I had a professor once who described the problem something like this:
The problem is that what is considered a "good" architect nowadays most often falls into one of two categories: 1. The "art" architect, who designs based on some kind of personal vision and the average person has no idea what its supposed to mean beyond "its cool"; or 2. Service Provider: somebody who designs a good building that works, and might be okay but doesnt really try to do anything new.
What is needed is for the architect to become something different, an architect that can think like a developer, but who is knowledgable about a wide spectrum of disciplines in addition to design-- politics, economics, technology, culture... Only if the architect is able to have such a wide ranging knowledge, to actually have the ability to tell the client what they might need, and back it up with strong arguments drawing from this knowledge, could they be anything other than the "art architect" or "service provider".
Maybe we need to stop seeing architects who think like a developer as "sell outs". Instead, promote within architectural education the knowledge necessary to think like a developer, while bringing design intelligence to developments. Because in a world driven by economics, politics, and other factors, re$pect comes with expertise, and given that building is such a complex and expensive investment, we would need to show clients that we are experts in many things... The problem may be that architects are seen by the general public as designing buildings that only only "look better", but may not necessarily "work better"...
just wanted to check on something here since it has been touched on a number of times...
generally we seem to agree sprawl is killing our built environment, along with big box developments with massive parking lot seas. how many of you still shop at said big box stores though? how many of you don't? how many of us live in the suburbs? how many of us don't?
i am sure some of us don't contribute to these, but if the entire architectural community stayed away from these environments (talking use here, not building), would it even make a difference being that we are such a small portion of the population?
i personally try to stay away from walmart, target, kohl's, etc (still can't bring myself to go to the IKEA that just opened here in Atlanta), but i am always going for fast food at places like mcdonalds. there are even times when i can't seem to find anything but these plopped in places of "convenience". is it even possible to completely stay away from these types of places?
my campaign-of-one to not go to big box stores and starbucks is fairly consistently undermined by my wife's position that walmart is cheaper and that she likes starbucks chai. my argument that we're ALL PAYING for walmart to be cheaper is met with a roll of the eyes.
I'm often met with the same rolling of eyes when expressing my feelings that these McDonald's and Wal-marts springing up all over are not only damaging our small town and global economies, but speeding the sprawl and homogenization of our built environment. Eric Schlosser argues this rather convincingly in his book Fast Food Nation. It's frustrating, but it seems that people do not want to take personal responsibility for this.
Please do not let this post die until this problem is solved (HAHAHAHAHA: it would annihilate per and his fancy graphics thread).
Recently out of school and trying to find a job I became more aware of the general populations idea of architect. My uncle said, "oh yeah, I know an architect, they're hiring, i'll see if i can get you an interview" No, you know a design/build firm that does strip malls.
My quasi-bohemian aspirations and disillusionment with modern culture, coupled with the gaping black hole in the existence of the type of arch firm i imagined myself working at has led me to wonder what all of 'us' do with our lives. 'Us' being the aggressive, forward thinking, norm challenging, thought mongers whose frustrations lead to posts like this.
Do we die penniless and frustrated,
do we break and become those we hate,
do we teach?
the price of something and the cost of something are two different things. It may be cheaper in price to shop in a big box but the cost to the environment, the community, the culture is significant. it depends how you value these items.
remember, there is always someone with a worse job
you know how the default bank space used to be double height?
now it's 10ft ACT
Ignoring material and detail, if you walk a regular person into an old bank, and then walk them into a new bank they know the difference even if they can't articulate it. They "feel" it; we all do. That volume has an effect on how you perceive the institution it houses. It's palpable.
we as architects need to be able to describe that feeling to our clients. then they will pay us because people will understand that architecture has a fundamental effect on all our lives as opposed to being a commodity.
momentum- where do you draw the line? Are Ralphs, Albertsons, or Fry's ok? What about Macy's, Robinsons-May? Anything that is always or sometimes located in a mall? Almost everyone I know agrees that Walmart is evil, but where is the line between evil and acceptable?
Influence and gain comes from control, or more specifically, there is a ratio of control to gain. The more you control a situation, the more there is to gain.
Dont forget that over the last 30 years or so, much of an architects role has been usurped by the quantity surveyor, the project manager, the engineer, planning guidelines etc.
