https://www.amazon.com/How-Buildings-Learn-Happens-Theyre/dp...

Ooh, that reminds me of another excellent book on failure, Sidney Dekker's "Field Guide to Understanding Human Error": https://www.amazon.com/dp/1472439058

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": https://www.amazon.com/dp/0140139966

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: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvEqfg2sIH0

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."

> Buildings are much more complex in the way they live and breath and the ergonomics they offer than what a lot of people give them credit for.

Too true. Anyone interested in this topic should check out "How Buildings Learn". Well worth reading: https://www.amazon.com/How-Buildings-Learn-Happens-Theyre/dp...

Also made into a 6-part TV series by the BBC: http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/watch-stewart-brands-6-pa...

Those illustrations are great!

Stuart Brand's "How Buildings Learn" also provides some theoretical background on buildings as infrastructure and can inform how a property may be improved with an eye to the future.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Buildings_Learn

http://www.amazon.com/How-Buildings-Learn-Happens-Theyre/dp/...

There's a whole video series as well, this segment discusses the advantages of loose zoning at the docks in Sausalito:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuKPknFLHno

I agree there's a range, but if you have to abandon an analogy to describe another end of the range, then it's time to find a new analogy. I think one trap in the article's logic is thinking that all structural engineering is at the scale of bay-spanning bridges or skyscrapers. Structural engineering can range from structures that withstand earthquakes down to a shack to stash your garden tools--just because one end of the continuum requires more rigor than the other doesn't make them unrelated.

In software engineering there are still rigorous requirements in fields that run software on other planets or in medical systems, but there's software with looser requirements as well.

The best metaphor I've encountered for the wide variety of software engineering was a talk that covered the book "How Buildings Learn" http://www.amazon.com/How-Buildings-Learn/dp/0140139966 -- there are structures that favor adaptability, and others that favor rigor, but that doesn't mean that structural engineering doesn't happen on one end of the continuum compared to the other.

(To be fair, there are rigorous forms of writing, too, but I think restricting the analogy to only novels is too narrow to be effective.)

How buildings Learn" by Stewart Brand from 1994 (a really great book)

Yes. Stewart Brand should need no introduction to readers of HN for his many influences on high-tech industry, but I'm always telling friends about How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built,

http://www.amazon.com/How-Buildings-Learn-Happens-Theyre/dp/...

especially friends who study architecture.