# Frank Lloyd Wright and the Skyscraper



## vachej (Jun 23, 2011)

I'm interested in making use of, of building on to Frank Lloyd Wrights design principles for tower design.
Ive started a project for a residential tower of around 50 stories consisting of 4 units per floor of
approximately 4000 sq ft. Each unit has 4 bedrooms.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/treehouseculture/5780127486/in/set-72157626776152760
http://www.flickr.com/photos/treehouseculture/5856064062/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/treehouseculture/5852292088/in/set-72157626776152760
http://www.flickr.com/photos/treehouseculture/5844476968/in/set-72157626776152760/

There are two fundamental issues involving modern tower design which I believe modern
architecture fails to give sufficient attention. First, there is 
the matter of the design of the units themselves.
Too often they seem to be an afterthought to the design of the tower, the look of the
tower itself taking center stage, and the units being carved out in a kind of makeshift
arrangement. Wright inverts this sequence, first conceiving the individual units
then grouping them in such a way as to create a core. Second there is the matter
of the connection to the street. Modern materials while possessing many amazing
structural characteristics, tend toward imposing a heavy aesthetic burden at street level.
It is proposed that a more traditional urban fabric of highly individual, highly decorative
4 or 5 story masonry buildings be interposed between the street and the tower in order
to mitigate the dystopian effect of huge repetitive masses.


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## vachej (Jun 23, 2011)

Using Wright design principles for skyscraper design might
generate a floor section such as this:


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## vachej (Jun 23, 2011)

Stacked into a building and put into a city the
design might look like this:


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## vachej (Jun 23, 2011)

The view from dining room to living room might look like this:


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## vachej (Jun 23, 2011)

the view of office, living room, and TV might look like this:


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## GENIUS LOCI (Nov 18, 2004)

I think you posted in the wrong section


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## vachej (Jun 23, 2011)

genius loci

thanks. could you kindly point out the correct section. i'm a total newbie here


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## Wunderknabe (Jun 29, 2010)

Right. So whats your point?

To be an architect means more than using prefixed "design principels".


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## vachej (Jun 23, 2011)

*the principle of principle*

>wunder

if architecture is not based deeply and devotedly to principles
whether 'prefixed' or otherwise, what on earth IS it based on !
in fact is there anything particularly in the aesthetic or artistic
realm that has been a worthy endeavor that has NOT been
based on principle


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## Wunderknabe (Jun 29, 2010)

Of course there can be found a principal or a reason for anything in achitecture/design, otherwise it would be irrational and chaotic.

The point I wanted to express is, that you can't take some rules by someone else (rules that have yet to be expressed here), even if they are Lloyd Wright's, and make a "new" building out of it.

That is a standardized way to generic buildings without any indivisualistic expression.
The western world tried that out excessively from 1945 to 1990 and mostly Asia is still doing so. I'd say that doesn't lead to a pleasurable urban atmosphere we want to live in.

Being an architect means to find your own rules and to stick to them properly - and to find new ones every time, for every building.

However, I still didn't figured out what your point is for this thread.
Maybe I got this wrong and you wanted to express something different?


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## vachej (Jun 23, 2011)

so the complaint is the failure to first articulate a set of principles prior
to posting drawings which are the product of the application of those
principles. that is what youre objecting to as i understand you
to be saying. but is that really the point ? can't one merely share
his resultant plan, his realized design while only schematically outlining
his motivations and methods ? is the artist really obligated to state in
precise detail exactly the reasoning, the process, to pick out each
step he took, to explain and simultaneously justify it ? surely
it is quite sufficient to let the plans, the perspective, to let the
building speak for itself. in fact a good building will tell you everything
about itself, you can ask why and get all the answers you need from
the building itself


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## Wunderknabe (Jun 29, 2010)

So you want to get comments on the layout itself.

Well you need more than scrappy parts of 3d renderings to fully communicate the many aspects of a buildings. 

You can't barely make out what is wich room and how or if a apartment works or not.

My university professors would send me home if I brought them such pictures and said "thats all you need - the building speaks for it self" 

Architects all over the world may speak different languages (and god, I think im really struggling with the english one here ) but they also have one other language that 
any architect will understand: the standardisized floorplans, cuts, fassade views and plans of side with measurements and so on.
There are very strikt regulations to that and thats for a good reason: floorplans and so on have to be clear and without ambiguousness.

I see a lot of problems in that layout. And a lot of things that are unclear. With further graphics and visualisatons some of these problems could be explained.

