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Hi Keith, Seems more like the things you wrote about your likes and dislikes about Golden Gate and Sydney bridges are about *architects* not engineers. Sydney bridge appearance was designed by architect Thomas S. Tait. The appearance of the Golden Gate bridge was designed by architect Irving Morrow. Sure in both cases, engineering designers were involved but bridge appearance is primarily an architectural rather than engineering design issue. On the culture versus engineering, the most common analysis focuses on two things: the designers and the properties of the designed objects. This doesn't work. It needs to also include a model of the persons perceiving and using the designed outputs. This is latter is problematic because the typical way of modelling human users is unhelpfully reflective, i.e. we problematically think human users are as we see ourselves. Best wishes, Terry -----Original Message----- From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Keith Russell Sent: Monday, 3 February 2014 9:41 AM To: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subject: Engineering and Culture -conflicts? Recently, in discussions with a couple from San Francisco, I pointed out that while I like San Francisco, I was very disappointed with the Golden Gate Bridge as an experience. I found its engineering to be aesthetically dull, wrong, out of balance, lacking rhythm, the wrong colour etc. By way of contrast, I pointed out how much I love the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This contrast was brought back to mind by a piece by Nick Seaver on medium.com: ³On reverse engineering: Looking for the cultural work of engineers² (see excerpts below). I agree with his efforts to redeem engineering. Cheers Keith >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Excerpts ³. . . engineering is about universalizable things like effectiveness, rationality, and algorithms, while culture is about subjective and particular things, like taste, creativity, and artistic expression. Technology and culture, we suppose, make an uneasy mix. When Felix Salmon, in his response to Madrigalıs feature, complains about ³the systematization of the ineffable,² he is drawing on this common sense: engineers who try to wrangle with culture inevitably botch it up.² . . . . ³We may talk about technology and culture as though they were independent domains, but in practice, they never stay where they belong. Technologyıs straightforwardness and cultureıs contingency bleed into each other.² On Reverse Engineering Looking for the cultural work of engineers Nick Seaver Nick Seaver in Anthropology and Algorithms https://medium.com/anthropology-and-algorithms/d9f5bae87812 ----------------------------------------------------------------- PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design ----------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design -----------------------------------------------------------------