apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Well, my experience is otherwise -- I find that good buildings are emotionally uplifting, energizing, and make good human interactions more possible. Bad buildings are depressing, energy-draining, and hamper good human interactions. Then again, I don't much like Koolhaas's buildings either. The Seattle Public Library is an icon of "design" over utility -- pretty much what you get if you think that architecture doesn't matter.

I disagree.

Happy people don't live behind chainlink fences and security bars, within concrete-block government housing, FEMA trailers, corporate apartment complexes or rows of Xeroxed McMansions.

Unhappy people don't live in well-kempt, friendly & walkable neighborhoods, cozy bungalows and bright & airy apartments.

i might be really far off...but doesn't it depend on how we are conditioned?

A bum would love to live in jail often to have a guarantee of food and shelter, and give up freedom and safety(not to mention drugs are easy to get in prison).

And i know that my family is happier in a "smaller" house than the "larger" we lived in before....

three different points not necessarily related.....but my experience has showed me that architecture can be your catalyst to what you are already experiencing, but definitely a big component to an experience and not to be so easily discounted...

If I lived in the above, with that view, I'd be as happy as could be.

Koolhaus is a joke of an architect.
Just because people pay him a lot of money to design their buildings doesn't mean he is a good designer.
. . . and I totally disagree with the quote.
it says that he's basicallly giving up even attempting good design.

I do think a lot of this depends on the building, if it comes off as depressing, shabby and such, it'll affect your outlook towards that building, but by the same token, we are condition to "need" certain things to be happy, whether true or not and a lot of the time it ends up not being what makes you happy.

But I also think how a building or a house is laid out, what it can offer etc CAN greatly how you interact within it.

It's not always obvious, nor something to be dismissive of, but it's definitely there, how we and the buildings interact together makes up whether a person(s) are happy there or not.

In general, he could be right. Your happiness doesn't depend only on the place you live in. But it is also true that beautiful and inspiring buildings or city areas make you feel really better, they are uplifting, they can boost your spirit up. The above image is of a music hall in Porto, Portugal ( been there, I'm Portuguese), and is an amazing place. It's apparent strangeness ( the concept was of a rock/meteorite that crashed) forces you to stop, look, think. It appears as completly different from the old surroundings of Boavista square, and wakes you up from normality and routine. And from the inside, it surprises you every minute. A must visit.

P.S. Rem Koolhaas had written "Delirious New York", which is an amazing book on the city's architecture.

Of course, my professional viewpoint begs to differ with Mr. Koolhaas that architecture doesn't matter. On the other hand, if you happen to be suffering from something like chronic depression it could take a lot more than harmonious environmental surroundings to lift you from your misery. Good design, positive vibes, feng shui....all of these would then only be tools that can help support and improve one's attitude but there will always be exceptions to the rule.
Katy
http://fengshuibyfishgirl.com

I'm shocked by some of these comments. Happy (and unhappy) people do live in spaces that an observer might expect to promote the opposite disposition. While excellent, thoughtful design can sometimes make a difference in one's comfort and pleasure, it is not requisite to ecstasy, and it's absence doesn't always result in misery. Architecture is a material possession, in a way. It comes with a price and is out of the reach of a majority of people, for their personal use. I suppose excellence in architecture in a public building is available to a community, but is a well-planned building down the street really going to move a miserable person to a sustainable plane of joy? This I highly doubt. Through travel I have seen humans living in contentment in refuse, and in dissatisfaction in the midst of a richness of design. I would argue that one's quality of life is rooted in something more lasting than even the best-designed building.

everything - What's to be "shocked" by? Koolhaas's remark is either trivial -- that other things besides architecture can also have a significant impact on mood -- or incredibly self-serving, i.e. that if he designs bad buildings, that won't increase the net human misery in the world, even by a little, because architecture is irrelevant to human moods.

But the fact remains that while other factors naturally also matter, architectural design does affect how people feel in the places they are. People demonstrably prefer certain architectural features over others. They are more likely to pick rooms that get natural light from two or more sides over rooms that get natural light from only one side, and either over a room with no natural light at all. People are more likely to walk in urban neighborhoods that are scaled for walking than alongside commercial strip roads that are designed to be interesting only if one is driving 55mph. Lots of other examples can be found in Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language. But the bottom line is this: environment affects how people feel and behave (this is surely a premise of the book Apartment Therapy -- I'm surprised someone who follows this blog would argue with it.) Function follows form.

I disagree with bepsf -
Happy people can live anywhere - in trailers, studio apartments, McMansions; just as unhappy people can live in beautiful bungalows and friendly neighborhoods. Just because poor(er) people live in trailers, it doesn't mean they are all uniformly unhappy.

When I was young, four generations of my family lived in a two-room apartment. We were happy because we loved each other and were uplifted by each other's presence. We danced in one room, made music together in the second room, and prepared meals in the kitchen.

Everything wrote, Architecture is a material possession, in a way. It comes with a price and is out of the reach of a majority of people, for their personal use.
New construction with a fancy-pants architect's name attached to it might be out of reach, but it is not your only option if you want to live with architecture. I live in an architect-designed 54-year old house and it is absolutely perfect. I paid about 30% less for it than I would pay for faceless new construction in my town.

A couple of weeks ago, some friends came visiting and they were the first guests who weren't blown away by my house. It's true the bedrooms are small and there is no master bath, and no built-in dishwasher or solid countertops in the kitchen. But the tradeoff is more than worth it; I'd rather have breathtaking architecture than solid countertops in a boring mini-McMansion.

As for aesthetics and depression -
I've been struggling with depression for the last four years, and I can assure you that my mood is deeply affected by the environment. I have certainly been much less depressed since I moved in here. You can live anywhere and feel bad or good anywhere, but there is a reason we want to be surrounded by beauty, whatever our concept of beauty may be.

Koolhaus is a joke of an architect.
Just because people pay him a lot of money to design their buildings doesn't mean he is a good designer.
. . . and I totally disagree with the quote.
it says that he's basicallly giving up even attempting good design.

Yeah, and for the most part, that's what modern architecture is all about. Modernism isn't about good design; it's about making the most shocking and revolting building possible. It's about standing out, not fitting in. The layperson isn't supposed to understand it, just accept it. This contrasts with traditional architecture that respects the past and attempts to design on a human scale. I think Koolhaas' Seattle Central Library is a great example of the problems with modernism. There's no way to tell it's a library, or anything, for that matter. Work by Frank Gehry is just as bad.

People are more likely to walk in urban neighborhoods that are scaled for walking than alongside commercial strip roads that are designed to be interesting only if one is driving 55mph. Lots of other examples can be found in Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language.

I've heard good things about that book. Right now I'm reading the great Léon Krier's book The Architecture of Community, and I highly recommend it. In it he talks about the awful excesses of modernism and its disregard for tradition. A great read.

i don't think koolhaas and gehry are modernist architects who follow in the traditional thought of louis sullivan's modernist motto "form follows function" but rather post-modern architects who play with and manipulate space, often violating function. & i think Ulrika is right--koolhaas is either being deliberately trivial or self-serving.

It's unfair to play down Koolhaas as designer. His Kunsthal museum/auditorium in Rotterdam is still one of the best expo buildings in the Netherlands.

The Netherlands must be in a rather sorry state, "expo buildings"-wise.

Alaricus - Thanks, I'll check out Krier's book.