a city of mirrors

  Credit: Rick Guidice/NASA      One of the things that has always interested me about design history is tracing back the threads that made the modern world what it is today. There is something fascinating about reading the façade of a building and tracing back its features to a long-forgotten art movement, or listening to the story of how curb cuts came to be on the podcast 99% Invisible (https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/curb-cuts/). However, it is easy to get so lost in the historical design decisions that changed everything to realize that choices of a similar magnitude are being made every day. And one area that I believe will change the future is the design of living spaces beyond Earth.     Designing on Earth means designing buildings that fit into the patchwork quilt of the built environment. It means designing within a societal structure that has existed for tens of thousands of years. This can be beautiful- there is something poetic abou...

     There is a question that has the power to change the world. The question is:  What status quo does this design maintain ?      The fact is, a society where certain groups are marginalized and oppressed will always result in architecture that reinforces and perpetuates these prejudices. Physical walls divide suburban blocks, separating historically Black and historically white neighborhoods. Hostile architecture forces homeless people out of wealthier areas, where they are viewed as an eyesore. Lack of bathroom access has historically been used as a tool to exclude any group deemed undesirable.       In some ways, exclusive design maintains societal power structures more effectively than laws can. Laws require verbal or written acknowledgment of their injustice. They are inherently confrontational; they say “you can’t do that” or “you don’t belong here.”       Exclusive architecture, on the other hand, says a...

       How do we design buildings around people?      This is a question that famed architect and proponent of modernism, Le Corbusier, sought to answer with his "Modular Man". Also known as Le Modular , this "man" consisted of a set of proportions and measurements.      At the time, World War II had just ended and reconstruction was taking place all across Europe, which presented architects with the opportunity to reshape the face of Western architecture. Le Corbusier saw this as his chance to revive the Classical tradition of creating buildings based on the golden ratio and human form . Buildings based on Le Modular would have counters at the perfect height, and cabinets that were always in reach.          While the idea of bringing human scale back into design is a commendable one, there was one major issue with Le Modular. That is, namely, that there is no one "human form". The Modular Man was based entirely...