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(03-23-2021, 07:19 PM)dtkvictim Wrote: It seems odd to apply this list to architecture, when this list also claims that said products are not decorative objects nor works of art. Confusingly, this list also seems to directly contradict that statement by highlighting the importance of aesthetics, beauty, and psychological effects. Maybe I'm reading into this wrong.
Not contradictory. Rams (the author) is really saying not to make decoration/bling for decoration's sake: aesthetic doesn't mean it's decorated, it means that it looks good, it's attractive, with minimal decorations (see last point). Think natural beauty rather than make-up.
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03-23-2021, 10:08 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-23-2021, 10:11 PM by ac3r.)
(03-23-2021, 07:19 PM)dtkvictim Wrote: It seems odd to apply this list to architecture, when this list also claims that said products are not decorative objects nor works of art. Confusingly, this list also seems to directly contradict that statement by highlighting the importance of aesthetics, beauty, and psychological effects. Maybe I'm reading into this wrong.
It's fairly common to apply his design theory to architecture. He's one designer that you learn a lot about when studying the subject. His initial education was in architecture before he ultimately got into industrial design for Braun and Vitsœ so there is a lot of overlap between the fields that shows through his work and his design philosophy. Architecture in general has a unique position that seems to fit between engineering, the need to be functional/purposeful and the need for an aesthetic or psychological aspect to it. It's important for an architect to be able to draw from various fields to create something people want to spend time in, so the visual studies aspect of things is really emphasized. Just to apply to architecture school you need to have a pretty decent portfolio of art to show off - music, dance, painting, drawing, sculpture etc.
Rams did a wonderful job of demonstrating the truth to his idea of weniger, aber besser - less, but more ( check out his product design for examples of how he applied this to his own work). Where he says a product (or thing, building etc) ought to be neutral, that doesn't mean it needs to be devoid of an aesthetic experience. A great example is the Salk Institute by Louis Kahn. At first sight, there is not a lot there, but as you experience the building you begin to see that there actually is a lot to experience within those simple lines and the colour palette. I believe fulfilling aesthetic and psychological needs in architecture is absolutely necessary to do in a way that makes sense, so it always irks me when architects fail to sufficiently fulfil that need. You may know the book already, but if not, there is a very important work of architecture theory/philosophy titled The Poetics of Space by the philosopher Gaston Bachelard that really gets into the nuances of architecture and the psychological/phenomenological experience one has within a space. It's an absolutely wonderful book to read even if you don't have much interest in architecture. It reads like a beautiful work of literature or poetry rather than dry theory, which I think he did on purpose to illustrate that poetics and experience is a very important thing for architects to consider.
Anyway I guess the reason I brought him up is because this building, like most of their work, is visually very busy and nonsensical. The design choices don't seem to really serve any immediately apparent purpose. Why do the balconies have different sizes or sit in different spots on different floors, as westwardloo mentioned? Why did the original design have random red rectangles encapsulating sections of windows? The new design is certainly an improvement over what they originally had, but if it were up to me I'd make it a bit simpler and let that simplicity be the beauty of the building, especially since the colours they're using actually do seem quite suited to minimalism.
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I'm just glad that the era of the "random vector curve on a wall because we can now do that on computer" seems to have died out (I'm looking at you Conestoga Mall!)
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I struggle with conversations about buildings being so focused on aesthetics because I think it is quite far down the list of importance. Which is not to say that I don't care about aesthetics, because I do. I just don't feel it should be the primary metric of a good design. To that point, Barcelona chair is considered an icon of design, and yet its legacy in terms of comfort is mixed and ergonomics is terrible. It's difficult for me to understand, then, why it carries so much influence in design.
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It's not the primary metric to judge a design, but it's definitely very important. An ugly building is fairly useless. It doesn't matter how functional it is if nobody wants to be inside of it and this is especially true for something like a residential building. To quote Buckminister Fuller, "When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. But when I'm finished, if the solution is not beautiful I know it's wrong."
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(03-24-2021, 11:27 AM)ac3r Wrote: An ugly building is fairly useless. It doesn't matter how functional it is if nobody wants to be inside of it and this is especially true for something like a residential building.
