architectural ideas that persist despite lack of evidence or usefulness
“Taking [the 1920s], and its historic moment in time as a starting point, this conference seeks to explore the past, present and future of how we visualize people, place, cities and life. … It invites filmmakers exploring city representation, architects, urban planners and designers engaged in the visualization of buildings, cities …. and more.” https://amps-research.com/conference/visioning/ […]
For some years now I’ve mistakenly believed that all it takes is 50 sq.m of land to produce the amount of nutrients sufficient to sustain one adult human. I don’t know where that misbelief came from because the figure I now see is a hundred times that at 5,000 sq.m or just a little over […]
Synthesis is the third and last major stage of the design process where it’s all supposed to come together and, as if by magic, it does. It’s where all the explicitly stated problems supposedly solved in some supposedly relevant way by some relevant or worthy “case study” or “precedent” problems find their way into the […]
Identifying and defining the problem in the first stage of this thing called the design process is already loaded with assumptions such as, for one, the need being one an architectural response can satisfy. Already I’m not so keen to use terms such as problem and solution, let alone assume a causal relationship between them. […]
Last year I wrote a foreword for a book on the design process. I won’t be spilling any beans by saying that, however you look at it, it breaks down to the three sub-processes of 1) Identify/define the problem, 2) Decide what buildings, concepts, ideas, tools or techniques you think will be of use in […]
Many years ago, one of my instructors showed the class a slide something like this next image. He must have been making some some point about the uniformity of the facade and, by extension, the lives of the occupants because I remember some receptive classmates making horrified noises. After class, I mentioned to my friend […]
Folding Beijing is a 2012 Chinese science fiction short story by Hao Jingfan in which Beijing is divided into the three districts of First Space where the well-off live, and Second and Third spaces where the less well-off live. First Space people live on one side of the coin, as it were, and that side […]
What is the social cost of architectural fame?
MA: “Let me first thank you, Signor Palladio, for agreeing to this interview. To kick things off, would you like to share with misfits’ readers your thoughts on windows?” AP: “If the windows are made smaller and less numerous than necessary, the rooms will be made gloomy; and if they are made too large the rooms are practically uninhabitable because, since […]
Structural engineers and quantity surveyors have always been core consultants in the building industry but their roles can often be performed by an architect if the job isn’t too large. With large jobs though, the requirements are too great and diverse for any one architect or practice to handle so it’s both inevitable and desirable to have some separation of […]
Learning From Nature introduced aspects of the troubled and confused history of architecture’s relationship with the natural world. The concept of biomimesis was never going to make it any clearer. On reading this, I did bristle at contemporary philosophy and wonder what was meant by sustainability in nature but the rest was good. I approved of the bit about not by replicating […]
“Who needs architecture critics?” was the rhetorical question of the title but, as with most rhetorical questions, the answer wasn’t long forthcoming. We all do, it seems.I might have guessed for, the previous six months, I’d been continually reminded I was missing out on the full value of my subscription. Gradually, these reminders became more closely […]
This is Sneferu Shining in the South Pyramid also known as The Bent Pyramid built circa 2600 BC for Pharoah Snefuru, Priest of Bastet, Guardian of Nekhen, eternal dude. 2,600 BC is a while back. Frankly, no-one has any idea why this pyramid was built the way it was but, people being people, they speculate. […]
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) lived through Impressionism but, rather than taking the delicate play of light upon whatever as the subject for his art, is best known for his graphic paintings and illustrations of people in their working environments. Much of his work was for advertising. This particular poster is from 1891. This next image is possibly the first instance of […]
