The Old Intense Minimalism

Brad Bird: “when people run into each other, when they make eye contact, things happen”

Then there’s our building. Steve Jobs basically designed this building. In the center, he created this big atrium area, which seems initially like a waste of space. The reason he did it was that everybody goes off and works in their individual areas. People who work on software code are here, people who animate are there, and people who do designs are over there. Steve put the mailboxes, the meetings rooms, the cafeteria, and, most insidiously and brilliantly, the bathrooms in the center — which initially drove us crazy — so that you run into everybody during the course of a day. [Jobs] realized that when people run into each other, when they make eye contact, things happen. So he made it impossible for you not to run into the rest of the company.

Brad Bird è regista di Disney/Pixar e in una intervista cita un principio semplice ma interessante per la progettazione degli spazi, che si lega alle altre lezioni chiave citate nell’articolo (evidenziazioni mie):

1. Herd your Black Sheep: “I want artists who are frustrated. [...] A lot of them were malcontents because they saw different ways of doing things”.
2. Perfect is the Enemy of Innovation: “Certain shots need to be perfect, others need to be very good, and there are some that only need to be good enough to not break the spell”.
3. Look for Intensity: “what they have in common is a restless, probing nature”.
4. Innovation Doesn’t happen in a Vacuum: “Everyone will get humiliated and encouraged together”.
5. High Morale Makes Creativity Cheap: “the thing that has the most significant impact on a movie’s budget—but never shows up in a budget—is morale”.
6. Dont Try To ‘Protect your success’: “impossible can be achieved”.
7. Steve Jobs Says ‘Interaction = Innovation’: “if you have a loose, free kind of atmosphere, it helps creativity”.
8. Encourage Inter-disciplinary Learning: “Pixar basically encourages people to learn outside of their areas, which makes them more complete and more creative”.
9. Get Rid of Weak Links: “Passive-aggressive people [...] are poisonous”.
10. Making $$ Can’t Be Your Focus: “for imagination-based companies to succeed in the long run, making money can’t be the focus”.