I was recently introduced to the work and writing of Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. One concept that he writes about that I really like is the idea of nest vs. cave.
The way Fujimoto describes a cave is that it’s a naturally occurring and pre-existing condition. It is exists independent of humans. So if and when a human decides to occupy a cave, he or she must assimilate their lives to that which is already there. They have to deal with the ambiguity of the spaces because it is not clear how everything should be used.
A nest, on the other hand, is something completely created by and for the benefit of a person or animal. It would not exist without someone creating it and so it is prescriptive and functional in a way that a cave is not.
Fujimoto is interested in exploring architecture that is analogous to caves. Which is why he designs houses like this one (House NA) in Tokyo:
In most countries, a house like this would not meet code and would be illegal. But in Tokyo it’s obviously allowed. And his hope is that the owners will discover new and unintended ways to interact with the unusual pairing of levels and platforms.
However, I think about this juxtaposition differently – likely incorrectly in the mind of Fujimoto.
I’m actually more interested in nests. Because in a way, mass produced housing is like a cave. It exists whether or not we decide to occupy it. And it is generally created to appeal to lots of people, rather than to the idiosyncratic tastes of one person. So when someone does occupy it, they invariably end up trying to shape it.
But not to the extent of a nest. A nest is custom. It is what you would build for yourself given the opportunity to do so. And that thought is really appealing to me. Maybe it’s because I don’t like the ambiguity of a cave. That could be a possibility.
I could also be thinking about it differently because I tend to think of Japanese homes as being quite individualistic. Since Japanese people generally don’t care about resale value, they don’t have the same fixation with marketability and future value. That means they’re more likely to just build what they want.
I’d love to have my own nest.
Image: Wall Street Journal
On Monday, Google broke the internet when it announced that it was reorganizing itself into a holding company structure called Alphabet.
That means that Google, Inc. will now become a subsidiary, along with many other companies, of Alphabet Inc. and all shares of Google will automatically convert into the same number of shares in Alphabet.
This is huge, but also something that was likely inevitable given the passions of the founders. Apparently Larry Page has been thinking about this move for years.
As it stands pre-Alphabet, Google (with its main internet products) is basically a cash cow funding all of Google’s other experiments. But this muddied the waters and made it difficult for investors to clearly see how much the main internet products were making and how much the founders were spending on self-driving cars, delivery drones (Project Wing), and other new ideas.
Now everything will be separate.
But what’s really exciting about the reorganization is that it sets the stage for Alphabet/Google – which is arguably already one of the most important companies in the world – to become even more impactful in a wide variety of industries and disciplines, some/many not traditionally associated with tech. Each wholly owned subsidiary will have their own CEO and the founders rightly believe, I think, that this overall structure will afford them more “management scale.”
Within Google will remain search, advertising, maps, YouTube, and the Android mobile operating system. But already Alphabet is the parent company of the following other businesses:
Calico, an anti-aging life extension company
Sidewalk, a smart cities company whose mission is to improve life in cities
Nest, an “internet of things” company that makes connected devices for your home
Fiber, a company that offers super fast internet
Google Ventures (venture capital) & Google Capital (private equity)
Google X, which is the lab developing self-driving cars and delivery drones (Project Wing)
If you can’t tell, I’m bullish on all of this. The approach really resonates with me and I can’t wait to see what Alphabet becomes. If you’d like to read the full and official blog post announcement, click here.
Cheers to trying new things and making big bets.
Earlier this week I wrote a post talking about how maybe developers need to position their homes as more of a “product”. After that post, somebody asked me about my thoughts on home automation and how I thought technology was going to creep into the home.
Then today, I came across this networked washing machine prototype from the folks over at Berg. If you can’t see the video below, click here.
Just like Nest, this is the start of taking really unsexy home devices—thermostats, smoke alarms and washing machines—and making them sexy and networked. The "internet of things" is a trend that I think we’ll definitely see a lot more of.
Because more broadly speaking, our homes today are actually really dumb machines. Swiss-born French architect Le Corbusier used to refer to the home as a “machine for living”, but the thermostat is really the only adaptive device most people have in their homes. And it’s not even very good.
When the temperature drops, most homes have one sensor (the thermostat) to tell the mechanical equipment that it should flip on the heat. It could be incredibly hot upstairs or in another room, but your home has no understanding of that. The decision is binary: heat on or heat off.
There’s a lot more we could do.
Zoned heating and cooling is an obvious solution, but I’m also imagining buildings that physically adapt and change to their environment. Designing buildings for climates like Toronto’s—where we have both extreme heat and cold—is incredibly challenging, particularly because our buildings are so static (other than operable windows in most cases).
So while I do think that networked devices are great progress, I also think that we need to be looking at the bigger picture. Let’s think about the actual architecture of our homes and how we can truly make them responsive machines for living.
