Что я видел

[cema]

Photos from a phone. No postprocessing, so-so quality.

A door in Glouster, MA.


Fall in an office park.


Inside MIT Stata Center (hosting EECS department and more). Beautiful meaningless architecture.

This is inside the building, yes. Beauty is in the eye etc, but meaning is how usable it is. Not very. I wanted to get down to the ground floor from the fourth by stairs. One led me only to the third floor. Another led me to a point in between the third and fourth floors where a small elevator deck was located. I got down by elevator, but what would I do in case of a fire?

A Lisp machine in MIT Museum. Should have used a real photo camera.



Bottom line: the phone camera sucks. Just 2M pixels, poor optics, and little control overall.

Update. More photos in the comments.

Comments

[eta-ta.livejournal.com]

Beautiful folksy door, the colors and composition look good.

"Meaningless" is a misplaced term; the word you were looking for, probably, was "functional".
I'm sure there is a fire stair (or two, depending on the size of the floorprint), that is a)enclosed, b)fireproofed, c)uninterrupted, d)complete with fire alarm system devices (strobes and LED exit signs), and that there is a floor plan/fire diagram located at the elevator banks. It's part of the National Fire Code, and consequently, BOCA. State of MA has to comply with BOCA and National Fire Code to have its newly constructed commercial buildings pass the occupancy inspection.

How well architects communicate their floor plans to the user, is another story...
[insert obligatory interior designer's rant against architects]

[cema.livejournal.com]

It's not completely dysfunctional, and all those slanted surfaces and stuff look nice and fancy, but they do not have much of a meaning. Usability is perhaps a better term.

Yes, there must be fire exits and fireproof (rather, fire-resistant) staircases somewhere in the building. Next time I am in the neighborhood I will try to set aside a few units of time to investigate. Will try to remember to bring along a real photo camera, too.

[eta-ta.livejournal.com]

No.
The legally binding term is fire-protected, not fire-resistant. Materials could be fire-resistant (for a certain measured amount of time); - complete systems, like enclosures that includes functional openings, are "fire-protected". There are standards for the amount of hours the fire-protected enclosure should withstand fire and smoke; the fire stairs in the commercial building should withstand a minimum of 1.5hrs, depending on the use of the structure and type of occupancy. ["Use" and "occupancy" are also legal terms, determined by a zoning regulations of the municipality and national building codes]
"Looking nice and fancy" has nothing to do with functionality of the spaces in the building - these words, indeed, are meaningless where function is discussed. "Usability" is an imprecise synonym for precise term: "functionality".
Functionality of the floor plan is determined by effectiveness of the space planning that architect used to achieve particular function according to the program. Example - one of the functions of the floor plan is technically measured performance of the life safety devices, constructed as well as mechanical.
Constructed: spaces within one floor plan should be classified according to occupancy (business room, like office, should be separated from an assembly room, like an auditorium, by a fire-rated wall; location of exits into a fire-protected enclosure should be within travel distance determined by a local fire code according to the occupancy type (300 feet for a light industrial building within NYC, from the farthest unprotected point to the center of the threshold of fire-rated door; leading into protected enclosure - for instance)

Etc, etc.

During 14+ years in the business I've designed a lot of interior spaces compliant with various codes, S. There is no uncertainty here, and no discrepancies in definitions.

[cema.livejournal.com]

Right: "protected", not "resistant".

Usability and functionality are distinct terms in Computer Science; the situation may, of course, be different in other disciplines.

Here is a relevant photo (from the same bunch):

[eta-ta.livejournal.com]

Relevant how? We were talking about interior architecture, not site and landscape.

[cema.livejournal.com]

Relevant how?

Tangentially. In the case of a fire, if I am stuck in a building, I would want at lest the hydrants to work. Firemen Firepeople usually arrive quickly. And I do not have another photo of the interior (in the current bunch of phone photos).

[eta-ta.livejournal.com]

You can say "firemen", it is still allowed!

If you want to feel confident that you're fire-protected (ha!) inside the building, search for few things: 1)there should be sprinkler heads on the ceiling (sometimes they are recessed and not so easy to spot), at a minimum of 7'0" radius off center, 2) corridors and fire escape routs should be indicated with directional exit signs mounted either on the ceiling or wall above 7'6", the fire-rated (metal) doors into the fire-protected stairs should have panic hardware (to be swinging into the stair space by pushing on the panic bar; no levers), the conference and toilet rooms should be equipped with fire strobes (light signals) and fire alarm sirens (audio), the escape route inside enclosures should be indicated at 1'8" off the floor with luminescent yellow tape, that glows in the darkness and smoke.

There are other devices, but they are not so visible.

Hydrants I never care for...not my department!

[cema.livejournal.com]

Panic hardware is interesting. What is it used for, and how easy is it for an untrained person organism to use it?