And if you say its made after "Wright design principles for skyscraper design" those principles may be a worthy part of that explanations. Don't you think that too?


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## vachej (Jun 23, 2011)

never mind


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## sweet-d (Jul 20, 2010)

Price Tower by Douglas Clifton, on Flickr


Price Tower by arroyoseccofarm, on Flickr


Price Tower and Community Center by TylerDog Cards, on Flickr

price tower by orangerobot, on Flickr

I should also post the copy of this tower or "knock off"


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## Luli Pop (Jun 14, 2010)

bedrooms without windows?


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## vachej (Jun 23, 2011)

I knew that the two windowless bedrooms were likely to be the first elicitations 
of commenter complaints, after of course, the abject generalized attack mounted by our dear contributor wunderknabe  Nevertheless I think there is
this to be said. Bedrooms are really for sleeping not looking out the window.
As well, Ive seen for example in period room re-creations at museums the way they
will create a simulated window mimicking daylight. I don't see why you
couldn't make a similar simulated daylight device in a windowless room which you
could connect with a clock such that the light level tracked the position
of the sun in the sky. The point is in a high rise the windows are hermetically
sealed as it is, and in the event of emergency exit is down fire stairs. 
This is a technological revolution waiting to happen, a great
liberating transformation much more than the failing the incubus of 
habit strickening conventional architectural thinking would tend to suggest


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## Wunderknabe (Jun 29, 2010)

> Bedrooms are really for sleeping not looking out the window.


You can't be serious with that comment.



> I don't see why you
> couldn't make a similar simulated daylight device in a windowless room which you
> could connect with a clock such that the light level tracked the position
> of the sun in the sky.


Getting natural light into the rooms (as many of them as posible) is one of the most
important and basic requirements for any building.

The sun's light is one of the most valueable natural sources. Denying it is a
fatal error in designing a building.

If you don't get sunlight into your rooms, better change the floorplans, because
artificial solutions won't make it any better.


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## vachej (Jun 23, 2011)

Wunderknabe said:


> If you don't get sunlight into your rooms, better change the floorplans, because
> artificial solutions won't make it any better.



To the contrary now that I've thought it over I can see all the more the ingenuity in my original assertion. What IS paramount is getting as much sun into just those rooms where people will be living, awake, moving about. The
good design will in fact intensify the allocation of windows to exactly
such rooms for such conditions, while doing the converse for the
converse. Its interesting. One learns quickly in even the most seemingly
marginal of issues, any thinking outside the box, any bringing to bear
of not even novel thought, but thought itself, is so quickly taken to
task by what can only be termed the bureaucratization of the
permissible in architecture, the rigidity of its thought, its stubborn 
clinging to received rules that no longer have any meaning, that
no longer advance but rather retard building design. Of course
sunlight is as welcome as flowers in spring. The point is 
design always entails compromise, countless compromises, requires
the wisdom to know where to intensify resources and where they
will have to be suppressed.


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## sweet-d (Jul 20, 2010)

*The Classen*


The Classen by Jason B., on Flickr


Classy, postmodern, brutalist by rutlo, on Flickr


Classen apts by DannyMarr67, on Flickr


The Classen by cameron_405, on Flickr


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## 7t (Jun 4, 2006)

I wouldn't want the sun beating on my bedroom window while at the same time I couldn't imagine a bedroom without a window. A room or any secluded space where people tend to live/work needs air circulation. It's common sense. Our bodies need to breathe fresh oxygen that comes from the outside environment. And equally important, the space inside the room needs to air out all the toxic buildup released from our bodies after a long night sleep.


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## vachej (Jun 23, 2011)

>7t

Youre totally right about the necessity of providing adequate 
ventilation. But what a lot of people don't
realize is that in most modern high rises the plate glass windows 
are intentionally designed NOT to open. 
And of course with young kids its debatable whether you want
them around any sort of window especially when unsupervised. In any case
high rise ventilation is accomplished with HVAC rather than cracking 
the window open as a rule. But as with everything else in life theres no substitute
for experimentation. Couldn't you put up some thick black curtains in a few
test case bedrooms, create the sort of blackout conditions they 
instituted in the WWII, and see how people fare with simulated sun equipment.
Psychologically I think the main thing is that light level is an indication of
time of day, its primary connection with and impact on the sleep cycle.


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## Wunderknabe (Jun 29, 2010)

> Of course
> sunlight is as welcome as flowers in spring. The point is
> design always entails compromise, countless compromises, requires
> the wisdom to know where to intensify resources and where they
> will have to be suppressed.


