Works That Work
worksthatwork.com · Group blog · on HN since 2013
Works That Work is a magazine of stories about design and how people solve practical problems around the world.
What HN saysHN commenters link it for stories such as Kongo Gumi, a shared-space town cutting accidents, unified Arabic script, and Heineken's World bottles.
19HN people shared it
5linked it in comments
16stories submitted
65story points
5 months agolast shared
2013people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Aiming To Reduce Cleaning Costs3 people · 3 points · first shared 2013 · 1 comments on HN
- 2Building on Tradition – 1,400 Years of a Family Business3 people · 2 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 3A Hole in the Darkness: The story of a simple portable lamp1 people · 32 points · first shared 2015 · 19 comments on HN
- 4From Bunkers to Businesses1 people · 11 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 5The Unexpected Success of the Boeing 7471 people · 4 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 6Works that work1 people · 2 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 7Location Code in Central Park1 people · 2 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 8Kumbh Mela: Constructing the World’s Biggest (Disassemblable) City1 people · 2 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 9Dabbawallas: Delivering Excellence (2013)1 people · 2 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 10A Message to the Future1 people · 2 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 11Point Me Where It Hurts1 people · 1 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 12Colour Photography Before Colour Photography1 people · 1 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 13Thresholds of Silence1 people · 1 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 14Unified arabic1 people · first shared 2026
- 15World bottles1 people · first shared 2019
What HN people wrote when they linked it
amdivia · 2026-06-13
This was once attempted, and in a way such that each letter needed only one character no matter it's position in the word
Unfortunately it died
https://worksthatwork.com/6/unified-arabic
pacifika · 2025-12-21
Number of traffic accidents went down by 50% in this town.
https://worksthatwork.com/1/shared-space
mensetmanusman · 2022-05-11
https://worksthatwork.com/3/kongo-gumi
Interesting that it started by building Buddhist Temples and has been building and maintaining them for that long. Cool!
Scoundreller · 2019-02-27
I wish Heinekin’s World bottles succeeded: https://worksthatwork.com/artefacts/world-bottles
skulk · 2023-07-24
[warning: dangerously off topic rabbit hole]
Huh, according to Wikipedia (without citation, unfortunately), that ancient construction company pioneered the use of CAD for temple design. I wanted to see if I could corroborate this claim, so "kongo gumi cad" on Google lead to: https://worksthatwork.com/3/kongo-gumi which makes a very similar claim. From what I can tell, this claim is echoed all over the (English) internet but originates from "worksthatwork.com".
The earliest wayback snapshot of that website from 2014 doesn't mention CAD, but the March 30, 2015 snapshot does. Looking at the wikipedia article edit history, there seems to be an edit war happening regarding the accuracy of sources (someone seems to believe very strongly that Nikkei Asia is not a reliable source): https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kong%C5%8D_Gumi&oldid=1…
The CAD claim seems to have originated in 2022, but the citation to "worksthatwork.com" was swiftly removed in a subsequent edit due to lack of evidence: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kong%C5%8D_Gumi&oldid=1…
Well, this was a strange rabbithole to fall down. I'm interested to know from where this claim originates, or if "worksthatwork.com" just made it up in 2015. The answer probably lies beyond the English language internet.
I wish Wikipedia had a "blame" feature like git. If it exists, I couldn't find it.