Ned Pelger's blog on construction, design and other weirdness. Email him at ned@constructionknowledge.net
Please help him win his readership competition against his son Lex at the Construction Phone Apps Blog
CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG
February 23, 2009
The Beauty of Complexity
I love to make things simple. I feel great when I can work on a complicated task and make it understandable for others who aren’t delving into all the details. Sometimes, though, the complexity has a beauty of its own. The subway map of a Tokyo train station shown below has that kind of beauty to me.
Imagine working on the design and construction of that kind of project. Everything still gets broken down into small individual steps (the place where all the actual work gets done), but the scale of the puzzle is so cool.
The mostly straight-foward projects we build give me plenty of challenges, and I’m glad I can finish them before I start getting bored. Sometimes, though, it’s good to contemplate the road not taken.