#architectural design plans

[remash]

möbius house ~ unstudio | photos © as noted

[arc-hus]

Mountain House, Susono, Japan - Toshiaki Ishida

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[archiveofaffinities]

Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Murphy, Levy, Wurman (Denise Scott Brown, partner-in-charge), The City Edges Planning Study, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1973

[juliaknz]

RINO LEVI ARQUITETOS ASSOCIADOS FIESP BUILDING, 1979 São Paulo, Brazil Image © Edifício Fiesp

[newyorkthegoldenage]

The first architectural rendering of the future Rockefeller Center (then called Metropolitan or Radio City) was revealed on March 6, 1931.

The press was not kind. "The crux of the problem is that Radio City is ugly," wrote the Herald Tribune. "The exterior is hideously dull and ugly." The Times referred to its "architectural fallacies and horrors." The central feature of the design, a circular structure to house Chase National Bank, was called an "oil drum."

The architects were sent back to the drawing board, with Raymond Hood now advising. He opened up the campus, which had had a lot of buildings crammed into a small space, replaced the brick with limestone, and scrapped the oil drum. He also added rooftop gardens to several buildings and placed a fountain in the sunken plaza.

Photo: istoriadelosrascacielosdenuevayork

[atlurbanist]

Bland buildings are less offensive when they're part of an overall great urbanism

Something occurred to me while walking around Paris last week during a vacation visit...

If you zoom in on average Paris buildings, many resemble the apartments that often get pegged as being "cookie cutter, soulless density" in Atlanta. They may not be exactly as bland as the worst offenders in Atlanta, but they can be pretty dull in themselves, relative to the grandest architecture in the city.

But when you zoom out to their full context, to see how they're grouped closely together against pedestrian-focused streets, with shops on bottom, they look glorious.

This is the physical aspect of good urbanism that matters so much.

It's about creating public streets scaled primarily toward the movement of humans, and less toward the movement and parking of cars.

It's about streets where many things are in walkable distance, and where the doors and windows of buildings are politely close to pedestrians instead of being set back behind unused landscaping or parking spaces (though if I was rebuilding Paris, I'd definitely leave some room for more street trees).

Of course, individual buildings that are set back from the street in less pedestrian-oriented formats can be beautiful and beloved in themselves.

But in terms of scaling large populations upward in a way that sustains walking (versus car dependency), prioritizing compact density is important. And in the process, bland architecture is more forgivable because the aesthetic of the larger place is what's most important.

It's a challenging argument to make because I realize that Atlanta's dullest architecture is much more offensive than the bottom rung of what you find in Paris.

But in a classic European city where there's a lot of really grand, elegant, detailed architecture (much more so than what we have in Atlanta), the ones I posted here count as what I'll call "bland background buildings" by comparison.

It's only when you crop it specifically into pieces that you can see "oh, this building doesn't particularly stand out in terms of architectural details, but the entirety of the street is gorgeous anyway," and that's because of the overall structural urbanism happening.

I think there's a lesson for Atlanta in that. Yes, there's value in improving some details of our dull architecture. But the most important improvement in our design needs to happen at the level of streets and neighborhoods.

[ruleof3]

[1five1two]

Heerhugowaard, Netherlands.

[keepingitneutral]

“Lafage,” Saint-Beauzile, Tarn, France,

Plan Comun

[ostrasvictoria]

Perfect breakfast (chees sandwich + pumpkin latte)☕️👌🏼🤍

24.11.2023

My busy day :

making building plans

visiting the construction site

meeting with the client

🤍🩶🤍🩶🤍🩶🤍🩶🤍🤍🩶

[yinlotus]

architecture, engineering, interior design, urban design, and urban planning — my beloveds

[arc-hus]

Daubeney Road, London - Al-Jawad Pike

[archiveofaffinities]

Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Murphy, Levy, Wurman (Denise Scott Brown, partner-in-charge) The City Edges Planning Study, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1973

[toyastales]

A colorful courtyard. I love the swing.

[vox-anglosphere]

The fabulous Queen Mother Square in Poundbury, Dorset

Classic architecture is being revived on the edge of Dorchester, UK