
How Buildings Learn (1997) [video] - ivank
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvEqfg2sIH0&list=PLxFD-wxU4CoNb-gCM0-P9fjJchwUIfkep
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neilv
In this TV series, Stewart Brand rightly acknowledges MIT's legendary Building
20, though there's a lot more to say about it:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_20](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_20)

I had a chance to see Building 20, and do a student Web project on it, right
before it was destroyed. Brand contrasts Building 20 with IM Pei-designed E15,
which I worked in, and which had even more bad elements than he itemizes,
though there were also some redeeming elements. The best thing about it --
other than the many students that filled it -- was that, sometimes, in the wee
hours of the night, as you're slaving as a grad student, the cold and hostile
interior cutout, which spanned every floor, was filled with the sound of
someone playing the grand piano on the lower level... and belting out vocals
of Billy Joel classics. I never interrupted and risked breaking the magic, but
later learned the performer was someone who worked in IT, rather than a
student/researcher/visitor, which I suppose is one loose sense in which the
building was malleable wrt original intent.

I later worked in the fancy Frank Gehry-designed Stata Center that replaced
some of Building 20, as well as served other purposes. It's a nice building,
and some interesting conscious efforts were made, such as in the
lobby/concourse area, which I think are paying off. There were a few glaring
quirks that were designed in, or artifacts of the design, which seemed
incongruous with the niceness of it. There was also sometimes suboptimal
allocation of interior space, when some people didn't have enough space, but
there were big chunks of underutilized space.

(This is partly relevant, and tangentially funny: One evening of late hours at
work, several years ago, I was meeting with a professor in one of those
underutilized sitting spaces, and a presumed undergrad student turned on an
adjacent loud piece of machinery, which was placed poorly, next to professors'
offices, and difficult to talk over. Professor asks student to use the machine
later, because we're trying to talk. Professor was tenured and exceedingly
accomplished, but (I think this might've been a factor in his response) female
and young, and apparently the male student was very new and unaware. Rather
than apologize and perhaps negotiate, he adopts an irritated, talking-down
tone, "And who are you?" She responds, no note of irritation, just a hint of
cheerful, "I'm Professor ___", and asks him to use the noisy machine later.)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_and_Maria_Stata_Center](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_and_Maria_Stata_Center)

I understand that the Stata building also helped unite some groups previously
from 545 Tech Square and elsewhere, including Project MAC, the AI Lab, LCS,
and the W3C. Most of that greatness was before my time, but I read about it as
a kid. What seemed to be a series of remodeling of 545 Tech Square took place
after Stewart Brand's book was written, but, together with its previous twin
building, could be used as a book cover illustration of building evolution
over time.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_Square_(Cambridge,_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_Square_\(Cambridge,_Massachusetts\))

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DoreenMichele
The piece in the video where they talk about an old building that evolved over
500 years reminds me of when I lived in Germany and we would visit castles and
take pictures as our hobby. Most castles start as a single tower on a high
point of ground and grow from there.

So one of the things we would do is go around trying to identify the oldest
tower, the place where this fortification started. It was generally going to
be simpler and uglier and out of step with the rest of the architecture.

It was also often fairly centrally located. At Wurzburg, I think it was found
in some inner courtyard.

At one time, I had the book called _How Buildings Learn._ The gist of it is
that wonderful old buildings didn't start out as wonderful old buildings. They
grew into their wonderfulness as owners added onto them.

Time and living well in that space is what makes for wonderful buildings.

Jane Jacobs talks about the need for older buildings in a city and the need
for buildings of various ages. She says that when you bulldoze an area and
start over and build everything new you are usually doing great harm to the
town.

Her description is that these areas "Were always dead, but no one noticed
until the body began to smell."

Which means it was never a good idea. People just didn't figure it out until
the newness and shininess wore off and the fact that it didn't work and was
falling apart in short order started to really show.

It was her explanation for why people were wrong about "This area died." No,
it didn't die. It was never alive to begin with. You just didn't immediately
see it.

Buildings and cities need to grow and breath and live. They need to evolve
organically. If you imagine they are static things, you don't understand them
and you can't do right by them.

~~~
Spooky23
The problem with bulldozing is that you get what the developer wants, not what
anyone needs. I’ve had the dubious privilege of working and living in
monumental architecture built by via mass bulldozing by an architect that
people have heard of. They are all terribly nonfunctional buildings with nice,
well thought out public spaces, but junk for everything else.

In one complex, there is no way to cross between two buildings outside about
100 yards away without going up and down 3 flights of stairs. (Which are very
pretty, but icy in winter) The solution is that folks take an labyrinth of
elevators, traversing parking garages and narrow hallways.

There’s a million examples. But as a rule, famous architect + greenfield
equates to shitty building.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Vernacular architecture is usually a better approach. But it's somewhat fallen
out of favor of late.

One college put in sidewalks. People kept walking across the lawn.

In a daring and unusual move, instead of crabbing at people and trying to keep
them on the sidewalks, they tore out the sidewalks and laid down sod. A few
months later, they reinstalled sidewalks. The new plan was based on the paths
worn in the grass by constant foot traffic.

We need more of those kinds of solutions.

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EdwardCoffin
I've read the book carefully, cover-to-cover: it's a classic. I was fairly
disappointed with the TV series though. I think the only thing I really got
out of it was video of a few interesting buildings. For getting a good
understanding of the ideas that Brand was trying to convey I highly recommend
going straight to the book and bypassing the TV series.

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madhadron
Make sure you get through the initial description of the problems with
contemporary architecture that led the book to be written and get to the meat
of the matter: how to think about buildings over time.

Also, the book this comes from is wonderful.

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stevebmark
The parallels between buildings are built to evolve, and software, are
wonderful to think about

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asplake
Also a book!

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TotallyGod
I also read the comments on youtube and one of them describes the series as a
"terribly poor example of architectural information - so many unqualified
statements, generalizations and assumptions that are simply incorrect"

From the same user:

 _" Architects often concentrate more on the look of a building than its
eventual use or function" That is a very bold statement..... To say that
architects downplay the function of building is a ridiculous thing to say._

 _" The central problem is that architects don't want change in their
buildings, so they make it as difficult as possible." False. Architects are
legally responsible to act for the betterment of their client and the general
public. Being deliberately 'difficult' would result in an eventual loss of
their license._

 _" Changes and remodeling is bound to be ugly." Give me a break, have you
seen the Louvre? Or any other updated building, ever?_

~~~
eternalban
I remember back in Columbia GSAPP during Tschumi's reign I (unfortunately) had
a studio with Stan Allen. The theme was "Brownian Motion" I kid you not, and
he started us off with "consider a career in minor architecture" and how we
really should be focusing on the "skin condition". Right around the corner, a
young hot wunderkind from Princeton's studio was doing 'organic' forms that
basically amounted to 'turd' forms.

I came to architecture from Electrical Engineering. It was shocking to
discover that, from a theoretical basis, there was no there there in
Architecture. As far as I can tell, it is still a field caught in an identity
crisis. CAD and advances in materials and structural engineering has
definitely helped carry it along but fundamentally, Architecture is struggling
to establish a sound theoretical foundation (beyond sound bites) to guide the
design of buildings. At least Alexander, et al. put forth an actionable
bottom-up program for design.

