first shot of German electronic music group Tangerine Dream <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w8pbGz7E8c">performing live in 1975</a>, the step sequencer on the Moog modular centre-stage cycles its lights through a note sequence that comes in on the bass at 1:30:</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4w8pbGz7E8c?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p><br></p>
<h2>4) Jive Talkin’, Bee Gees, 1975</h2>
<p>Meanwhile the funk technique moved into what became disco. The Moog bass at the centre of the 1975 Bee Gees track, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBw25CrUS-o">Jive Talkin’</a>, is mimed on a bass guitar:</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XBw25CrUS-o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p><br></p>
<h2>5) I Feel Love, Donna Summer, 1977</h2>
<p>Then, famously in 1977 American singer-songwriter Donna Summer and Italian producer Georgio Moroder brought the funk and step sequencer techniques together in a track that wrote the sequenced Moog bass sound into the DNA of dance pop, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7r83-y3j2A">I Feel Love</a>:</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iX8n6o-MH4Y?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p><br></p>
<h2>6) Blue Monday, New Order, 1983</h2>
<p>I Feel Love was enormously influential in demonstrating to a generation of post-punk musicians just how the synth could be used in a form that had previously been shaped by the guitar. Enter English rock band New Order with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVkq8IEO4tc">Blue Monday</a> in 1983: </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SVkq8IEO4tc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p><br></p>
<p>In 2002, after going out of business as a company and out of fashion as a sound, superseded by samplers and digital synths, Moog came back from the dead to begin a new series of machines that began with a <a href="http://www.moogmusic.com/products/minimoog-voyagers">recreation of the Minimoog</a>. </p>
<p>As part of a widespread return to hardware analog synths, that sees more hardware synths <a href="http://www.junodownload.com/plus/best-analogue-synths/">released</a> each year by manufacturers than during the 70s, the Moog is again central to the idea of the synthesiser. Even the modular synth has been reborn as <a href="http://electronicmusic.wikia.com/wiki/Eurorack">Eurorack</a>, albeit in a smaller form, though still with core concepts based around many of the design decisions that stem from the Moog modular. </p>
<p>Many electronic musicians are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNNFLHV6j1I">now re-embracing</a> the visceral appeal of electronic instrument designs that borrow from the classic elements of analog synth voice design, as documented in this chat with Trent Reznor and Alessandro Cortini from Nine Inch Nails featured in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNNFLHV6j1I">I Dream of Wires</a> in 2013. </p>
<p>Occasionally, in the history of modern pop music, an instrument is so influential that it not only goes on to define genres but also sets the template for instruments that follow in its wake. </p>
<p>Such is the story of the Moog synth in all its variations across the last 45 years.</p>
<p><br>
<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/sublime-design">Read more articles in the Sublime Design series</a>.</em>
<br></p>
<p><strong><em>Are you an academic or researcher? Have you got a design classic – industrial, graphic, urban, architectural, interior or landscape – you would like to write about? Contact the <a href="mailto:paul.dalgarno@theconversation.edu.au">Arts + Culture editor</a>.</em></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26460/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Caines does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The classic sound many of us imagine when the word synthesiser is mentioned is the sound of the Moog – the warm, solid propulsive groove of its bass sound and the distinctive sweep of its patented lowpass…Chris Caines, Senior Lecturer, Media Arts & Production / Sound & Music Design Program, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/262202014-05-15T20:10:07Z2014-05-15T20:10:07ZSublime design: an ode to the layout grid<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48433/original/d27f5md8-1400033246.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Tibetan Book of Proportions, produced in Nepal during the 18th century.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Public Domain Review</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Staring at a blank page is daunting. Where to make the first mark? As designers have known for centuries, one way is to start with a grid.</p>
<p>A grid is a structure of lines used by designers to help organise graphic elements (images and typography) on the page. A grid sets margins around the edge of the page, but also guides the designer as she or he arranges graphic elements in relation to each other.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48055/original/rqg8bp2t-1399531477.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48055/original/rqg8bp2t-1399531477.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48055/original/rqg8bp2t-1399531477.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48055/original/rqg8bp2t-1399531477.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48055/original/rqg8bp2t-1399531477.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48055/original/rqg8bp2t-1399531477.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48055/original/rqg8bp2t-1399531477.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ruled foolscap paper – the first red margin prevents writing too close to the hole-punches; the second allows space for teachers to write margin notes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mel McCarthy</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We use grids all the time without noticing them. Ruled paper is a basic grid, as are calendars and forms with spaces for us to fill in. </p>
<p>At some stage, someone designed the standard width between the lines of foolscap paper (see left), according to the size of most people’s handwriting – or, in setting a standard line-width, most people now write at this size.</p>
<p>Similarly, software programs such as Microsoft Word or Pages have a standard grid (margins) preset. A designer somewhere determined the most effective grid for writing a page of continuous text, so you don’t have to consider this every time you start a new document. </p>
<p>Designers cannot always rely on the default grid, so they start projects by setting a unique grid that suits the page/ screen size and type of document being designed. </p>
