Hidden Boxes Residential Building / KaSa Office. Image © Mohammad Hassan Ettefagh

Why So Many Banal Boxes? Because Architecture Reflects the Ethos of Its Time

由专筑网王沛儒，小R编译

建筑师们的抱怨是徒劳的。木结构加基座的建筑，即所谓的“5-over-1”，还会继续存在。我喜欢称其为“盒子”（The Box），它在木结构建筑下面采用了混凝土和钢筋基础的混合技术，主要用于市场价住宅。尽管人们对其平庸的外观普遍持否定态度，但它对大部分公寓消费者群体的吸引力却是毋庸置疑的，对开发商的吸引力也是显而易见的。

为什么？与其他建筑方法相比，“盒子”的建造成本更低。如果成本是王道，那么简单和大规模就成了价值的默认设置——结果就是，尽可能多地用“盒子”覆盖在场地上。由于节省了成本，天花板可以更高，窗户可以更大，这些都是房主们喜欢的，但开发商却不会把钱花在减少单元数量、增加公共空间或更多的街景设施上。相反，在这些建筑中，可持续设计所推崇的密度并没有得到重视社会公益的方法的补充。“盒子”的“密度”意味着密集的人群。

除了更低的建筑成本之外，“盒子”这类建筑的设计理念还反映了21世纪的价值观。这个新时代不是勇敢的，而是安全的。我们的数字化生活鼓励了独立、自私和自主个人主义。过去，我们上学、上班、参加社交活动，但现在互联网催生了一种自我隔离的生活方式，让我们更多地待在室内，向外张望。

“盒子”是其价值观的一面镜子。它的审美观是非个性化的、低成本的、即时可用的——这种价值观允许我们在想要的时候，用尽可能少的钱获得尽可能多的自主权。

我们的建筑对这种新的世界秩序做出了反应，就像它们对其他所有与建筑无关的文化转变做出的反应一样，但结果却是建筑发生了变化，以反映新的价值观和现实。但是，将经济要求强加于建筑与设计师并无多大关系。我们的文化价值观，尽管并不完美，却可以通过我们的建筑得以传达。这些反社会的盒子，亚马逊的人类仓库，只是反映了这种向个人孤立和社会疏远的艰难转变。

The whining of architects is futile. The stick-frame-over-podium building—the so-called 5-over-1—is here to stay. The Box, as I like to refer to it, utilizes the hybrid technology of a concrete-and-steel base below wood-frame construction, and is used predominantly for market-rate housing. Despite the common negative reaction to its banal aesthetics, the appeal to a large segment of apartment consumers is undeniable. It’s an obvious hit with developers, too.
Why? The Box costs less to build than other building methods. If cost is king, then simple and big become the default settings for value—resulting in, well, boxes that cover as much of a site as possible. The cost savings allow for higher ceilings and bigger windows—things that homeowners love—but the developers don’t spend money on fewer units, more common space, or additional streetscape amenities. Perversely, the density so prized in sustainable design is not complemented in these buildings by an approach that values social good. “Density” in a Box means densely packed people.
Beyond the cheaper construction costs, the focus of these buildings reflect the values of the 21st century. This New World is not brave, it’s safe. Our digital life encourages isolation, self-interest, and autonomy. We once went to school and work and social events and shopped in stores, but now the internet allows for a lifestyle that embodies a self-isolated existence lived inside, looking out.
The Box is a building mirror of its values. The aesthetic is impersonal, cheap, immediately available—an ethic that allows our desires to have as much autonomy as we can get for as little money as possible, when we want it.
Our buildings respond to this new world order as they have to every other cultural shift that has had nothing to do with architecture, but results in buildings changing to reflect new values and realities. But the imposition of economic imperatives on architecture has little to do with designers. Our cultural values, as imperfect as they are, get channeled through our buildings. This hard shift to individual isolation and social distancing is merely reflected in these antisocial boxes, Amazon warehouses for humans.


Box Factory House / hb+a Architects. Image © Doug Birnbaum

最近的疫情隔离措施只是加速了这种“以自我为中心”的趋势。Zoom扭曲了办公室文化，导致电影院、教堂和购物中心的空置。但是，即使是简单的个人交往也在变得非个性化。在任何人得到帮助的地方，当帮助我们的人被感谢时，对“谢谢”的回应曾经是对人际交往的普遍认可：“不客气”。现在，那些被感谢的人并不参与互动，他们用一份声明来回应他们的服务，说“当然”或“请享用”。越来越多地商店在我们买东西的时候都是通过机器来结账；人类员工往往供不应求——我们与非人类共舞。

21 世纪的趋势是反社会，出生率很低，结婚的人越来越少。在这个世界上，我们可以赚钱，也可以花钱，但却绕过了与他人的互动，而且往往与世隔绝。我们的新建筑反映了这些价值观，所有曾经具有社会性的建筑的改造也反映了这些价值观，这些建筑现在正在为一个越来越缺乏社会性的社会服务。

一次性的社会倾向于购买新东西，而不是花时间重新思考、修改和更新他们已经拥有的东西。我们重视的是抛弃我们拥有的东西，购买我们想要的东西。就好像生活中没有送货费；无论我们已经拥有了什么，我们想要什么，就能得到什么。

The recent pandemic sequestration only accelerated this “me first” ethos. Zoom has warped office culture and emptied movie theaters, churches, and shopping malls. But even simple personal interactions are becoming depersonalized. In places where anyone is helped, when those helping us are thanked, the response to “thank you” used to be the universal recognition of the human transaction: “you’re welcome.” Now, those being thanked do not participate in an interaction, they respond with a statement of separation from their service, saying “of course” or “enjoy.” Checking out what we still buy in stores is increasingly pushed to machines; humans are often in short supply—we do a dance with the inhuman.
The 21st century is trending toward the antisocial. Birth rates are low. Fewer of us are getting married. In this world, we can make money and spend it while bypassing interaction with others, and often in physical isolation. Our new buildings reflect these values, as will the retrofitting of all the once-socializing buildings now serving an increasingly less social society.
A disposable society simply buys new rather than taking the time to rethink, revise, renew what they already possess. We value the power to toss what we have and buy what we want, now. It’s as if life has no delivery charges; what we want, we get, no matter what we already have.


