The Antidote to Junkspace
Everyday as I ride the bus from Greenville to Clemson, I watch as I pass junkspace after junkspace. It’s the bank with out-of-proportion Greek temple front, it’s the strip mall with a layer of fake rusticated blocks on the facade, it’s the huge empty expanse of a former JC Penney’s surrounded by a greater expanse of asphalt. It's simply wrong to blame developers and say “oh architects don’t design this stuff” because they do. An architect’s stamp is almost always required to build commercial buildings of junkspace scale. They most certainly have a hand in designing what we consider junkspace. Architecture may be many things but at the end of the day, it’s always a product to be sold in order to be built.
Very few architects have the means to refuse projects because they don’t want to design a strip mall. As architecture students, we believe this will never be us, but we are delusional. Even the best of us and most idealistic of us may end up designing junkspace because we need to make a living. Providing the antidote to junkspace (and junk cities) is not up to the architect and the client, but the responsibility rests squarely on the city planners and design review boards to take a more active role. Where this happens, you see a change in the built environment; where it doesn’t, you see junkspace. Capitalistic industries have never self-regulated when it costs their bottom line, why would architecture and real estate development be any different?
Rendering of a new Easley Zaxby's
Closed JC Penney's in Easley, SC
Former Rite-Aid in Easley, SC
What incentive is there for the city planners to provide an antidote to junkspace, let alone understand what it means or why it's bad (if indeed it's a bad thing)? They look at a Greek temple front and go "That's fantastic!"
ReplyDeleteJunkspace is then probably just the medium and context in which our designs materialize. We can make tiny changes from within, but Junkspace will still appropriate those changes and claim them as its own...
I agree, as students just out of college, it will takes years of practice and hardwork for a reputation with which we might be able to raise a question on such practices
ReplyDeleteI think there is an incentive to not want junkspace in your city. The aesthetics of junkspace are the most difficult to control (you can't force someone to have good taste) but where a building is located and its size is definitely under the planners control. The reasons why they would want density vs. sprawl are many, but junkspace and the sprawl it necessitates makes a city less attractive to future investors... for instance, Amazon in their search for a new headquarters ruled out cities that lack efficient public transportation. Public transportation works best when you have a denser, urban environment (one that can't support junkspace). Most cities are probably just happy that anyone wants to build there, so they allow for growth that isn't sustainable and the buildings that go along with it.
ReplyDeleteI agree. If the decisions are left to architects that aren't invested in the area, junkspace will be built time and time again. But, if someone is able to be involved with the community and be a representative on a design review board, maybe some change will actually come about.
ReplyDeleteI think you are correct in saying that city planners and design review boards need to accept more responsibility, but I think that the architect and client do have a say in the overall design. However, I don't think any of the current junkspace culture (buildings similar to the image you posted above) will change unless we are able to change the general public's perception on what is considered good design versus quick, efficient construction for a profit.
ReplyDeleteI think that the antidote to junkspace is an informed and enlightened society - however, and sadly, Americans seem to be lacking in this quality or qualities.
ReplyDeleteWe used to strive to be knowledgeable on many topics, a true renaissance-man type of life, but now everyone and everything is specialized. We go to school for "dentristry" or "international business" and all of our classes are set for us (with maybe a few exceptions). Yes, there are a few core classes we all take that is supposed to broaden our minds but in the end, we're left with a very narrow perception as it relates to the rest of the world.