Satoshi's Sidewalk #2
Just because you can build a thing...
The above tweet stumbled across my feed yesterday. I didn’t think much of the design besides “someone had too much time on their hands” and “that belongs in space.” As it turns out, I was right. Probably on both accounts.
The conceptual design was done by Hayri Atak Architectural Design Studio for a lot at 111 Wall Street in NYC’s Financial Distric. The developers are searching for $860M in redevelopment funds. Not exactly putting out the “financial-conservative-powerhouse” design vibes.
Building skyscrapers is a time-intensive, costly endeavor. Building a design the architect (probably) made using the Unreal Engine engine - Nightmare Mode complicated and expensive.
This is fiat architecture taken to the Nth degree. These designs draw forth fancy words from their creators to describe the concept, invoking complex mathematical formulas to give their late night work some weight. My first guess is an “Einstein-Rosen Bridge”. My second guess is “impressing other skyscraper (st)architects for street cred.” Both are complicated formulas, no doubt. And high time preference to boot.
Designs of this nature are not done for the humans who work or live in the building. This author would guess a twitter account exists which posts “how it started” and how it’s going” for the conceptual photo and the completed construction photo. Designs like this that make it through the approval gauntlet are night a day different.
Modern building concept drawings are done to appease a multitude of neighborhood boards, design boards, zoning boards, city councils, etc. - not humans. There is no credence given to reality. Architects rarely, if ever, are taught traditional design principles and methods which appeal to aesthetics, shapes, and ratios found in the natural world.
What do we get when the architectural mooring was cut a century ago? That. That’s what we get.
Just because you could build a thing, doesn’t mean you should build that thing.
Bitcoin fixes this.