4 ms·

Agreed on the Cite Radieuse, the hallways are what I wish all apartment building halls looked like. Essentially interior streets, two stories high with apartmen

by pharke 4y ago

Agreed on the Cite Radieuse, the hallways are what I wish all apartment building halls looked like. Essentially interior streets, two stories high with apartment windows facing onto them, large windows to the exterior, benches or places for people to sit and enjoy the sunlight and meet their neighbors. The highrise as the modern incarnation of a village with all of the communal charm would be a delight. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/84/79/92/84799263a8dfa6fef6bff8af7e7cbc5f.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/84/79/92/84799263a8dfa6fef6bf... Completely impractical since every developer will choose the standard closed in, windowless and unadorned hallway because it is the cheaper option.

bobthepanda 4y ago
I think the bigger thing would be accessibility. In the US all units in a new residential building with an elevator must be adaptable for accessibility. If each individual apartment was two floors then each would need accommodation for an elevator or staircase lift.
HFguy 4y ago
Is that just the first floor or is every floor like that? I can't find pictures of what the interiors of the apartments look like.
- agumonkey 4y ago
  Can't say for sure but here's a 15min video with a tour of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-ISAAZsq4Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-ISAAZsq4Y
- pharke 4y ago
  > Inside, wide corridors ("streets in the sky") run along the central long axis of every third floor of the building. Each apartment lies on two levels, such that the room on one side of a corridor belongs to the apartment that is mostly below the corridor floor, while that on the opposite side belongs to the apartment above. On those floors without corridors, the apartments stretch from one side of the building to the other, and each has a balcony on the western side. If you search for floorplans of it, it looks like there are also interior corridors but I think every apartment has access to one of those wide corridors. I'm not sure what the point of having both interior and exterior corridors is, I would think it would be better to get rid of the interior corridor and give the extra space to the exterior one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit%C3%A9_d%27habitation#La_Cit%C3%A9_Radieuse,_Marseille https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit%C3%A9_d%27habitation#La_C... Edit: Well this is disappointing. After further research, it looks like that corridor is just the main one and the rest of the floor have dark, internal corridors and then enclosed balconies. What a missed opportunity, imagine a whole building full of corridors like the ones in the image, if you're going to build two story apartments then why not do it that way?
ohwellhere 4y ago
That's gorgeous, thank you for sharing. It's a bit silly to say, but I'm not sure I knew what a hallway could be before seeing that picture.
agumonkey 4y ago
> Completely impractical since every developer will choose the standard closed in, windowless and unadorned hallway because it is the cheaper option. That's one theory I've heard a few times, it served as a basis for urban renewal in the 60s but dumb down on every level to the point of being rapidly unliveable (cue the movies about housing project blues that came soon after)
- trgn 4y ago
  Urban renewal was the realization of Le Corbusier's ideology at a large scale. It really was his vision. Focussing on a detail whether corridors have light or not, I think is somewhat of a diversion. Urban renewal did not fail because it was done cheaply, or dumbed down (which it was). It failed because it was fundamentally the wrong approach to city building. We're still living with the consequences. Our current built environment is modernist; mediated by technology, planned, bureaucratic. It's due time Le Corbusier is getting his comeuppance. It took a long long time. The first criticism were in the 70s, but postmodernism could not get beyond pageantry. And when I was in college 20 years ago, modernism was still venerated in the architecture departments, because the architect-as-god remained so appealing (btw Ayn Rand was similarly infatuated, it's an odd quirk of history how both communism and libertarians found common ground in this one domain). It's slowly fading. I think the dyke is going to break, and we'll put Le Corbusier where he belongs. A hugely influential misanthrope, who made categorically bad architecture. (also really sad, because early in his career, Le Cobusier's single family homes were really quite appealing).
  - TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
    LC was - somewhat credibly - accused of fascist sympathies. https://brill.com/view/journals/fasc/6/2/article-p196_196.xml?language=en https://brill.com/view/journals/fasc/6/2/article-p196_196.xm... Urban renewal wasn't necessarily the wrong solution in itself. The 18th and 19th centuries weren't necessarily any better at humane building. In the UK postwar worker housing stock was terrible - outside toilets, little or no insulation, no central heating, and often poorly built. So blocks were a solution of sorts. But they usually were poorly built and unimaginatively designed, optimised for low cost, but with no practical understanding of community or community spaces. A typical UK block has some decorative grass around it, but that's it. There's no common space, no common facilities, and no colour or texture. Later renovations which add at least some of the above are more popular and have fewer social problems.
brimble 4y ago
That hallway gives me strong middle school vibes. Or maybe that one older building on a university campus.
clairity 4y ago
chapman court in LA was originally built with that kind of hallway on the 2nd floor of a series of work-loft spaces (studio below, living space above). i got to see it via an LA Conservancy tour a few years back. unfortunately, i couldn't find pictures of the hallway, but here are promo pages for the recent renovation with some other pictures ('creative offices' in the 2nd shows one of the loft interiors): https://kfalosangeles.com/project/chapman-court/ https://kfalosangeles.com/project/chapman-court/ https://www.ottodesigngroup.com/07_chapman-court https://www.ottodesigngroup.com/07_chapman-court

