Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

Quote from: jax

[Social housing] is housing intended to house as many as possible for as low price as possible.

I'm pretty sure that's no longer the only criterion, given all the problems that approach caused.

Quote from: ensbb3

Seems your book is gonna take some if not most of my arguments, if the summary is any indication. If there's a bit about compartmentalising sections so to make renovation part of the design I'll be without points. As a builder I understand the need to standardize construction and the durability of materials. Cost is a big factor for buildings only decades old. I can estimate a job easily if I know the method used to build it. I don't have to tear into a wall to tell you what's there or what it will take to redesign/replace/restore. But nonstandard construction mean you won't know what is really there until you get into it and any parts will have to be manufactured specifically for the job. Cost skyrockets quickly and price per unit of a special order, say, curved window is higher and decades later materials may not even be the same (so more cost depending on the variances).

And when restoring old you quickly find the worth is measured by what the building mean to the community (individuals) vs moneys of renovation/restoration (whoever fronts the bill). Often more money is spent to restore than a new structure would cost regardless, but without the presence and meaning behind it, fancy architecture can become useless junk when it's worth less money to put something else there that's much better.

This is a very good point.

It's been a while since I read the book. Like most of my books I have no idea in which part of the world they are right now. I used to have it at the Opera office, to bolster the point that software architecture is like building architecture. Likewise I haven't seen the series for a while, but now that it is up on YouTube by Steward Brand, the author, it should be accessible everywhere except in China without VPN. All this as a long disclaimer that it is by memory, but I believe re-purposing is a major part later on (around episode 5) and mentioned regularly throughout. Eventually a building is going to be used for a very different purpose than the one the architect imagined, and were paid for. The series early on (in the above first episode) mentions your point about non-standard components. It uses the late 20th century Dancing House (above) here in Prague as an example of a building that is hard to clean, and hard to maintain as every component is custom-made. I like it because it fits in beautifully with the existing architecture in Prague (right), but it makes it no less expensive to maintain. What above all has changed 21st century architecture from all the preceding centuries is the computer, just like concrete, steel frames, plate glass, and the car formed 20th century architecture. Dancing house is a fairly early example of that, as is the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum, but elements that were custom-made in numbers of one the first time would be no cheaper to replace. Technology will keep up though. While not competing with mass production prices, future foundries should be able to reproduce elements as they break. All these components existed in computers originally, and can be reproduced from computers later, only undocumented on-site fittings would cause future problems. However I am not sure all these intricate 3D compositions in this thread have the necessary redundancies to allow easy (cheap) and flexible repurposing.

Quote from: mjmsprt40

Quote from: jax

Proposal for Makoko, Lagos, Nigeria

That photo of Makoko looks somewhat like Des Plaines,Illinois right now. Problem: Des Plaines wasn't designed to look like that.

Yes, they do look like houses innundated to the roof, don't they? It would be fun to redesign these so as to show a little bit of a "floor" below the roof.

Of course this is an advantage of house boat architecture, they are pretty much flood-proof. There are Dutch ideas for floating cities along this line.

Quote from: Frenzie

I'm pretty sure that's no longer the only criterion, given all the problems that approach caused.

Would be that that is true, but I don't see that reflection in China or in the developing or emerging world elsewhere. Just like in Europe after the devastation of WWII there is a huge demand for urban housing, but the new migrants don't have the means to pay for it. Half the construction in the world today is in China, much of it is social housing. The developers are subverting the government rules for subsidies a bit, basically making them a little nicer and more easy to sell to investors.



And China is the good case. The rest of the world is catching up and urbanising fast as well. The fresh new urbanites will need a place to stay, and the street is not always the best option.

Kabul

Quote from: jax

However I am not sure all these intricate 3D compositions in this thread have the necessary redundancies to allow easy (cheap) and flexible repurposing.

Did you read about construction firms in China literally pirating designs?

