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Henry Petroski


American
February 6, 1942
Author
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Design is nothing if not decision making.


Henry Petroski
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Successful engineering is all about understanding how things break or fail.


Henry Petroski
Tags: About Things How
Successful design is not the achievement of perfection but the minimization and accommodation of imperfection.
Henry Petroski
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It is really want, rather than need, that drives the process of technological evolution.


Henry Petroski
Tags: Really Want Than
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If I could go upstairs and write every day, I would be happy. I don't need recreation.


Henry Petroski
Tags: Would Go Every
Everything we do is designed, whether we're producing a magazine, a website, or a bridge. Design is really the creative invention that designs everything.
Henry Petroski
The space shuttle was designed, at least in part, to broaden our knowledge of the universe. To scientists, the vehicle was a tool; to engineers, it was their creation.
Henry Petroski
All conventional wisdom has an element of truth to it, but good design requires more than an element of truth - it requires an ensemble of correct assumptions and valid calculations.
Henry Petroski
Tags: Good Truth Design
Indeed, an engineer designing a structure is not unlike an artist painting one. Both start with nothing but talent, experience, and inspiration. The fresh piece of paper on the drawing board is as blank as the newly stretched piece of canvas.
Henry Petroski
Case studies of failure should be made a part of the vocabulary of every engineer so that he or she can recall or recite them when something in a new design or design process is suggestive of what went wrong in the case study.
Henry Petroski
The paradox is that when we model future designs on past successes, we are inviting failure down the line; when we take into account past failures and anticipate potential new ways in which failure can occur, we are more likely to produce successful designs.
Henry Petroski
We call the fates of the Titanic and the Concordia - as well as those of the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia - 'accidents.' Foreseeing such undesirable events is what engineers are expected to do. However, design trade-offs leave technological systems open to failings once predicted, but later forgotten.
Henry Petroski
I have always been fascinated by the way things work and how they came to take the form that they did. Writing about these things satisfies my curiosity about the made world while at the same time giving me an opportunity to design a new explanation for the processes that shape it.
Henry Petroski
Tags: Time Work Design