So we face two choices, either accept the status quo and resign ourselves to becoming a rather marginalised profession [which also has its benefits of which we are all aware], or find ways to increase the control we can exert on our industry.
rationalist, i thought about where that line is yesterday after i posted that question, and sometimes it is difficult. of course walmart and mcdonalds take the cake when it comes to plopping shitbricks in our landscape (there are many more, but those epitomize this problem for me).
one of the ones that i found difficult was home depot, because what can you expect them to really do? they are a warehouse, but it is still the same big ass box plastered with orange all over it in, and once again a mega parking lot. they still don't care what context they are in, it is all about getting the biggest building and parking lot for the least amount of money.
one of the things that makes me mad is the fact that they will spend the money if they have to, but only when they have to. in arch record this month (pg 68) it shows some examples of stores which have been made to think about design, and they don't look half bad. in fact they are 1000% better than the typical big boxes. why wont they just do this all the time? they have to know it makes for a better environment, which also means more csutomers and better sales. they just don't want to spend the money up front.
where is that line? i don't know, i've got to get some work done, but i will keep thinking about it.
oh, I hate Target. They're building a store right by my house (on a hillside 80 feet above the road w/ 20 foot high retaining walls). There's a Lowe's going up on the same site. It's also half a mile from the state's largest elementary school. Bastards! I spent a few late nights at planning board meetings last summer protesting it with about a hundred neighbors.
I think the thing with sprawl is that realistically we can't hope to stop it all together. Unfortunately, there may be a place for this sort of thing in our world. It just needs to be regionalized, not local. We don't need one of these in every town. True, if you need to buy lumber, Home Depot may be the place, but when you just need a hammer, you can go to a local, real hardware store. That's the problem, I think. It's local, but it should be regional. Also, I try to be realistic. I'd rather local coffee shops than Starbuck's, but if they're going into existing buildings in downtowns and doing some redevelopment, i won't complain.
I think Proto's right on. We need to sell ourselves better and show people how much architecture affects them.
While the majority of products bought at Walmart are made cheaper by their strategy of volume and distribution, the majority products bought at Walmart end up in a landfill... (there was an insane stat somewhere, something like 90% of items bought at Walmart end up as landfill within a year...) The problem is also the kind of consumption culture that they encourage but which has already become a deeply ingrained part of middle class suburban lifestyle...
But my personal feeling is that you can't fight development without offering a better alternative... Things change all the time, but if we aren't willing to play the developers game, then all we can do is complain... And we can't start a revolution with just complaints and no balls to put our money where our mouth is... What alternatives to the big box store can we imagine, that are economically competitive while responding to our present day cultural context? Is it a new kind of store, a new idea about infrastructure, or maybe a cost effective idea about regional production and distribution, or something to do with the household, maybe a new way of living related to virtual shopping?
Or maybe this is just about designing better stores? The irony is that most architects complain about how ugly big box stores are, but they would consider it below them to design stores for Walmart or McDonalds themselves...
it's tough to reason and rhyme when we don't actually try to discover the problems with our environment...we just poke at them and talk about them without reading or researching what very smart people are finding about the environment we have built (and trapped ourselves in)
also, there are some interesting things happening with big-box design that we should all be alert to...check out page 68 of the august architectural record...its a small start but at least a start...
um. ok, blazerd. who says we don't actually try to discover the root problems affecting our environment?
the article you linked was nothing new, necessarily, and consistent with what the center for disease control has been saying for the past 3-4 years.
different big-box design is like different fast food design. it can be incrementally better, but it's enabling a much larger problem: big box stores have a direct affect on use of resources (WASTE in the name of better products), economic imbalance, and end runs around national governments and regulation. design is hardly the primary issue.
a little presumptious to suggest that we "just poke and talk about them without...."
is the landfill issue really walmarts fault? actually ive read that walmart has caused a reduction in a manufacturer's amount of packaging so they can put more product out in less space. the fact is we are a comsumer driven/throw away society, which only finds its meaning in material objects. how many computers have you been through? how many tvs? cameras? cell phones? all these products become obsolete in no time and cost more to repair than to replace.
also, for at least the fifth time on this post, real estate development is at the mercy of the accounting methodology known as discounted cash flow, which reasons that a dollar tomorrow will be less than a dollar today, which encourages cheap, quick and tried and true development to maximize return on investment. and makes other types of development much more difficult to finance.
and didnt walmart and starbucks begin as mom and pop stores? mom and pop in this case were just a bit more visionary. personally, ive worked for many mom and pop businesses and they had one thing in common. they all sucked. there were no benefits, there was mandatory working on holidays with no overtime(except for mom and pop of course) and the pay was the lowest of the low. anyway time for a mochalattachaicino. make it a venti. (actually there is no starbucks in my town, talk about a backwater)
Don't fret Vado. I've gotta drive 7.5 minutes to get to a Wal-Mart one way & 7.5 minutes to get to a Starbucks the other way.
