The oak beams

September 11th, 02008 by Alexander Rose - Twitter: @zander

Stewart Brand telling the story of the beams at New College in Oxford England for the BBC series he did on How Buildings Learn.  Most amusing about this story is that the folks at New College now deny the veracity of this story.  But Stewart actually chased it all down and verified it.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 11th, 02008 at 9:48 am and is filed under Clock of the Long Now, Long Term Thinking.

  • todd

    “Stewart actually chased it all down and verified it” — now THAT’S a statement that desperately needs a footnote (or hyperlink).

  • http://www.davedyment.com dave dyment

    I am working on a project that would greatly benefit from further information about the verification of this excellent story. A follow-up post would be appreciated.

  • http://www.deepcraft.org Scott Constable

    Thank you for confirming one of my primary tenets as a designer. I have my own contempory version of this concept in a project I built in Berkeley about ten years ago, which you can read more about here: http://www.deepcraft.org/deep/archives/47. I’m slowly constructing a ‘Deep Craft’ manifesto, which includes this guideline, “The functional lifespan of a constructed thing should mimic the lifecycle of its principle material.” Thank you- Scott

  • Wendy Alberg

    I’m with Todd, above. Whose “ipse dixit” ought one to believe, Long Now’s or Oxford’s? As Neal Stephenson’s avout would say, “Prove it.”

  • Wendy Alberg

    I’m with Todd, above. Waving one’s hands and asserting truth does not guarantee it. Without substantiation, whose “ipse dixit” is more likely to be credible, Long Time’s or Oxford’s?

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