This is a nice sentiment, but it is clearly not true. Our cities are full of ugly, but functional buildings that no one has a problem buying, working in or living in.
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That's really missing the point, though. We have people living in sheds in this city...people live and where they are obligated to do so. And within these "ugly" spaces, people still try to personalize them in a way that makes their experience in the space as pleasant as it can be. I mean, that's why we paint our bedroom walls in colours we enjoy. We shape our surroundings in a way we find aesthetically suitable.
A building should look as nice as possible and that's an important things for architects to achieve when they are designing a work. One of the first steps an architect does when starting a project is to create a good design. They worry about the technical aspects afterwards. When Peter Zumthor was designing his Thermal Baths in Switzerland, for example, he started by taking a look at the surroundings of the land and going from there, ultimately designing a building that offers bathers a pleasing experience, relying on things like atmosphere, colour, sound, temperature and so on. If it was just down to function alone we could let engineers worry about our built environment, but we don't really do that, at least not when it comes to buildings and structures. Even bridges are designed in ways that attempt to have an aesthetically pleasing design. When I say a building is useless for failing to do this, I don't mean its practical use is no longer there, but that it is missing a very important function which is to provide its occupants with a good experience.
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You can have form without sacrificing function, certainly, but I am arguing that function is still paramount. A beautiful building without doors is just a sculpture. An ugly building with doors is at least still a functional building.
My problem is that too much of what is influential in architecture and design is focused almost solely on form. Why is Farnsworth House considered a modernist masterpiece when it arguably fails in its function?
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Uptown, choose your fighter!
Can't believe this is going to be the framing northbound up King St. At least with K2 you can hope that another tower goes up behind it to cover that wall, but District has no chance of that unless they sell school grounds.
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That tower does have that classic 70s vibe, though ... 
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Did we lose the glass box around the historic house with this new design?
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(03-23-2021, 10:08 PM)ac3r Wrote: It's fairly common to apply his design theory to architecture. He's one designer that you learn a lot about when studying the subject. His initial education was in architecture before he ultimately got into industrial design for Braun and Vitsœ so there is a lot of overlap between the fields that shows through his work and his design philosophy. Architecture in general has a unique position that seems to fit between engineering, the need to be functional/purposeful and the need for an aesthetic or psychological aspect to it. It's important for an architect to be able to draw from various fields to create something people want to spend time in, so the visual studies aspect of things is really emphasized. Just to apply to architecture school you need to have a pretty decent portfolio of art to show off - music, dance, painting, drawing, sculpture etc.
Rams did a wonderful job of demonstrating the truth to his idea of weniger, aber besser - less, but more (check out his product design for examples of how he applied this to his own work). Where he says a product (or thing, building etc) ought to be neutral, that doesn't mean it needs to be devoid of an aesthetic experience. A great example is the Salk Institute by Louis Kahn. At first sight, there is not a lot there, but as you experience the building you begin to see that there actually is a lot to experience within those simple lines and the colour palette. I believe fulfilling aesthetic and psychological needs in architecture is absolutely necessary to do in a way that makes sense, so it always irks me when architects fail to sufficiently fulfil that need. You may know the book already, but if not, there is a very important work of architecture theory/philosophy titled The Poetics of Space by the philosopher Gaston Bachelard that really gets into the nuances of architecture and the psychological/phenomenological experience one has within a space. It's an absolutely wonderful book to read even if you don't have much interest in architecture. It reads like a beautiful work of literature or poetry rather than dry theory, which I think he did on purpose to illustrate that poetics and experience is a very important thing for architects to consider.
Anyway I guess the reason I brought him up is because this building, like most of their work, is visually very busy and nonsensical. The design choices don't seem to really serve any immediately apparent purpose. Why do the balconies have different sizes or sit in different spots on different floors, as westwardloo mentioned? Why did the original design have random red rectangles encapsulating sections of windows? The new design is certainly an improvement over what they originally had, but if it were up to me I'd make it a bit simpler and let that simplicity be the beauty of the building, especially since the colours they're using actually do seem quite suited to minimalism.
