Bigger isn't always better

 

"Bigness is ultimate architecture." 

- Rem Koolhaus

    As the human population continues to grow and technology expands our capabilities, it seems only natural that architecture too would expand -- in size, scale, scope, ideas... you get the point. But this idea of 'bigness' goes beyond the monumental. Koolhaus describes bigness through five theorems, where after a certain point, the scale of the project cannot be defined by context. It seems to me, that once context becomes irrelevant, so does the architecture. It is at this point that we should perhaps step back and consider the question: How big is too big?

    It seems natural that architecture would continue to grow with the population. There will come a point in time where land will be sparce and the only way for architecture to grow is up. But what does this mean for the future of cities and urban centers? How many people can you actually pack into these spaces before it becomes too dense? And what does this mean for infrastructure? As I was reading these Retroactive Manifestos, I found it hard to wrap my head around what these conclusions meant for the future of architecture. I was especially intrigued by Denise Scott Brown's observations in Las Vegas:

"Valuable traditional techniques should also be resuscitated by their application to new phenomena; for example, when Nolli’s mid-eighteenth-century technique for mapping Rome is adapted to include parking lots, it throws considerable light on Las Vegas." 

    American cities were very much designed around the car. For some cities, like New York, this meant the city was gridded to make it easy for cars to travel. In cities, like Las Vegas, it became centered around areas like the strip where large, brightly lit signs were the main attractions. It has become clear in recent years though that the car cannot survive in the city. Like Brown points out, you have to have a place to park the car and the parking lot will define the figure ground of the city. Beyond the landscape, cities like Tulsa are being affected heavily by heat island effect because of the creation of asphalt deserts.

Nolli Map of Rome 

Urban Surface Parking Figure-Ground Studies // Stephen James Kennedy 

Pink is surface lots, black buildings and gray streets

    Cities are starting to approach this idea of bigness and soon it will be too late to fix the problems that we have created for ourselves. Densely packing people into urban centers certainly will not be sustainable after a certain point. We have already put ourselves into a delicate situation with the environment. If we do not come up with creative solutions soon, we will leave ourselves with few options for a healthy and sustainable future. 

Koolhaus puts it best in "The Culture of Congestion:"

"The elevator is the ultimate self-fulfilling prophesy: the further it travels upward, the more undesirable the circumstances it leaves behind."