big v. BIG

 You can be big, and then you can be BIG. When Rem Koolhaas is describing the infatuation some had around the turn of the century with megastructures I think of architects and designers ‘jamming’ program into buildings for the sake of making things big. With increases in technology comes our ability to compile architectural programs in ways we never thought possible. As described in the reading, we saw a ton of buildings arise that seemed to be abusing the new technologies to make big architecture for the sake of ‘seeing how much we can fit in the bag’ - an abuse of the resources. Just because we have money for a marble house doesn't mean we should make a house of marble! Just because new building technologies let us compile an office with a coffee bar, gym, sandwich shop, gymnasium does not mean we should. But, if one man didn’t make a house of marble and allow the world to see the failures where would we be today? If these failed megastructures were never attempted, what would BIG be building today (or would he be the one failing)?

Throughout Silicon Valley we now see ‘megastructures’ that are popping up due to the demand in technology companies and their BIG program. IT offices, server rooms, conference rooms all need to fit under one ‘roof’ to form a campus of people for the benefit of the people - not for the sake of exploiting current building technology. Take the Google HQ by Bjarke Ingles Group for example. It is a giant shed full of programming and technologies that I would classify as a megastructure but not as ‘detrimental’ architecture. They way it was designed allows for flexibility and innovation by the people with the aid of building and construction technology. Would it be possible to build this before the new era of technology? No. Could a building pre-tech era be made with the same affects and effects of the Google HQ? I would have to argue that no, it wouldn't. We are in different times now and we need to allow designers to explore the overuse of technology to reach new boundaries so we can discover how to properly utilize it to create useful, meaningful megastructures.