Solid Boxes House / Paralelo Colectivo. Image © Luis Barandiarán

“盒子”提供了一种与世界打交道的方式，它可能隐喻了人们喜欢急功近利、不考虑当下可行性的态度。它的“轻型”结构可以抵御风雨，直到薄如纸的表皮垮塌——而一旦垮塌（通常是入住后的一代人之后），那将是轻型木结构建筑的一场灾难。

与平庸的住宅“盒子”一样，21 世纪的摩天大楼也不过是空间的垂直堆叠，表达的是同样的价值观，即用更少的钱获得更大的空间和更多的利润。这也不是什么新鲜事：想一想工业革命爆发时，大量工人住房吞没了新工厂周围的农场。在 19 世纪末 20 世纪初移民潮的影响下，大城市的边缘散布着无尽的廉租公寓。低层建筑最终被夷为平地，为城市中心的企业大厦让路。20 世纪 50 年代，高速公路为数以百万计的郊区住宅播下了入侵的种子。

汽车终结了20 世纪大多数郊区住宅的前廊，取而代之的是连体车库，使房主与外界隔绝。独户住宅的附带车库到“盒子”底层的室内车库有楼梯可以直接到达。两者都是为了避免与前门外的世界所有交流、沟通。

The Box offers a way to deal with the world that may be a metaphor for the attitude that favors instant gratification, without any thought of viability beyond the moment. Its “lite” construction will keep the weather out until the paper-thin skin fails—and when it does (and it will, a generation after occupancy), it’s a disaster for light wood-frame construction.
Like the banal residential Box, 21st century skyscrapers are merely vertical stacks of space, expressing the same values of more space for less money and more profit. Nothing new here, either: think of the flood of worker housing that swallowed farms that surrounded new factories at the explosion of the Industrial Revolution. The endless tenements spread at the edges of large cities at the accommodation of late 19th/early 20th century immigration. The low-rise and eventually razed buildings that made way for corporate towers in city centers. The superhighways that sowed the invasive seeding of millions of suburban homes in the 1950s.
The car ended the front porch in most 20th century suburban homes in favor of the attached garage, shielding homeowners from any contact with the outside world. There is a direct line from the single-family home’s attached garage and the interior parking garages used in the lower levels of the Box. Both are based on avoiding any interaction outside your front door.


Box Factory House / hb+a Architects. Image © Doug Birnbaum

在上述每一种建筑类型中，我们的文化都因技术和经济机遇而发生了剧变，从而影响了我们的建筑。绝大多数工人住宅、摩天大楼、廉租房、郊区住宅以及现在的“盒子”，建造成本低，速度快。

35 年前，我曾为一位《广告狂人》广告执行官在纽约的公寓里设计了一个酒吧。当然，设计超出了预算。我们深入到价值工程中。有一次，他说：“你知道，做任何事情只有三种方法：好、快、便宜。但你做任何事情都只能做到其中两点。第三种就总会被排除在外”。

“盒子”又快又便宜，但对于社区、耐用性甚至人与人之间的联系来说，显然并不“好”。这种反美学的审美观与创造社区的理念背道而驰；“盒子”是一种孤立的组合。

我们不必接受现在这种生搬硬套或粗鲁的迁就。现在就看建筑师们能否接受“盒子”的真实含义了。建筑师们会看到其中的可能性，在平淡无奇的新古典主义摩天大楼中创造出克莱斯勒大厦吗？在工业革命时期的工人住房旁边，会有一个草原学派的建筑吗?在20世纪中期美国平淡无奇的公寓楼中，会出现海浪牧场这样的建筑吗？在企业的球场中会出现卡姆登球场这样的设计吗？我们必须在“盒子”中发现美。

In every one of those building types, convulsions in our culture were caused by technologies and economic opportunities, which changed our buildings. The vast majority of worker housing, skyscrapers, tenements, suburban homes—and now the Box—were cheap and fast to build.
Thirty-five years ago I designed a bar in a New York City apartment for a Mad Men–type ad executive. Of course the design was over budget. We were deep into value engineering. At one point he pulled back, saying, “You know there are only three ways to do anything: good, fast, and cheap. But you can only do two of them in anything you do. The third is always excluded.”
The Box is fast and cheap, but it’s clear that it’s not “good” for community, durability, or even human connection. This anti-aesthetic aesthetic is the antithesis of creating community; the Box is an assemblage of isolation.
We don’t have to accept the rote or rude accommodations that we are now sentenced to. It’s now up to architects to accept the truth of the meaning of the Box. Will architects see the possibilities and create the Chrysler Building amid the bland neoclassical skyscrapers? Will there be a Prairie School that happens alongside all the worker housing of the Industrial Revolution? Will there be a Sea Ranch amid bland apartment blocks of mid-century America? A Camden Yards amid the corporate ballparks? We must find the beauty in the Box.


Solid Boxes House / Paralelo Colectivo. Image © Luis Barandiarán