(that said, Aristotle, who definitely fell on the Guardian side of Jacobs' duality, has limiting* virtues in his system as well: prudence is limited by justice, and courage by temperance)
* of course if one speaks of covirtues, the arrows reverse: justice is limited by prudence, and temperance by courage.
I mean, I would say no one understands that system. I mean I pride myself in trying to understand these systems and consume as much information as possible in the time that I have, and I quickly I realize the amount of complexity of the modern world is far beyond what a human could ever consume.
With that said, I realize that said systems exist and attempting to handwave their complexity away with a simple "I can do that myself" simply will not work and lead to disastrous consequences.
> To be fair, how big is the percentage of US population that actually does?
Beyond the standard American individualism (the baseline), regular people don’t claim that they are such rugged individuals that don’t-need-no-society like “libertarians” do.
That’s the discrepancy. If you take away one of the two things that cause the discrepancy you’re just talking about a different subject.
<< That’s the discrepancy. If you take away one of the two things that cause the discrepancy you’re just talking about a different subject.
Could you elaborate? I do not think it is a separate subject. It may not be directly connected, but the system, I would argue, setup directly forms the foundations for human behavior and belief-set. Lets look at another example like 'homo sovieticus'. The human in that model had ingrained all sorts of inconsistencies from an outsider point of view.
It is possible I am not understanding your argument so bear with me.
> Now the commentariat here has flagged both the original subthread comment and the reply to it. To be honest I don’t want to continue the discussion when the readership at large wants to erase our original context (and who knows what else beyond that).
Our spaces already have rules. In fact, "don't camp out all day without buying anything" is a rule for the coffee shop as shared office space. The article isn't so much about rules versus no rules, as it is about rules versus different rules.
> I want architecture students to see that the flexible, modular, all-purpose and all-choices box of a room isn’t always what’s called for. It sounds right — surely your client wants a space that could be anything you need it to be — but unprogrammed space is often tractionless, characterless.
I fully agree, the spaces we visit have to be opinionated and we can self-select on if we want to visit, physical or otherwise.
I'd wager anything meaningful involves some subconscious design biases, there's no reason why it wouldn't make more sense to make them explicit - You're never going to capture the portion of audience who would be offended by the rules by not having them, as they're already self-selecting the spaces that have rules tailored for them!
I'm sure that removing laptops from the equation of the cafe's atmosphere has some effect. I see that there is another cafe in the same city that doesn't allow any devices at all. I'd be interested in knowing what the difference between them is: what is a place like without laptops, but with smartphones and tablets? Is that the exact formula for the mood they're trying to achieve, or is it a compromise?
I'd probably vote for compromise. It's really hard to tell people not to use their phones to read email, read a website or paper, etc. in most circumstances. You can reasonably ban laptop use (which probably also has the side effect of people not camping out for as long). I'm not sure banning a smartphone/Kindle/tablet looks all that different from banning reading entirely other than possibly resulting in a different mix of clientele.
In the sense that not having the possibility to watch video might make for a more mindful (?) environment rising the level of serendipity of engaging with other people...
(Now that I think of, banning headphones and speakers too - other than the ones of the establishment itself.)
At some point, a coffeeshop that is more or less forcing random socialization among customers seems like a tough sell. But, who knows, maybe it could be a selling point for some demographics based on uniqueness.
This is an essay that lauds Cambridge, MA as a panoply of virtuous places with "limiting virtues" while at the same time decrying an "elitist" fascination with "anything goes". Lots of Cathedral energy in its architectural thesis [1].
It's one thing to point out the virtue in constraint. I don't even disagree. If the article were merely an architectural critique, I would be mostly on board. But the article doesn't stop there. It proffers a hip cafe in Harvard Square, the Cambridge library, and "one of the only choir schools in the United States!" as virtuous... while simultaneously mounting a larger critique of elite excess(?!)
So let's discuss this virtuous neighborhood.
Cambridge currently has six housing units with 2+ beds for sale on Zillow with listing prices below $800,000. None of these are single family homes, one of these listings is an error, and another is ~600 sqft. At least some of the others, I would wager, are intentionally under-priced and will go over asking. Perhaps all of them!
How is this relevant to the social/architectural thesis of the piece? Simple: what Cambridge needs is not elaborate architectural programming of constrained spaces designed by $X00+/hr architects. What Cambridge needs is a bunch of affordable boxes with programs that minimize cost of design, materials, and labor.
Leave the rarefied air of hangouts for the Actually Elite, such as the article's Faro Cafe -- a no-laptops coffee shop located in Harvard Square serving fancy cappuccinos and premium pastries to the city's tenured faculty. What you'll find beyond those cloistered enclaves is that the societal critique of this piece has a deeply flawed premise.
I suppose, if you're the personal beneficiary of a trust fund or the professional beneficiary of an institution's endowment, then the cheap "everything box" apartment seems gouache. You can have better! But the "rectangle with minimal interior subdivisions" is not primarily the architectural manifestation of Elite Liberal Individual Narcissism or whatever. It's just the cheapest way to build out an interior space that feels big enough for a family to spend time in together. Walls are expensive, and artisanally placed walls even more so!
