Architecting Value

This Week in Bad Architecture: What Floor is the AirTrain?

Here's one of my favorite pictures of bad architecture that I use frequently in my presentations to non-architects. These pictures are from an elevator at Terminal 3 at JFK. Clearly there are at least three departments at JFK, each with their own naming standard for the floors. Rather than have someone settle the differences, the elevator (and unfortunately, the passengers) become the middleware for integration.

This Week in Bad Architecture: Sliding Into the Grave

This is another slide I use in my "Architecture 101" deck. The point that I make about this particular picture is that architecture is not just about performance. In this example, both the slide and the gravesite perform exactly as they should. Architecture is also about the broader context in which we build solutions.

That said, having a gravesite to point to would be handy when I'm trying to get my kid to play safely at the playground.

This Week in Bad Architecture

Allow me to introduce my first candidate for "This Week in Bad Architecture." I find this picture hysterical and I've started to use it as the title slide for my presentation on "Architecture 101." Great picture to make the point and lighten the mood.

I spend a fair amount of my time educating business and IT stakeholders about architecture. For many it's abstract, theoretical, or simply unapproachable. It's mired in arcane language and ineffective delivery models that make the value difficult to understand.

When I introduce the topic of architecture to a new audience, I usually start with examples of bad non-IT related architecture. My reasoning is simple: good architecture can be hard to spot. A good architecture has taken into account the context in which it resides and its human use and devised a way to blend in and serve its function unobtrusively. It just works.

Poor architecture, by contrast, stands out because it works against its context or human use. I've collected a number of these examples over the years which I plan to share. I won't speak for the credibility of these images - for all I know, most if not all have been Photoshopped. The point, isn't so much that these architectures truly exist but that if they did, it is the likely result of poor planning, poor design choices, or would involve enormous expense.

I'll share what I've gathered so far but would love to see what others have accumulated. Shoot me an email at dmishra - at - microsoft.com.