1. Too flat.The flatness and lack of depth found on modern buildings prevents surfaces that light and shadows can play on.
2. Too plain. A lack of ornamentation leads to boring buildings. Even everyday buildings should incorporate intricate designs.
3. Too straight. Straight lines at scale create repetitive horizontality, at odds with nature, where nothing has straight lines or right angles.
4. Too shiny. Smooth, flat materials like metal and glass become desensitising when used too densely, providing nothing for our senses to latch on to.
5. Too monotonous. Modern buildings that take the form of rectangles made up of smaller rectangles appear both monotonous at a distance and closer up.
6. Too anonymous. Buildings with no sense of personality or place. A far cry from buildings that used to tell a story and celebrate their surroundings.
7. Too serious. Buildings that are too intimidating, evoking negative emotions.
Originally published in Humanise: A Maker’s Guide to Building Our World
2023 | Penguin | London
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