<p>A well-considered grid is particularly important for multi-page documents such as books, magazines and web sites. Consider turning the pages of a book in which every page is set with different margins – your eye doesn’t know where to settle. When flipping through a magazine, our eyes seek a page with many small blocks of text and images, or a cleaner page with a large text block, depending on what we feel like reading. </p>
<p>The grid helps a designer structure content, and a reader find hierarchy on a page.</p>
<h2>A brief history of grids</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48413/original/7y6hm7xx-1400022866.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48413/original/7y6hm7xx-1400022866.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48413/original/7y6hm7xx-1400022866.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48413/original/7y6hm7xx-1400022866.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48413/original/7y6hm7xx-1400022866.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48413/original/7y6hm7xx-1400022866.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48413/original/7y6hm7xx-1400022866.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48413/original/7y6hm7xx-1400022866.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Calendar of saints, page from a medieval manuscript.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Helsinki University Library</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The use of grid systems to compose images dates back centuries. The Tibetan Book of Proportions (main image) produced in Nepal during the 18th century shows ideal proportions to accurately depict Buddha and Bodhisattva figures in religious texts. These books, developed as far back as the <a href="http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/tibetan-book-of-proportions/">4th Century</a>, also instructed how many teeth to depict, eye colour and direction of hairs. This is the equivalent of a contemporary style guide used by magazine designers. </p>
<p>Medieval scribes composed pages of illuminated manuscripts (such as the one to the right) using a grid system that was later borrowed by German printer <a href="http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/basics.html">Johann Gutenberg</a> to produce the first mechanically printed bible in 1455 (previously all books in the Western world had been hand-written by scribes). </p>
<p>In the 1940s, Dutch book designer J.A. Van de Graaf drew up a formula for recreating these “canons” (or rules) for page construction used in medieval manuscripts and the Gutenberg bible. The Van de Graff canon is still used by book designers today:</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MRUR52oTAP8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">An animation showing J.A. Van de Graaf’s method of constructing a classic book layout.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like many designers, I came to understand the “canons of page construction” through the writing of Swiss typographer <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/dec/05/jan-tschichold-typography">Jan Tschichold</a> (see my own example below). Despite writing in the mid-20th century before desktop computers fundamentally changed graphic design, Tschichold’s writing endures. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48483/original/pbpgqvh2-1400054606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48483/original/pbpgqvh2-1400054606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48483/original/pbpgqvh2-1400054606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48483/original/pbpgqvh2-1400054606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48483/original/pbpgqvh2-1400054606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48483/original/pbpgqvh2-1400054606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48483/original/pbpgqvh2-1400054606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48483/original/pbpgqvh2-1400054606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Page layout using a Van de Graaf grid, designed by the author in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48043/original/8hrnwcwy-1399527071.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48043/original/8hrnwcwy-1399527071.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48043/original/8hrnwcwy-1399527071.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48043/original/8hrnwcwy-1399527071.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48043/original/8hrnwcwy-1399527071.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48043/original/8hrnwcwy-1399527071.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48043/original/8hrnwcwy-1399527071.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48043/original/8hrnwcwy-1399527071.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jan Tschichold by Erling Mandelmann, 1963.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tschichold drew together ideas of his predecessors, including Van de Graaf and Argentine typographer Raul Rosarivo, and clearly explained them to a broad audience. Most importantly, Tschichold stressed that clarity of communication should guide typography and page layout. In other words, design for the reader.</p>
<p>This sentiment was echoed by Swiss designers of the 1950s who started the International Typographic Style movement. Josef Müller-Brockmann, a key figure in this movement, endorses the grid but <a href="http://www.thegridsystem.org/">also warns</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The grid system is an aid, not a guarantee. It permits a number of possible uses and each designer can look for a solution appropriate to his personal style. But one must learn how to use the grid; it is an art that requires practice.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Müller-Brockmann’s <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/350962.Grid_Systems_in_Graphic_Design_Raster_Systeme_Fur_Die_Visuele_Gestaltung">Grid Systems in Graphic Design</a> remains a classic text, despite being written before the desktop computer revolutionised the way graphic designers work.</p>
<p>The humble grid is an enduring “design classic” because it provides structure for designers to create order, and helps the reader navigate a document.</p>
<p><br>
<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/sublime-design">Read more articles in the Sublime Design series</a>.</em>
<br></p>
<p><strong><em>Are you an academic or researcher? Have you got a design classic – industrial, graphic, urban, architectural, interior or landscape – you would like to write about? Contact the <a href="mailto:paul.dalgarno@theconversation.edu.au">Arts + Culture editor</a>.</em></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26220/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zoe Sadokierski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Staring at a blank page is daunting. Where to make the first mark? As designers have known for centuries, one way is to start with a grid. A grid is a structure of lines used by designers to help organise…Zoe Sadokierski, Lecturer, School of Design, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.