The tech sector is, increasingly, embracing the language of urban planning — town hall, public square, civic hackathons, community engagement. So why are tech companies such bad urbanists?
— nytimes.com
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Frank Gehry' s Facebook HQ and Norman Foster's Apple ring are attempts at this - to build a functioning urban environment or just re-invent a corporate business park
per the article, thayer, it sounds like the issue is often policy, not design. there's not much design can do if a storefront/"community" amenity is included but then secured for private use.
[i know, your comment wasn't really about the article. you just wanted to take yet another swipe at the work of other architects. the profession is doing so well, we all need to be brought down a few notches. carry on.]
Exactly what Steven said. This isn't about architects, it's about corporations making decisions that have enormous impact on urban space, but governments being so focused on landing the big business that they ignore the horrid impact on the built world.
An example here in Indy is a new parking garage going up downtown, built by one (insurance?) company, that received a cheerful variance from the downtown Design Guidelines that require retail space on the ground floor. Instead we'll get an entire block of car butts against the sidewalk behind a blank 3' tall sloping concrete screen wall. The people spoke out against it and demanded the City follow their own guidelines, but the business won.
But the examples in the article are also great reasons why architects should not just practice architecture but also be involved in any business that is responsible for building infrastructure - we need thousands more in-house architects in this country (like me) working within larger companies and institutions thinking about overall wholistic urbanism within the built environment.
No doubt that some of the programs given to these architects are for campus like enclaves. And unlike Steve Job's space ship, many are getting with the program and moving thier suburban campuses into the city. But if you want to design good urbanism, you should hire a good urbanist architect, and the starchitects that Archinect prefers promote specialize in dazzling object buildings, not good urbanism.
When New Urbanism first appeared, it wasn't becasue the big bad corporate clients asked for good urbanism, it's becasue they where convinced by architects and planners who understood that good urbanism wasn't depencant on slick buildings but on good street design and programing. It's because they where shown that theres money in building a community people want to be in. And now that cities are all the rage, where are the New Urbanists architects on this site? They are ridiculled or ignored becasue of their aesthetics while all they've done to revive urbanism goes unsung. So tell me more about how I slag my own profession. Tell me I'm unpatriotic when I criticize the profession for having it's head stuck in the sand while the world needs good urbanism more than ever. I'm sorry I can't cheerlead this parade of object buildings that while often spectacular, tend not to add anything to the public realsm.
The tech sector’s embrace of urbanist lingua franca and its enthusiasm to engage with urban problems is awesome, and much welcomed. But these folks need to become better urbanists.
Like the article said, they need to become better urbanists. My response was they should approach archtiects who do better urbanism. Considering the tech people are smart, the question becomes 'why don't they?' Remember that when I try to solve that riddle, I do it out of hatred for my profession. You got me Steve, and I got you.
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Frank Gehry' s Facebook HQ and Norman Foster's Apple ring are attempts at this - to build a functioning urban environment or just re-invent a corporate business park
Because the architects they hire don't do urbanism, they do object buildings.
per the article, thayer, it sounds like the issue is often policy, not design. there's not much design can do if a storefront/"community" amenity is included but then secured for private use.
[i know, your comment wasn't really about the article. you just wanted to take yet another swipe at the work of other architects. the profession is doing so well, we all need to be brought down a few notches. carry on.]
Exactly what Steven said. This isn't about architects, it's about corporations making decisions that have enormous impact on urban space, but governments being so focused on landing the big business that they ignore the horrid impact on the built world.
An example here in Indy is a new parking garage going up downtown, built by one (insurance?) company, that received a cheerful variance from the downtown Design Guidelines that require retail space on the ground floor. Instead we'll get an entire block of car butts against the sidewalk behind a blank 3' tall sloping concrete screen wall. The people spoke out against it and demanded the City follow their own guidelines, but the business won.
But the examples in the article are also great reasons why architects should not just practice architecture but also be involved in any business that is responsible for building infrastructure - we need thousands more in-house architects in this country (like me) working within larger companies and institutions thinking about overall wholistic urbanism within the built environment.
No doubt that some of the programs given to these architects are for campus like enclaves. And unlike Steve Job's space ship, many are getting with the program and moving thier suburban campuses into the city. But if you want to design good urbanism, you should hire a good urbanist architect, and the starchitects that Archinect prefers promote specialize in dazzling object buildings, not good urbanism.
When New Urbanism first appeared, it wasn't becasue the big bad corporate clients asked for good urbanism, it's becasue they where convinced by architects and planners who understood that good urbanism wasn't depencant on slick buildings but on good street design and programing. It's because they where shown that theres money in building a community people want to be in. And now that cities are all the rage, where are the New Urbanists architects on this site? They are ridiculled or ignored becasue of their aesthetics while all they've done to revive urbanism goes unsung. So tell me more about how I slag my own profession. Tell me I'm unpatriotic when I criticize the profession for having it's head stuck in the sand while the world needs good urbanism more than ever. I'm sorry I can't cheerlead this parade of object buildings that while often spectacular, tend not to add anything to the public realsm.
The tech sector’s embrace of urbanist lingua franca and its enthusiasm to engage with urban problems is awesome, and much welcomed. But these folks need to become better urbanists.
Like the article said, they need to become better urbanists. My response was they should approach archtiects who do better urbanism. Considering the tech people are smart, the question becomes 'why don't they?' Remember that when I try to solve that riddle, I do it out of hatred for my profession. You got me Steve, and I got you.
why create NEW old buildings?
That's a great question steve. Why create New old urbanism?
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