The Observer critic further continued his contrasting of Foster + Partner’s failed Tulip Tower with the Munger Hall development in California, claiming that each was the vanity project of a wayward billionaire. 

“Both projects seem driven by ego, but in the wide space between the brutal functionalism of the latter and the redundant gesturing of the former, you might hope to find places where beauty is put in the service of the usual and unusual needs of human life.”

Moore also commended the push for more adaptive reuse projects in cities while recognizing the rise of mass timber as a step in the right direction. He didn’t share the same opinion, however, about biophilic design enhancements, which are increasingly perfunctory marketing gimmicks. 

“The idea was to say something or other about the importance of having nature in cities, but any suspicion that these projects were, like the Tulip, a teeny bit gestural was resoundingly confirmed by the contrast between the lush landscape that publicity images promised for the mound and the bedraggled reality.”