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Originally Posted by Nowhereman1280
^^^ Honte, if there were no burnouts then the views from within the units would suffer. Burnouts allow a slice of floor to celing views to be enjoyed from within the building.
@Wrabbit: I wouldn't say Weese's detention center is purely is fully rational. Why is it a triangle? Why are the windows not in a uniform pattern? Those are primarily for decoration. Even Marina City or, dare I say the Hancock Building, are not completely rational. The circular shape of Marina city has received criticism for making the placement of furniture in the smaller rooms difficult and inefficient, not pure reason. Even in JHC there is one tiny little bit of irrationality, the very top half cross was not necessary for the structural integrity of the building, but Khan exaggerated the benefits in order to preserve the visual unity of the cross braces, despite the fact that it sacrificed views.
The point is in even the most rational of buildings architects have taken liberties in rationality to preserve the purity and integrity of the aesthetic appearance. I don't know why we would hold Aqua to any other standard.
If everything were completely rational every building would look exactly like 860-880 LSD and the Seagram Building, which would be extremely unpleasant...
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I don't want to carry this too far, but what you're getting at is one of the principal challenges of good architecture: Synthesis. If the balconies are in the way yet you need them for solar shading, you can either 1) hold on to that and compromise something else such as views, 2) search for a better solution, 3) ignore the problem, 4) compromise / negate / confound your solution (as Studio Gang did here), 5) ideally adapt your concept to address other challenges and find a more perfect solution. I feel that Aqua is too-far tipped toward the poetic and gestural
to stand up to their justifications for it. I am not proposing that there is anything inherently wrong with whimsy or "emotional" architecture. This also begs the question of why they didn't just go hog-wild and do something playful all-around (no boxes).
Your other point is taken but not entirely relevant. All architecture has elements of caprice and "pure design." That, even in Mies's mind, was the difference between architecture and engineering. 860-880 has tons of irrationality in it.
Tons, unless you allow that visual beauty and harmony are the job of the architect and this is in itself a rational act. In any case, this doesn't matter: The overall approach to the design was rational. Mies carefully chose his objectives, was 100% deliberate in his objectives, and set out relentlessly to achieve these with every detail in those buildings.
You could also probably argue that buildings like Grand Plaza are the most rational. Why? Because they are almost 100% governed by the almighty dollar. Every decision seems to have been made to save as much money as possible while squeezing out as much renter income as possible. And yet these buildings are hardly even considered architecture.
I don't really care what one's objective is in a building, so long as it does no real harm. Architecture is still an art. But we can critique disingenuous or not well developed concepts, which is my point here. This is especially important when people are toying with environmentally friendly solutions and to some extent misrepresenting their buildings as such - this is a major concern for me.
Simply, I don't think Aqua and your other examples are at all in the same category.
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If you look up in the photo Wrabbit posted, there is a "score line" that follows the contour of the curvature on the underside of the cantilevered slab edge. I'm curious how they're getting that into the formwork so precisely and then into the slab. Thanks.
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