I appreciate your educational replies, especially with reading recommendations. I want to preface with that, because I'd like you (and others) to continue with posts like this. It's far more interesting than "this building looks good" and "this building looks bad". It's no surprise to me that well-known and influential figures in design advocate for "less, but more" philosophy, because that philosophy permeates the products I'm forced to use in everyday life. There's no way to not see it.
Perhaps you would disagree that "less, but more" translates to minimalism and a scorn for form that has nothing to do with function, but if a line exists between the two, then to me it's a blurry one. This is where I disagree with the principles laid out, because I don't think I've ever found something "minimalist" (very broadly speaking) to be beautiful. Functional, attractive, cool: yes. Something I would buy and appreciate for most products: yes. But not beautiful. When you apply this to architecture, I think it misses the mark, because in an urban environment one of the only potential sources of beauty comes from architecture. And an environment without beauty is psychological torment to me. Of course beauty is subjective, which becomes a real nightmare to deal with in architecture, because urban buildings are imposed upon the population. People don't have a choice.
As I type this, I think modern material choices that lack the natural beauty of, well, natural materials may be part of my issue. And that those materials are used in tandem with design principles favouring simplicity may just be a coincidence.
(03-24-2021, 09:13 AM)jamincan Wrote: I struggle with conversations about buildings being so focused on aesthetics because I think it is quite far down the list of importance. Which is not to say that I don't care about aesthetics, because I do. I just don't feel it should be the primary metric of a good design. To that point, Barcelona chair is considered an icon of design, and yet its legacy in terms of comfort is mixed and ergonomics is terrible. It's difficult for me to understand, then, why it carries so much influence in design.
I've found myself feeling uncomfortable in a building specifically due to the aesthetics of it, so I don't think they are two distinct issues.
But perhaps we could solve the local housing crisis by making a city so ugly that no one wants to move here anymore!
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(03-25-2021, 07:34 PM)dtkvictim Wrote: I've found myself feeling uncomfortable in a building specifically due to the aesthetics of it, so I don't think they are two distinct issues.
But perhaps we could solve the local housing crisis by making a city so ugly that no one wants to move here anymore!
Some have argued that the city is already ......
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(03-23-2021, 07:19 PM)dtkvictim Wrote: Perhaps you would disagree that "less, but more" translates to minimalism and a scorn for form that has nothing to do with function, but if a line exists between the two, then to me it's a blurry one. This is where I disagree with the principles laid out, because I don't think I've ever found something "minimalist" (very broadly speaking) to be beautiful. Functional, attractive, cool: yes. Something I would buy and appreciate for most products: yes. But not beautiful. When you apply this to architecture, I think it misses the mark, because in an urban environment one of the only potential sources of beauty comes from architecture. And an environment without beauty is psychological torment to me. Of course beauty is subjective, which becomes a real nightmare to deal with in architecture, because urban buildings are imposed upon the population. People don't have a choice.
As I type this, I think modern material choices that lack the natural beauty of, well, natural materials may be part of my issue. And that those materials are used in tandem with design principles favouring simplicity may just be a coincidence.
You raise a good point here. It also illustrates why having differences is a good thing. Beauty or aesthetic experiences are always going to be subjective. We thankfully have a very large range of architects, designers, artists etc who all believe in their own thing and that lets us have so many different buildings to live and work in. Where one might find minimalist modernism to be beautiful, other people find it to be cold and would rather have something colourful and postmodernist and there are others who would rather have our buildings look like Venetian Renaissance architecture.
It can indeed become a nightmare as you put it, though, I'd rather have a huge range of buildings all built beside each other to show off all of these differences. For example, I think Michael Graves designed some truly awful work, but would I prefer to not have it at all? Definitely not. His Portland Tower might be ugly to me, but I love that it exists and that he made it. It's colourful and unique and that gives it something. Even the most intentionally deconstructive architecture has a certain beauty to it (for some people anyway). I suppose it can come down to intent, however. And capitalism certainly makes buildings seem like a commodity...and in a way, they are these days. It's hard to say a building like Luxe (another SRM building) in Waterloo has any form of beauty as it seems to exist purely as a functional building: to pack students in like sardines for as cheap as possible and I don't think a whole lot of effort went into making that thing look nice.
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