Current students

A topic of perennial interest in technology studies is how technology shapes the way people think.  It is clear that the way people think affects technology, as in the example of how gender is encoded in architecture, recently noted in this blog.

It is less obvious that influence goes the other way too.  People tend to think that they have fixed or solid set of ideas and preferences and, then, design technology to conform to them.  This view is represented in the expression that technology is "just a tool."

Annmarie Adam's book Medicine by design (2007) examines how hospital architecture shaped and responded to changing ideas about medicine and its place in the urban realm.  It uses the development of the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal (1893–1943) as its central case study.

In our class on Design & Society, we discuss the so-called dilemma of progress.  With any design whose introduction poses potential risk, there is a decision to make on how to regulate it.  In simplest terms, there are two possibilities:

1. Permissive: introduce the new design until such time as it proves to be overly harmful, or
2. Precautionary: restrict the new design until such time as it proves to be acceptably safe.

Under conditions of uncertainty, it can be difficult to know which strategy is best.

I was interested to read about a recent study of genetic connections between ancient and modern inhabitants of the Levant. 

A number of interesting posts concerning privacy showed up today, which made good reading together.  In particular, these articles concern privacy, in this case, the control that people have about data concerning themselves. 

An enduring theme in design is the relation between form and function.  For example, is there an ideal form that corresponds to a given function?  How do form and function relate and develop over time?

John Metcalfe of CityLab points out an interesting video shot on a street in New York City recently.  The video is a time-lapse recording of activity at a City Bike dock featuring rentable bicycles and curbside parking across the street.  Voilà!

The point, says videogrpaher Luke Ohlson, is that the bike dock is much busier than the car parking. 

Rich Haridy points to a new item on Kickstarter called "Nakefit".  Rather than wear flop-flips on the beach or at the pool, wouldn't you prefer foot-shaped stickers for the bottom of your feet?  The makers of Nakefit think so.

As Rich points out, this idea seems to be in tension between "why?" and "of course!".

Dr. Rahul Parikh has written an interesting piece on the "Uberization" of medicine.  By this expression, Dr. Parikh refers to app services that some start-ups have created to allow doctors to perform freelance medical consultations over the Internet.

An interesting piece by Adele Peters of FastCompany describes shoes made partly from a funky kind of plastic derived from algae. 

The Ultra III shoes, made by a company called Vivobarefoot, are partly made with algae skimmed from freshwater lakes.  This algae is turned into a foam that is blended with a standard plastic, ethylene-vinyl acetate, to form the material for the shoes.