The Humanise Campaign call for an end to boring buildings

12 comments

1. I mean theyre not wrong, the brutalist movement absolutely sucked the soul out of our architecture and its never recovered.

2. They have made a monstrosity out of Buckingham Palace. I’m no fan of the royals but c’mon, the Palace looks good as is. Keep your filthy hands off.

3. As much as we love to gush over “buildings were better in the old days” that’s not actually true.

   We have built absolutely slop buildings in every era. It’s just the small number of nicer looking, well made ones that have survived being demolished or held themselves together long enough to still exist.

4. Couldn’t agree more. The state of the architecture in this country is incredibly depressing. Huge swathes of cookie cutter housing that looks literally like a child’s drawing of a house – square box, triangle roof, windows, door. Built to the lowest legally allowable specification to maximise profit above all else. It feels like nothing in this country is centred around the actual lived experience of the population.

5. Glad to see this is getting more attention. Too much of what we build is either the same couple of house designs built a few thousand times, or some big glass and steel monstrosity. Buildings, be they private or public, should try and reflect the local area, and also be pretty. Just look at how nice even some randoms corners of Bath are compared to some supposed quite important parts of the country, like Canary Wharf.

6. I honestly don’t care as long as our future buildings are safe, energy efficient (ideally generating energy where possible), adapted for future climate change (more flood resilience, better able to cope with heat, water efficient).

   These are big enough problems on their own. Solve those first then we can focus on making them look interesting.

7. Ugh. As someone with an architect partner, this whole campaign is monumentally stupid. Where to begin.

   – We have built wonderful and godawful buildings throygh history, and sone examples of brutalist architecture are fascinating. They are not uniformly hiring, you are allowed to like them or not as your taste dictates.

   – To claim the copy and paste Bovis style estates, which are boring and awful, I agree, are because of brutalism or any one style is not backed up by any understanding. Its far more due to our obsession in this country with building cheap, shitty infrastructure and not sorting out the mess that is planning.

   – AI images steal from artists. Full stop. AI images bad.

8. The UK and London in particular is one of the most expensive places to build in the world due to the complete car crash of a shoddy planning system, a culture of NIMBYISM, a lack of trade skills, particularly post- BREXIT, combined with really high barriers to entry for developers, thus there is little incentive to experiment or change.

9. Build tall buildings, ground floor should be daycares and shops. Next to it some green areas.

   Tear down all the old single houses that haven’t been maintained since they were built.

10. Maybe have Liz Truss design some buildings then, I’m sure that they wouldn’t be boring from that!

11. Pretty apparent in Edinburgh with all its old buildings when they build a new shopping centre that’s just a sheer wall of concrete.

12. One good example was the woman prosecuted for having a pink front door.