I think you make the right case about the 'here-n-now', fat-consumer society we're in. As architects, trained to think in terms of permanece, we just aren't figuring out our place in it.
Either our mode of thinking is out-dated, or we're in the wrong place. As for Wal-Mart, etc - if one doesn't like them - don't shop there. Wal-mart isn't killing Mom-n-Pop, we the consumers are. The last i checked, most archts I know are ravenous consumers. Plus, if wal-mart knocked on most of our doors, yeah, sure, we'd slam it in theri face. Right....
As for Starbucks, I don't like their coffee & can make a better 'Frappucino' @ home for about $4 less than them. But when I do go for coffee, I go to a Mom-n-Pop (actually a 'Pop') shop. For what it's worth, Octane in ATL is my recommendation. 10 stamps on your card & the nest one's free!
Last thing. Architects complaining about sprawl (hey, I think it sucks, too) is contradictory. We're some of the most complicit parties in promoting sprawl. Without building (aka 'sprawl'), we die. My solution - don't design for clients, design for yourself (be your own client). That's my 'easier said than done' statement for the day. However, isn't it easier to do that than to try to change the thinking of billions & billions already served?
well i bought a digital camera finally and went to a mom and pop store. although mom and pop werent there, the young hottie who helped me knew a lot about cameras, plus i received a bunch of extras for free. i also frequent an independent coffee shop which allows me to run a tab which must be over a hundred bucks. also, they're fixin me up on a blind date. no corporation would do that.
What if architects experienced "desk crits" of thier work from other architects. At my firm, one person usually makes a decision and it is rarely revisited after that. This would eliminate the weakest designers.
What if you pinned up your design, had 3-4 collegues sit around and say: "Looks like a Wheaties box turned on it's side, Jim."
MM, you make a great point that consumers are the ones who force out mom n pop stores. Wal-Marts, etc merely provide the alternative to these stories. We've got to take some responsibility ourselves as a society (if we do indeed truly wish to change it) and blaming Wal-Mart is really just an easy way out. However, they are not totally blameless. I was reading an article last summer (which I wish I had saved) in the Concord (NH) Monitor about sprawl and it discussed how stores such as Wal-Mart, Target, Lowe's, Home Depot, etc are really regional outlets, but that they choose to build on a local scale, because it helps force out the competition.
The whole issue is very complicated and I don't know the answer at all, myself. I mean, these stores could exist regionally if we were willing to drive to them, but that causes traffic and the traffic back-ups are what seem to make getting to these places such a hassle, so building more of them relieves that traffic, but allowing one usually means others will follow. It's tricky, but I think to a certain extent, we've got to realize these things aren't going away.
Most people aren't as interested in sustainability as many architects are, even though we're nearing peak oil production world-wide and being so wasteful is eventually going to bite us in our collective ass pretty hard. Anyway, perhaps the answer though is trying to convince people to develop these places in better ways. Fewer of them would be good, or at least building them in such a way that they could share parking, etc and form some quasi-pedestrian shopping environment. In a lecture I had last semester, my professor briefly discussed one of these big box retailers that actually built sustainable stores and tried to reduce the sea of asphalt and all that. Perhaps trying to convince people to demand these things of Wal-Mart, etc is the best solution. I'm not sure.
We've got to accept, though, that national chains are here to stay and if we want to help mom n pop deals, we need to patronize them. But these things can co-exist. In downtown Porstmouth, NH there is a Gap and a Starbuck's, but basically everything else is all locally owned and operated. It's a nice mix, and both have their places. Though I can tell you that any of the many local coffee shops have a much better atmosphere (and product) than the Starbuck's and are always much busier. One of the things currently being pushed for by some folks in the redevelopment of downtown Manchester, NH is a large, national retailer (Urban Outfitter, Border's and some others) have been suggested to act as an anchor of sorts in the expanding retail district there, which is currently almost entirely local. I think national chains certainly have their place and they can be helpful, but they have to act as good neighbors. And they won't do it themselves, we have to demand it of them.
