I’m about to finish my first semester of my Architecture program, and I feel very strongly about the following sentiment: Architect’s seem willing to sacrifice the human element and creating thoughtful designs, in an effort to create something new, abstract, or almost try to create something that is almost an impression of a building (thinking of the entry from a few episodes back, where you called it a cake with translucent icing). Im interested in design that is fitting, and appropriate for the context in which it’s in, not some of these designs that look like a children toy was melted down, reformed with a few spherical and rectangular shapes, and plopped down with a glass facade wrapped around it. Let’s create thoughtful and meaningful design!
Your discussion about buildings looking too sci-fi/ abstract were very interesting! I’d be so interested in a series of architect reviews on movie sci-fi buildings or concept design!
84 is so frustrating. They obviously had a great idea with the light gallery space and the heavy core, but it just gets kind of lost along the way. (Even if curation needs a way to deal with the whole light-situation ofc...) Maybe the light gallery space could have adapted to the form of the context, while the heavy core is just a platonic body. That simplicity might also give space to the colour, which right now just feels a little overpowering. For me, the basis of the project seems very convincing.
I agree, this one could have been really good! They nailed it with the diagram on page 1 then i think they started to develop it in more detail with the area program. All of a sudden the massing starts to swell and they are chasing their tails trying to resolve the exterior, it's a shame because I really liked parts of this one!
#83 Translucent high fantasy cake #84 “Night club media centre” #85 “Boats on top of boats” #86 nope wave #87 yet another stair #88 STAIRS but make it dystopian #89 “Sharp and pointy” with big stair #90 “it’s okay”
I'm so tired of stairs to nowhere. Either everyone is a giant fan of Chaldean observatories, or every kid saw the height difference and had exactly one answer to "diagonal building element". *81* Honestly, if the final form looked like the discovery sketch and was like 15m tall, I would have been prepared to overlook that building a giant shipwreck is an insult to the very notion of a harbour. The street view suggestion is this is ground+3 floors and taller than the buildings across the street. Then I count floors on those buildings and.. holy ceiling height. The polygonal office volume with the diffuse glass is interesting. *82* From a distance this will look, depending on texture, either like an overpriced kitchen appliance or a bunker. It gets a lot better when you can see the ground floor, but that overhanging glass - are you building slanted sliding doors and shooing away people trying to sit on it? I may be hitting a language / knowledge barrier, but how is that façade ventilated as the text suggests? At this point I'm relieved that the atrium forces actual rooms and gates, although the uniform scale will be a bit of an issue *83* That's a really nice model (sketch?) and I wish the full render had this interest in colour and different degrees of opacity. The chimney things look a bit excessive, but the palatial form in general is a crowd pleaser (pleasing the crowd is still allowed right?). The section makes sense. The curtains carry on the focus on soft, translucent borders. And yet I have trouble taking it seriously. For a project like this, I need to understand what it's made of and how it's layered more than most, because the success of its poetry hinges on that. But I look at that japandi interior with the non-obviously fastened ginormous wood members and slight glazing frames, and I get the sense that the engineers and contractors would need to fill in too much. *84* There's interviews from the Guggenheim curators that explain all the stupid things they have to do to make the paintings not look distractingly wonky and make statues and displays stable. Here we're adding external light from possibly iridiscent glass? I'm OK with it as circulation space, that rendering suggesting it's usable as gallery space annoys me. The exterior curtain is of course intriguing - is it meant to be scratched acrylic π's? But every interior looks barren, inhospitable and inhumanely scaled. It projects power and contempt, and no amount of Palo Alto dressing or formal cleverness moves me past that. *85* Business at the bottom, party at the top. There's a lot of practical thought put into the rectangular core, and then it wears a silly hat on top. Well, at least it wasn't just a drawing exercise for them, but it does look desperate. *86* The exterior is lazy, but it will make for a cute meme picture when it BSODs or is hacked to broadcast Russian propaganda. The interior is just noise, but I appreciate somebody injecting saturated color in this series of very demure, very mindful palettes. *87* OK, this is the most pleasant of the stairway to nowhere buildings, partly because they feel comfortable breaking up the volume and not having a single grand gesture or idea. I do think the curvy section left of the steps needs work. The interior works for me in the same laid back way (until I fixate on the interior giant staircase right next to the exterior one and then hate everything). *88* .. and this is the worst. I feel the need to stick a hammer and sickle and some red flags up there, it's so agressively retro. The best thing I can say is it doesn't feel the need to swallow the JPL VAB like so many other submissions. *89* Boat on the rocks + stairway to nowhere + insane fenestration? I hate me for momentarily liking it. I think I was just hungry for complexity at street level, and I appeciate them liking both walls and windows (why do so many submissions feel the need to pick?), and caring for frames and overhangs. *90* Sticking a wooden swirl on top of a baseplate seems a bit desperate, but the tower is cool. I don't think Finns would appreciate how worn down it looks. I've always wanted to know how the underside of famous chairs are stapled. And hey, a full sign! This sounds too cruel; I want to acknowledge they've put good work in quite a few details, but the starting point seems so bland. As we're nearing the first 100, it's kind of surprising how little homework seems to have been done on what Finnish architecture, whether traditional, historical, or modern is. I don't need them to Pokemon every trope or have every second submission be a mass timber monolith, but so many seem just remarkably disengaged from both the function and the locale. On that note, I wonder if we'll get any submissions in historical styles.
Not to say that I am a huge fan of contemporary architecture, especially in the form of a big glass box but I think your want for more ‘historical styles’ would result in some very kitschy projects…
@@hatrabbit3596 I don't necessarily want them, I am curious if any will show up. I understand there's been a bit of a resurgence in the area, they've been pretty mediocre so far. They'd be sure to cause spirited discussion between the professionals and the public. And yes, there's a high risk of kitsch, but is the kitsch inherent? We've gotten 1 UFO, 2 pianos, half a dozen boats and a few melted lumps so far, it's not like it's going to be the first or last. And this may be a personal thing, but I'll take kitsch over bland and hostile.
@@diametheuslambda fair enough, I agree something more traditional would be refreshing in the air of ‘duck’ architecture, though they may be more interesting for us to look at I doubt they’d make it very far in the competition. Considerations of costs, materials and new technology are an inherent part of design that can’t be ignored, cultural relevance is also important, I’d much rather modern takes on classic styles of design than say a gothic style museum, which, in practise, seeing as there’s no where near as many masons/resources/time for such structures would probably translate terribly. I respect that old examples of architecture is generally speaking more interesting than new age architecture but with new technology our relationship to architecture will never be the same.