I was recently introduced to the work and writing of Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. One concept that he writes about that I really like is the idea of nest vs. cave.
The way Fujimoto describes a cave is that it’s a naturally occurring and pre-existing condition. It is exists independent of humans. So if and when a human decides to occupy a cave, he or she must assimilate their lives to that which is already there. They have to deal with the ambiguity of the spaces because it is not clear how everything should be used.
A nest, on the other hand, is something completely created by and for the benefit of a person or animal. It would not exist without someone creating it and so it is prescriptive and functional in a way that a cave is not.
Fujimoto is interested in exploring architecture that is analogous to caves. Which is why he designs houses like this one (House NA) in Tokyo:
In most countries, a house like this would not meet code and would be illegal. But in Tokyo it’s obviously allowed. And his hope is that the owners will discover new and unintended ways to interact with the unusual pairing of levels and platforms.
However, I think about this juxtaposition differently – likely incorrectly in the mind of Fujimoto.
I’m actually more interested in nests. Because in a way, mass produced housing is like a cave. It exists whether or not we decide to occupy it. And it is generally created to appeal to lots of people, rather than to the idiosyncratic tastes of one person. So when someone does occupy it, they invariably end up trying to shape it.
But not to the extent of a nest. A nest is custom. It is what you would build for yourself given the opportunity to do so. And that thought is really appealing to me. Maybe it’s because I don’t like the ambiguity of a cave. That could be a possibility.
I could also be thinking about it differently because I tend to think of Japanese homes as being quite individualistic. Since Japanese people generally don’t care about resale value, they don’t have the same fixation with marketability and future value. That means they’re more likely to just build what they want.
I’d love to have my own nest.
Image: Wall Street Journal
On Monday, Google broke the internet when it announced that it was reorganizing itself into a holding company structure called Alphabet.
That means that Google, Inc. will now become a subsidiary, along with many other companies, of Alphabet Inc. and all shares of Google will automatically convert into the same number of shares in Alphabet.
This is huge, but also something that was likely inevitable given the passions of the founders. Apparently Larry Page has been thinking about this move for years.
As it stands pre-Alphabet, Google (with its main internet products) is basically a cash cow funding all of Google’s other experiments. But this muddied the waters and made it difficult for investors to clearly see how much the main internet products were making and how much the founders were spending on self-driving cars, delivery drones (Project Wing), and other new ideas.
Now everything will be separate.
But what’s really exciting about the reorganization is that it sets the stage for Alphabet/Google – which is arguably already one of the most important companies in the world – to become even more impactful in a wide variety of industries and disciplines, some/many not traditionally associated with tech. Each wholly owned subsidiary will have their own CEO and the founders rightly believe, I think, that this overall structure will afford them more “management scale.”
Within Google will remain search, advertising, maps, YouTube, and the Android mobile operating system. But already Alphabet is the parent company of the following other businesses:
Calico, an anti-aging life extension company
Sidewalk, a smart cities company whose mission is to improve life in cities
Nest, an “internet of things” company that makes connected devices for your home
Fiber, a company that offers super fast internet
Google Ventures (venture capital) & Google Capital (private equity)
Google X, which is the lab developing self-driving cars and delivery drones (Project Wing)
If you can’t tell, I’m bullish on all of this. The approach really resonates with me and I can’t wait to see what Alphabet becomes. If you’d like to read the full and official blog post announcement, click here.
Cheers to trying new things and making big bets.
Earlier this week I wrote a post talking about how maybe developers need to position their homes as more of a “product”. After that post, somebody asked me about my thoughts on home automation and how I thought technology was going to creep into the home.
Then today, I came across this networked washing machine prototype from the folks over at Berg. If you can’t see the video below, click here.
Just like Nest, this is the start of taking really unsexy home devices—thermostats, smoke alarms and washing machines—and making them sexy and networked. The "internet of things" is a trend that I think we’ll definitely see a lot more of.
Because more broadly speaking, our homes today are actually really dumb machines. Swiss-born French architect Le Corbusier used to refer to the home as a “machine for living”, but the thermostat is really the only adaptive device most people have in their homes. And it’s not even very good.
When the temperature drops, most homes have one sensor (the thermostat) to tell the mechanical equipment that it should flip on the heat. It could be incredibly hot upstairs or in another room, but your home has no understanding of that. The decision is binary: heat on or heat off.
There’s a lot more we could do.
Zoned heating and cooling is an obvious solution, but I’m also imagining buildings that physically adapt and change to their environment. Designing buildings for climates like Toronto’s—where we have both extreme heat and cold—is incredibly challenging, particularly because our buildings are so static (other than operable windows in most cases).
So while I do think that networked devices are great progress, I also think that we need to be looking at the bigger picture. Let’s think about the actual architecture of our homes and how we can truly make them responsive machines for living.
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog