Archinect - News

Thomas Heatherwick wants architects to improve mental health through 'interestingness'

2023-10-23T19:02:00-04:00

Boring, soulless buildings are making people stressed and lonely, according to Thomas Heatherwick [...] Calling for “a national conversation” about halting the spread of depressing architecture, he said: “We need to fearlessly demand interestingness. We need to rebel against the blandification of our streets, towns and cities, and make buildings that nourish our senses. Human beings deserve human places.”

The Lantern House and Vessel designer has been making the media rounds lately to promote his new treatise Humanize, which offers a call-to-arms of sorts for architects and planners both looking to combat the proven detriments bad architecture has on mental health. Heatherwick says his prognosis has been informed by multiple years of domestic research, including a new study he commissioned from the New Economics Foundation, and that offenders could be broken down by seven criteria: (too) flat, straight, plain, shiny, monotonous, anonymous, and serious.

Responding to this, the Observer critic Rowan Moore writes Heatherwick “does not have much to say about the value of simplicity” and that his argument is too reductivist and could result in “an outbreak of shallow wannabe Gaudís” should architects adapt his principles en masse. His position that Heathwick was too ignorant of the market forces behind modern architecture, however, seems to misunderstand the point of making such an appea...

Architects want to bring back Venice's eclectic architectural character

2017-12-26T13:00:00-05:00

To many longtime residents, the cookie-cutter constructions stripped Venice of its distinctive architectural character, turning parts of the neighborhood into uniform eyesores. “Over the last year or two specifically, we’re seeing more chances being taken and more unique developments going up,” Lackey said. “This wave of architecture is great for Venice, which has always been a hub of individuality.”

Boring boxy developments have taken over Venice, California in the last 15 years, but in this LA Times piece, some architects think it's time for the coastal town to return to its eclectic architectural roots...currently in the form of multimillion-dollar luxury homes.

Are you bored yet?

2017-11-17T15:10:00-05:00

Its forms are basic, totemic: Euclidean shapes dredged from the long memory of the field. It sometimes relies on modules or grids. It’s often monochromatic. It’s post-digital, which means it rejects the compulsion to push form-making to its absolute limits that overtook architecture at the turn of the century. As a result, it sometimes looks ancient or even primordial. It never looks futuristic.

Famed LA Times architectural critic, Christopher Hawthorne, released his view of contemporary architecture that culminates in it being classified as boring, and yet, that might be exactly what the architectural discipline ordered. As a reaction to 'hyperactive form-making,' Hawthorne argues that contemporary architects are getting 'boring.'

One could understand that as an insult or derivative comment, but Hawthorne states that their work is well considered and measured and that the 'Room Temperature' of the work is just right but is also aware of the viability of such a project to be under question and scrutiny.

The high psychological cost we pay for boring buildings

2016-04-12T20:24:00-04:00

Boring architecture may take an emotional toll on the people forced to live in and around it. A growing body of research in cognitive science illuminates the physical and mental toll bland cityscapes exact on residents. Generally, these researchers argue that humans are healthier when they live among variety — a cacophony of bars, bodegas, and independent shops — or work in well-designed, unique spaces, rather than unattractive, generic ones.

Critic Mark Lamster on the dire state of architecture in Dallas (and most other American cities)

2016-04-12T14:52:00-04:00

bastardized visual language has become the de facto standard of Dallas residential architecture development. The explanation for its ever-increasing prevalence, however depressing, is fairly straightforward. Developers find something that’s profitable and want to reproduce it. Risk-averse banks are happy to lend them money given their track record, at least in the short term. Architects, stuck with low budgets, tight schedules, and conservative developers, serve to please and follow convention.

"But Dallas architecture shouldn’t be a joke, and it doesn’t have to be. A look at recent developments in Los Angeles, a historically auto-centric city faced with similar growth challenges, suggests how Dallas might break the vicious cycle in which it is mired."

Does Houston's architecture lack poetry?

2016-02-04T18:23:00-05:00

Houston's architects obviously do not read poetry. None of the corporate buildings, apartments and hotels being built now seems like something we'll be proud of 20 years from now. Of course, that's assuming that those buildings even survive 20 years in a city that is characterized by destroying its architectural past. [...] But maybe we citizens can influence the builders. We can tell them how ugly their buildings are. We can refuse to rent space in them.

Can Vancouver break out of its 'boring-architecture' mold with these new ambitious skyscrapers?

2015-09-21T17:03:00-04:00

A slew of innovative new condo towers are being proposed for Vancouver, as the city aims to take its arguably boring architecture to the next level. [...] Vancouver's move into adventurous architecture arguably began back in 2013, when Danish architect Bjarke Ingels revealed his design for twisting tower Vancouver House, which is now under construction.

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Boston Mayor Marty Walsh goes up against boring architecture

2014-12-11T13:53:00-05:00

Boston needs bolder buildings, and it needs civic leaders who aren’t afraid to permit them. In what could mark a major turn for Boston’s architectural history, Mayor Marty Walsh signaled Wednesday that not everything needs to built in red brick. Unlike predecessor Tom Menino, he personally won’t be deciding what the tops of new buildings should look like. And, most striking of all, non-boring ideas are now welcome in the city.