阅读理解
Last summer, two
nineteenth-century cottages were rescued from remote farm fields in Montana, to
be moved to an Art Deco building in San Francisco. The houses were made of
wood. These cottages once housed early settlers as they worked the dry Montana
soil; now they hold Twitter engineers.
The cottages could be
an example of the industry' s odd love affair with "low technology,"
a concept associated with the natural world, and with old-school craftsmanship
(手艺) that exists long before the Internet era. Low technology is not
virtual (虚拟的) —so, to take advantage of it, Internet
companies have had to get creative. The rescued wood cottages, fitted by hand
in the late eighteen-hundreds, are an obvious example, but Twitter's designs
lie on the extreme end. Other companies are using a broader interpretation (阐释) of low technology that focuses on nature.
Amazon is building
three glass spheres filled with trees, so that employees can "work and
socialize in a more natural, park-like setting." At Google's office, an
entire floor is carpeted in glass. Facebook's second Menlo Park campus will
have a rooftop park with a walking trail.
Olle Lundberg, the
founder of Lundberg Design, has worked with many tech companies over the years.
"We have lost the connection to the maker in our lives, and our tech
engineers are the ones who feel impoverished (贫乏的)
, because they're surrounded by the digital world," he says. "They're
looking for a way to regain their individual identity, and we've found that
introducing real crafts is one way to do that."
This craft based
theory is rooted in history, William Morris, the English artist and writer,
turned back to pre-industrial arts in the eighteen-sixties, just after the
Industrial Revolution. The Arts and Crafts movement defined itself against
machines. "Without creative human occupation, people became disconnected
from life," Morris said.
Research has shown
that natural environments can restore(恢复) our
mental capacities. In Japan, patients are encouraged to "forest-bathe,"
taking walks through woods to lower their blood pressure.
These health benefits
apply to the workplace as well. Rachel Kaplvin, a professor of environmental
psychology, has spent years researching the restorative effects of natural
environment. Her research found that workers with access to nature at the
office—even simple views of trees and flowers—felt their jobs were less
stressful and more satisfying. If low-tech offices can potentially nourish the
brains and improve the mental health of employees then, fine, bring on the
cottages.