And I suppose if you have a private office in Harvard Square or Boston's Back Bay then the coffeeshop/office combo seems like a terrible symptom of a hyper-individualized Screen Obsessed Society. But to approximately everyone else living in a place where a family of 4 will pay $4,000/mo for not enough living space, that coffeeshop/office combo is as close as you'll likely get to a private workspace.
None of this is an argument against no-laptop policies or quiet ares in libraries. But then -- the article also isn't primarily an argument for those places! If the piece didn't come with a larger thesis decrying Elite Cultural Decay while singing the praises of one of the most culturally elite and least economically affordable neighborhoods in the world, then I would've had a very different reaction.
22 comments
[ 5.7 ms ] story [ 73.3 ms ] thread(that said, Aristotle, who definitely fell on the Guardian side of Jacobs' duality, has limiting* virtues in his system as well: prudence is limited by justice, and courage by temperance)
* of course if one speaks of covirtues, the arrows reverse: justice is limited by prudence, and temperance by courage.
edit: I am not even talking real world 'how it really works model'. Just the basic social studies model built on the constitution reading and so on.
With that said, I realize that said systems exist and attempting to handwave their complexity away with a simple "I can do that myself" simply will not work and lead to disastrous consequences.
Beyond the standard American individualism (the baseline), regular people don’t claim that they are such rugged individuals that don’t-need-no-society like “libertarians” do.
That’s the discrepancy. If you take away one of the two things that cause the discrepancy you’re just talking about a different subject.
Could you elaborate? I do not think it is a separate subject. It may not be directly connected, but the system, I would argue, setup directly forms the foundations for human behavior and belief-set. Lets look at another example like 'homo sovieticus'. The human in that model had ingrained all sorts of inconsistencies from an outsider point of view.
It is possible I am not understanding your argument so bear with me.
> Now the commentariat here has flagged both the original subthread comment and the reply to it. To be honest I don’t want to continue the discussion when the readership at large wants to erase our original context (and who knows what else beyond that).
You can guess what happened to that comment.
I fully agree, the spaces we visit have to be opinionated and we can self-select on if we want to visit, physical or otherwise.
I'd wager anything meaningful involves some subconscious design biases, there's no reason why it wouldn't make more sense to make them explicit - You're never going to capture the portion of audience who would be offended by the rules by not having them, as they're already self-selecting the spaces that have rules tailored for them!
In the sense that not having the possibility to watch video might make for a more mindful (?) environment rising the level of serendipity of engaging with other people...
(Now that I think of, banning headphones and speakers too - other than the ones of the establishment itself.)
It's one thing to point out the virtue in constraint. I don't even disagree. If the article were merely an architectural critique, I would be mostly on board. But the article doesn't stop there. It proffers a hip cafe in Harvard Square, the Cambridge library, and "one of the only choir schools in the United States!" as virtuous... while simultaneously mounting a larger critique of elite excess(?!)
So let's discuss this virtuous neighborhood.
Cambridge currently has six housing units with 2+ beds for sale on Zillow with listing prices below $800,000. None of these are single family homes, one of these listings is an error, and another is ~600 sqft. At least some of the others, I would wager, are intentionally under-priced and will go over asking. Perhaps all of them!
How is this relevant to the social/architectural thesis of the piece? Simple: what Cambridge needs is not elaborate architectural programming of constrained spaces designed by $X00+/hr architects. What Cambridge needs is a bunch of affordable boxes with programs that minimize cost of design, materials, and labor.
Leave the rarefied air of hangouts for the Actually Elite, such as the article's Faro Cafe -- a no-laptops coffee shop located in Harvard Square serving fancy cappuccinos and premium pastries to the city's tenured faculty. What you'll find beyond those cloistered enclaves is that the societal critique of this piece has a deeply flawed premise.
I suppose, if you're the personal beneficiary of a trust fund or the professional beneficiary of an institution's endowment, then the cheap "everything box" apartment seems gouache. You can have better! But the "rectangle with minimal interior subdivisions" is not primarily the architectural manifestation of Elite Liberal Individual Narcissism or whatever. It's just the cheapest way to build out an interior space that feels big enough for a family to spend time in together. Walls are expensive, and artisanally placed walls even more so!
And I suppose if you have a private office in Harvard Square or Boston's Back Bay then the coffeeshop/office combo seems like a terrible symptom of a hyper-individualized Screen Obsessed Society. But to approximately everyone else living in a place where a family of 4 will pay $4,000/mo for not enough living space, that coffeeshop/office combo is as close as you'll likely get to a private workspace.
None of this is an argument against no-laptop policies or quiet ares in libraries. But then -- the article also isn't primarily an argument for those places! If the piece didn't come with a larger thesis decrying Elite Cultural Decay while singing the praises of one of the most culturally elite and least economically affordable neighborhoods in the world, then I would've had a very different reaction.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar
faux-leftist minds shirking from garish tones
a typewriter trying to clack away ennui's purposelessness