Sign up or Log in
Are.na
Malte Müller
Web design as architecture
Info

A programmatic and pragmatic call for a wider discourse and better metaphors for designing and building digital platforms.

http://www--arc.com

732 Followers
This channel appears in
City Blocks, embodied digital space (virtual architecture), internet surfing clubs, Seminal Are.na, Web Programming Ref., exhibiting architecture, exhibition models, WWWorkshop, WEB, 📑 Decentralize All the Things, making www, Computational Cosmogony (inbox), A-Type, Web, Clippings, Read / Watch / Listen, Visual, Edu Web, Web mania, WWW🌐, Post—Post Net **, piacere , Architecture, ✏ web, Web, space:internet as, ARQweb, 📑👩‍💻 Web Dev > Notes (unsorted), design / web thinkings, Code and Company, 📖 eDucation, 🔲 C 👀 L WEb, www., Inspiration, themes / architectural thoughts, what is a website?, Web, web, Teach, State of the World • Technologies, www, websites - inspo, ⏣ Thoughts on software, Take me to the Internet — Think, websites, wwweb, event.preventDefault();, WEB, WWW, ❒ Miscellaneous Web Design Refs, A Discourse on the Web, Technofeminism, CODE + FORM, Aesthetics, m-ebsites, my special place, ~ channel, WWW, Concepts, Websites of Interest, new architecture, The eye is the maker (Graphic Design + Thoughts), design fictions, Design Resources, things to read on my iPad, WWW, wwwsites, [OTP] is this it?, hax, ideologue, web design, personal site, Website Design, architecture, Design → Website, design, thots, LEARN, Proposal Redesign, virtual*structures, boons, Readings/Texts/Resources/Podcasts, DIGITAL, virtual spaces, Hall of Design, Website likes, graphic_web, RE: Digital, digital studies, desain grafis, soft reminders, Project: squatted.online, — interface, interaction, internet, Concrete / East Room, on design, Web, Fruitful Web, From others. Reading list., human interface, THINGS, virtual dimension, The 'perfect' city, design / knowledge, SYSTEMS, FUTURE MEMORY, knowledge; resource, Web, Web Projects, # copy/recopy + deep frying, Interface, literature on cyberpsychogeographies, Space, Architecture & The Body, :Web Collection, Having fun on the internet, web, Code pedagogy, post instagram society, Interaction, place building on the web, wwwwww, tactile web, ⏏︎ on architectural + computational, Readings - Web - Design - Type, Web – Development / Tools, web, Web is architecture, The Web, beautiful words, BIG BRAIN TIME, Resources / Accessibility, Niche • The Internet as Architecture, Cybernetics x Architecture, .web, web, tech / reimagining the i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶n̶e̶t̶, UI, The Wild Wild Web, Design Reform, 🏗 Building Virtual Spaces, digital anarchitecture, *⃣ W⃣ e⃣ b⃣ .⃣ c⃣ o⃣ m⃣, Common Garden Walls, * Digital Urbanities - Urbanités numériques, Web, 🌐 web_resource!, Capstone, Mind, Materials, Eat the cookie. WWW, Wanderies , on radical design, DP2 , Art Websites; Websites as Art. , computer grass is natural grass, Virtual Museum, Random mood, Theory Finds , [resource] Digital product design, Digital Public Spaces, interdesting, www collection, Website Creation Resources, Texts & Thinking, web development, ◌ look, a webpage!, website, field notes, Presencia, Cyberdelia, Websites, citizens of the cloud, WWW / Critical Web Design, 📖 Montage spatial/montage chronologique, astral project into 2030, A web I want to be caught up in, ✧ internet void ✧, Web · What could it be?, * Project - Coding for Designers, WEB™, Research, ⁂ Reading List, thinking.., paper options, ,t(h)CMF CMS (code), printed url, Living in the Interface, The Art of Online Gathering, Metaphors We Web By, mcgraw hill, who?, Spatial Interfaces, thesis : 0, Thingsifind, nice, w, Interface, Subject / Architecture, building & growing a digital space, www.imgoinginsane.com, TECH AESTHETICS, new web, WEBSITES 💻, ☁️ towards a soft web design practice ☁️, ✺ websites as rooms, Web Design, Patera Design, ⥁ nice-work, +, Dissecting Digital Design, Portfolio Websites, The Networked Curator: how can digital ecologies foster cultural exchange?, 03_archiv_channel, digital communities, Infra, interfaz / interactiva, y.web, WEB, unconventional web design ✺, Web as Site, Design Super Channel, Design Knowledge, Thinking About Digital Public Spaces, bob the website builder, ARE.NA MINING, ui ux html css js, — website as, vision, On Becoming a Filter / Escape the Sandbox, Design Systems, p2p, web3, radical protocols, FMP, Testes, on the internet's physicality, on websites, Others, tiny internets, headrush, ✷ internet, HOPE FOR THE FUTURE, Design, thesis, The Digital World, design , comfy, virtual abodes, internet as architecture , this is cool, Important words and spaces in between them, all forms of design, collections, ✦ Textes, funky software, Feelings about web, websites, internet spatiality, Design / Visual, and ⁂ hypertextcabanes ⁂
View
Grid
Table
1

