Air conditioning for garden sheds, pt.2
Posted on April 8th, 2010 –
…continued from previous part.
Industrial design has been a monkey on my back ever since I picked up the habit about eight years ago. My misbegotten aim was simply to learn about design – to get better at my Flash stuff. But, as was foreseeable, I got sidetracked. Into the industrial aspect; you know, design for mass production.
The movement started some time in in the early 1900s when factory production for most domestic items became widely available. They’d started to do weird stuff with wood and plastics were making a splash. But design still had much of an influence, despite the shared credo of “form follows function”. In fact, industrial designers concerned themselves more with the practicality of appearance than function most of the time; function was left to the engineers.
This extended to architecture too.
There are, of course, nasty leftovers from industrialization. Environment / people / health problems aside, many manufacturers took the opportunity to cut out the designer and head directly for cheaper products which has caused the epidemic of poorly-produced / copied domestic items we see today. If it wasn’t for stores like Ikea, we’d never know who was responsible for coming up with the objects sitting on our kitchen table. Or the kitchen table itself.
But I think the spirit of that earlier era still lives in architecture, and in places like Rosedale. Mostly because industrial design always came across as generally domestically oriented that I find it most obvious here. People in the area generally have the money to dabble with and buildings tend to last longer.
The fad in industrial design, at least initially, was to combine basic geometric shapes to produce interesting everyday objects (i.e. simple geometry=simple / mass construction). To me, the house above looks like an architectural draft, all linear and arcy. Note the simplicity of the form and the commonality of the building materials. Very industrial design. Here’s another Rosedale example:
Looks like a garage from a Lexus commercial, doesn’t it? Guess they have to shoot ’em somewhere. Not the kind of place I’d be keen to live in, but I’m glad someone does. :)
If I had to pick one of the more modern Rosedale houses to live in I’d veer more toward the homes that depend on a variety of materials rather than unusual structural shapes. Seems like they’d be more comfortable:
Rosedale is quiet, and chock-a-block with flowers and people with too much time / money on their hands. And being just north of money-laden Yorkville, it’s essentially a part of downtown Toronto. If they weren’t all driving fancy talking cars, Rosedale residents could take the subway if they wanted to.
... with pictures
... with sounds
... with videos
... with opinions
... that's shorter
... that's longer
April 9th, 2010 6:49 am
Given the chance to live in such place, I'll also go for simple house designs. The touch of nature is enough for me to uplift my home.
April 9th, 2010 6:52 am
Mozilla crashed so I don't know if my comment went through. I just said that I appreciate the place and if I am to live there, I will also go for simpler designs. The touch of nature is already there to uplift my home.
April 16th, 2010 7:13 am
Your comment went through, and was mistakenly flagged as spam. But it's all better now, Liezl. And you have two comments. :)
April 9th, 2010 12:50 pm
Wow, those buildings have really little characters actually to me they are ugly. Something like barely used shoe boxes somebody didn't feel like throuw away. The other two are so unwelcoming, maybe the owners are protecting themselves from eventual visitors. Good idea. It just shows that only few people with so much money have taste for beauty. Hence chances for good designers.
April 10th, 2010 6:28 am
These buildings are definitely an acquired taste, Stanya. I like them aesthetically in the same way I like nice pictures, but these places wouldn't be my first choice of living space.