How Buildings Learn
Stewart Brand (now president of the Long Now Foundation) uploaded all six parts of his 1997 documentary How Buildings Learn to Google Video last year. Here’s what he said about it
This six-part, three-hour, BBC TV series aired in 1997. I [Stewart Brand] presented and co-wrote the series; it was directed by James Muncie, with music by Brian Eno. The series was based on my 1994 book, How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built. The book is still selling well and is used as a text in some college courses. Most of the 27 reviews on Amazon treat it as a book about system and software design, which tells me that architects are not as alert as computer people. But I knew that; that’s part of why I wrote the book.
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.
Historic note: this was one of the first television productions made entirely in digital— shot digital, edited digital. The project wound up with not enough money, so digital was the workaround. The camera was so small that we seldom had to ask permission to shoot; everybody thought we were tourists. No film or sound crew. Everything technical on site was done by editors, writers, directors. That’s why the sound is a little sketchy, but there’s also some direct perception in the filming that is unusual.
I’ve embedded part one here but here are links to all six episodes: part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six.
I’d love to link to its permanent page on bbc.co.uk/programmes or bbc.co.uk/archive but it doesn’t yet seem to have one at either.
I don’t think /programmes does historical data yet. There was a beta of the full BBC programme catalogue, but it’s shut down now (for external access, anyway). I bet it’s in there, though.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/catalogue_offline.shtml
http://www.hackdiary.com/2006/04/26/bbc-programme-catalogue-is-live/
Thanks Paul. I love(d and miss) the Programme Catalog. Hope it comes back before too long.
Heh. I wrote an essay about this show for my MA in TV production: I interviewed one of the other producer/directors, Janet Lee. I must see if I can dig out the essay, as we talked about the digital production methods at length – it was shot on one of the first Panasonic mini-DV cameras made for the consumer market.
I do remember the budget was TINY, and that the issue was that once they’d proved you can make a really good TV programme for such a tiny budget, it endangers the rest of the industry, because it’s possible to put pressure on other bigger productions to come in for less money.
[...] Watchification: How Buildings Learn "This six-part, three-hour, BBC TV series aired in 1997. I [Stewart Brand] presented and co-wrote the series; it was directed by James Muncie, with music by Brian Eno. The series was based on my 1994 book, How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built. " (tags: design architecture video tv eno longnow buildings stewartbrand) [...]