But a number of prominent architects and urban planners have been speaking out against the material's overuse. [...] They raise questions about the impact glass structures have on our public spaces and the fabric of our cities. Developers demand floor-to-ceiling windows, abundant natural light and views worth charging tenants for -- but what about the rest of us? — CNN
Architects including Ken Shuttleworth (who worked on The Gherkin) and Alan Ritchie (who co-founded PJAR Architects with Philip Johnson) give their two cents on the issues about the abundant use of glass in skyscrapers, from energy efficiency to their uninviting appearance — and yes, that one time the 20 Fenchurch Street building partially melted a car.
"It makes sense to put glass if you've got a nice view, and it makes sense to put glass at the top to let daylight in. But it doesn't make much sense to put glass at the bottom where there's no view and a limited amount of daylight penetration. It's just about being sensible," Ken Shuttleworth tells CNN.
3 Comments
so bad it's good
As an (architectural) voyeur I like glass towers and to see what's going on inside them from the street or from inside the other glass tower across.
"Assemblies of glass towers ... suggest a disdain for the civic and communal aspects of urban living...We're working on a building now in (New York's) Upper East Side that has planes leaning, tilting in and tilting out. We try to give them a profile, so it's not just a big, flat facade. You create more of a texture, or a pattern, and create shadow lines."
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