Discomfort
IMAGE: Base Jumping from Sapphire Tower in Istanbul during Probase Birden Sapphire Showdown.
PHOTO: Kontizas Dimitrios, licensed under CC by SA 3.0
Discomfort is a part – perhaps even a necessary part – of our built environment. While one of architecture’s main roles is to improve our world by alleviating it, discomfort can be a useful design element. More than that, it can sometimes be therapeutic, invigorating, inspiring and even coveted.
Our world is currently experiencing a new, more insidious, form of discomfort that encompasses the full range from inconvenience to suffering. It remains to be seen how, or if, the designers of our built environment will deal with this new discomfort, but many valuable lessons are already being learned. It’s a rare distress that doesn’t produce some benefit. If self-isolation and physical distancing become long-lasting features of our societies, what kind of spaces will we need? What kind of businesses, institutions and residences will we need? And if stay-at-home protocols continue to be observed, how do we accommodate the many millions who have no home?
In this issue of The Right Angle Journal, we look at some of the aspects of discomfort in our built environment – the good, the bad and, inevitably, the ugly.
Discomfort
The issue’s opening argument: architects are skilled at soothing discomfort, but from confrontational buildings to rugged landscapes, unease often enriches experience.
On Architecture, Entertainment, and Discomfort
From Banksy’s Dismaland to pandemic-shuttered theme parks: why entertainment spaces are engineered for comfort, and what happens when discomfort gets in.
Physical Environments
The Reversible Destiny lofts were designed to challenge their elderly residents’ senses; a case for buildings that trade a little comfort for resilience, health, and longer lives.
Can I Biggy Size Your Building?
From Nevada fulfillment centres to Dutch greenhouses to luxury condo towers: buildings sized by economics instead of people.
LOCATIONS A House in Spitalfields - A Visit to the Dennis Severs House
A silent, candlelit night inside Dennis Severs’ Spitalfields house, where history is staged as a sensual drama and visitors walk through the frame of a living painting.