Exactly the right point. The herds go to the WaM-Marts & Starbucks. Businesses proviidng something more unique, maybe more value tend to
be the samll businesses, the Mom-N-Pops.
There's a nice town square a few miles from where I live that I have observed for approx 25 yrs. In the lae 70's, it had sole-proprietor clothes stores, a drug store, few restaurants (nothing fancy) & maybe a hardware store. Over time, suburban growth pulled most of these businesses out of the square, or made their location obsolete. But, this town square was well designed, had a consistant workforce, surrounding neighborhoods that remianed places that people wanted to live (although, 'White-Flight' didn't hit this Southern town much) & was just plain pleasant to be at,
The Mom-N-Pop character of this town square is still there, just w/ different businesses. I've travelled around the USA a lot in the last 9 yrs & have seen this theme repeated as long as there was a strong urban core for people to congregate around. Forget any type of 'style' or income level, if a place can provide you a reason to be there, it will thrive no matter what 'Big Box' moves in.
Basically, Mom-N-Pop are always ahead of mega-commerce, but they only remain there if they don't get complacent. Many Mom-N-Pops of the past fell prey to this.
A media blitz- now in such a materialistic world, architecture that would be sought after must show status and wealth that are directly tangible- it must look Bling Bling, not simple or creative or artistic, experimental, whatever- and its bling-bling ness must also be universal- like a Louis Vitton or Mercedes logo, something that makes anyone appreciate its value, instantly.
worst paid important jobs
I had a professor once who described the problem something like this:
The problem is that what is considered a "good" architect nowadays most often falls into one of two categories: 1. The "art" architect, who designs based on some kind of personal vision and the average person has no idea what its supposed to mean beyond "its cool"; or 2. Service Provider: somebody who designs a good building that works, and might be okay but doesnt really try to do anything new.
What is needed is for the architect to become something different, an architect that can think like a developer, but who is knowledgable about a wide spectrum of disciplines in addition to design-- politics, economics, technology, culture... Only if the architect is able to have such a wide ranging knowledge, to actually have the ability to tell the client what they might need, and back it up with strong arguments drawing from this knowledge, could they be anything other than the "art architect" or "service provider".
Maybe we need to stop seeing architects who think like a developer as "sell outs". Instead, promote within architectural education the knowledge necessary to think like a developer, while bringing design intelligence to developments. Because in a world driven by economics, politics, and other factors, re$pect comes with expertise, and given that building is such a complex and expensive investment, we would need to show clients that we are experts in many things... The problem may be that architects are seen by the general public as designing buildings that only only "look better", but may not necessarily "work better"...
just wanted to check on something here since it has been touched on a number of times...
generally we seem to agree sprawl is killing our built environment, along with big box developments with massive parking lot seas. how many of you still shop at said big box stores though? how many of you don't? how many of us live in the suburbs? how many of us don't?
i am sure some of us don't contribute to these, but if the entire architectural community stayed away from these environments (talking use here, not building), would it even make a difference being that we are such a small portion of the population?
i personally try to stay away from walmart, target, kohl's, etc (still can't bring myself to go to the IKEA that just opened here in Atlanta), but i am always going for fast food at places like mcdonalds. there are even times when i can't seem to find anything but these plopped in places of "convenience". is it even possible to completely stay away from these types of places?
it's very hard.
my campaign-of-one to not go to big box stores and starbucks is fairly consistently undermined by my wife's position that walmart is cheaper and that she likes starbucks chai. my argument that we're ALL PAYING for walmart to be cheaper is met with a roll of the eyes.
I'm often met with the same rolling of eyes when expressing my feelings that these McDonald's and Wal-marts springing up all over are not only damaging our small town and global economies, but speeding the sprawl and homogenization of our built environment. Eric Schlosser argues this rather convincingly in his book Fast Food Nation. It's frustrating, but it seems that people do not want to take personal responsibility for this.
Please do not let this post die until this problem is solved (HAHAHAHAHA: it would annihilate per and his fancy graphics thread).
Recently out of school and trying to find a job I became more aware of the general populations idea of architect. My uncle said, "oh yeah, I know an architect, they're hiring, i'll see if i can get you an interview" No, you know a design/build firm that does strip malls.
