It's somewhere between a QR code "building" and a custom app similar to Photosynth. But where it is in that spectrum I haven't really figured out yet.

Hi class,

There was a question about the "block diagram" for this week's assignment. It is common when proposing a project to provide, or be asked to provide, a block diagram. There is no strict meaning or format, but generally it consists of a series of labelled boxes with lines or arrows connecting them. For a hardware project, the block diagram can show the major components of the system and how they are connected. For a software project, a good block diagram makes clear how the software will be architected and how it is modularized. I find this to be a very useful part of the design process, because when you have difficulty making the diagram, if usually means that you didn't think enough about how it would actually work. And when you do have a good diagram, it makes it easy to farm out the production of a project, debug it and explain it to the client. It is also very useful when working with various trades, such as electricians and fabricators. (click title for more...)

Consider a digital wayfinding system for E14 or the E14/E15 complex. The system should address the needs of the many different users of the building - staff, researchers, students, guests. Think about how each constituency makes use of the space and how that influences your design. The system should do all of the things that any good system does: clarify the arrangement of spaces within the building and guide people to the places they want to go. In addition, you can think about new functions - locating friends, encouraging collaboration, connecting the real and the virtual, providing greater openness and transparency, etc. Your design should also speak to the kind of place that the Media Lab is (or wants to be).

http://web.mit.edu/danielm/www/mas.960/1/slides.ppt

http://web.mit.edu/ikc/Public/ian%20information%20examples.pdf

New England Holocaust Memorial

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

New York City Subway

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 2

+ Txtual Healing
- FDR Memorial

http://class.posterous.com/mas960-assignment-1

Good - Pedestrian Wayfinding from Hiromura Masaaki for the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation

Bad - Edward Burtynsky's photographs of factories in Cankun, Xiamen, China

Ugly - Failblog

My example of good spatial design is the Waterworks Project, a public art project staged in Bristol, England, where rising sea level marks are projects onto buildings in the city to illustrate the estimated impact of the Greenland ice cap melting.

For poor spatial design integration, I chose to critique Boston’s South Station, which is currently covered in excessive advertising and recently provided a troublesome experience for me in meeting a class group there – no one agreed on where the central meeting place was, which led to a lot of confusion and quality time spent among the Pepsi advertisements.

http://mit.edu/~samadden/www/1_samadden_MAS960.pdf

The Good:
The temple was created near 537AD. Nearly one thousand years later, it becomes a mosque. Byzantine art exhibited in the interior was destroyed or completely replaced by Muslim-Ottoman inspired drawings.Since then it served as a model for many other Muslim mosques.
Some of the old byzantine work has been restored, and enables us to witness the spatial information design, the ways the building was intended to be, and some of the design can now be justified.
Major example includes an icon on top of the Sanctuary space facing east The whole space was--designed to introduce extra Information on this icon.

The Bad:
A Mystery sharp pyramid-shaped building:
Ryugyong Hotel Pyongyang, North Korea‐
dominates the skyline of the city.
Construction started in 1987, and in 1992 it was abandoned.
Building is empty, until December 2008 where supposedly construction started again.