Mumbai - Ugly Green Highrise
Just ’cause it’s called “Green” doesn’t make it sustainable. This building is proposed for the city of Mumbai, India (the city formerly known as Bombay). I have a couple of issues with this structure. First, the Architect’s (Perkins and Will) description of the green features focuses exclusively on the vegetable covered exterior. There is no information on the materials, solar energy, indoor air quality, just a “green” skin. They may yet publish a specification that has more information at a later date but to call something sustainable because it has growies on it is a laugh. LOL
My main concern is that this towering mass of chlorophyll is really ugly. Take a look. There are more photos over at Inhabitat. Don’t let Architects tell you what is good design and what isn’t. Use your senses. Does this look like a building you want to spend some quality time in? Buildings should feel good to be in and to be around. If I saw this, I’d walk the other way.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
You immediately jumped to the conclusion that the architects are the only party with a say in the aesthetics of this project. You are also imposing your own personal aesthetic tastes on this project (ie, MY senses are intrigued by the depth and complexity of the project.)
AND you also dismissed the vegetation with disturbing ease. Think of the extensive benefits of this single strategy. Water retention, water quality, improved air quality, the potentials of food production or animal habitat creation, not to mention the remarkable “marketing” power of a pillar of green in the middle of a city.
While it is true there are plenty of strategies that have yet to be addressed in the scant information available, you may want to closely evaluate just what sustainable building means to you. Does a building have to put back into the environment everything it took out? Must it not take out anything? Can it only give and not take?
I only ask because you because the industry still hasn’t figured that out, either, but you obviously have an idea of what it means and this project doesn’t cut that definition.
Cheers,
Patrick
October 26th, 2007 at 1:20 am
whoever thinks this building is ugly….should go live in a hut
October 26th, 2007 at 2:15 am
It’s a schematic\conceptual rendering…until it’s built, I’d reserve judgment. In person, it might have a totally different presence.
October 26th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Patrick-
Thanks for the thoughtful comments. My main point is that even if this building has all of the green features imaginable it still looks pretty ugly. I have spent a great deal of my professional life trying to understand what makes a space feel good to be in. The proposed spaces, particularly the outdoor spaces stacked up in this rendering, would feel like being in a parking structure, only windier due to the altitude. There is relatively little direct sunlight for most areas.
One study on how people relate to the interface between indoors and out concluded that people wouldn’t cross a 5 foot deep shadow to go sit in the sun. (I heard this in a lecture when I was a student, I’m sorry I can’t site a paper here)
I’m not sure the if this will be good marketing for green building if the public responds to it negatively. This might be like the solar buildings of the 1970s that were very efficient but looked really ugly. It turned people off to solar for 20 years.
Cheers, and I really thank you for your comment.
John Barrie
October 26th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
To the person who thinks I should go live in a hut. I have lived in a hut. Not for very long, but it was a hut, with rats, in Belize. While this was not as comfortable as the Hilton, it wasn’t too bad either. I got to hear the wind and when it rained we got a little wet.
I hope you check out some of my other postings on SDU. I do cover a lot of appropriate technologies for less economically developed countries. I think architects and designers should spend at least some of their time designing for the 90% of the world who will never live in a highrise.
thanks,
John Barrie
October 26th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Anon-
Thanks. When a design is so brutal in the conceptual stage, it really doesn’t stand much of a chance of becoming a welcoming space. Conceptually this looks like a bunch of 1950s era modern buildings stacked on top of each other and then run through the salad bar. I just don’t share your optimism about this particular building.
John Barrie
October 27th, 2007 at 4:08 am
First of all, John, the city formerly known as Bombay is called Mumbai, not Mubai as you referred to it.
Second, what feels good for you to be around might be completely different than what feels good to a resident of Mumbai. Having spent five months in India, I can assure you that Indians’ aesthetic taste is not at all the same as ours. In other words, Perkins and Will’s building might just be following one of the fundamental principles of ecodesign - sensitivity to context.
Needless to say, you could still be right - the thing could also be totally out of whack with its ecology and culture. But the point is that a few pics and a couple paragraphs on Inhabitat just aren’t enough to go on to fairly evaluate a complicated structure in a complicated social landscape.
- Adam Brock
October 29th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Not even spelling the name of the city correctly is concerning. mubai is spelt mumbai.
And the building has an edgy feel. WHat constitutes beautiful?
October 29th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Thanks for the correct spelling deepa. I groove on edgy, but I can’t draw a precise line where edgy drops out and ugly takes it’s place.
October 29th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
Adam-
I’ve never been to Mumbai (thanks for the correction), but I believe there are some universal ideas of what makes a good space work. Every culture has some archetypal reference to the golden ratio for example.
Thanks,
John Barrie
February 23rd, 2008 at 2:18 am
I find the building to be exceptionally beautiful, you find it ugly. Beauty, what a meaningless value system to critique architecture; it’s too subjective. We are Architects, not artists.
