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The 9-Box Homepage

The SPLectrum homepage presents a 3×3 grid of nine boxes on a sufficiently large screen. This layout reflects the structural setup of the site. Furthermore, each row has a distinct colour, to underline the distinct characteristics of each row. On a small screen it is shown as a linear list with the row colours still in place.

The grid

Reading the rows

The site sections are set up with distinct concerns in mind, but more importantly laid out in three bands: foundational, structural and applied.

Let’s start with the middle row: foundational — you could say the heavy stuff. In the center is the Seed, our axiomatic base. To the left Positioning which deals with all the knowledge outside SPLectrum that is of importance. On the right there is Reality where SPLectrum builds its philosophical framework of interrelational pluralism starting from the seed.

The bottom row is about structure — what are the static and dynamic structural components that interrelational pluralism is expressed in. The Language section deals with the dynamic side, the relational medium. The Vocabulary section contains the static side, the sets of concepts. In the Tools section there is the additional machinery needed to work with both language and vocabulary.

Finally the top row deals with the applied — where interrelational pluralism is lived. The blog section In Wonder is about the conversational, anything deemed worth having a chat about. Real Life is about the practice, in everyday life, the institutional, engineering, nature around us. The Engineering section deals with technological application, software engineering, AI integration, etc.

Because of this single-concern setup the same topic will live in several sections and interlink. For instance Domain-Specific Languages (DSL) is a subject in positioning, with DSLs being created and described in engineering and the topic also being part of the Language and Vocabulary sections. The design decision was that for reasons of clarity it is important to keep facets of the same topic apart.

A reflexive observation

The homepage is itself a Real Life artifact — a structural application of the SPLectrum worldview to the question of how the project presents itself in public. The grid is not a neutral layout; it is a substantive structural choice. And its validity will become clear by its use as SPLectrum goes through its organic growth cycles.

It is a being as any other with its own experience and shared reality, subjected to the same principles as everything else.