Earlier this year, architect Rem Koolhaas of OMA spoke with Mohsen Mostafavi (dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design) to close out the 2016 AIA convention.
I still remember my first architectural theory class where the professor told us all that Koolhaas was the most important living architect of our time. And today, if you think about all of the stars that have grown out from his firm – such as Bjarke Ingels and Joshua Prince-Ramus – it is certainly a defensible argument.
Koolhaas is generally very critical of globalization and the market economy when it comes to creating good architecture. His view is that “pure profit motives” are leading to cities that are basically not designed.
This is a fairly common belief within architectural circles, which is why many celebrated names would rather work on a museum over a residential condo project. The latter is too motivated by profit. It’s not architecturally interesting.
Earlier this year, architect Rem Koolhaas of OMA spoke with Mohsen Mostafavi (dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design) to close out the 2016 AIA convention.
I still remember my first architectural theory class where the professor told us all that Koolhaas was the most important living architect of our time. And today, if you think about all of the stars that have grown out from his firm – such as Bjarke Ingels and Joshua Prince-Ramus – it is certainly a defensible argument.
Koolhaas is generally very critical of globalization and the market economy when it comes to creating good architecture. His view is that “pure profit motives” are leading to cities that are basically not designed.
This is a fairly common belief within architectural circles, which is why many celebrated names would rather work on a museum over a residential condo project. The latter is too motivated by profit. It’s not architecturally interesting.
I, on the other hand, have always believed in working within the confines of the market to try and promote great architecture and city building. I’m not saying that the market is perfect, but profitability is a constraint that every industry deals with. Architecture is no exception.
That said, there are other things that I agree with Koolhaas on. Below are 3 verbatim highlights taken from a Fast Company article summarizing his talk with Mostafavi:
Communication needs an overhaul.
“Architecture has a serious problem today in that people who are not alike don’t communicate. I’m actually more interested in communicating with people I disagree with than people I agree with.”
"To have a certain virtuosity of interpretation of every phenomenon is crucial. We’re working in a world where so many different cultures are operating at the same time, each with their own value system. If you want to be relevant, you need to be open to an enormous multiplicity of values, interpretations, and readings. The old-fashioned Western ‘this is’ ‘that is’ is no longer tenable. We need to be intellectual and rigorous, but at the same time relativist.”
Architecture’s greatest value in the future might not even be architecture.
“Architecture and the language of architecture—platform, blueprint, structure—became almost the preferred language for indicating a lot of phenomenon that we’re facing from Silicon Valley. They took over our metaphors, and it made me think that regardless of our speed, which is too slow for Silicon Valley, we can perhaps think of the modern world maybe not always in the form of buildings but in the form of knowledge or organization and structure and society that we can offer and provide.”
Preservation is a path forward.
"We’ve tried to discover domains and areas in architecture which are not a simple vulgar multiplication of uninspired global projects. Recently, we have looked at preservation. The beautiful thing about preservation is you begin with something that already exists and therefore is already local. By definition, a preservation project is an homage to earlier cultures and mentalities to which you can add a new dimension, a new function, a new beauty or appeal. Almost every impulse signals that globalization needs rethinking or adjustment.”
Since I’m in the rental business, I thought it would be worthwhile to take a look at the rents – though I tend to obsess over all buildings and not just rental ones.
Firstly, the project has a total of 709 apartments and 178 different unit types because of the architectural variations in the building. Of these units, 142 of them (20%) have been designated as affordable and were offered up via a lottery to people who fall within certain incomes ranges.
For the past week or so I’ve been seeing the proposed Kettle Boffo Project in Vancouver make the rounds online. Here’s a rendering of the project, which is located at Commercial Drive and Venables Street:
I, on the other hand, have always believed in working within the confines of the market to try and promote great architecture and city building. I’m not saying that the market is perfect, but profitability is a constraint that every industry deals with. Architecture is no exception.
That said, there are other things that I agree with Koolhaas on. Below are 3 verbatim highlights taken from a Fast Company article summarizing his talk with Mostafavi:
Communication needs an overhaul.
“Architecture has a serious problem today in that people who are not alike don’t communicate. I’m actually more interested in communicating with people I disagree with than people I agree with.”
"To have a certain virtuosity of interpretation of every phenomenon is crucial. We’re working in a world where so many different cultures are operating at the same time, each with their own value system. If you want to be relevant, you need to be open to an enormous multiplicity of values, interpretations, and readings. The old-fashioned Western ‘this is’ ‘that is’ is no longer tenable. We need to be intellectual and rigorous, but at the same time relativist.”
Architecture’s greatest value in the future might not even be architecture.
“Architecture and the language of architecture—platform, blueprint, structure—became almost the preferred language for indicating a lot of phenomenon that we’re facing from Silicon Valley. They took over our metaphors, and it made me think that regardless of our speed, which is too slow for Silicon Valley, we can perhaps think of the modern world maybe not always in the form of buildings but in the form of knowledge or organization and structure and society that we can offer and provide.”
