NPR- Skyscrapers of the Future!

[Magón]

Pretty cool stuff.


Skyscrapers Of The Future
Categories: Daily Picture Show
02:48 pm

April 12, 2011
by MITO HABE-EVANS

In the future, we'll live in neighborhoods that sprawl in three dimensions, taking the subway vertically as well as horizontally to get to parks suspended between towers. Or we'll live underground in structures dedicated to harvesting geothermal energy — or perhaps we'll be able to unplug our homes from one location and plug in somewhere else, maybe closer to the air-purifying membrane that stretches across the sky.

Continued: http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2011/04/12/135324809/skyscrapers-of-the-future

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Disgusting. The future looks bleak with this sort of vile things.

[Bright Banana Beard]

I have to agree with Takayuki here, those shit is ugly and just attracts the eco-fascist.

[manic expression]

Disgusting. The future looks bleak with this sort of vile things.

I have to agree with Takayuki here, those shit is ugly and just attracts the eco-fascist.
I couldn't agree more. Buckminster Fuller strikes again. But the good thing is they're never going to get built because of gravity and/or general infeasibility. There's a quasi-cottage industry (http://www.amazon.com/Utopia-Forever-Visions-Architecture-Urbanism/dp/3899553357/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302718606&sr=8-1) of this sort of stuff and almost all of the designs will inevitably stay on paper.

[Ele'ill]

Why is there such a hatred here towards alternative architecture?

[Ligeia]

Maybe I'm old-fashioned but I thought architecture not only had to be useful and practical but also eye-pleasing and giving a sense of place (e.g. comfortability for housing, relaxation and motivation for working...etc.).
This looks very symbolical.

[Dr Mindbender]

i actually like some of these concepts particularly the building incorporated into the dam. This serves 2 purposes, firstly to hold the water back and secondly to act as a home/workplace to people. The views would be quite interesting, i wouldnt mind living in it.

[Ele'ill]

Maybe I'm old-fashioned but I thought architecture not only had to be useful and practical but also eye-pleasing and giving a sense of place (e.g. comfortability for housing, relaxation and motivation for working...etc.).
This looks very symbolical.

Those would be practical and a lot more eye pleasing than what we currently have.

[Ligeia]

Those would be practical and a lot more eye pleasing than what we currently have.
Probably more practical though I honestly don't know the obstacles which exist for building these kind of buildings (e.g. monetary reasons, physics, available space, organization...).
And whether something is eye-pleasing depends on the viewer. (Those buildings look a little bit menacing to me.)
But I agree, there are a lot of things that are not really nice to look at in the current building landscape or even to live in.

Also, space should be designed taking into considerations many factors like who's going to live/work in there, how's work,leisure and living structured in this society, and stuff like the physical environment (which is probably the factor mostly taken into account in those designs).

[Jazzratt]

I think it's laughable anyone would describe those buildings as "ugly" when we have such shining examples as this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/Belfast_houses_1981.jpg/770px-Belfast_houses_1981.jpg
to compare them too.

[Magón]

I like the circular building, that won 1st Place, but I think that giant filter in the middle of it would be kind of loud when it spun. And I like the Hopetel, the building design that's supposed to help with the homeless getting an actual home.

[Impulse97]

I think it's laughable anyone would describe those buildings as "ugly" when we have such shining examples as this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/Belfast_houses_1981.jpg/770px-Belfast_houses_1981.jpg
to compare them too.


Oh. I actually kinda liked this one...

[Dr Mindbender]

Oh. I actually kinda liked this one...

Spend a night on such an estate and post back a report please.

[manic expression]

I think it's laughable anyone would describe those buildings as "ugly" when we have such shining examples as this:

to compare them too.
Um, all the doors and windows are bricked up, so it's not exactly a fair comparison. It's kind of like comparing the broken-down Buick on the side of the road to some spaceship from a science fiction movie.

[Lord Testicles]

I don't see why people are being so hostile, most of those buildings look far better that what you see in your average town.

http://s0.geograph.org.uk/photos/02/69/026921_de7a783f.jpg

[Dr Mindbender]

Um, all the doors and windows are bricked up, so it's not exactly a fair comparison. It's kind of like comparing the broken-down Buick on the side of the road to some spaceship from a science fiction movie.

Im sure the heavilly dogshit laden pavements and general stench of austerity and poverty more than outweight the effects of the bricked up windows.

[Jazzratt]

Um, all the doors and windows are bricked up, so it's not exactly a fair comparison. Yeah, obviously it would look so much better with battered old doors and windows covered by (if anything at all) moth-eaten, yellowing curtains of deeply forlorn aspect :rolleyes: But if you really want to be as "fair" as possible you can look at the picture skinz provided.

[Hexen]

Have you ever noticed that we are slowly losing our creativity when it comes to art/architecture?

