Tag Archives: design

Architectural Myopia: Designing for Industry, Not People

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In the last half-century, the clear result of “architectural myopia” is buildings whose makers have been so concerned with the drama of their appearance that they fail on the most fundamental human criteria. They isolate people; they do not provide enough light; or provide a poor quality of light; they provide a hostile pedestrian environment at their edges; they cause excessive shade; or create winds in what is known as a “canyon effect”; or they trap pollutants in the “sick building syndrome”; they use resources wastefully; etc. Moreover, the buildings themselves are a wasteful use of resources, because they are not likely to be well-loved, cared for, repaired, modified, and re-used over many years. In short, it is not just that people find them ugly, but they represent a fundamentally unsustainable way of building human environments.

[Link to Architectural Myopia: Designing for Industry, Not People]

Design a Fix for the Housing Market

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Recent efforts to fix the housing market — including Thursday’s $26 billion settlement with five of the nation’s biggest banks — have focused purely on the financial aspects of the slump. A permanent solution, however, must go further than money to address issues that have been at the core of the crisis but have been wholly ignored: design and urban planning.

[Link to Design a Fix for the Housing Market]

Why Portland’s Public Toilets Succeeded Where Others Failed

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For the residents of Portland, Ore., taking a whiz in a public toilet is not just a matter of necessity. It’s an act of civic pride.

That’s because the city is home to the Portland Loo, a unique, patented outdoor bathroom that inspires such worship in its fanbase you’d think that Steve Jobs himself had designed it. This adoration comes despite the fact that the 24-hour loo was built to be as inhospitable as possible. This toilet does not want to be loved, but in Portland, it is No. 1 (and, presumably, sometimes No. 2 as well).

[Source: The Atlantic Cities]

The design definitely solves most problems that plague the public toilet.

Frank Lloyd Wright Did Care

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A Wright house isn’t a build­ing, it’s a philo­soph­i­cal text about fam­ily, nature and land­scape. An inglenook is impor­tant — it draws fam­ily and friends into con­ver­sa­tions. Views into the sur­round­ing land­scape are impor­tant — they con­nect us to nature An Apple prod­uct isn’t about but­tons and screens, it’s about elim­i­nat­ing bar­ri­ers between the user and what the user chooses to care about when using the device.

The proof that Frank Lloyd Wright cared is that he sold houses in every decade from the 1890s to 1960s. The proof that Steve Jobs cared is not found in the fact that Apples sells mil­lions of prod­ucts, but that Apple sells mil­lions of its prod­ucts to peo­ple who already own Apple prod­ucts.

[Link to Frank Lloyd Wright Did Care]

Norman Foster and Steve Jobs

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But the culture of Foster and Partners (as it was then called) was different from firms in Silicon Valley with one notable exception – Apple, the place that combined geek business inventiveness without its reputation for poor aesthetic sensibility. Perfecting the model of selling design that is compatible with big business, Foster simultaneously grew one of the largest architecture practices in the world while still winning awards for design excellence. The secret was to design buildings like the limited edition, invite only Porsches that Foster drove and fellow Porsche drivers would commission them.

More alike than you would imagine.

[Link to Norman Foster and Steve Jobs]

The Earthscraper

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Build the other way

The Earthscraper, designed by BNKR Arquitectura, is the Skyscraper’s antagonist in the historic urban landscape of Mexico City where the latter is condemned and the preservation of the built environment is the paramount ambition. It preserves the iconic presence of the city square and the existing hierarchy of the buildings that surround it.

[Link to The Earthscraper]