Saturday, September 07, 2013

Design as you give a damn


This is the cover to the book "Design as you give a damn 2" by Architecture for humanity. If you read about the buildings you will find out how they made these buildings from sand bags. But if you look at the picture it look as a very bad design to me. What happened there at the red building next to the green?

One of the best examples of a good design is in Malmö in Sweden, see some pictures from one of my trips here: Ecocity Malmö and the post from Tübingen in Germany; Französisches Viertel.

The book "Design as you give a damn 2" is full with great examples of design in a collaboration with the people living in the area. And it is worth to see some picture from it here; inhabitat.

Wednesday, September 04, 2013

Continuously wrong


I dont want to tell you whats wrong in this blog, but want to show examples of how to do it instead. Well, sometimes we need to tell you whats wrong. And that time is now. When wrongs continuous with time, a continuously wrong. 

We are talking about buildings. But buildings are not just something to live in, if so, we could live in small houses instead of big houses. Big buildings are there to be practical. A lot of people close to city center, close to every-day-needs. Big houses also changes the look of a place, it is like a new landscape, a new view. I dont mean now, that we have to build lovely architect drawn beautifully buildings, no its not that, its all about how to thrive, how to grow up as a child, how to live a life around your home. 

And everything else, where to work, how to go there, were to buy food, were to relax, were to walk your dog or to play with your kids.

Buildings nowadays, "modern buildings" looks almost like these pictures everywhere. These pictures shows a new neighborhood in Göteborg city. Everything from scratch as this was an industry area before.

Squared blocks.


 The buildings are so narrow, and I just wonder why is it two different buildings and not one?

 

 You see, exactly the same view again but two other buildings. Another great view! People can watch each other brush their teeth there in the morning.


 Squared and a broad road in the middle. Is this how we want the kids to grow up? (and I can't imagine really that they would change it to grass or anything like it).


Last picture- "there was the playground, so it was not missed". But really how fun does that look? It is worse than the Million programme (Swedish: Miljonprogrammet) view. If we want to build big buildings with a lot of people in the same place, these people needs to have it great there. The shape of these buildings are not made for a human mind (well, only for an engineer, easy to draw in a computer program). And when they build in this way, people in the buildings have no private space at al (check the picture with the windows so close to the other building), and the surroundings does not give you that either (or can it be "fixed"?).

Ok, now, how to do it instead? Take a look of some of my posts before. You find them in the menu "eco-projects" and here are some of them to click at:

Make'n a good feeling in the city
Move people to build a better world?
Houses and green spots in Copenhagen
Vauban, Freiburg, Germany
Französisches Viertel 
Greening the streets
Let’s build cities for people (not cars)

and a must read:

What is an ecocity?