My quasi-bohemian aspirations and disillusionment with modern culture, coupled with the gaping black hole in the existence of the type of arch firm i imagined myself working at has led me to wonder what all of 'us' do with our lives. 'Us' being the aggressive, forward thinking, norm challenging, thought mongers whose frustrations lead to posts like this.
Do we die penniless and frustrated,
do we break and become those we hate,
do we teach?
the price of something and the cost of something are two different things. It may be cheaper in price to shop in a big box but the cost to the environment, the community, the culture is significant. it depends how you value these items.
remember, there is always someone with a worse job
you know how the default bank space used to be double height?
now it's 10ft ACT
Ignoring material and detail, if you walk a regular person into an old bank, and then walk them into a new bank they know the difference even if they can't articulate it. They "feel" it; we all do. That volume has an effect on how you perceive the institution it houses. It's palpable.
we as architects need to be able to describe that feeling to our clients. then they will pay us because people will understand that architecture has a fundamental effect on all our lives as opposed to being a commodity.
i havent been inside a bank in years.
maybe there are too many architects... imagine the world with clients queing at your door.... yeah that must be it ... too much of us !
again , imagine you were a pilot, air industry. you can go on strike. why architects havent ever been on strike. cause nothing happens ?
the bank itself is irrelevant, vado. maybe i'm dating myself with that example...
the point is the common experience of space is palpable and real to everyone once they try to notice it.
it's a valid place to show value to clients
momentum- where do you draw the line? Are Ralphs, Albertsons, or Fry's ok? What about Macy's, Robinsons-May? Anything that is always or sometimes located in a mall? Almost everyone I know agrees that Walmart is evil, but where is the line between evil and acceptable?
i dont think walmart is the reason that architects have these hangups.why is it that no one ever bashes target?
Influence and gain comes from control, or more specifically, there is a ratio of control to gain. The more you control a situation, the more there is to gain.
Dont forget that over the last 30 years or so, much of an architects role has been usurped by the quantity surveyor, the project manager, the engineer, planning guidelines etc.
So we face two choices, either accept the status quo and resign ourselves to becoming a rather marginalised profession [which also has its benefits of which we are all aware], or find ways to increase the control we can exert on our industry.
oh i regularly bash target, vado.
Damn you target!
see.
rationalist, i thought about where that line is yesterday after i posted that question, and sometimes it is difficult. of course walmart and mcdonalds take the cake when it comes to plopping shitbricks in our landscape (there are many more, but those epitomize this problem for me).
one of the ones that i found difficult was home depot, because what can you expect them to really do? they are a warehouse, but it is still the same big ass box plastered with orange all over it in, and once again a mega parking lot. they still don't care what context they are in, it is all about getting the biggest building and parking lot for the least amount of money.
one of the things that makes me mad is the fact that they will spend the money if they have to, but only when they have to. in arch record this month (pg 68) it shows some examples of stores which have been made to think about design, and they don't look half bad. in fact they are 1000% better than the typical big boxes. why wont they just do this all the time? they have to know it makes for a better environment, which also means more csutomers and better sales. they just don't want to spend the money up front.
where is that line? i don't know, i've got to get some work done, but i will keep thinking about it.
god i hope that was coherent
it all begins with architecture school and the studio model...
i'm married to someone in the third profession listed in that article. apparently we aren't as smart as i thought we were...
oh, I hate Target. They're building a store right by my house (on a hillside 80 feet above the road w/ 20 foot high retaining walls). There's a Lowe's going up on the same site. It's also half a mile from the state's largest elementary school. Bastards! I spent a few late nights at planning board meetings last summer protesting it with about a hundred neighbors.
I think the thing with sprawl is that realistically we can't hope to stop it all together. Unfortunately, there may be a place for this sort of thing in our world. It just needs to be regionalized, not local. We don't need one of these in every town. True, if you need to buy lumber, Home Depot may be the place, but when you just need a hammer, you can go to a local, real hardware store. That's the problem, I think. It's local, but it should be regional. Also, I try to be realistic. I'd rather local coffee shops than Starbuck's, but if they're going into existing buildings in downtowns and doing some redevelopment, i won't complain.
I think Proto's right on. We need to sell ourselves better and show people how much architecture affects them.
