To Design or Not to Design
so i am thinking at this moment, that "urban design" or actually "design" in general is about a strategic balancing of providing and withholding design intent. let me explain. for the past week or so, i've been designing an urban layout with the goal of simplifying my original concepts, per criticisms from my last review, or in other words un-designing. but honestly this whole mindset of "less is more" really rubs me in a strange way. and this isn't surprising. in terms of design, i have always tended to move towards the more "excessive" i guess. but still, i still feel often when trying to design towards "clarity" and "simplicity", in the end, all "i" really read is vagueness and dullness. epsecially in urban spaces. what might be clearly read as a linear street with two consistent street walls, i read as an intermiable progression of sidewalk. what it needs is some dash of inconsistency, some kink in that straight-jacket linearity. i mean, i wouldn't mind a gaudy corinthian column of some sort, but we are supposedly "modernist", so maybe some interesting, yet "decorative" piece...to define place. however, on the other hand i guess i can appreciate that void or negative really can be as effective as positive and object. but that's not to say that there can't be some thing in the mix that doesn't seem to belong there.
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my question is "why not" have something that doesn't make sense. i guess in some ways it's a little bit of the venturi-esque celebration of patisch and kitsch that i like, something that just isn't so... clean. what's wrong with that. maybe it's a stage of development thing? maybe it's because an observer or a critic in the end ultimately really doesn't have "your" view of the
"idea" of the space and so assumes only the main elements. and therefore the success of these main elements themselves depend on their own individual consistency and clarity? yes? no?
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it just seems so boring and smacks of the stuff that made modernism so dangerous... the idealism about being able to make ALL space conform to a singular idea and ideal. can we not plant seeds of discord within the fabric and let them exists as they are. it's like that 7 eleven in Beverly Hills. you walk by it and say what the fuck, but ultimately you kind of accept it unconformity and possibly celebrate it? otherwise it's just row after row of psuedo spanish american mac-mansions.
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by the way, reader... i'm a grad student in urban design
.
my question is "why not" have something that doesn't make sense. i guess in some ways it's a little bit of the venturi-esque celebration of patisch and kitsch that i like, something that just isn't so... clean. what's wrong with that. maybe it's a stage of development thing? maybe it's because an observer or a critic in the end ultimately really doesn't have "your" view of the
"idea" of the space and so assumes only the main elements. and therefore the success of these main elements themselves depend on their own individual consistency and clarity? yes? no?
.
it just seems so boring and smacks of the stuff that made modernism so dangerous... the idealism about being able to make ALL space conform to a singular idea and ideal. can we not plant seeds of discord within the fabric and let them exists as they are. it's like that 7 eleven in Beverly Hills. you walk by it and say what the fuck, but ultimately you kind of accept it unconformity and possibly celebrate it? otherwise it's just row after row of psuedo spanish american mac-mansions.
.
by the way, reader... i'm a grad student in urban design
posted by faux chink @ 4:31 PM
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