This article was a tough one to pick an appropriate folder for. The discussion could go in so many directions.
Ever wonder why some architecture just looks right and other buildings, while perfectly functional, just flat out look and feel wrong? It’s not exactly a secret, but I’m surprised at how few design professionals know about, much less apply the principles outlined in this article.
Here’s a proportional concept off the back burner that I think needs to be discussed more.
http://architecture.about.com/od/ideasapproaches/a/geometry.htm?nl=1
What do you guys think? Interesting mathematics? Good science? Deep spiritual truth? Total Hokum?
Has the “Golden Rectangle” seen its day or should it hold greater sway in today’s architecture and design analysis?
Replies
I would criticize the architecture of most new home designs, but first I'd have to find some evidence of aesthetic intent! The larger builders might actually hire an architect, but the small outfits leave those pesky details to wives and girl friends. That's why we see McMansions with pompus columns and cultured stone arches totally out of proportion to the rest of the home. Inside you see $200/SF counter tops, MDF baseboards, and textured walls most cave dwellers would consider crude.
95% of everything is crap, and that applies in spades to home design in 2005.
I find that a lot of the time it just looks right. I don't design houses but I do design and build my own furniture and I often use the Golden Rectangle technique. Peter
The golden rectangle. Sounds like a good idea to me, but I'll bet it will still need to be painted beige. And it will, of course, be required to have one of those half-round windows either in the rectangle, or directly above it.
And it will be sure to sell even quicker if there are actually three of them -- set such that the front of the house looks like a funnel for the rain. You know, with those pretty looking gables on both sides that both face the street. With the main entry in the center rectangle -- right where guests can get a real soaking from the runoff.
And be sure to put those marble tiles on the bathroom floors -- the ones that I saw at Lowes. Otherwise it just won't be slippery enough when I get out of the shower.
Oh, and speaking of the back burner, make sure the range is a Viking. It just won't look good for the pizza box to sit on top of a Maytag.
Unless you're the lead dog, the view just never changes.
Beige block, half round windows, three gables...
Well, at least I went with saltillo instead of marble and I managed to figure a way to keep the guests dry. :-)>
I couldn't find a recent picture - I guess they are all on the machine at home. This was taken several months ago.
Anyway, you hit on several things that have such a natural appeal that they are often overdone with a limited understanding of how to use them appropriately.
There is a very good reason the front of a house with the elements you mentioned appeals to us. Can you guess what it is?
Looks like a human head??I Love A Hand That Meets My Own,
With A Hold That Causes Some Sensation.
[email protected]
Isn't 19.2 some kinda supernatural number?
Did I read that in The DaVinci Code, or was it on my FatMax?
You mean .618, right? We discussed it when I was in school. Don't know if any of you have read Contact, by Carl Sagan but the Golden mean, PI and some other numbers were called transcendental numbers. Try doing a small design, hang some pictures using this ratio or look at the height at the center of a window on a wall. It's not very far off. It has been used for a couple of thousand years and makes things easy to look at.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
19.2" is the cubit. It is one sheet of plywood [8'] divided by 5. God used it so it must be good.
~Peter
Divine Plywood... now there's a product I could sell with a good infomercial!
this is one of my favorite topics----
in fact last summer on vacation---I stumbled across a little book in a bookstore that talked about how often in nature this ratio comes up
but then the book veered off into too much math and I lost interest------I donated the book to the houses " library when I left----LOL.
Yesterday I was driving by a new developement------just acres and acres and acres of absolute ugliness-----there must now be factories that do nothing but produce the same color beige vinyl siding--------
non-sensical roof designs---with meaningless gables and worthless fake dormers----
Now-----I could be wrong----but I think the fault lies with un-educated homebuyers and architects----I suspect the whole design process is different now.
Imagine you were a person of some affluence maybe---oh 200 years ago or so. You would like to have a new house built. I think in those days---you started with the END result in mind and worked your way back
for instance----you respect a classical education---even if you don't have one----- so your house is gonna be built in the greek revival style----or maybe the federal style---whatever----you know what you want it to look like, what the proportions are, what elements are required---and where----so does the builder-----then and only then you start trying to fit the required rooms into plan.