While the majority of products bought at Walmart are made cheaper by their strategy of volume and distribution, the majority products bought at Walmart end up in a landfill... (there was an insane stat somewhere, something like 90% of items bought at Walmart end up as landfill within a year...) The problem is also the kind of consumption culture that they encourage but which has already become a deeply ingrained part of middle class suburban lifestyle...
But my personal feeling is that you can't fight development without offering a better alternative... Things change all the time, but if we aren't willing to play the developers game, then all we can do is complain... And we can't start a revolution with just complaints and no balls to put our money where our mouth is... What alternatives to the big box store can we imagine, that are economically competitive while responding to our present day cultural context? Is it a new kind of store, a new idea about infrastructure, or maybe a cost effective idea about regional production and distribution, or something to do with the household, maybe a new way of living related to virtual shopping?
Or maybe this is just about designing better stores? The irony is that most architects complain about how ugly big box stores are, but they would consider it below them to design stores for Walmart or McDonalds themselves...
it's tough to reason and rhyme when we don't actually try to discover the problems with our environment...we just poke at them and talk about them without reading or researching what very smart people are finding about the environment we have built (and trapped ourselves in)
no offense meant to anyone here...but its easy to bitch or speculate...we ought to try learning up on the real problems...
also, there are some interesting things happening with big-box design that we should all be alert to...check out page 68 of the august architectural record...its a small start but at least a start...
um. ok, blazerd. who says we don't actually try to discover the root problems affecting our environment?
the article you linked was nothing new, necessarily, and consistent with what the center for disease control has been saying for the past 3-4 years.
different big-box design is like different fast food design. it can be incrementally better, but it's enabling a much larger problem: big box stores have a direct affect on use of resources (WASTE in the name of better products), economic imbalance, and end runs around national governments and regulation. design is hardly the primary issue.
a little presumptious to suggest that we "just poke and talk about them without...."
is the landfill issue really walmarts fault? actually ive read that walmart has caused a reduction in a manufacturer's amount of packaging so they can put more product out in less space. the fact is we are a comsumer driven/throw away society, which only finds its meaning in material objects. how many computers have you been through? how many tvs? cameras? cell phones? all these products become obsolete in no time and cost more to repair than to replace.
also, for at least the fifth time on this post, real estate development is at the mercy of the accounting methodology known as discounted cash flow, which reasons that a dollar tomorrow will be less than a dollar today, which encourages cheap, quick and tried and true development to maximize return on investment. and makes other types of development much more difficult to finance.
and didnt walmart and starbucks begin as mom and pop stores? mom and pop in this case were just a bit more visionary. personally, ive worked for many mom and pop businesses and they had one thing in common. they all sucked. there were no benefits, there was mandatory working on holidays with no overtime(except for mom and pop of course) and the pay was the lowest of the low. anyway time for a mochalattachaicino. make it a venti. (actually there is no starbucks in my town, talk about a backwater)
Don't fret Vado. I've gotta drive 7.5 minutes to get to a Wal-Mart one way & 7.5 minutes to get to a Starbucks the other way.
I think you make the right case about the 'here-n-now', fat-consumer society we're in. As architects, trained to think in terms of permanece, we just aren't figuring out our place in it.
Either our mode of thinking is out-dated, or we're in the wrong place. As for Wal-Mart, etc - if one doesn't like them - don't shop there. Wal-mart isn't killing Mom-n-Pop, we the consumers are. The last i checked, most archts I know are ravenous consumers. Plus, if wal-mart knocked on most of our doors, yeah, sure, we'd slam it in theri face. Right....
As for Starbucks, I don't like their coffee & can make a better 'Frappucino' @ home for about $4 less than them. But when I do go for coffee, I go to a Mom-n-Pop (actually a 'Pop') shop. For what it's worth, Octane in ATL is my recommendation. 10 stamps on your card & the nest one's free!
Last thing. Architects complaining about sprawl (hey, I think it sucks, too) is contradictory. We're some of the most complicit parties in promoting sprawl. Without building (aka 'sprawl'), we die. My solution - don't design for clients, design for yourself (be your own client). That's my 'easier said than done' statement for the day. However, isn't it easier to do that than to try to change the thinking of billions & billions already served?
well i bought a digital camera finally and went to a mom and pop store. although mom and pop werent there, the young hottie who helped me knew a lot about cameras, plus i received a bunch of extras for free. i also frequent an independent coffee shop which allows me to run a tab which must be over a hundred bucks. also, they're fixin me up on a blind date. no corporation would do that.
