Architecture

I see this more and more as a way of having higher density townhouse development.

Like this:

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/377936

It wasn't until I started getting into architecture when I realozed just how many apartments have atriums (atria?) Hotels as well. Now I'm curious about what benefits they have over closed corridors on each floor. I read some things about it being beneficial for passive ventilation, but are there anything else beneficial about them to warrant them being so popular?

What about the drawbacks? Like, wouldn't sound be transmitted pretty easily through it and you'll be able to hear more of your neighbours as well as whatever's going on in the lobby/common area? Also, why not just use the space the atrium takes up to make each unit bigger, or the building footprint smaller?

What are your thoughts on atria? Do you like them? Hate them? Any other benefits and drawbacks I've not thought of?

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/270359

Sources for pictures and more info here: https://www.archdaily.com/897382/the-house-of-soviets-why-should-this-symbolic-work-of-soviet-brutalism-be-preserved

This building has a really interesting history but is in danger of being demolished. Definitely worth a read.

I'm also a fan of walkways between buildings. Especially somewhere where the weather isn't very favourable for large parts of the year, it's both convenient, and more importantly, more accessible for differently abled people.

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/270375

Got these pictures from an article by a well-known US news outlet. Which literally only mocks the brutalism style and calls it ugly in a very "communism bad" undertone, and adds nothing of value. And they weren't even the creators of these images. So I won't even bother linking it and not give it SEO.

IDK what they were going on about because all these buildings look amazing. Weird looking yes, but also amazing.

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/273542

I've always been really interested in apartment design, especially the structure and layout inside the building that most people don't see from a bird's eye view. To this end, I really enjoy looking at floor plans, especially large ones that show entire floors of an apartment with all the units, corridors, and common spaces. However, when I search for floor plans using the image search function of search engines, most of the results I get are from rental and real estate websites, and Pinterest, the latter of which almost never includes the source of the image. Are there better places for finding floor plans? Especially the whole-floor floor plans I talked about.

Official page from Lendager: https://lendager.com/en/architecture/upcycle-studios-en/

This looks like the source for the pictures: https://drwong.live/design/upcycle-studios-townhouses-lendager-group-copenhagen-recycled-materials/

The majority of the results I got from a search were from Pinterest, which was annoying.

I mean, that's one way of handling a housing shortage, I guess?

Image by Øyvind Holmstad, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

If you're curious as to why wood is used, most likely the biggest answer is sustainability. Wood is a renewable resource is managed properly, and is carbon neutral as trees acquire carbon from the atmosphere. Compared to concrete, which is mined and releases carbon when it's made.

Apartment buildings that are hollow in the middle, enclosing a centre courtyard are much more common in Europe than here in North America, and I really like them from a design perspective, though I've never lived in one. Do you or did you live in this type of building? Regardless, what do you think of them compared to flat apartment buildings without enclosed courtyards? Are new ones still being built or are only old apartments in this style?

In my city, there doesn't seem to be any two-bed one-bath apartments, if you want two bedrooms, your only choice is to also have two bathrooms. The majority of two-bedroom floorplans I've found online also reflects this. Is there a reason why having one bathroom for two bedrooms is so unpopular? I can't imagine a family that occupies two bedrooms have that many instances of two people needing the bathroom at the exact same time, other than maybe in the morning, but even then it wouldn't be the case for every family. Wouldn't it make more sense at least for some people to use the space that would have been for a second bathroom as a storage room or a small study? That space could also just not exist and result in a somewhat smaller and cheaper apartment.

This is from the perspective of US and Canadian apartments, are two-bed one-bath apartments more common in other parts of the world? If not, why? I definitely remember our apartment in China had three bedrooms and one bathroom, but it's an old building and I don't know if new apartments are still built like that over there.

The Nazis were big on stripping stucco off buildings.

Ornament seen as "dishonest", above the plain spokenness of simplicity -- the reason I hate it as an aesthetic view today is because this shit is not ascetic. It is not cheap. The global elite (at every slice, including the one that catches most Americans) shouldn't get to pretend we're being simple or plain when we participate in the consumption economy. Decorate your home with acanthus and cheap gilt, at least you're engaging in an aesthetic that implicitly values the labor in the creation of applied art. Buy a Herend Rothschild plate, trapping of supreme 1800s inequality, and an artisan in a worker-owned coop gets paid a good wage to paint the little bird on. But the cult of Design often makes its minimalist wares with Walmart-exploitative processes, as bad as any mercury gilding, and that it gets to act superior about its aesthetic is repulsive to me. When Dolce & Gabbana sends crowns down a runway, at least that's being honest about what it is, where it comes from, who it's for.

I probably need to write something up properly about this because I have a lot of poorly-articulated feelings about it.

This makes me feel much better about my curmudgeonly opinion that contemporary trends forgoing even basic window trim are Bad and Should Feel Bad. Trim feels pretty minimal next to these bad boys.