1. How Buildings Learn - Stewart Brand - 1 of 6 - “Flow” on HackerTube: recommended by 8 Hacker News commenters across 8 separate months, 2013–2020.
documentary · evergreen
The first episode of Stewart Brand's 1997 BBC series based on his book How Buildings Learn, covering how buildings change after they are built. Brand presents and the series has music by Brian Eno.
HN recommends it as a view of buildings as dynamic systems, with lessons for software architecture and long-term maintenance.
“It changed my view of a building from a static thing to a dynamic system, changing over time.”
10 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
Stewart Brand has done lots of good stuff. My favorite is the 6 part BBC series on "How Buildings Learn". It really opened my eyes to the importance of buildings. Very relevant to the frequent discussions here about zoning, design, etc. But also just an amazing, clear, well-informed amateur analysis of how the US has been doing in this field over the last 100 years. ▶ this video
in “Whole Earth Software Catalog (1984)” · View on HN
Ah, yes, I watched this series a few years ago and just realized that it may have inspired my post above a bit. PS: I just shamelessly throw in another excellent BBC documentary series here: How Buildings Learn, by Stewart Brand [0]. I sometimes see it mentioned here on HN, but it cannot be mentioned too often. If you haven't seen it, please please do. [0] ▶ this video
in “Paint Is Colored Glue” · View on HN
How Buildings Learn, based on (and in some ways better than) the Stewart Brand book. Definite takeaways for software architecture, and includes appearances by Christopher Alexander, a key instigator of the patterns movement. Produced by the BBC in the 90's, now on Youtube - ▶ this video Turns out that many architects of the built environment are just as prone as those of the software kind to not caring about the usability and maintainability of their systems, let alone how how they will evolve over extended periods of time.
in “Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?” · View on HN
That's a SUPER book. Everyone in software should read it. The primary expense in software is long-term maintenance, not initial construction. Stewart Brand also made a video series: ▶ this video
in “Japanese architects who treated buildings like living organisms” · View on HN
video documentary of the book with Stewart Brand hosting for anyone that's interested: ▶ this video Saw the documentary and now reading the book, it's good.
in “Stewart Brand Changed the World, Twice” · View on HN
Ooh, that reminds me of another excellent book on failure, Sidney Dekker's "Field Guide to Understanding Human Error": [link] It's about investigating airplane crashes, and in particular two different paradigms for understanding failure. It deeply changed how I think and talk about software bugs, and especially how I do retrospectives. I strongly recommend it. And the article made me think of Stewart Brand's "How Buildings Learn": [link] It changed my view of a building from a static thing to a dynamic system, changing over time. The BBC later turned it into a 6-part series, which I haven't seen, but which the author put up on YouTube, starting here: ▶ this video I especially like that in the comments he writes: "Anybody is welcome to use anything from this series in any way they like. Please don’t bug me with requests for permission. Hack away. Do credit the BBC, who put considerable time and talent into the project."
in “Structural engineers are unsung heroes” · View on HN
There's a really good BBC TV series about this topic, which also covers the MIT Radio Lab that Tim mentions: ▶ this video "How Buildings Learn" (1997)
in “What makes the perfect office?” · View on HN
Steward Brand has a documentary and book on "How Buildings Learn". A building isn't made for architects, it's for people to use, and people over time are going to use their building for different, often very different things. Even such trivial things like "roof shouldn't leak" can be handwaved around. ▶ this video
in “Glare from London 'fryscraper' blamed for melting cars” · View on HN
I fear that another BBC favorite of mine, How Buildings Learn [0], is too modern (90ies) to have been produced on film... [0] ▶ this video
in “Connections by James Burke (1978)” · View on HN
Strongly reminded of How Buildings Learn's first episode[1], about buildings as statements which turn out to neglect the people who occupy them. [1] ▶ this video
in “Rethinking office space” · View on HN