Not so fast Mr. Retro,
There's opportunity for a single guy @ Wal-Mart:
Sorry, I guess the 'Clothing Rollback' picture could be construed as generally chauvanist & insensitve to the 'Women of Target'.
actually there are usually some very hot gurls at walmart. the greeters are supersexy usually.
why don't we have a union?
What if architects experienced "desk crits" of thier work from other architects. At my firm, one person usually makes a decision and it is rarely revisited after that. This would eliminate the weakest designers.
What if you pinned up your design, had 3-4 collegues sit around and say: "Looks like a Wheaties box turned on it's side, Jim."
the building of champions.
MM, you make a great point that consumers are the ones who force out mom n pop stores. Wal-Marts, etc merely provide the alternative to these stories. We've got to take some responsibility ourselves as a society (if we do indeed truly wish to change it) and blaming Wal-Mart is really just an easy way out. However, they are not totally blameless. I was reading an article last summer (which I wish I had saved) in the Concord (NH) Monitor about sprawl and it discussed how stores such as Wal-Mart, Target, Lowe's, Home Depot, etc are really regional outlets, but that they choose to build on a local scale, because it helps force out the competition.
The whole issue is very complicated and I don't know the answer at all, myself. I mean, these stores could exist regionally if we were willing to drive to them, but that causes traffic and the traffic back-ups are what seem to make getting to these places such a hassle, so building more of them relieves that traffic, but allowing one usually means others will follow. It's tricky, but I think to a certain extent, we've got to realize these things aren't going away.
Most people aren't as interested in sustainability as many architects are, even though we're nearing peak oil production world-wide and being so wasteful is eventually going to bite us in our collective ass pretty hard. Anyway, perhaps the answer though is trying to convince people to develop these places in better ways. Fewer of them would be good, or at least building them in such a way that they could share parking, etc and form some quasi-pedestrian shopping environment. In a lecture I had last semester, my professor briefly discussed one of these big box retailers that actually built sustainable stores and tried to reduce the sea of asphalt and all that. Perhaps trying to convince people to demand these things of Wal-Mart, etc is the best solution. I'm not sure.
We've got to accept, though, that national chains are here to stay and if we want to help mom n pop deals, we need to patronize them. But these things can co-exist. In downtown Porstmouth, NH there is a Gap and a Starbuck's, but basically everything else is all locally owned and operated. It's a nice mix, and both have their places. Though I can tell you that any of the many local coffee shops have a much better atmosphere (and product) than the Starbuck's and are always much busier. One of the things currently being pushed for by some folks in the redevelopment of downtown Manchester, NH is a large, national retailer (Urban Outfitter, Border's and some others) have been suggested to act as an anchor of sorts in the expanding retail district there, which is currently almost entirely local. I think national chains certainly have their place and they can be helpful, but they have to act as good neighbors. And they won't do it themselves, we have to demand it of them.
Exactly the right point. The herds go to the WaM-Marts & Starbucks. Businesses proviidng something more unique, maybe more value tend to
be the samll businesses, the Mom-N-Pops.
There's a nice town square a few miles from where I live that I have observed for approx 25 yrs. In the lae 70's, it had sole-proprietor clothes stores, a drug store, few restaurants (nothing fancy) & maybe a hardware store. Over time, suburban growth pulled most of these businesses out of the square, or made their location obsolete. But, this town square was well designed, had a consistant workforce, surrounding neighborhoods that remianed places that people wanted to live (although, 'White-Flight' didn't hit this Southern town much) & was just plain pleasant to be at,
The Mom-N-Pop character of this town square is still there, just w/ different businesses. I've travelled around the USA a lot in the last 9 yrs & have seen this theme repeated as long as there was a strong urban core for people to congregate around. Forget any type of 'style' or income level, if a place can provide you a reason to be there, it will thrive no matter what 'Big Box' moves in.
Basically, Mom-N-Pop are always ahead of mega-commerce, but they only remain there if they don't get complacent. Many Mom-N-Pops of the past fell prey to this.
362. Welcome what you can't avoid.
A media blitz- now in such a materialistic world, architecture that would be sought after must show status and wealth that are directly tangible- it must look Bling Bling, not simple or creative or artistic, experimental, whatever- and its bling-bling ness must also be universal- like a Louis Vitton or Mercedes logo, something that makes anyone appreciate its value, instantly.
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