Maeda's SIMPLICITY

Metallic Glue

A silent gem in a quintessentially designed hotel.

Recently I visited the University of Texas at Austin campus to give a lecture. Austin is the home of one of my all time favorite hotels: the Hotel San José . It is hard to explain this hotel in simple words. The rooms are spartan and it's right on a main street so it is quite noisy. Originally the San José was a motel and it probably wasn't at all chic like the way it is today. The room rates are extremely reasonable to stay at such a special place. There's nothing like it.

While waiting to check in, I noted a window by the reception desk. The simple eye and hook latch is a device that leaped out to me in all of its simple glory. I immediately envisioned some Wild West settler from a past century that had an 'aha' moment which fueled this this primitive mode of homeland security. As a child, we had a door in my house with this latch but in a modern house you don't see such a device so often.

The latch reveals its functionality through its design. The interface is its own function. Furthermore, it is of a level of simplicity that you could imagine making yourself. The cognitive distance to making, understanding, and operating the device is minimal. One could always go to a hardware store to marvel at this latch, but I would recommend visiting the San José instead.

Posted by maeda at April 20, 2005 05:48 PM