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Old 07-31-2009, 04:24 PM   #532
You Need a Thneed
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Quote:
Originally Posted by calculoso View Post
I realize we're treading on your personal territory, but come on. Is what you're saying is the trained professional designers should have a monopoly on ideas on how a bridge (etc) should look, and everyone else should stay out of it?

Kids are pretty imaginative. Are they going to come up with a perfectly workable design? Of course not... but they could generate ideas that a true professional would take and run with. Where's the harm in that? Too much pride?
I think this is exactly where common architecture comes from, and exactly why it is common - i.e. lets design what tit will look like, then figure out exactly how everything is going to work. Considering the details that must go into most buildings, you have to comprimise on something.

Good architecture has to take in HOW it will work into the shape/general design itself, or else things have to be tacked on at the end.

Even on a bridge like this, you have to incorporate into the look of the structure:

1. How it holds itself up
2. Wher the lighting can go
3. Where the wiring for the lighting can go
4. Where stormwater drains to (it doesn't drain straight into the river, BTW)
5. How the bridge can be maintained - from all sides, including the underside.
6. All of the systems have to be able to be maintained and repaired easily, but yet still resistant to damage from users of the bridge.

People who don't understand what all needs to go into a bridge are going to have a hard time coming up with a spectacular design that accomodates all of those things. Saying that Children could come up with the design is absurd. Whatever they would come up with would have to be modified so much to make it work that it would have been a pointless exercise.
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