Quote from: jax

And China is the good case. The rest of the world is catching up and urbanising fast as well. The fresh new urbanites will need a place to stay, and the street is not always the best option.

Fair enough.

Quote from: Frenzie

Did you read about construction firms in China literally pirating designs?

I consider that one more to be "inspired by" than "literal copy", architects are and were inspired by each other all the time. The Chongqing architect definitely was inspired by the stripes and rounded shape, all that Hadidery, but beyond that it didn't try to make their building a copy beyond that, which they well could. It may suit both houses' marketing to consider this an architectural piracy. “Never meant to copy, only want to surpass.” in the word of the developer.

"Original" Wangjing, Beijing	"Copy" Chongqing

There are literal copies as well, where you can't see the difference from one to the other. It's mostly architects copying themselves, but also sometimes they copy others.

Quote from: Frenzie

Fair enough.

Yes, it's not stupid to build cheap housing, but it will mean familiar problems down the line 20 years from now or so.

It's not a certainty though. The suburbs built in the outskirt of Prague many decades ago are just as miserable as they are in other European cities, but somehow with less problems. People want to live there (not me though), even fairly well-off people who could easily afford to live elsewhere in Prague.  It may not be just architecture and city planning that determines the future of a city neighbourhood.

Quote from: jax

And China is the good case. The rest of the world is catching up and urbanising fast as well. The fresh new urbanites will need a place to stay, and the street is not always the best option.

What rest of the world?
If there's something that the European world has already learned, it's about the importance of urbanism quality. Quality.
What happens when ghettos are created, the lack of adequate public space, green areas, soil permeability, energetic sustainability and so on, so on and so on...

What Chinese are doing can't be even called "urbanism" by today standards.
I really don't understand your fascination, jax.

I got a feeling then you really are not going to like it when we get to Africa. The Chinese is actually very European (in this case more so than American). Like I said China is primarily looking to Singapore for urban planning, though also to other places in Asia, Europe, America.  Technically China isn't that dense, and less dense than their models, but that is because the country has huge deserts, mountain ranges, permafrost, jungles, and other barely inhabitable areas. The migration from the countryside today happens faster than it did in the West when it was developing, and not only China, the world.

They could have opted for sprawl, but instead they opted for dense, with a number of well-connected  clusters. If you wish, pieces of Japan with stretches of nothingness (farmland) in between. The Chinese population is stable, it's growing a little because people don't die as quickly as they once did. Between the government's desire for cheap housing and the developers' penchant for luxury housing, and everyone looking for the quick yuan, there are definitely missteps, but on the whole it is happening better than when Europe was urbanising a century and half ago.

Most commentators inside and outside China say the Chinese don't need the expensive stuff, they need the cheap stuff. Which is true, but the cheap stuff isn't always so nice, especially a couple decades from now. (If anyone had listened to me, I would say cheap, but not cheapest.)

The same is happening in the rest of Asia, but with less money. Some of these countries as slowing down demographically like China, some are speeding up. None are speeding up as fast as Africa, which also is growing fast in population. African cities are built up even faster than Chinese, with less money, less infrastructure, less planning, and they keep coming.

Quote from: jax

	Of course not everything in China is to a huge scale. This library, unlike most of the pictures from China designed by a Chinese architect, to a very human scale, is located in a very hard to get village in the far outskirts of Beijing.

I like.

[IMGLEFT=http://drop.ndtv.com/albums/uploadedpics/small/rooftopbeijing1_635120869980291432.jpg]This 21st century construction in Haidian, Beijing is due for demolition.

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A man who made his fortune in traditional medicine spent six years building his own private mountain peak and luxury villa atop a high-rise apartment block in China's capital. Now, authorities are giving him 15 days to tear it down. The craggy complex of rooms, rocks, trees and bushes looming over the 26-storey building looks like something built into a seaside cliff, and has become the latest symbol of disregard for the law among the rich as well as the rampant practice of building illegal additions. Angry neighbours say they have complained for years that the unauthorised, 800 sq ft mansion was damaging the building's structural integrity and its pipe system, but that local authorities failed to crack down. They had also complained about loud, late-night parties.

