“An associative house! Each room in a different place, yet linked…”
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:01 PM on August 10

The title of the page is ” Associative Design @ Berlage at dysturb.net | architecture 038; urbanism in post-bubble Rotterdam”, but I thought style was far too controlled for the Netherlands, so I was surprised. But I guess all the pages on the site say this, and these buildings are actually in China.

I always had this idea of creating structures without repetition by creating procedural structures. And it seems these people have gone and done it. Sweet.
posted by delmoi at 8:07 PM on August 10

intresting how she pronounces “courtyard” Until it was spelled out I thought she might be saying some Chinese word “ko-ya”
posted by delmoi at 8:33 PM on August 10

Well I thought it amazing, so well thought out, such attention to detail. I think its got something. I think the understanding of venacular architecture has a great deal to say.
posted by MrMerlot at 10:11 PM on August 10

[Roarkian derail excised. Flag it and move on.]
posted by cortex at 10:55 PM on August 10

I think this is very interesting but the computer voice is a little grating to follow.
posted by andendau at 3:08 AM on August 11

Or maybe its not the uncanny valley and just a chinese woman speaking…
posted by andendau at 3:15 AM on August 11

Good to see someone’s considering how to make a better city plan, and that it’s influenced by traditional rules.. However, it seems that in 10-15 years, architects and urban planners would look at a project like this and be moved to make an inspiring presentation on putting *windows* back into houses.

I’ve never been to China, and I’m not a planner. But. It seems that in the current and highly rigid housing developments, at least some of the housing is done well (especially in the affluent neighborhoods, obviously) — but the planning isn’t done right. Here, the planning may be better, but the houses are designed for, I don’t know, ogres? This often seems to be the case in any of these top-down planned-to-the-centimeter-developments: they can’t plan for everything.

So I guess the obvious solution is to offer up this planning method (if it’s new?) and allow other architects and buildings to do their work based on the developed rules.
posted by romanb at 4:44 AM on August 11

Being school projects, I can understand that there were probably particular design considerations that were being addressed, but I found the apparent lack of transit and navigation systems disappointing. I can imagine being lost inside one of there neighborhoods and never getting out. The analysis of the orgainc vernacular Chinese courtyard construction and subsequent application to these models was interesting; however this type of very rigid top-down public planning is sort of depressing in a human habitrail kind of way. I realize that’s the nature of high density housing especially, but designing a couple of apartment buildings versus orchestrating entire neighborhoods seems much less creepily Soviet, for lack of a better word. However, these models are certainly much more livable than the awful, inefficient and dehumanizing apartment blocks. If they ever are built, I’d love to visit. With a GPS unit.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:46 AM on August 11