It’s short-listed comp time again at work, and I aimed to get a shot in. The project this time is a giant set of condo towers downtown. But the thing is, designing a condo tower is hard. Really hard.
The reason is that condo towers, and skyscrapers in general, don’t have a lot of room for design. See, a skyscraper is a lot of things, but mostly it’s a machine for making a crapload of money. If you’ve got a nice plot of land, you can put up four or five “Colonial”-style houses and putter home in a 5-series BMW, or you can cram eighteen of those houses together, pile them fifty stories high, connect them with the same circulation (elevator) system, and comfortably commission your third Rolls. (Or, you know, may be a Ferrari for the mistress.) This works best if, in our case, at least, hold on… 2,688 people want to live on that same plot.
So, the name of the game is efficiency. Every skyscraper begins life not as an inspired scribble on a Starbucks napkin, but rather in the warm loving womb of an crisp Excel spreadsheet. We get a list of numbers from the developer, detailing how many of what kinds of units, the size of each unit type, the desired efficiency (ratio of salable area to total area), and details about the site, such as boundary setbacks and the plot ratio.* Then we try to figure out how many levels we’ll need for parking, how many units and what units to put on which floors, etc.
Therefore, it’s hard to propose doing anything but using every last scrap of space, meaning you start with the maximum volume allowed and painfully whittle down, trying to put everything you take out back somewhere else. And of course, everyone wants a nice view, and they don’t want to directly face west or east, and they don’t want to look into their neighbor, and they want the giant bedroom and walk-in closet and “gourmet” kitchen.
It’s with this straight-jacket that we set about designing something not too much like everyone else’s four tower luxury downtown condo development. Any “design-y” move we make has to be carefully justified in terms a developer understands. Consider:
Architect: “And so, cutting the podium here and aligning it with the façade forcefully emphasizes the exceptional verticality of….”
Developer: [rubbing forehead] “Shut up, how much money is that getting me?”
A: “Uh, well, you see…”
D: “I mean, really, how many dump-trucks worth? At least five? The last guy got me five.”
A: “Well, the concept will…”
D: “What I do is, I put it in a big vault on a hill, and the vault, it has a giant ‘$’ on it, which means lots of money is inside.”
A: “Yes, but, the point is that it’s really essential to…”
D: “Then, when I’m done talking to you black-turtleneck frigtards, I like jump in it, and burrow through it like a gopher, and then, you know what?”
A: [sighing] “You… you like to throw it up, and let it hit you on the head?”
D: “Exactly!”
Like I said, design is hard.
*Boundary setback is how close you can build to the boundary; plot ratio is the maximum permissible floor area, as a multiplier of the site area. So, if the plot ratio is 2.0, and the plot is 1,000 square meters, then my building can’t have more than 2,000 square meters of floor area. A developer is always going to want to use every last square meter, of course.
A plural plurality
You know, Alf, I’m not totally down with your last entry, “Empowerment.” It’s a good read, but I don’t agree with the last half. To begin with the end:
Thing is, Asians aren’t black. You’re forcing a crude comparison. We weren’t abducted from our home continent, largely erased of our cultures, sentenced to a subhuman tier of society, and then united in an upward fight. Asians largely arrived of our own will, with differing skills, from different social classes, at many different times, and&mash;as the Chinatowns, Koreatowns, Little Tokyos, Little Saigons, etc., demonstrate—with our own distinct cultures. Largely speaking, “black” refers to one people, one culture, a distinct race formed over hundreds of years on a new and isolated continent. On the other hand, the term “Asian” is a total misnomer, a blunt tool used to handle hundreds of millions of people with dramatically different cultures, classes, and situations. Asian American culture, as it’s practiced, is a strange mixture of white culture and Asian stereotypes embraced by Asians.
Thus, what would “unite” us? Why should we unite, when we’re all so different—when we’re widely (if not necessarily overwhelmingly) represented at all social levels, all income levels, all levels of culture, and all levels of education? Is it because we all happen to originate on the world’s largest continent? A dearth of Asians in public society isn’t a conspiracy, nor is it oppression; it’s simply a product a combination of demographics and a lack of reason for cohesion. Just as there aren’t really issues that unite all “white” people, there aren’t really any issues that unite all “Asians.” (Perhaps except immigration.) I don’t think Asian Americans vote by National Census Category any more than whites do; they vote according to what candidates best represent their [broad] interests.
It’s not that “the hippies have been replaced by Asians,” it’s that “the 1960s have been replaced by the 2000s.” Unity in activism and revolution come together under very distinct circumstances, and in America those circumstances don’t quite exist. One circumstance is fear: the 60s saw the draft, and thus the widespread fear of seeing oneself or one’s loved ones sent to die, by the country itself. Another circumstance is severe dissatisfaction: the 60s also saw unified disgust against discrimination and crumbling faith in state and national government. So, basically, enough people have to be scared shitless, or enough people have to be fucked over, otherwise the economic/personal incentive to unite and fight just isn’t there. (See France, the Ukraine, and the Seattle WTO protests.) As you paraphrased your professor, youth [lack] the will to fight because “conditions [are] better.”
*As a sidenote, regarding the lack of Asians in entertainment… I think, give it time. Blacks and Europeans have been here for hundreds of years. By contrast, most American Asian families are barely a generation in, if that. Fresh-off-the-boat, upwardly mobile Asian parents are understandably eager for family security, thus the love affair with Law, Medicine, and Engineering. They’re not exactly eager to see lil’ Alex or Grace take the family’s future and blow it all in Hollywood.
After a few generations, when Asian families are more established and their children are more financially expendable, I think ours numbers in entertainment will rise. And hey, on the bright side, there’s already a lot of entertainin’ Asians… in Asia. The Asian film industry is nearing the prestige of the European film industry (No One Knows, Crouching Tiger, 2046, Beijing Bicycle, etc.), and the home country’s legitimacy will help with legitimacy in America.