A Polish entry. Safe House, outside Warsaw.

I saw something similar on a horror movie. "House on Haunted Hill" if I remember right. The house sealed up, trapping everybody inside, and they were killed off one by one until the last person managed to escape-- actually, the house let him out-- but he was still on a ledge so I doubt that the escape was a good one.

The idea of being in a sealed cube like that just doesn't appeal to me. I don't know about anybody else. If you have to have your house built like that, your neighborhood is just too nasty and it's time to call the movers.

Quote from: mjmsprt40

The house sealed up, trapping everybody inside, and they were killed off one by one until the last person managed to escape

Quote from: mjmsprt40

I saw something similar on a horror movie.

If the Romans had build villas as that house, the barbarians would have never entered and America would not dominate the world.
Well, more or less.

Besides, the house is not exactly what it seems to be. See the other images and description at the link Jax provided.
The concept of houses as something that closes up to itself protecting the occupiers it's the very base concept of a house. There's no surprise that architects enjoys to take that concept further and explore its limits.
Exploring spacial limits and concepts it's the nature of architecture.

Quote from: Belfrager

Quote from: mjmsprt40

I saw something similar on a horror movie.

If the Romans had build villas as that house, the barbarians would have never entered and America would not dominate the world.
Well, more or less.

Besides, the house is not exactly what it seems to be. See the other images and description at the link Jax provided.
The concept of houses as something that closes up to itself protecting the occupiers it's the very base concept of a house. There's no surprise that architects enjoys to take that concept further and explore its limits.
Exploring spacial limits and concepts it's the nature of architecture.

I saw those images. All of them. The whole thing made me think of that horror movie. It was a Vincent Price movie no great surprise there. Once the guests were all inside, the house sealed up. Doors and windows were sealed with steel shutters, so no one could get in or out. Then people started dying. The house itself-- or rather, the ghosts of former inhabitants who had a bone to pick with the guests-- was killing everybody-- including the host and hostess.

This house that Jax has shown gives me the creeps big time. I can envision a situation where being sealed up in that house could be as deadly as any outside invader.

Quote from: jax

Quote from: mjmsprt40

The house sealed up, trapping everybody inside, and they were killed off one by one until the last person managed to escape

"Wait a second---- we don't have a cat! Uh-oh!!!"

Just an oddity: I'd assumed that "the unauthorised, 800 sq ft mansion" jax posted about (here) contained a typo… 8oo square feet? That's a mansion?
Two guys can "share" a suit. But it will be uncomfortable, if they both wear it at the same time… (I'm obviously missing something here.) Perhaps the word wanted was penthouse…

It's pretty big, so probably missing a zero.

That's not even the interesting part of the article tho. Only a 70 year lease on any property? Or less!!? Wow. Eliminates attachments I guess.

Quote from: ensbb3

Only a 70 year lease on any property? Or less!!? Wow. Eliminates attachments I guess.

Eliminates multi-generational attachments… No such thing as the old homestead; no ancestral homes. No continuity, I presume, is the goal…

Quote from: OakdaleFTL

Just an oddity: I'd assumed that "the unauthorised, 800 sq ft mansion" jax posted about (here) contained a typo… 8oo square feet? That's a mansion?

The journalist should have written 800 square meters, a square meter is around 11 square feet.

Yes, 70 years lease on residential land and 50 on commercial is now standard in urban areas. It's actually more complicated than that, there are several types of ownership, but this is the main urban. Singapore, China's star and guiding light, has similar contracts and the same problem, namely nobody knows what will happen when the time's up. Both states are relatively young, and more to the point any building older than a decade or two is likely to be demolished anyway to build something bigger and taller (and more profitable), and when that happens the timer is reset. If, for some reason, a house were to stand to its allotted time, the owners would be unlikely to lose their apartments, but if they were to pay a fee for another round or what else would happen is unclear.