[manic expression]

Im sure the heavilly dogshit laden pavements and general stench of austerity and poverty more than outweight the effects of the bricked up windows.
The idea that fantasy designs aren't that bad because they look nicer than dilapidated apartments that no longer function as apartments is absurd: it ignores the fact that dilapidated apartments will continue in capitalist society whether or not we build a skyscraper out of barbed wire, it ignores the fact that the proposals generally aren't going to contribute to a healthy urban environment (really? You want to live in a big hole?) and it ignores the fact that most of those designs are fundamentally unworkable for the foreseeable future.

Theoretical architecture has its place. But it's not "The Future", it's paper experimentation that could yield some good ideas at best. Hell, against all odds there might be some potentially good ideas embedded in the examples here, but it'll take actual architects and engineers and workers to extract them and make them into something. Sort of like this (built 1975):

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Admin/BkFill/Default_image_group/2011/2/7/1297103509064/georgia-ministry-of-highw-007.jpg
From stuff like this (drawn 1920's):

http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/11/fig05_lissitzky.jpg

But then it's all about the context and application. Churning out unfeasible drawings just for the fun of it won't do. There's a difference between useful theoretical architecture and the less than useful.

[Robespierre Richard]

I don't think there's much use to these utopian projects when architects don't even know who will be living in them and focus on maximizing regulation housing units and amenities, not people's well-being.

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2:37 and on

[Impulse97]

I just realized that the windows are boarded up. I'd like to retract my previous statement lol.:lol:

[Magón]

I don't think there's much use to these utopian projects when architects don't even know who will be living in them

Hopetel, the design I mentioned I liked, and is I think the 10th or 11th picture in the slide, does have a certain group of people in mind on who will occupy the building. The evicted/homeless.

[Ocean Seal]

Oh come on guys you have to admit that at least some of these look cool.http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2011/04/11/lo2p1_enl.jpg?t=1302632626&s=51
Come on you have to admit that at least you'd have something to look at when you woke up in the morning every day. Alternative architecture is cool, and although I appreciate the classics these new structures have their charm.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

I don't see why people are being so hostile, most of those buildings look far better that what you see in your average town.

http://s0.geograph.org.uk/photos/02/69/026921_de7a783f.jpg

I like this.

Arcologies and circle-jerk futuristic abstractions can fuck off and go with Norman Foster when he finally disappears up his own arse.

[Lord Testicles]

I like this.



You have a disposition towards the ugly.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

You have a disposition towards the ugly.

Right back at you.

[Dr Mindbender]

I like this.

I'm guessing you dont live in the British isles. If living in a concrete lego set that stinks of piss with paper thin walls to keep out the noise is your thing you should come here. We're up to our eyes in the frigging things.

[Robespierre Richard]

I'm guessing you dont live in the British isles. If living in a concrete lego set that stinks of piss with paper thin walls to keep out the noise is your thing you should come here. We're up to our eyes in the frigging things.

I've grown up in a pre-fab tower block with broken elevators that reek of piss and graffiti all over the walls, it's alright really.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

I'm guessing you dont live in the British isles. If living in a concrete lego set that stinks of piss with paper thin walls to keep out the noise is your thing you should come here. We're up to our eyes in the frigging things.

I live in a public housing block. The things you describe are not architectural issues. The issue of bad walls is a question of construction standards that is only peripherally a problem of architecture itself; and the piss and derelict nature is only the manifestation of ignored social problems in the district.

A good example of how this evolves is to mention the infamous large public housing estate in St Louis, Pruitt-Igoe housing estate, last post of the previous page I think, that was built as a segregated housing development with a section for whites and blacks. The white side was equipped with services, but the black area was neglected. The parkland and gardens that were to be placed all around the houses were also never realised because the St Louis city government did not want to/had no money to spend and neglected the quality of the development. Each floor was to have a large internal hallway that was envisioned as a communal centre for the complex, but this was in reality built only as a barren emptiness with no decorations.

Neglected maintenance made it dilapidate quickly and no honest attempts were made to improve the living conditions of the inhabitants, that were carelessly put into the flats.

This is not an issue of architecture. This is an issue of social problems that have not been adequately handled and corrected, neglect and capitalism. Idiots think that just because you have a wacky colourful façade with bizarre shapes the inhabitants will be happy and feel good. They will not. If you do not handle the social problems and ignore the needs of the residents and let things decay, even the most well-planned and well-thought out housing estate can turn into a piss-reeking place. As bad as they can be - which is often exaggerated by media - they are rarely worse than the slums they replaced.

When a housing estate is to be demolished, as is very common place in England these days what with the privatisation of the council homes and making of scummy organisations that evict people to allow more profitable developments of which the criminals at the Glasgow Housing Association are a good example, many people that live in those do not want to go. The problem with the housing estates that are derelict are not the architectural styles - though indeed the construction quality is often on the cheap, capitalism etc - but a question of economy and politics. You cannot build away social problems by building some arcology monstrosity, that is utopian foolishness.

[Wolfshadow]

regardless of if they are ever built,we as a society REALLY need to do something to combat urban sprawl and expansion