Is less really less?
"We are left trying to do the same thing but with less and, in contradiction to Mies, less really is less." Till
Jeremy Till discusses the idea of austerity in architecture and the mantra of "cuts now, growth later." In our economics classes, the idea of supply and demand is stressed across every strata of conceptual discussion.
In the book, Born to Run, the author mentions the strategies Nike uses to maintain profit growth. After introducing the Pegasus shoe, many runners were enthralled by the shoe's unparalled tectonics in running. Just a few years later, the shoe was discontinued. And a few years later, a new Pegasus shoe was reinserted into the market, leading many runners to buy multiple pairs of the expensive shoe in the event that it is taken off the market again. As it turns out, rather than spending time "enhancing" the shoe, Nike simply was taking the shoe off the market to cause this mass panic of shoe buying, and thus gaining more profit.
In architecture, how can we avoid being duped by these false "trends" and discover what are truly quantifiable scarcities in our resources? Is less really less in the essence that are we truly being honest in what are the inefficiencies of our world?
Till talks about growth is shadowed by the condition of scarcity; one cannot survive without the other. Like the Nike Pegasus, growth occurred from the false scarcity of resources. So, as architects, we must ask ourselves, is less really less?
Jeremy Till discusses the idea of austerity in architecture and the mantra of "cuts now, growth later." In our economics classes, the idea of supply and demand is stressed across every strata of conceptual discussion.
In the book, Born to Run, the author mentions the strategies Nike uses to maintain profit growth. After introducing the Pegasus shoe, many runners were enthralled by the shoe's unparalled tectonics in running. Just a few years later, the shoe was discontinued. And a few years later, a new Pegasus shoe was reinserted into the market, leading many runners to buy multiple pairs of the expensive shoe in the event that it is taken off the market again. As it turns out, rather than spending time "enhancing" the shoe, Nike simply was taking the shoe off the market to cause this mass panic of shoe buying, and thus gaining more profit.
In architecture, how can we avoid being duped by these false "trends" and discover what are truly quantifiable scarcities in our resources? Is less really less in the essence that are we truly being honest in what are the inefficiencies of our world?
Till talks about growth is shadowed by the condition of scarcity; one cannot survive without the other. Like the Nike Pegasus, growth occurred from the false scarcity of resources. So, as architects, we must ask ourselves, is less really less?
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