A bigger concern is that the typical apartment contract isn't conducive to maintenance. With the apartment you would pay a service fee to a service company to manicure the garden, dispose of the garbage and maintain the house. The owners would be inclined to pay as little as possible, or not at all, while the service companies to maximise their profits. This all conspires into investing too little into maintenance, and after few years the typical apartment building looks pretty run-down on the outside, but nice and shiny on the inside (assuming that the owner were inclined to maintain at least his own apartment). 30 year old buildings look pretty ghastly, I have no idea what a 70 year old building would look like. I don't think I have ever seen one (buildings either come in really young or really old, there is no middle).

To date the typical buyer hasn't been overly concerned about the state of an apartment, as the typical modus operandi when buying an apartment has been to get rid of all that is inside the walls and do a full new reconstruction and refurbishing. This will change, the rush to the cities will slow down, the need to build more and denser will dissipate, and a more conservative stance will follow.

But when China slows down in a decade or two (with the usual burst bubbles on the way), other parts of Asia would be speeding up, and even more so Africa (again with one or more crises on the way).

Incidentally in Hong Kong or Singapore 800 square feet would be pretty much a manson. Of course this is just an excuse to repost this:

Quote from: jax

The average square meter price in Hong Kong is above 20,000$/m2 (around 2000$ per square foot), so space is at a premium. Small flats are subdivided into submission, like this mansion. Tokyo have small apartments as well, but the Hong Kong ones are grittier. Coming from Bangkok I paid the same for a five star luxury hotel in Bangkok as I did for a room in Hong Kong that was basically a bed, some luggage/clothing space, and a shower/toilet cubicle.

[VIDEO]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKf08vWTkKA[/VIDEO]

Quote from: Belfrager

If the Romans had build villas as that house, the barbarians would have never entered and America would not dominate the world.
Well, more or less.

why Europeans is Hard to understand n/or accepts ,  if Europes Created the 'Murica ??

that's Something like " Frankenstein"

The 'Murica and Democracy  is undeniable so Ugly ,

but that's the Greatest things what Human race  Have Created all of time .

that's the Prove if "The Dead can be Resurrected" .

that's Frankenstein

While You,  Europeans is " Victor Frankenstein "  who have Created that thing , and the Intolerant People

and You Hate it , just B'cos it Looks So Ugly
You are ..

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the blind father, that cant   accepts him into his home and treats him with kindess. The blind man cannot see the creature's "accursed ugliness" and considers him a friend. 

Quote from: mjmsprt40

I saw those images. All of them. The whole thing made me think of that horror movie. It was a Vincent Price movie no great surprise there. Once the guests were all inside, the house sealed up. Doors and windows were sealed with steel shutters, so no one could get in or out. Then people started dying. The house itself-- or rather, the ghosts of former inhabitants who had a bone to pick with the guests-- was killing everybody-- including the host and hostess.

This house that Jax has shown gives me the creeps big time. I can envision a situation where being sealed up in that house could be as deadly as any outside invader.

Mjm, the house mimics the cycles of nature, as a flower that opens by morning and closes by night. For that, it uses technology. So, a parable about the return to nature. Poetic...

An architect is/should be an artist, his work triggering emotions and raising consciousness.
By your words, this one seems to be a really good one.

The house acts as a carnivorous plant, people being the insects.
People being insects?? where did the architect got such strange idea?

Or is it possible that you just don't like concrete and glass as building materials for idyllic American houses?

…some people (even many who have no ideology to guide their every indulgence and "requests") just know who they are. An architect who can't build to suit clients is incompetent. An architect who only builds to accommodate an ideology is, even if that ideology is popular, an idiot!

People live in houses, and transit, inhabit, or work in other "structures"… If the designers of such are unaware of or actually hostile to people, it's no wonder people reject them!