Download Distraction™ 1

Welcome to the website of Jones, Partners: Architecture, or as we call ourselves, J,P:A. This text you are reading is a Download Distraction™, designed to take your mind off the possibly lengthy download time for this website. If you have dsl, cable, or some other broadband connection, feel free to ignore these words, which we consider to be outside the website proper anyway. Below each of these Download Distractions™ you will see a graphic device that measures the progress of the download; it can be considered a timer. We have designed this Download Distraction™ as well as the others you will encounter navigating the site, to take a certain amount of time to read. This should match the average time required to download. Of course your results may vary, depending on your equipment and reading speed. You might even think of it as a race. When the download is complete, an 'enter' button will appear at the lower left.

We will use the space of this particular Download Distraction™ to describe the site a little, so when you finally get in you will know your way around. Not to say that it is particularly complex, but it is extensive. The first thing to note is that the site is composed of a series of massive pages, horizontally organized, which are navigated internally by scrolling left to right (rather than the more typical up and down. This is particularly cool on the newer cinema displays). These pages are basically just big pictures, with very little html text; while they do have links and (minimal) animations they are mostly about the content and the graphics that present that content.

Generally these pages are arranged in three horizontal zones, stacked vertically like Instrumental Form. This is sort of a theme with us. The middle band is usually where the beef is, with the bottom band reserved for text related to that beef. The top band is the space for marginalia: asides, dingbats, titles and compositional bandaids. Thus the middle band contains the images, pictorial or textual, while the other two are there in support. This structure is not religiously maintained, but there is enough of it to make the deviations significant. Between each of the (heroically horizontal) pages you will encounter another Download Distraction™ like this. Unlike this one, though, they generally have nothing whatsoever to do with the downloading page for which they are serving as a distraction. If you have visited this website previously you may remember that the Download Distractions™ were generally related to the whole cyberspace phenomenon. By now, we've gotten beyond that, so this round of Download Distractions™ will instead be about the more general idea of the New. The new is not so easy to get past, but we will see what we can do while you wait. The discussion of the New tracks through the various Download Distractions™ in order, but do not feel constrained to steer through the site in this way, since they are, after all, just distractions.

One other thing: the pages you will see might have dark borders on the top and bottom. They should be ignored. Or they should be understood as a sign that the resolution of your screen is finer than the default lowest-common-denominator resolution the site was set up to accommodate. Like the Download Distractions™ they are an expedient we consider to be strictly outside the site itself. Thus, if you can see these borders think of them as a small congratulation from us that you are ahead of the curve, rather than simply our underwear showing. So. That about covers everything. You will note the contact information on this page in case you want to get ahold of us, despite all this, or maybe, hopefully, because of it. We would be delighted to hear from you and hope you enjoy the site and find it useful.