“Culture is very fast and architecture is very slow. It demands a lot of financial resources, impacts on city in a very permanent way. It’s a very slow art. What an architect does best is to reaffirm the importance of the physical environment. In virtual world, many different human relationships have been consecrated, and less attention paid on the physical realm.”
City of Sound
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“As architects, we can all relate to aesthetic concerns that Don Norman expresses. Design as beauty is something that most all architects maintain as a priority. However, what about design as “fun”? Don Norman’s simple yet meaningful statement that “pleasant things work better” is both true and something to keep in mind while you design.”
Sensing Architecture
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“Seattle urbanophiles, for example, love to tout Vancouver's skinny towers as the end-all of downtown living and something to emulate. Price, on the other hand, found much to envy in Seattle's risk-taking architecture and individualistic neighborhoods, and much mediocrity in Vancouver's look-alike high-rises.”
Crosscut
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“David Galbraith, looking at a floor of Le Corbusier’s Villa Stein on the market for €1,080,000, concludes that either “architecture is vastly under valued or painting prices are almost entirely irrational” … I am ultimately bearish about the prospects for collectible architecture — while it’s possible to imagine a world where it exists, it seems impossible to get there from here. But that doesn’t mean that the entire art market — a market where people get to buy unique and portable objects to savor and enjoy at their leisure — is irrational. It just means that architecture doesn’t behave in the same manner.
Reuters
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“Don't write the obituary for McMansions just yet. Although mass-produced behemoths more than 3,000-square-feet in size have only been common (and commonly criticized), since the late '90s, home sizes have never been influenced by need alone … Homes are getting smaller now because people feel poorer, but all that will change once the recession ends and consumer confidence is restored.”
Wall Street Journal
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