February 23rd, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Randy-
I think Architects are responsible for the aesthetic response to their designs. I think Frank Ll. Wright said something to the effect that “Architecture is the highest form of Art”. The built world as it stands today looks like too many Architects have given up on making buildings that please the eye and are a pleasure to be in.
Aesthetics are probably not taught in Architecture Schools any more and may seem perplexing to people without some formal training.
I’d recommend you read Muschenheim but his books are probably out of print.
Thanks for the comment.
John Barrie
March 1st, 2008 at 2:31 am
They don’t teach aesthetics in school, but they sure do make it known one way or the other if you have achieved such, and usually good space is inherently aesthetically pleasing.
-a contemporary architecture student
March 1st, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Jason-
Whenever I enter a building for the first time, and often when revisiting some of my favorites I try to figure out what makes the building feel the way it does. This practice has served me well over the years. It works with any style of building. I also sketch details I like (unfortunately less often now) but the practice of seeing something clearly enough to sketch it changes your perspective or your relationship with what you are drawing. I think we “see” most things based on our past experiences and we often miss what is really in front of our eyes.
Thanks for the comment, and good luck in Architecture school.
John Barrie
March 8th, 2008 at 8:09 am
hi
I just was searching for this building diagram plan or section in order to analyse it .would you please inform me whether you know how can I find the detail documents?
thanks for your nice web.
March 10th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Mania-
Sorry, I don’t know where to get detail documents.
jsbarrie
March 28th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
i think the fact that this building is able to create such controversy has proved it to become an interesting structure…controversy and arguement are essential for anything contemporary….and talking about beauty and ugliness totally depends on one’s own personal opinion, not one’s experience…
March 31st, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Ashique-
I believe there are some universal aesthetics. Certain proportions are preferred over others through many cultures. (the golden ratio for example) There are color combinations people find pleasing and a sense of texture, pattern and contrast that seem more common in things people find pleasing. Its kind of like tastes and smells. No one would suggest that our sensory response to certain smells are not universal. There are definitely smells that repulse all of us and some that most would find pleasing. Then there are smells we have learned to love. Some people love the smell of Kim-Chee, others don’t. Loving the smell of Kim-Chee is learned.
I think the building in Mumbai is the equivalent of a bad smell. Some people will learn to love it, but most will be repulsed.
I need to find my old copy of Muschenheim and scan it into a PDF for everyone to read.
Thanks for the comment.
jsbarrie
May 11th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
It is amazing how quickly a discussion about the “Sustainable” aspects of the proposed building turned into an aesthetic and spatial argument. Perhaps this explains the lack of specifics provided by the architects other than the “Green Skin” which casts a veneer of ecological sustainability on this proposed structure.
One might begin, perhaps, by questioning the program. This high-rise building is intended to house a SINGLE family (a small although exceedingly rich family) and their servants in one of the most dense cities of the world. It is not the responsibility of Perkins + Will to educate the client, the head of one of the most brutal industrial houses in India, about the ethical dimensions swirling around a project of this nature but certainly the architect is making a choice when they decide to cooperate in bringing to life as environmentally inefficient and socially corrosive a project such as this.
As an architect who grew up in Mumbai and is now practicing here, it is not a question of taste or aesthetics (either local or global) that is repulsive but rather the entire enterprise itself. It is irrelevant to discuss the merits this design (borrowed from Diller+Scofidio’s Eyebeam Scheme) or its supposed sustainable features when the germinus for the project itself is questionable.
December 15th, 2008 at 11:11 am
I’m curious: where is this place where “They don’t teach aesthetics in school” anymore?! I’ve graduated an Architecture school in Brazil and aesthetics where a big part of my course.
I’m shocked to see also that there are architects that still think that aesthetics are universal, and are not different depending on culture or personal taste. Look around in your own city: people covered in tattoos and leather jackets in one side, suits in the other. Compare the sense of aesthetics of an African, a Russian, a North American and an Indian - you’ll see beauty depends on the context.
It would be more appropriate to say this design is completely out of context, since it is obviously foreign to the city, than just saying it’s ugly.
February 7th, 2009 at 8:11 am
John, I agree with you that this building is ugly. I have never been to India but share your feeling that most cultures value the golden ratio, which this structure seems to be missing. This “green” highrise seems as if the designing architects created separate spaces and threw them on top of each other. There seems to be no relationship between sections which causes me to think that this is hopefully an early concept drawing.
August 11th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Wow john u have no ther work it seems ……..you r like the one who gives a half star rating to a movie when he has only seen the poster of it ……try and be a little positive….aesthetics and art is just a little part in the making of a habitable structure .major part being the functionalty and the ease of use and the comfort it provides…
August 19th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Hi Siddhesh-
In addition to being an ugly building, I have heard that this is built as a single family residence! All that space and “luxury” for one family in a city where millions live in slum shacks.
I love Mumbai and I love good design. In my opinion this building is an affront to both.
BTW - I’d give 5 stars to Slum Dog Millionaire.
-John