It really is that terrible

(Not a response to Thu's post)

"...flat-horizontal envelopes are experienced in a fragmented manner and are therefore less concerned with representation and figural performance than with the organization of material flows: traffic, ventilation, daylight, security, etc." - Zaera Polo while describing the loose-fit facade concept.   

Zaera Polo's concept of the loose-fit facade concept / ratio (which essentially describe flat horizontal facades where the x and y dimensions are much larger than the z dimension) most fascinating because I feel that this concept is the one that gets completed bunked by the other 99% of architects. To explain my thoughts I want to elicit the use of an interesting image shown in class...

2014 Venice Biennale 

This image perfectly juxtaposes the evolution of the "roof" over time.  Technologies, concepts, budgets have all evolved to a point where these two "roofs" which are both typical for their time do share almost no similarities.  Now I want to compare two loose fit facades...

West Kowloon Mall in Hong Kong

Meijer (grocery store) in Illinois

Setting aside the fact that of course these two projects have different budgets in different regions and distilling them both down to examples of two contemporary loose-fit facades we can easily compare them for their treatment of, as Zaera Polo puts it, traffic, ventilation, daylight, security.  Like the example from the Venice Biennale, the west kowloon mall / terminal clearly out performs the Meijer example in all categories, the two are hardly recognized as being in the same category. The West Kowloon Mall is beautifully daylit, accounts for users circulation seamlessly through the space and over the space while the meijer is your most reductive big box construction with zero daylight, ventilation, or thought for human traffic and a bizarre fabricated neighborhood facade. Where has the other 99% of build environments out there not designed by starchitects (or even the next tier down) gone wrong? I think the  problem is much deeper than a lack of budget, its an ignorance to the integrity of design.