I originally posted this to tweak the architects around here. As a builder, my pet peeve about designers is when they don't have a clue who their customer might be, or, worse yet, don't care. In fact, the main problem with many new urbanists is that traditional designs bore them and they try to put a new riff on an old theme and it doesn't work. Picture the standard Wal Mart shopping center. You put the box on the back of the track with a huge parking lot out front. Not a pretty sight, huh? Now picture moving the box all the way up to the road and having a traditional row brick and mortar elevation (even though it is still one big box). The parking goes in the back. The result looks like an old time main street. Much better, no? But in the picture below, both parts of this building are ugly. Put together, it equals a bad trip. Dale
No nibbles? Come on, I know there are a few of you out there. And yes, I picked a really bad example. But let's have a little back and forth on the interaction between designers and end users. Here's the crux of the problem as I see it. It is a rare customer who knows exactly what they want because they cannot articulate what they see in their mind. Designers on the other hand are control freaks. They know exactly what they want, and it frustrates them to no end that the customer doesn't see it. What say ye? Dale
here's another eye sore ....Inntel Hotel Amsterdam, Zaandam, WAM architecten Image Unavailable, Please Login
I admit to not being good at visualization. I'd just find someone with a track record doing things I liked and tell him to have at it.
You and me both. There is no question that some designers can see around corners and in 3D. They can "see" how the finished pieces will look. They can also "see" how human beings will interact with the final design. Good design is much more than cliches such as the kitchen triangle and having two-dimensional light. Dale PS a good designer would have never agreed to do the projects on this thread.
I can do as you describe. "Good designer" is highly subjective. Projects here are realizations of architectural school trends and attitudes hardwired into students by profs existing in an alternate reality, these realizations made possible by clients rich and crazy enough to fund them and public regulations permissive enough to allow them. When I was in arch school mid 1970s profs immersed in the socialist philosophy that underpinned the original modern movement commonly dominated the faculties of all architectural schools; one outgrowth of that situation was the idea that ugly is good if it serves the larger cause. Not to knock modernism as a whole though - a trend to work that carries the pure modernist aesthetic and structural philosophies to greater and greater innovation and heights has picked up speed and is now snowballing. A wonderful thing to observe. I toed the line while in school in order to make good grades and graduate; once out I hooked into the classical/traditional revival that began late 70s and spent entire career there.
i'm a contractor too, but have always been keenly interested in design, with some architecture and design study one thing that i find, though reading through various classical and modern architecture materials now is, that nothing has caught my attention as tastefully revolutionary for a few decades the post-modern look is fairly common now, we even build paired infills with this similar style and finishing i'm not really impressed with the crumpled paper look of late, nor size simply for sake of scale, nor "theme" buildings, some are just cartoon-ish like the ones ^^^ posted prior i actually find FLW design refreshing as i study photos and drawings, odd to say but true as primarily a reno contractor, i'm benefit from being able to visualize, describe and even draw out for clients how something will look, and explain how that something, can or cant be built in a certain way, a few times to the project management why their design is either not feasible, or simply costly for a better option
Just to be clear, my expertise is on the money side, not the soft stuff. However, I have been very fortunate to work with designers who could really SEE how people live. This why, I believe, the classic stuff works so well. It evolved over 100s of years and 100s of mistakes, such as not building alleys in Manhattan. I first got the joke when I stayed in old Rome about 10 years ago. At first, coming from a suburban, edge-city, environment, I hated it. But due to a change in travel plans, we had to stay over a few days, and I finally got it. Old Rome was built for people, not cars. It was built to reflect how people lived. Compare that to trying to build in any major urban area today. The car rules alone are a major PIA. You know most of his home leaked, yes? Ol' Frank could do some neat stuff, but he didn't understand that you can't stop water. You can only suggest that it flow from one place to the next. I'm not sure what a reno contractor is, renovation? If so, my heart is out to you. Having to fix flawed designs and construction is not easy work. It was bad enough in new home construction when you get the call from the field saying that the framer is refusing to do it according to the drawings because he says it won't work. Most times, though, the framer was right, not our licensed architect. Dale
true, and some cities are all the worse for it, i'm not a fan of suburban sprawl LOL true, his pride & belief that his designs were without flaw, did lend to some inherent issues like that i look over some new modern home designs, and then in my study of his design, i'm intrigued by his sense of scale in proportion, and "feel" of a space designed to be the correct scale for that effect yes, renovations, we have done a few exterior renos, mostly just interior now, lots of condo buildings primarily i started in with my late uncles custom home biz, building estate size homes on the citys outskirts, so pretty much have been-there-done-that ....i recall more than a few nearly fist-fights between him, architect & client on occasion over similar type issues
posted these two before but they fit, they first only to see it in it´s enviroment Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
That's reflected in demand...for Dallas, I estimate about 20 to 1 in favor of traditional styles for residential houses. I greatly admire the design and structural ingenuity, skill and precision required for construction, and client/architect/builder teamwork behind much current modernist work, but such is difficult to live in on a day to day basis and also quite expensive to design and build properly. It's like the house sets the rules and the owner lives within them, rather than the more comfortable way around. I spent several days each in central Rome and London 15 years ago - urban environments that came into being millenia before cars did.