Yes, but for instance which quality you add accounts for the loss of much sunlight in the rooms and a good bedroom?



> But what a lot of people don't
> realize is that in most modern high rises the plate glass windows
> are intentionally designed NOT to open.


Well, you can use Kippfenster (sorry, I don't know the word for that in english. http://www.hau-pferdesport.de/bilder/details/kippfenster-2.jpg)
or a ventilation using chimney effects. Or provide loggia or balconies.
Wind pressure in buildings <100m is in most cases not that high. Of course in burj khalifa
a open window could be dangerous, but thats an exceptionaly case.



> its stubborn clinging to received rules that no longer have any meaning


False.
The people doesn't change that much. The human is the constant and so is his requirements.

What you describe as outdated rules is more relevant than ever. Because the wealth in all nations
rises and people are less likely to accept living situations with bad quality residential
solutions.

Sure you can live in a bunker with no sunlight, no fresh air and so on and provide technical
solutions for that problems. But trust me, exept for the caseof a nuclear war, almost everyone 
you will ask will prefer a simple, elegant apartment with much sunlight, a good view to the 
outside, even from the bedroom (in wich most people share a lot of time without sleeping..) and 
access to fresh air.

You seem to be much of a technophilist and think that technical solutions can overcome any
solution for any problem. But architecture and design in genereal is not about "what can be
added to make this better?" but it is (or should) be more about what can be _reduced_ to make it better.
The elegancy and economy of resources being used is a very important part. Nut just because
its elegant and easyer to plan, but also because the client you make the buidling for is not willing
to pay more than nessesary 

Don't get me wrong: its good to think outside the box. As an architect you have to do that every single time.
But its a bit superciliously to think the own solution does every thing better than any solutions
of any former architect and "my way is the future". 

Try to embark more on criticism.

A design is not good because you think it is, but because others think so.


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## vachej (Jun 23, 2011)

I'll tell you who seems to have really got the simulated sunlight system well 
worked out are the new line of apple retail stores. They seem to have figured out 
precisely how to duplicate the intensity of outdoor light, its uniformity, as well
as delivering a nice white tempered light, free of the glare of direct sunlight. 
But look we don't want to get sidetracked, the idea is to solve a problem
not impose a distortion induced by received rules. The high-rise is the very essence
of the artificial, the contrived, the un-natural in architecture. The challenge is making it as livable as possible, which returns us to the point of trying to create 
just the sort of space Wright delivered so masterfully, space possessed of
the sense of simultaneously unbounded yet deeply organized space.


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## Erik_83 (Jul 4, 2011)

vachej said:


> As well, Ive seen for example in period room re-creations at museums the way they
> will create a simulated window mimicking daylight. I don't see why you
> couldn't make a similar simulated daylight device in a windowless room which you
> could connect with a clock such that the light level tracked the position
> of the sun in the sky.


Just as architects and builders around the world is about to change course and produce more environmentally friendly buildings with more natural ventilation and light, you come up with a floorplan which seemingly not only does nothing to reduce greenhouse emissions, but even manages to create new _requirements_ for technology. Does our cities really need more energy consuming buildings, adding *artificial sunlight(!)* to the list of power consuming apparatus?


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## vachej (Jun 23, 2011)

one reads all this hysterical nonsense about greenhouse gas and
can only laugh and throw up ones hands. co2 levels are a lagging
indicator, rising commensuratley with the general trend in warming
that began some ten thousand years ago with the end of the
ice age. the whole LEED mania is utter madness, leading architecture
and architects down yet another blind alley. one has to seriously
ask himself whether architecture will ever agains be inspired by
principles of beauty, of charm, of delight. will it ever get itself
unmired from the oddities of postmodernism and the compulsive
obsession with energy conservation, the mindless determination to
uglify buildings to the nth degree provided they think it will save
an nth of a joule of energy. architecture today is in its most
pathetic incarnation, worse today than even the pessemist of
the deepest dye would have dared prophesy a century ago.


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## Wunderknabe (Jun 29, 2010)

Saving energy and resources is not only clever because of global warming. It also saves money. As I've said clients will not pay (much) more than required and being economical is not contrary to "beauty, of charm, of delight" or whatever.

Buildings account for around 50% of all energy-consumtion in the world. Making them as economical as possible can not only safe "an nth of a joule" but HUGE amounts of energy - and money.

And your view on todays architecture als a whole is depressing.
Architecture today is more many-faced than ever, and better than ever.


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