Wow, you're almost famous!

so close!

which (to keep this thread on topic) i ride that El every day. and every day I can literally watch the neighborhoods get nicer and nicer as the train gets closer to center city. And every day on my way home I can watch as the nicer dressed people get off the blue line before 2nd street while the histers and the artists (the pauper chic) are on their till girard at the latest. then it's just me and a half dozen people whos eyes are so heavy from work they can barely get off the train at the right stop, and the second you get off at allegheny, your hit full force with noise. the noise of a car with too much bass driving by, the noise of the police gathered around any intersection you pass, or the noice of players the "hottest" strip club in town. with a giant flashing arrow pointing to the door and a slew of prostitutes hanging around outside. This is more than an architectural problem, this is more than a urban planning problem. It's a societal problem in reality, but ou rjobs as architects are to help shape this society, or at least those aspects of society we can reach.

I say all this but in reality, I love my neighborhood. I dont think i can fall asleep anymore without the sounds of kids out way too late, police sirens going by in the distance or an imprompou fireworks display at 3 in the morning. . .in the middle of february. I spent my youth in the suburbs and never once did I get that feeling of home like I do when I walk home at night now. Are nice houses and "safe" streets something that needs to be sacrificed to make a neighborhood feel so alive?

My first trip to Philly, I got lost on Allegheny with my mom and grandmother. We were looking for Philladelphia Univ. we did finally find it.

"Are nice houses and "safe" streets something that needs to be sacrificed to make a neighborhood feel so alive?"

I know what you mean by that, but I think the answer is "no." I think it is something more fundamental that has incidentally made that environment unsafe or not particularly "attractive" in the contemporary main-stream sense of the word. Incidentally, I currently live in a row house apartment in Philly that some of my family members that live in the suburbs see as "ugly." Stairway is too narrow, the floors off-level, the hardwood floors creaky and irregular, the paint is chipping. The exposed brick has a large spot that looks as if someone put black paint in his/her mouth and spit it out and the exposed roof rafters that support exposed slate (how and why? I have no idea) has a very irregular "pattern" and there is a light curvature in them that appears structurally un-sound. I enjoy its ugliness. As I always say, there is something beautiful about something ugly, and something ugly about something beautiful.

Lets talk about the ugly aesthetic!

an architects version is always the inverse - safe houses & nice streets.

btw I thought nice was only to be used to refer to food, architecturally speaking that is

kristin - what's that in your hair?

kristin is fine- architectually shpeaking.

lol

plus it keeps the aliens at bay! and the government!!!

i think slums are beautiful, but is that just because i am from the suburbs/middle-of-nowhere? Is beauty in the unknown?

I don't know that its Beauty in the unknown. I am from a small town, and I never liked the "slums." Makes me feel uncomfortable and a little on edge.

There is something about dilapidation though. Buildings in ruin in what I perceive as safer areas, such as small downtown buildings from the 50s, or houses in fields, I do find beautiful. Maybe we as Architects never got away from the Sublime period. Maybe it is just a fascination with Ruin and the passing of Time.

bump

I can't believe after I posted that pic of Philly (I think I image-googled "Philly slum") I never came back to this thread to read your beautiful description above, quixotica, of your El ride every day! That was lovely.

alright, isn't that new robert A.M. stern building going up near columbus circle in NYC ugly? Or is it just me?

I recently heard a rumor that RAMStern charges a $100,000 consultation fee just to talk to you about doing your house.

Vicious rumor, that's all - carry on. So the building near the Columbus Circle is ugly, you say?

Thanks lb. Praise from you is sweet indeed.

yeah, stern's bldg at columbus circle has some strange details (like some 3-4' railings in front of floor-to-ceiling windows). I took a look the other day and a railing on a very high terrace was leaning out over the street, waiting to fall off. regardless of placement, these railings are ugly.

the only pic i could find on such short notice:

I am 1/2 good lookin girl and 1/2 good lookin guy

its hard having a conversation with ourselves ;p

here's another building they're putting up in my 'hood. I can't decide wether to like it or hate it:

apu is there a square in front of that building? It seems to have a convex appearance to it

durell stone is rolling in his grave

I wonder if the work I did today was any more beneficial to me, or the rest of the world, than this?

tumbleweed/kristin - care to link to that tshirt? I can't quite remember where i've seen it before, but I love it!

bump!!!

vado...for now, i will continue with my stubborn understanding that this entire forum was created fro architectural topics!

I saw Oldboy a couple weeks ago. That shit was whack.

yeah simples, but most folks don't seem to want to talk architecture.

So is anyone else here interested in Landscape Urbanism, or is that fated to go the way of New Urbanism?

would social responsibility in design with regards to sustainability be at the forefront of so many initiatives right now if the price of oil was lower? I think this that has the most serious economic impact on our actions. Not to say this is bad, either, because I think this measure of responsibility is important. It just begs the question: is Landscape Urbanism, and sustainable design in general, reactionary? I say yes. Can you read this in the design, removed from the intent and the context? I wonder...

the thing is though, any kind of "Urbanist" movement, while reactionary takes a long time to bring into practice and by that time it has to evolve into something else. I also agree, that if oil prices were still at their 2000 levels, people would definately not care as much about sustainablity. Climate change/global warming had been a scientific fact for decades before the 00s hit and only know with gas prices becoming so high is the public imagination in the U.S. becoming captured buy it.