As a computer programmer, "panic hardware" has a very different meaning for me! Actually, I would expect to see "hardware panic". Googling pairs it with "exit hardware", which, in turn, reminds me of software. :-)

[eta-ta.livejournal.com]

Or, that's easy.
When you're inside the room, and there is a fire and smoke around you, you can't see where the lever or a knob on the door is. Also, when panicking, people tend to collect at the door, with little space for the door to open into the interior of the room. So the fire exit doors by code are swinging OUT of the affected room and INTO the safe enclosure. They also have bar hardware, which you don't have to see in the smoke - you just push at the bar, and it releases the door (or the panicky people behind you push YOU into the door, and it still opens). The bar is long enough (reaches across the door, which by code is a minimum of 34" wide), so in whatever spot you happen to push it, even if you';re close to hinge side, the door will open and let you into the fire-protected enclosure.

[cema.livejournal.com]

Yes, I remember those doors at fire exits. One of the first impressions from the US. (Another one was a different design of the toilet.)

[eta-ta.livejournal.com]

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Panic_bar.jpg

[eta-ta.livejournal.com]

If you want to investigate, I'll give you a tip; next time look at the walls in the elevator lobby: there must be floor plan diagrams with elevators and fire-proof stairs indicated. Generally they give basic idea of the floor layout - where are the exterior walls, are they glazed or solid, where are the fire-rated walls, where are public toilets and how partitions are arranged.

A useful thing, not necessarily for determining the fire route.

[cema.livejournal.com]

Yes, I am certain they have diagrams hanging around. Good usability would mean the diagrams, or more likely the staircases, would be obvious or at least easy to find.

Here is a photo with something resembling a staircase. It is the stepwise roof of Hyatt Regency hotel in Cambridge as seen from the top floor (reception hall) of the same, via a poor excuse for a lens.

[eta-ta.livejournal.com]

I don't know why you insist on the wrong term.

Wrong term

[cema.livejournal.com]

I thought you said "usability" was not used as a term in construction engineering. If I am mistaken, then indeed I should have used a different word. But here is why.

When I look at a building (or, say, a computer program) as its user, I think I do need to understand some of the technical jargon employed by its builders (architects, engineers, or computer programmers), at least so I could tell a regular staircase from an emergency staircase. But (as a user) I may also want to look at the building or program from a different point of view, for example such points that are offered by applied psychology.

Usability is a term in computer science, but it looks at a computer system from outside, not from inside, the system. It is distinct from the functionality. Approximately speaking, the former describes how easy it is for the user to achieve his goals when dealing with the system. The latter describes which goals can be achieved.

I thought if the word is not used in the field, I could borrow it from another field because it feels useful.

Re: Wrong term

[eta-ta.livejournal.com]

I see. The concept as you describe exists, but not the term. In interior architecture we talk about "ease of use". Also, expression often heard at the concept design critiques is "intuitively clear" - with regards to circulation or orientation. A good floor layout is characterized as "clean".

[cema.livejournal.com]

The situation was similar in computer science for a long time.

Well, "long time" in computer science is decades. Compared to construction engineering, just a speck of dust.

Anyway, the concept was given a name, and now there are conferences and publications around it. Whether it has positively affected the usability of the software is another matter. I think it has, but marginally, mostly in the way programmers keep that concept in mind more than before. There are so many programmers and so many programs these days.

[eta-ta.livejournal.com]

Construction engineering is a different profession; I wish I was proficient in it - considering current situation in architecture/design.

In our field usability will not make as much sense as in yours. First, usually in commercial applications we don't have one set of requirements coming from a user: 1st, there are multiple users with their own agendas, 2nd, there are other considerations , non-user-related: compliance to codes, coordination with structural, plumbing, HVAC, electrical and electronic systems of the building, and most importantly - budget constraints. All these factors more often than not make clear and easy-to-use layout impossible. I stress: to no fault of architect's excellence at space planning.

Real-life example: I have a footprint of 23,000sq.ft. for each of 5 floors of a new courthouse building. There are minimum area requirements for every functionally necessary room per program (f.ex. - jury deliberation room for a civil court should be a minimum of 240sq. ft,&) and I have 29 (twenty nine) government agencies demanding their space in the building. There is also set of space requirements that Cleaners and Janitors Union negotiated with the County, Federal Standards for pre- and post- court hearing cells, I have to set corridors and toilet rooms to be of the size and configuration to comply with ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act). Etc. Etc. Etc.
It comes to ridiculous: if all of a sudden a police captain decided his desk should be 7' wide, and we accomodate his wish - then Justices learn about it and demand THEIR desks to be 8' wide and to be L-shape. And that triggers complete redesign of the interior spaces and corculation of the whole building...

[cema.livejournal.com]

I think I am in a much easier profession!

[eta-ta.livejournal.com]

don't think I'd want to switch with you, though

[cema.livejournal.com]

I am not into that! :-)

[eta-ta.livejournal.com]

er...me either. Во всех смыслах.