In Words

Christopher Alexander

•Community and Privacy, with Serge Chermayeff (1963)•Notes on the Synthesis of Form (1964)•A City is Not a Tree (1965)•The Atoms of Environmental Structure (1967)•A Pattern Language which Generates Multi-Service Centers, with Ishikawa and Silverstein (1968)•Houses Generated by Patterns (1969)•The Grass Roots Housing Process (1973)[46]•The Center for Environmental Structure Series, made up of The Oregon Experiment (1975)A […]

Charles Ives

One of my early discoveries was the musical work of Charles Ives (1874–1954), an American modernist composer of classical music. Oliver (Howie) Kline was a young designer who was hired by our office. He came from a family of opera and music performers, took me to some of the premiere performances of Ives’s work at […]

Robert Mann

Over the years at MIT, I found that especially the more seasoned faculty members were always more open for discussion. One did not have to be enrolled in their classes. While Professor Edgerton was always available for a lively chat or openly show his photographic work or share descriptions of his South American research trips […]

Larry + Nancy Klein

Larry Klein and his wife Nancy were our next door neighbors in Evanston, IL, in 1976, when I was appointed to the ID Institute of Design in Chicago, IL. My wife and I moved into a carriage house that originally was originally connected to the Klein house. The long hall or covered walkway had been […]

Design Failure, Safety and Form

By Len D. Singer Len Singer Design and Research , Portsmouth VA, 23703 USAFormer Professor of Industrial Design, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, and Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago.  Emeritus Member: Human Factors and Ergonomic Society, Industrial Designers Society of America, and Environmental Design Research Association.  SynopsisThe objective of this paper is […]

The State of Graphic Design in Boston 1960s

During the early sixties, there were very few “graphic design studios” in Boston: Polaroid with Paul F. Giambarba and later with Bill Field; or the design staff at Arthur D. Little; or Carl Zahn at Boston’s MFA; Herman & Lees,  or Omnigraphics with Alan Davis (one of the most competent designers, steeped very early in […]

Fred Brink

Fred studied art history at Middlebury College and photography at the Rhode Island School of Design, and was a professional photographer. A founding principal of Envision Corporation, Fred directed corporate communications media projects for Polaroid, The Boston Globe, Digital Equipment, Sheraton, and many others. Fred helped create Boston’s multimedia presentation bid to host the 1976 […]

Elmer Ray Pearson

When I arrived at the ID, Institute of Design, in 1976, very little of László Moholy-Nagy’s legacy remained. Jay Doblin, the next leading director of the school, as it is told, had rubbish trucks come to remove the emptied-out legacies of the Chicago Bauhaus and its traditions. There was a faculty revolt, and a great […]