Because the repetitive patterns of urban architecture break the rule of nature, it is more difficult for the human brain to process them efficiently. [...] over the last 100 years, the design of buildings has been departing further and further from the rule of nature; more and more stripes appear decade by decade, making the buildings less and less comfortable to look at. — CNN
43 Comments
Yet another empirical study underlining the importance of beauty and the banality of so much modern design. But will cutting edge universities pay attention or will these findings be ignored along with all the other evidence?
You can already create infinite variations or mimic nature whatever with "cutting edge" technology AND make it affordable to produce using other "cutting edge" tools. That's all those "cutting edge universities" are doing, no simple/banal repetition there but variation, scripts and expressions!
...or something.
design? it's a sausage factory spewing these blocks, don't give so much credit to what you can do with money and concrete.
and on the university comment, How do you think you get to build something like that? 3 months after your bachelors? the problem is not academia, is greed and disdain for everybody else.
All these studies seem to forget the economics of building; most architects want to design buildings that are pleasing to the eye / non-headache inducing... Its just our clients don't want to pay to have them built, or something...
“Perhaps, it is time for the rule of nature to be incorporated into the software that is used to design buildings and offices”.
The new must have app! It's amazing that something so innate can be so foreign to those who are charged with our built environment. We really do beat the joy out of our young architects.
Was the dead horse you flog around here once an architecture student?
Have you been to a crit lately? There's a whole science of human perception that has no impact on academia today. If that's a dead horse, we clearly have different expectations of our best schools. Anti-science in a liberal pluralistic world indeed .
"bonafide sciences such as physics and chemistry but pseudo-science like psychology" - say no more.
This is not cutting edge? Who knew?
If by 'cutting edge' you mean what you'll need want after living in that hell scape? then yes. Science tells us this is the shittiest environment we can build, but we'd rather stare at the latest shiny object. What's BIG have on tap for us and does it come in different sizes :? Now is the time on the show that we dance.
You seem to think that simply because your old saw and this study are humming in harmony that your neoclassical and pomo aesthetic proclivities are validated .
You seem to think that someone's aesthetic proclivities need to be validated.
When that someone is making decisions for thousands of people, you're damned right they need to be validated.
Look at all those pedestrians walkin' about!
capitalism invented nature. so it can destroy it.
Or, here is Plan B if you think Corbusier's Paris plan was Pruitt-Igoe on steroids and quite insane.
Even without trees, it's a delight!
Fantastic, for sure. But even with our vaunted technology we cannot create even a pale imitation. Give me a brutalist facade over a bullshit Dryvit every day of the week. If we aren't going to do this right, I'm not interested in Disneyfied crap.
Why would you want a brutalist concrete façade over the elements pictured in the two photographs immediately above? Brutalism is nearing 100 years old and doesn't work any better now than when introduced.
I think the point was that [EVEN!] Brutalism is preferrable to the "Disneyfied" pastiche faux-revival of classical styles.
These Paris street scenes at least least go back to Baron Hausmann in the 1850s. You don't have to copy anything literally to be aware of the human scale and how all the many elements work together to make a pleasing, attractive Parisian neighborhood. Dragging Disney into it because he literally copied something that worked seems pointless.
duany, not disney, copied and it doesn't work but for the few. All open air malls with this type of "streetscape" are a sad sight now. if only we could get rid of "trends" and "revivals" and just work what's right for the place and time, but hey, developers and marketing departments!
Getting rid of trends and revivals? Ok. Imagine thinking that reviving a style to harmonize with an existing setting was less important than building for 'what's right for the place and time." Wait, that's how we got in the mess we're in. If you want to improve those 'streetscapes'...First: Incentivize pedestrian and transit oriented urbanism Second: Teach the lessons of harmonious beauty that have guided architects until the rise of modernism. Till then, it's all polemics as they say in academia.
Wonderful 21st century architecture!
I'm not sure those two examples are supporting the theory that throwback styles are the reason neighborhoods succeed. The carcentric scale of the street and the pathetic monopaved pedestrian zones make the human scaled facades look even more out of place.
Human scaled facades. That's all we're talking about. Regardless of how screwed up the hardscape of urbanism might be, these buildings are scaled and detailed for the pedestrian. There's detailing, patterning, scale and a unity within variety that is the equivalent of a piece of well composed music, rather than these grided modernist facades of a single screeching note. People's reactions to these environments can now be measured, if thousands of years of empirical evidence doesn't cut it .
That's never been "all" you're talking about, so spare me the protestations. If "all" you want is human scale facades, I wouldn't be discussing this with you. Do you believe that contemporary design is capable of creating human-scale facades? What is the root cause of the problem in your view? I don't think it's human-scaled facades. No, that's not "all" you're talking about, but it'll seem like a cheap win right here, for sure.
My example was ironic ;)
Wonderful 18th century architecture, sans sea of asphalt and concrete.
Yeah. That windswept high maintenance grass area (bad for the environment) is empty. Was when I was there too. Nice park next door though. Guess the people who can afford it
the plebs off the lawn.
*can keep the plebs off the lawn
Windswept? In Somerset? You may be thinking of the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. If the small 400 by 180 foot lawn shown is "bad for the environment" what do you call the adjoining 57 acre Victoria Park that is managed by the city for all the residents?
at least try to be contextual.
Love that part of Hongkong.
OK
NOT OK
Think that's quite a nice project by Ban actually: http://retaildesignblog.net/2014/09/13/aspen-art-museum-by-shigeru-ban-architects-aspen-colorado/
the building is just ok for its function btw, not a great museum space - but it's definitely bad on its relation to the street. Just like the new white elephant in LA with great parametric facade, I forgot the name. beautiful turtles.
I am not getting headaches from looking at buildings. Also, CNN is trash.
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