I suspect things are done diferently now----" Ok--we wanna BIG kitchen even though both of us work outside the home ,neither of us can cook, our kids live off of pop tarts and macaroni and cheese, and statistically we are gonna be divorced in 7 years-------------we want a big family room---although we are only gonna have 1.8 kids, we want a formal dining room---even though we can't afford to furnish it and we really eat in the kitchen-----we want a formal living room which we will NEVER be able to afford to properly furnish before the divorce----we want a first floor laundry----we NEED 4 bedrooms---each bedroom must be bigger than the living room of the houses we grew up in----we require a master bath---and a walk in closet BTW------the kids need their own baths---and of course we need at least a half bath downstairs-------we wanna 2 or a 2 1/2 story foyer---even though it make NO SENSE on this house but it's what we feel we deserve----sketch all this out schematically on some sort of a bubble chart and put a roof on it----make sure ya vary the roof lines 4 or 5 times and throw in a lot of valleys for " visual interest"--------and oh ya---make sure we end up with a REALLY big lawn---cause I want a truck to come by once a week to spray poison where my children play----------------"
Of course I could be wrong----but looking at the evidence as demonstrated by most new houses----could that much ugliness be designed any other way??????
Stephen
With all of the ugly buildings going up, I have to hope architects had nothing to do with their design. If they were, we are all going to see years and years of ugliness being built around us. I'm not saying that everything designed by archi's is beautiful or even art but with all of the great designs that already exist, they must have learned something from them. If the archi students are surviving the crit phase of their design classes, this garbage must be an opposite reaction to what got them through school. There's no accounting for taste, I guess.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
As a student of architecture, my perception is that this problem is due in part to the fact that most individuals put more thought and effort into buying a pair of shoes than they do a house.
I agree with that. I studied architectural engineering in the '70s and know quite a few of them. They don't do residential for a living but after seeing their commercial/industrial designs and knowing who they respect as designers, I know they would do a much better job of not only layout but the aesthetic aspects, too. Sometimes I think the builders have drafters who have done that long enough to be able to take the tests, but don't know squat about designing a house that actually looks good. Another problem is that the builders are too concerned with putting out something that will appeal to the neighborhood associations to worry about being known for good design. I'm so sick of farms being bulldozed and the developer putting up 100 houses with maybe 6 or 8 models, all are the same colors, no trees or little tiny ones with 2" trunks(if you want to call it a trunk) that die in the first couple of years. Half of the time, it looks like Iceland with grass. Not many people seem to bother learning anything about architecture or design before they decide that they want to build a house. They go to a builder who has a few books with house designs and the happy couple pick one out and make a few changes to it. Oh, boy! Welcome to the wonderful world of Arkytexture! Those people don't have a clue. Whatever your emphasis in architecture will be, please decide that you want to create good designs, not just put more buildings in the ground. Higher output may make you popular with the bosses but somewhere, there will be a firm that really appreciates quality and innovation. The customers may need to be educated first. You may need to "pay some dues" at first, but after the real world training, you should be able to find somewhere to work that's a really good fit. Sometimes, you can find it during school or immediately after. Good luck.Where do you go to school and what kind of buildings interest you?
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
You got it. Some folks really push the envelope with it too. :)
What is that, The Halloween House?
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Just a nut case designer having a little fun.
The origional glass block design was cost prohibitive.
I thought it was some Jung/Freud concept about dualism breasts and sucking infant security feelings."Live Free, not Die"
LOL! Well sure, Jung and Freud pretty much thought that's what everything was about didn't they?
Ha, yeah. I recall reading something of that nature about the large number of curves and circles necessary in successful ad designs.
be sublime"Live Free, not Die"
I like it: Good proportions. Balance and assymetry combined gracefully. Metal roof. Protected entryway.
We seem to talk about the golden ratio fairly frequently.
I think it has its place in today's architecture. Today's, yesterday's and tomorrow's.
You really can't argue with something that's aethetically pleasing and so simple to incorporate into design.
I don;t see it as spiritual. It's mathematical. It's fibonacci.
I use it everyday..... It is how I was taught to think.
On a hill by the harbour
"What do you guys think?"
I think it offers further proof that the concepts of God and science are in no way mutually exclusive.
Yup- and scientists would do well to remember it too!
He, he, he... well, there goes the thread. ;-)>
Absolutely I believe in the golden proportion. Vitruvius's Ten Books on Architecture talks about this. It's been many years since I studied it but it's related to the human body's proportions. Do they still use Sir Bannister Fletcher's Book in the schools? That used to be the bible on architecture and that certainly talks about the Greeks, ratios etc.
As mentioned above, some of the monstrosities they are throwing up today have nothing to do with good architecture and people who live in these bombastic overblown caves have no sense of taste. Take a look at their lives, and they will reflect the out of balance dwelling in which they live. When I walk into a new prospective job, one of the first things I look at is the proportions in the way they live. Too much this, too little that. What are the books that are around the house if any at all, and do they look read. Is a place comfortable? What makes it that way? Some of you guys have been in multi million dollar homes and just want to run out the door screaming because of the $$ spent on crap. Ratio and proportion govern our lives. This is what is so depressing about our country and the world we live in today, things are not in balance. This blue giant we live on is very delicate and depends on proper balance. I believe it's an indellible part of our DNA
Don't stop now.
More. More."Live Free, not Die"