Mediocrity: Ur doin’ it right
A couple things hit a nerve over the last week architecturally speaking (nothing new there). Looking at the NYtimes a couple days ago I came across a special about new architecture in Beijing and all its bold new buildings. I couldn’t help but visualize the NYtimes covering all the crazy new buildings being built in Buffalo in the early 1900’s-late 1800’s with the bold and controversial Larkin Building, the insanely soaring Guaranty Building, the out-of-context Martin House.
Nowadays, this
crap gets built in the city center and no one gives a shit.
I’ve written before about how architecture is indeed more important in Buffalo than it was before as we slightly move away from the “just build something” approach. That idea is still present and I’m guilty of on occasion as well. One may say that its all about money but good architecture doesn’t have to mean art museums and luxury condos designed by Gehry or Calatrava in world class cities. If a developer and an architect have any respect for the ground they build on and respect the ghosts of Burnham, Sullivan, Wright, Richardson, and Saarinen around them they’d do better-especially if you went to Harvard…like the guy who designed this-
Buffalo will not have a building boom of Beijing proportions, in fact-it probably never will have a building boom. But things are and will be built in Buffalo, all I am saying is that embracing mediocrity is a self-fulfilling prophecy-whether through public policy or design.
July 17th, 2008 at 7:10 am
Ahhh. But when someone ‘gives a shit’ and offers suggestions on how to make a project better, they’re called obstructionists, hippies, and worst of all, a preservationist. Place the blame squarely on City Hall which is desperate for development at any cost and is afraid to demand anything from developers as far as enhancements. It is left up to the developer and architect to create something attractive, because the City could not care less. Someone who dared to question the design for HealthNow was run off the Preservation Board. If only…
July 22nd, 2008 at 4:34 pm
very true, wcp. Often development for development sack is all anyone cares about. They don’t think about the long term consequences of their actions. I actually don’t have too much of a beef with these two examples because at lease they offer SOMETHING for the pedestrian to look at. Although their views here make them look right out of sim city. The Delta Sonics, willert pratts, crescent village crap that gets built without any real thought to the future of past is an embarrassment.
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:25 pm
That Niagara Center…Well lets just say that I am embarrassed for my profession
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:25 am
i understand the sentiment, but taking chances on unique designs costs money, and moneys pretty tight round here these days
you hope that people do the right thing, but I can’t really begrudge them in not doing so.
July 25th, 2008 at 5:37 am
good design doesn’t have to cost extra money, and often great designs can save the occupants money. There was a study done (sorry don’t remember the reference right now) that compared LEED building costs and showed that until Platinum level the LEED structures (when designed from the outset to be LEED and not added somewhere long the process) were comparable to similar buildings and program built without any thought to LEED.
So at the very least we could be buildings LEED certified buildings without much additional cost.
July 25th, 2008 at 7:32 am
Building and designing A LEED building is substantially more expensive. As to operating cost I would suspect that the LEED building is cheaper. If so I am not sure how long it would take to balance out.
In the future LEED level design will be more of a standard procedure but for now it is NOT cheap
July 26th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
My comment comes from a study done by Davis Langdon. “The 2006 study shows essentially the same results as 2004: there is no significant difference in average costs for green buildings as compared to non-green buildings. Many project teams are building green buildings with little or no added cost, and with budgets well within the cost range of non-green buildings with similar programs.”
This is assuming that LEED certification was incorporated from the very outset of design and not added in as extra.
July 26th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
You can not get a LEED certification unless you start the project as LEED building. Otherwise you can not get the certifications. Getting LEEd certification is a very involved process which includes not only what goes into a building but how it is constructed and how it is used. We have generally found LEED to be a 5 to 15% premium on cost. I have a LEED Silver building going up right now that has additional staff costs (to the contractor and owner in the form of LEED consultants and Commissioning agents) in the range of $100,000 on a $5,000,000 total cost building. That is not to say that you can not do sustainable things that don’t cost extra. There are many recycled products for instance now on the market which are not more expensive.