Kate (Tina Fey) being rewarded with five minutes of uninterrupted eye contact with her boss Barry (Steve Martin) in Baby MamaRecently my girlfriend and i were watching Baby Mama, starring Tina Fey. In the film her new-age boss, played by Steve Martin, has asked her to be in charge of designing the organic food store's new flagship store. Amongst other things such as public involvement at the earliest possible stage, one of the criterion given to her is to design a store that people will want to get married in.
Many local governments will often provide extensive design criteria covering aspects such as roof pitches, window sizes, colour palettes, setbacks, building height - the list can be extensive. However, often the outcome is the creation of buildings that are deemed to comply, the bare minimum to achieve the specific criteria, neighbourhoods lacking in innovative, interesting places.
What if we get rid of all of these prescriptive standards, and instead introduce a single proscriptive standard - "Will people want to to get married in it?" If yes, approve. If not, send it back and try again.
It can be applied to anything - think of your local neighbourhood.
- King Street in Perth's west end? Tick.
- The Rocks in Sydney? Tick.
- London, Paris, Rome, or any one of the towns and villages lining the Mediterranean? Tick.
- Most suburban shopping centres? Cross
- Service commercial strips? Cross.
This also has the advantage of being a lot easier to interpret that the standard planner-speak terms like "amenity" and "does not detract from the streetscape," to which to the average person may not have the same level of understanding.
The adoption of this standard would encourages architects and designers to design buildings of beauty, rather than buildings that comply with a certain set of rules, and no doubt communities will be able to provide valuable input on the developments happening in their neighbourhoods. And any thing that leads to the creation of beautiful places must be a good thing.
The problem with such a setup is that you have to do away with the bureaucratic system of planning, because you can't trust bureaucrats to decide what is or isn't a place to get married in. It's too much power and would produce corruption without end.
ReplyDeleteFor something like this to work, the current system would need to be replaced with a new system that heavily involves the community in the decision-making process, giving them a say in the shaping of their communities. I accept that the creation of such a system with a focus on weddings is very unlikely, but i can also think of horrendous places created with the backing of the bureaucrats.
ReplyDeleteWhat would the community actually want? Would it be any good?
ReplyDelete