Comments on: Block H by Kohn Pedersen Fox

By: Fizz Fieldgrass

Fizz Fieldgrass — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 16:30:36 +0000

@ still concerned: my experience with the balance of positive and negative remarks about projects here is that there seems to be a certain healthy equilibrium and the latter form not unduly outweighing the former.

As someone guilty of submitting a 'pithy remark now and then, I hope that contained therein may also be some accompanying point of observation. 'Vox Pop' has always been understood to carry the downside of factious or simplistic commentary but perhaps a barrage of invective at times may be considered a deserved communal riposte – in itself a legitimate consensus of opinion.

Regarding the specific piece of architecture here, it should make those in the UK feel blessed that we have the likes of the Shard representing an exemplary example of the genre.

By: gravely worried

gravely worried — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 15:37:00 +0000

Keep the comment boards free for anyone to post anything I say.

If you want in-depth, politically correct architectural criticism, then I suggest you should look somewhere other than Dezeen as it is an online magazine after all and not a theory journal.

As mentioned by someone else, it is often the anonymous sharp witty comments that are the best.

By: still concerned

still concerned — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 15:06:47 +0000

I see your point opl, and i agree,although you wouldn't necessarily end up with a few politically correct comments, I think it would be positive if people took responsibility for what they post to some extent, I think logging up would deal with that, and you would still have users with deliciously dark souls who would become the tormentors of bad design and poor ideas.

By the way do you really think that good design is rewarded? Then there can't be much good design on the site, I invite you to look back on the comments and check how many projects didn't get trashed to some degree by semi-intelligible remarks.

By: Pygmalion

Pygmalion — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 20:57:00 +0000

I agree, these are merely hollow, unarticulated remarks that don’t bring any valid opinion into debate. Yet, vox populi – vox dei… My concern is rather with the low level of professional ethics when it comes to big names in the business. The big companies’ easy way of ‘appropriating’ others’ concepts and turning them into built work, not to mention the revenue, publicity and very often awards that come along. Take SOM’s Singapore Airport vs Dominique Perrault’s Galician Cultural City Competition, Davis Brody Bond’s Valeo Thermal Systems vs Ian Ritchie’s Stockley Park Building, for instance.

I do not find fair that all Architecture’s eunuchs reigning atop big companies as ‘Design Principals’ should easily get away and make themselves a name and fortune out of blatantly stolen ideas. In this line, KPF’s Yongsan Tower is just a dumb mash-up of all the coolest architectural imagery they may have had on their hard drive, but it’s a telltale on how petty, self-inflictive architecture world has become these days.

Perhaps Dezeen might find a role in sorting this out, rhetorically. So that Asian developers should spend their money on the original, and not the copy…

By: opl

opl — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 15:29:04 +0000

if I may present the opposing side of this argument: the funny, sometimes trolling comments are why I like this site. I mean, dezeen just posts press releases, just like archdaily and a million other sites. The comments are the only real opinions on the site, and anything done to prevent them is bad in my opinion. If this site goes to a place where only a few politically polite comments are in every post I am out of here…. With the growing dependence on networking in in architectural culture the internet is one of the few places for genuine anonymous criticism. I feel like good design here is always rewarded and bad design is always punished in the comments, even if they are very off the cuff.