The oak beams
September 11th, 02008 by Alexander RoseStewart 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.
September 11th, 2008 at 11:13 am
“Stewart actually chased it all down and verified it” — now THAT’S a statement that desperately needs a footnote (or hyperlink).
September 12th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
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.
September 17th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
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