car design thread

Thanks for the tip on this site. It's sad, but instructive.

 

It's just so completely ugly. Who thinks this looks good?!

 

ModernLou, you ain't modern. Modern is what China wants....you(and me) don't count. I don't believe it's for US.

 

Commercial is a different can of worms. There are many more design constraints, which normally results in the use of cheap ugly windows. But, some like Rijk Rietveld (I keep forgetting his FerrariChat name) are doing some wonderful original work. But generally commercial tends to be risk adverse.

Residential is more decentralized. In Texas, you can draw your own plans and only need to get sign offs on things like slab and so on. It is rare to find a residential architects who has actually built homes, so you sometimes get plans that don't work.

Plus, to make residential work, you have to control the entire streetscape. In my company we never built around other builders. We would do the site plan, amenities, and we would orient windows for privacy. You don't want one house to have a patio looking into the neighbors bedroom, for example. We even hired colorists to make the exterior colors work together.

On a house level, the two biggest challenges are ugly car garages and ugly pitched roofs.

 

They're not extinct...they're called architects.

 

I'd call them builders first. This is hands on stuff.

 

Architects design buildings. Builders build them. (yes, there's some crossover, but in most cases, I'd much rather live in a house built by an architect than one designed by a builder)

 

A brilliant critique.
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I've never met an residential architect who was also a builder, just saying.

 

Close, but trying w-a-y too hard.

 

If true... then it's nothing short of developer's greed right there.

A simple fix would be a curved driveway to the right that loops to a garage opening on the right side of the house, or out back. But then, the developer would lose the adjacent lot for erecting another house i.e. lost profits.

 

There have been many of them here in the Chicago area, especially through the end of the '70s. Today they're called "Design + Build" firms where one of the partners is often an architect (although I have also know D+B firms where the builder has a stable of architects they work with, and I'm sure there are some who call themselves D+B but the builder just designs the home him/herself).

 

Pretty much the same in Texas. Because in Texas you don't even need a general contractor license to build homes, it tends to be loosey goosey. Most architects, particularly residential, tend to be "CAD" experts more than anything else. You don't see many actually designing homes, except for plan books.

 

to say that Toyota have lost the plot would be something of an understatement...
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I often wondered why Toyota didn't choose to use an updated version of the 2000GT face on the 86 with the T grille.
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The Chinese think its looks awesome. And Im not being sarcastic. They love this style

 

My understanding of Las Vegas is the builders dictate everything to the architects, unless its a custom one off. This is why everything built over the past 25+ years in Vegas is god-ugly, except for select one offs.

Even multimillion dollar custom homes are hideous because they start with the stock floor plan/designs the builders already have.

It really is a residential architectural nightmare here.

 

Solar Electric? Seems like a nice idea for the Burbs.

"The Extender model starts at $16,000 Euros (reported in 2017) and has a driving range of 110 – 120 miles and can be quick-charged up to 80% in 40 minutes. Charging it up with the power of the sun will take half a day, but since Sono Motors says you can drive it to work for an 8-hour shift, the battery will be fully recharged thanks to the solar cells when you get off."

https://inhabitat.com/sono-motors-unveils-the-14000-sion-solar-powered-car/

https://sonomotors.com/


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The whole "McMansion" thing (including what Kate writes about / makes fun of on mcmansionhell.com) is all because of builders designing homes without an architect, and using cheap, garbage-y materials to do so. It's just so bad.

 

This scaled up a bit!
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Do not forget the influence of the customer as well. MANY customers have horrible taste and ask for terrible designs and don’t want to listen to the designer or architect.

 

Sadly thats what Im stuck with

 

Here's a question for jm2 (if you have time to answer). I just saw this pic posted elsewhere online for the first time today...this is a replica that somebody created in 2009 of Pontiac's 1956 Club de Mer concept car. I read online that the concept, which was non-running, was destroyed by Pontiac in 1958. I was curious why a car company would destroy something like that, especially since there seem to be so many concepts that were stored or displayed carefully by their makers over the years.

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