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and in other news, zaha jumps a shark....

ok, folks, i'm officially calling it. october 2nd. 4:34pm GMT, zaha hadid architects has officially jumped the shark. 

yes, they have an app for that....

 

 

the fonz would be proud...

 
Nov 1, 11 10:48 pm
∑ π ∓ √ ∞

AaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaZaaaaahhhhaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nov 2, 11 12:06 am  · 
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juan moment

So, are we all supposed to call her Zha now?

Nov 2, 11 12:57 am  · 
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in a context where your business is built on maintaining your brand, this probably doesn't seem like a  tough or strange decision at all. 

Nov 2, 11 7:38 am  · 
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funny, someone dredged up an oldie about architects working the media, and it was right next to this thread. 

http://archinect.com/forum/thread/19295/why-don-t-architects-know-how-to-work-the-media/50#last

Nov 2, 11 7:47 am  · 
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Token AE

in a context where your business is built on maintaining your brand, this probably doesn't seem like a  tough or strange decision at all.

 

Bingo.

Nov 2, 11 8:50 am  · 
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citizen

(For Archinecters of a certain age)

I for one am comforted knowing that, as the old Zsa Zsa is not long for this world, we have a new Zha Zha to replace her.

Nov 2, 11 11:20 am  · 
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toasteroven

she knows her client base -  rich people with smartphones who sit on museum boards.

Nov 2, 11 11:39 am  · 
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won and done williams

I don't get it. This seems pretty normal.

And ZHA = Zaha Hadid Architects

Unfortunately for her, however, a search of ZHA take you to this:

http://www.zhaintl.com/

 

Nov 2, 11 11:59 am  · 
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x-jla

So tired of Zaha buildings! 

Nov 2, 11 12:04 pm  · 
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citizen

Good point, Toaster.  Her firm's market is not web-savvy young architecture students, that's for sure.

Nov 2, 11 12:42 pm  · 
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Oh, I thought you meant the building shown in your post was the jump moment.  I would have agreed with that - look at all those poor tired people milling confused and aimlessly in the emergent field.

You meant the app - I'm with Steven, this seems pretty well in line with their brand.

Nov 2, 11 12:46 pm  · 
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lletdownl

Yeah im on board with this honestly... and ill tell you why based on my own experience with web design/managment at my office...

 

the number of people visiting our website ticks up slowly overall, maybe 5% a year.  However, the number of people accessing our site from ipads, iphones or other like devices have gone through the roof.  From a very small number, to a significant percent of our overall traffic.  The iphone/ipad group are eating up standard browsers market share.  That being said, it makes perfect sense to me to develop a method of viewing your work targeted specifically to the fastest growing method of browsing.  The fact that its accessible while not online aside, more and more people see our work via ipads, at the expense of standard browsers like IE (aka the devil)/Chrome/Firefox...

A while after we completed our offices website, we seriously considered developing an ipad app.  The notion that it could be for outside use was a secondary benefit to the primary driver, which was using the app as a presentation device.  I wouldnt be surprised if this is where the ZHA app started from... we ended up just developing a stripped down HTML based site specifically for the ipad rather than an app, but had we the coding ability handy, we definitely would have developed an app.

i think its pretty smart honestly...

Nov 2, 11 3:23 pm  · 
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if this were a great web site, sure. no problem whatsoever. it's that it is an app - it's a complete duplication of what the website alone could do. this isn't, for comparison, nearly as cool as the BIG app/book - it just strikes me as the high tech equivalent of a logo polo shirt. and, let me tell you, zaha is the LAST designer i'd have pegged for something like this...

Nov 2, 11 3:42 pm  · 
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OK, so two serious questions (your post raises them for me, lletdownl):

1. What other firms besides BIG and ZHA have apps?

2. I don't own a smartphone; I do own an iPad, but I find it frustrating to use: what usability does/should an architect's app have that their website can't/shouldn't?

Nov 2, 11 3:59 pm  · 
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toasteroven

has anyone even looked at tech or money/markets focused websites lately?  if you open them on a typical browser it looks like they're set up for the visually impaired.

Nov 2, 11 4:52 pm  · 
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sameolddoctor

So what's surprising about this? Seems pretty normal. Frankly, the app is NOT for potential clients. It is for architecture fanboys & fangirls.

Nov 2, 11 6:42 pm  · 
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... just like the rest of Hadid's work.

 

Nov 2, 11 6:44 pm  · 
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donna - Make (the british firm) does. not sure about any others. I downloaded it, but, really, it didn't do anything for me (which sorta answers your second question). offloaded it an hour later. 

 

love my ipad - can't imagine not having it. 

Nov 2, 11 10:37 pm  · 
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Janosh

The Spinal Tap remark that "it is such a fine line between stupid and uh... clever" has always seemed to be about architecture... increasingly I'm also having a hard time distinguishing between important and self-important.  Is Zaha still important?

Nov 2, 11 11:13 pm  · 
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Nov 7, 11 4:41 pm  · 
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