TECHNOLOGICAL HEREDITY
Frederick Kiesler believed in a total environment composed of the natural environment, human environment, and technological environment. Standing counter to the force of the environment was the force of heredity. To Kiesler heredity was not only biological, but also social (through "human experiences that can be inherited by children... customs and habits by way of: training and education") and technological. The latter was expanded upon greatly by Kiesler as he believed that any existing tool was "the product of many generations of other tools for man to rest his body in fatigue." Kiesler illustrated this evolution of technology through diagrams and his proposed theory for the three classifications for tools: the standard type, the variation, and the simulated. The standard type represented "absolute need," the variation "evolved from the standard type for auxiliary purposes," and the simulated is the largest group and maintains "a lack of material efficiency and insignificant changes in design materials" and its development is "only made possible by a lack of knowledge." However, through a series of steps the present standard would transform into a new standard and this process would begin again.1
Kiesler attempted to use this idea of technological heredity as a springboard for design in order to respond to the evolving needs of people. His most obvious example is the mobile-home-library, which reconsidered book-storing tools in light of human needs placing the strain of the work onto the tool, not the user. The library was to respond to the physiological constraints of the human body and to the social environment. Most importantly, it recognized that "no tool exists in isolation" and provided the user with flexibility to changing demands such as the possibility that the book as a tool would evolve as well.2