I find myself cyclically thinking about the nature of working in dysfunctional organizations that begin to resemble entropy. Sometimes, when viewed through the sexy Bladerunner dystopia lens (I have my own set of mental Instagram filters)… it’s OK that’s it’s messed up and grimy, it still works and the end result is breathtaking. And then there are the moments, the environments, the past lives where it’s a slog that’s mired in quicksand friction: slow death by a billion micro cuts of abrasion.
This morning, I appreciate the nuance of Sam & Kim’s POV:
“… inspired by the imperfection of life in London. “Sam and I talk about it quite often,” Colin says. “We are just on the edge of functioning–and if one thing goes wrong…it could be the tube, could be some other system…it’s a very fragile existence.” The push-and-pull relationship shared between Colin, who as an architect is trained to think on the scale of the city, and product designer Hecht, who favors micro-scale thinking, follows the same logic.
Hecht is fond of pointing out how the city seems to solve its own problems through necessity–in lectures, he’ll sometimes talk about the bike-level trash cans in Tokyo or London’s repurposing of old phone booths as ATMs. “If you’re working in an environment where things don’t work very well, that’s a great environment to try and make things work well,” Hecht explains. "We need tension and contrast to be able to create.”
Wandering Wandering Star 