SIGIA-L Mail Archives: RE: SIGIA-L: IA vs. Architecture (Was: P
RE: SIGIA-L: IA vs. Architecture (Was: Peter rouses the rabble ag ain)
From: Frishberg, Leo (leo.frishberg_at_VideoTele.com)
Date: Tue May 08 2001 - 12:49:16 EDT
>From Adam's original posting:
> Communicating information is a basic need. In fact, a great deal of our
> central nervous system is based on communicating information. The ability
to
> communicate complex and abstract information is a fundamental human trait.
> Humans could go without shelter for quite a long time and find natural
> shelter. Without communication and the ability to process information and
> reason, even finding food would not be possible. This fundamental flaw in
> your reasoning undermines your comparison of the two subjects. However, I
do
> believe there is a need to further investigate the intersection between
> physical architecture and information architecture.
"Humans could go without shelter for quite a long time and find natural
shelter..."
You bet. But that ain't architecture. And how is finding "natural shelter"
not fulfilling a "basic need"?
I would submit that you put an individual out in a hostile environment and
one of the first things they will do will protect their body. In whatever
manner you choose to describe shelter whether it's wrapping yourself in
newspaper, cardboard or banana leaves, a lean to, a natural cave, whatever.
But it ain't architecture. Just cause I built it from my head, it ain't
architecture.
Now, how many people did this individual need to communicate with to build
this thing? Not a soul. And this individual could do very well finding
food without "communicating" with anyone.
"Without communication and the ability to process information..."
Whooops. I think a huge leap was made here. I can process information
without communicating. How much communication do I need to gather nuts, dig
for roots and snare a rabbit?
>From Adam's 5/8/2001 posting:
> I would like to see this view
> supported a bit. Are you approaching this from a basic
> biological viewpoint?
What else could a *basic* need imply, but biological?
> It would be very difficult to argue whether humans first
> sought shelter or
> developed the ability to communicated. I don't know that we
> even want to
> approach this historically. I will say that I cannot imagine
> a modern human
> without structured information or structured space. Whether
> we agree on the
> definition of "need" or not, I think we will agree that it is
> impossible to
> live life at this point in time without either.
Look, my point here is to strip away our "modern" definitions since we're
talking about *basic* needs. If we want to talk about other types of needs
that make us more "human" than animal, then I'd be happy to discuss notions
of communication, novelty, delight, beauty, spirituality, self-realization
and self-actualization. But I thought we were focusing on "basic" needs.
Like oxygen, food, protection from the elements (shelter). How many of
these needs does IA provide? Not too many at this stage. And it won't
until the practice is at the foundation of more systems that support these
life supporting basic needs. That is, until our ability to survive (rather
than a company's ability to sell products) requires appropriately structured
information, IA will remain focused on 2nd or 3rd order needs. I'm not
suggesting that's a bad thing, I'm just suggesting that we should be honest
and not start elevating our focus beyond it's real scope.
Compare, for example, the IA of a nuclear power plant "user interface" vs.
an e-commerce web site. Wouldn't you agree there are considerably more
"basic" needs (i.e. greater risks to life and limb, that is, people dying)
that need to be addressed in the former, over the latter? So there are
cases where IA gets very close to supporting *basic* needs, but very few of
those cases are in the web space.
Now compare the difference between a hospital and a strip mall. Does a
hospital address the basic need of shelter *significantly* differently from
the mall? (Yes, hospitals, by code must be stronger than retail shops, but
during a thunderstorm, don't both provide a reasonable affordance of
shelter?).
>
> > * Sheter is not Architecture
> > * Communication is not IA
>
> Is there any communication that is not structured?
Is there any Architecture that isn't structured? Look, the point is that
Architecture must have structure, and design, and user focus and reference
to history and, and, and. But Architecture, by definition, cannot be any
one of these things. Nor can IA. When IA is reduced to structuring
information, or facilitating communication, or any one of a dozen limited
and constrained definitions, the practice is easily trivialized. If this
domain wants to appropriate the term Architecture in its title, than for me,
it must embrace all that the word implies.
{Information} Architecture is not structure. {Information} Architecture is
not pipes.
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