Word of the day

We know so much about a good habitat for mountain gorillas; Siberian Tiger, but we hardly know anything about good habitat for homosapien (Human)” - Jan Gehl

Jan Gehl, a global leader in people centered urban design
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The first flaw in the urban design is repeating Brasilia syndrome

What is Brasilia syndrome?

Urban planning from above and from a distance. Pushing around objects, buildings, and infrastructures in a planning until “Bingo” an ideal appearance that is only visible and admires from high above in the sky.

Why it is called the Brasilia syndrome?

In the process of designing the new capital city for Brazil, named Brasilia, the planning looked like an eagle and its look stunning for above, with large avenue and landscaping that stretches across the city center. However, we never look through the design at eye level. Thus, city dwellers are the people will suffer from it with an unprotected walkway that exposes to external elements, large front yard, and wide avenue discourage people from walking to the opposite of the road. Eventually, the city is trying to separate people from forming a centralize community (Which city should do) that depend on each other to driven local businesses and social activities. Bummer!

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How to avoid repeating Brasilia syndrome?

As a designer; planner or architect, he or she must maximize their planning with minimum resources even though there are plentiful. This is to test our imagination on how to transform a standard living city into a quality living environment.

or

Just think about this, not most of us get to ride on a helicopter every time and appreciate the planning from the sky and design from the human eye level.

Final Note

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The above image is not at Brasilia, but it is in U.S. city of St. Louis, Missouri and known as Pruitt-Igoe development, built 1952. Even though it looks like our present-day apartment configuration, but it only lasted 20 years and demolished in the year 1972. This is due to the apartment are prone to criminal activities and unlivable for anyone.

Why? On the planning itself, the arrangement was intended to provide the luxury of traveling through series of the landscape from the parking lot before entering building lobby. In this case, the long distance makes residents vulnerable to robbery and make life more difficult for people who might disability (vision, mobility, hearing etc.).
There are plenty of reason why the building was demolished, but it will be more about the interior of the building and it will be an awesome topic in the next chapter.

In case you are wondering about it, you could find more information at Here

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Conclusion

If it is not an emergency, Do not repeat architecture history mistake!

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This is an #archisteem post.

A new tag that is to curate our existing built environment and also future built environment development. Want to know more? Read here.

Find me @cklai