Preservation is a path forward.
"We’ve tried to discover domains and areas in architecture which are not a simple vulgar multiplication of uninspired global projects. Recently, we have looked at preservation. The beautiful thing about preservation is you begin with something that already exists and therefore is already local. By definition, a preservation project is an homage to earlier cultures and mentalities to which you can add a new dimension, a new function, a new beauty or appeal. Almost every impulse signals that globalization needs rethinking or adjustment.”
Since I’m in the rental business, I thought it would be worthwhile to take a look at the rents – though I tend to obsess over all buildings and not just rental ones.
Firstly, the project has a total of 709 apartments and 178 different unit types because of the architectural variations in the building. Of these units, 142 of them (20%) have been designated as affordable and were offered up via a lottery to people who fall within certain incomes ranges.
For the past week or so I’ve been seeing the proposed Kettle Boffo Project in Vancouver make the rounds online. Here’s a rendering of the project, which is located at Commercial Drive and Venables Street:
I don’t know the exact numbers, but Curbed New York speculated – based on what was seen at other buildings on the west side – that the total number of applicants for these 142 units may have reached over 100,000!
For the market-rate units, the average monthly rents are as follows (via Curbed NY):
Studio: $2,770
One-bedroom: $3,880
Two-bedroom: $6,500
Three-bedroom: $11,000
Four-bedroom: $16,500
I wasn’t able to find average unit sizes (to calculate per square foot rents), but I estimate the overall average unit size to be around 1,000 square feet.
940,000 sf (total gross floor area) - 45,000 sf of retail x 0.80 efficiency (lower than average because of the shape of the building) / 709 units = approximately 1,000 sf of rentable area per unit. That’s just my rough guess based on what I could find online.
If anyone has any additional figures, please share them in the comments below. I think there are a few subscribers to this blog who are involved in the project.
The reason it has been making the rounds is that a community group called NO TOWER (written in all caps) has come out in fierce opposition of the 5 to 12-storey building. They have over 3,500 signatures.
As an outsider looking in, this is surprising. The scale of the project seems appropriate. The height roughly matches the existing building shown above to the right. It may even be lower. And the project will provide somewhere around 30 social housing units, as well as additional space for the Kettle Friendship Society non-profit, who are currently on the site. (Note: An application to the city hasn’t yet been made.)
What this has me thinking about is the push and pull between bottom-up and top-down planning.
When architect Bjarke Ingels talks about his Dryline project in New York, he likes to refer to it as the love child of Robert Moses (top-down planning) and Jane Jacobs (bottom-up planning). In the case of this project, it’s because it’s a large infrastructure project that they are trying to root into the local neighborhoods. Makes sense.
But this same thinking could also apply to overall city building. Local communities rightly have their own wants. But at the same time, cities need to be thinking about the overall. The challenge is finding that right balance.
I would be curious to hear your thoughts on the Kettle Boffo Project in the comment section below – especially if you’re from Vancouver.
I don’t know the exact numbers, but Curbed New York speculated – based on what was seen at other buildings on the west side – that the total number of applicants for these 142 units may have reached over 100,000!
For the market-rate units, the average monthly rents are as follows (via Curbed NY):
Studio: $2,770
One-bedroom: $3,880
Two-bedroom: $6,500
Three-bedroom: $11,000
Four-bedroom: $16,500
I wasn’t able to find average unit sizes (to calculate per square foot rents), but I estimate the overall average unit size to be around 1,000 square feet.
940,000 sf (total gross floor area) - 45,000 sf of retail x 0.80 efficiency (lower than average because of the shape of the building) / 709 units = approximately 1,000 sf of rentable area per unit. That’s just my rough guess based on what I could find online.
If anyone has any additional figures, please share them in the comments below. I think there are a few subscribers to this blog who are involved in the project.
The reason it has been making the rounds is that a community group called NO TOWER (written in all caps) has come out in fierce opposition of the 5 to 12-storey building. They have over 3,500 signatures.
As an outsider looking in, this is surprising. The scale of the project seems appropriate. The height roughly matches the existing building shown above to the right. It may even be lower. And the project will provide somewhere around 30 social housing units, as well as additional space for the Kettle Friendship Society non-profit, who are currently on the site. (Note: An application to the city hasn’t yet been made.)
What this has me thinking about is the push and pull between bottom-up and top-down planning.
When architect Bjarke Ingels talks about his Dryline project in New York, he likes to refer to it as the love child of Robert Moses (top-down planning) and Jane Jacobs (bottom-up planning). In the case of this project, it’s because it’s a large infrastructure project that they are trying to root into the local neighborhoods. Makes sense.
But this same thinking could also apply to overall city building. Local communities rightly have their own wants. But at the same time, cities need to be thinking about the overall. The challenge is finding that right balance.
I would be curious to hear your thoughts on the Kettle Boffo Project in the comment section below – especially if you’re from Vancouver.
