Full Version: This Can't be Right
| QUOTE (PlatonicPimp) |
| a 5% chance that a work environment will drive someone batty enough to cause problems is an unnacceptable risk. |
Not if you can select the people.
~J
| QUOTE (PlatonicPimp) |
| Like I said, it may be that 95% of people would be fine under those circumstances. It's just that you can't tell until you put the person in the circumstance, and a 5% chance that a work environment will drive someone batty enough to cause problems is an unnacceptable risk. It's also been shown in several tests that increasing natural light increases employee productivity, expressed happyness, and company loyalty. Students in schools with more natural light get better grades. These are studies and not experiments, so causation is just a guess. but I'm a little hard pressed to think of a mechanism whereby good grades increase the natural light in a school. |
1) Teh Uber SK watching for known signs of potential issue with the work environment.
2) Natural light does not mean everyone gets a window, fiber-optics can do wonders.
3) Smart people tend to move toward environments they find more appealing. Most humans like sunlight. Therefore, many smart people will seek out the schools with better natural illumination. (just as a potential alternate explanation, no testing behind that one either)
if you can determine why that 5% is driven batty, you might easily be able to come up with a technical fix for it--for instance, if it's SAD, just scatter around a bunch of sunlamps.
there are a number of reasons why increasing natural illumination could lead to better performance without necessarily meaning that natural illumination is 'better'. the primary one is the placebo effect. if the subjects are aware of the study, they might increase productivity simply because they think it might work.
there are a number of reasons why increasing natural illumination could lead to better performance without necessarily meaning that natural illumination is 'better'. the primary one is the placebo effect. if the subjects are aware of the study, they might increase productivity simply because they think it might work.
I wish I could argue this a little better, but I'm an architect, not a psychologist. I'm just telling you that from a design standpoint, we have enough evidence to show that natural lighting makes a building more habitable to make it a top priority when creating buildings. Especially buildings as inimical to natural human life as skyscrapers or arcologies are. This is how we design. I'm not saying there aren't possible solutions, I like to think of them myself when I can (I used the fibre-optic cocncept in a school project.) But just because most dumpshock members can go without sunlight for years doesn't negate the importance of natural lighting in design.
So an arcology could very likely look less tower-y and more squid-like? (I'm thinking a layout like an airport terminal.)
Paolo soleri's origional arcologies were usually long and thin, or hemispheres, or some other shape which maximized surface area and directed said surface towards the sun. Large interior spaces were hollow, or contained large automated industrial zones, recators, and the like. But the inhabitable areas of his arcologies were always very near the surface.
A hemisphere seems like a weird choice, then. Doesn't a sphere have, by definition, minimum possible surface area per volume?
It's a hollow hemisphere: think of a bowl, cut in half, or half a stadium, or something of the sort.
The origional images from his books were something like 24 x 36 inches, so I've yet to find a decent image online. Nevertheless, give the name Paolo Soleri a search to get images and, more importantly, Arcology design theory. He's got his own web page, seems he a some students are trying to build one out in the desert. It's been 20 years, and they're like, .01% done. It's kinda funny.
The origional images from his books were something like 24 x 36 inches, so I've yet to find a decent image online. Nevertheless, give the name Paolo Soleri a search to get images and, more importantly, Arcology design theory. He's got his own web page, seems he a some students are trying to build one out in the desert. It's been 20 years, and they're like, .01% done. It's kinda funny.
| QUOTE (Dog) |
| A hemisphere seems like a weird choice, then. Doesn't a sphere have, by definition, minimum possible surface area per volume? |
In free space, you're right.
However, arcologies rest on level ground. When dealing with a volume of space that must touch a flat plain, the hemisphere provides minimum possible surface area. Catch a soap bubble on a cookie sheet sometime -- what shape does it form?
| QUOTE (PlatonicPimp) |
| But just because most dumpshock members can go without sunlight for years doesn't negate the importance of natural lighting in design. |
that's true. but just because we haven't figured out why natural light is important yet doesn't mean we won't--and it doesn't mean there won't be a technological fix for it.
besides, it's a dark future. Renraku is willing to sacrifice the mental health of a few thousand employees in order to have its megalithic monument to its own power.
| QUOTE (mfb) |
| besides, it's a dark future. Renraku is willing to sacrifice the mental health of a few thousand employees in order to have its megalithic monument to its own power. |
IIRC, doesn't it say somehwere in the arcology book that the arcology has a background count of 1 in most areas because of this.
If you read the rules for background count, any heavily-trafficed area should have a background count of 1. Not a permanent count, but it's so easy to create that any city will be a shifting cloud of Count 1.
~J
~J
| QUOTE (mfb) |
| besides, it's a dark future. |
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