[…] there are no real public spaces on the internet. Here in reality, I can fuck off to a park and hug a tree and sit on a bench and do stuff without ads, without anyone trying to track me, and without having to pay a dime. There was a time within my memory when people tried to make websites feel like semipublic places — you could hang out on someone’s cool blog and enjoy yourself.

I don’t want to log in to your website
I don’t want to log in to your website
Monochrome photo of a house designed by Shinohara Kazuo, with an undulating roof ducking beneath a large electricity tower and its lines.
Shinohara Kazuo – House under High-Volt…

Gropius names three hallmarks of modern expression:

  • A spirit of simplicity
  • Modular construction
  • The relation between the inside and the outside

All three ring true for the design of digital spaces. As in architecture, simplicity and modularity emerge from the designer's understanding and respect for the process of building as the unity of craft and industrial strategies.

(In Gropius' time, industrialization handed new tools to craftspeople. It invited experimentation, new forms of expression and enabled greater effectiveness at the same time. Soon, it replaced craft in the interest of economic gain. The same happened in Big Web Design.)

As in architecture, the relationship of a site (Web Site || Building Site) with its environment is negotiated through transparency and transversality. Existing in a device-bound layer of perception floating on top of physical reality, modern websites should be mindful to leave open spaces and loose ends that invite connections to their user's intellectual and physical surroundings: opportunities to abandon them for IRL, and cracks for the world to seep into them.

Simplicity, Modularity, Relationality

"I think the reason I love making websites is the same reason I was so into architecture as a child. I would draw these elaborate floor plans of imaginary living spaces. Creating these diagrams was a form of playing for me. I’d navigate the drawings almost like a video game and imagine how each space would feel to live in. I think in many ways building websites is about creating environments to play in."

Architecture Home School

Web Site – || – Building Site

1
Web design as architecture
Web design as architecture

Architecture is architecture, only architecture, design and construction. But its very broad and varied scope of interest allows the project designer to conduct (their) own research and apply (their) method to wider areas – the design of entire cities and landscapes, of buildings, of internal spaces, of objects of use and furnishing, of jewellery.

— It's this breadth and untethered but wide-ranging relationship to society and psychology that unites web design and architecture. There is a tremendous freedom of expression that has to be brought into balance with the social, psychological and cultural contexts of the groups using both digital and physical architecture.

Architecture, Design and Construction
2

Are you humane?

There is a japanese term, ichigen-san otogawari, roughly: "by introduction only". It describes a practice of some restaurants to only accept guests they have a relation to – by introduction through a former guest, or by a prior conversation in person or by exchanging a couple of emails. It's not about exclusivity, since everyone is welcome. The prerequisite is solely to explain one's motivations for coming, and making a modicum of time and effort to understand the restaurant's approach. This way, it is protected from diners who come without actual interest and appreciation for what is offered – it can operate with a level of safety and comfort.

This principle may be an influence for better digital spaces – in contrast to the ubiquitous and immediate access expected in digital media. Direct relations disperse the focused pressure created by social media networks: Requiring a human mode of interaction, requiring users to momentarily think and consider the other, to consider language, is enough to transform expectations and ensure eye level in following interactions.

Ichigen-san otogawari acts as a kind of captcha – ensuring that the guest, client or user is actually human. Not in the sense that it is not a machine or bot, but in the sense that it has the capacity to be attentive for a brief moment, and considerate of others. It is a vetting system any human being is able to pass.

Are you humane?

We are a landscape of all we have seen.

—Isamu Noguchi

Join Are.na to follow Web design as architecture
Sign upExplore