by pharke 4y ago

bobthepanda 4y ago

I think the bigger thing would be accessibility. In the US all units in a new residential building with an elevator must be adaptable for accessibility. If each individual apartment was two floors then each would need accommodation for an elevator or staircase lift.

HFguy 4y ago

Is that just the first floor or is every floor like that? I can't find pictures of what the interiors of the apartments look like.

agumonkey 4y ago
Can't say for sure but here's a 15min video with a tour of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-ISAAZsq4Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-ISAAZsq4Y
pharke 4y ago
> Inside, wide corridors ("streets in the sky") run along the central long axis of every third floor of the building. Each apartment lies on two levels, such that the room on one side of a corridor belongs to the apartment that is mostly below the corridor floor, while that on the opposite side belongs to the apartment above. On those floors without corridors, the apartments stretch from one side of the building to the other, and each has a balcony on the western side. If you search for floorplans of it, it looks like there are also interior corridors but I think every apartment has access to one of those wide corridors. I'm not sure what the point of having both interior and exterior corridors is, I would think it would be better to get rid of the interior corridor and give the extra space to the exterior one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit%C3%A9_d%27habitation#La_Cit%C3%A9_Radieuse,_Marseille https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit%C3%A9_d%27habitation#La_C... Edit: Well this is disappointing. After further research, it looks like that corridor is just the main one and the rest of the floor have dark, internal corridors and then enclosed balconies. What a missed opportunity, imagine a whole building full of corridors like the ones in the image, if you're going to build two story apartments then why not do it that way?

ohwellhere 4y ago

That's gorgeous, thank you for sharing. It's a bit silly to say, but I'm not sure I knew what a hallway could be before seeing that picture.

agumonkey 4y ago

> Completely impractical since every developer will choose the standard closed in, windowless and unadorned hallway because it is the cheaper option. That's one theory I've heard a few times, it served as a basis for urban renewal in the 60s but dumb down on every level to the point of being rapidly unliveable (cue the movies about housing project blues that came soon after)

trgn 4y ago
Urban renewal was the realization of Le Corbusier's ideology at a large scale. It really was his vision. Focussing on a detail whether corridors have light or not, I think is somewhat of a diversion. Urban renewal did not fail because it was done cheaply, or dumbed down (which it was). It failed because it was fundamentally the wrong approach to city building. We're still living with the consequences. Our current built environment is modernist; mediated by technology, planned, bureaucratic. It's due time Le Corbusier is getting his comeuppance. It took a long long time. The first criticism were in the 70s, but postmodernism could not get beyond pageantry. And when I was in college 20 years ago, modernism was still venerated in the architecture departments, because the architect-as-god remained so appealing (btw Ayn Rand was similarly infatuated, it's an odd quirk of history how both communism and libertarians found common ground in this one domain). It's slowly fading. I think the dyke is going to break, and we'll put Le Corbusier where he belongs. A hugely influential misanthrope, who made categorically bad architecture. (also really sad, because early in his career, Le Cobusier's single family homes were really quite appealing).
- TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
  LC was - somewhat credibly - accused of fascist sympathies. https://brill.com/view/journals/fasc/6/2/article-p196_196.xml?language=en https://brill.com/view/journals/fasc/6/2/article-p196_196.xm... Urban renewal wasn't necessarily the wrong solution in itself. The 18th and 19th centuries weren't necessarily any better at humane building. In the UK postwar worker housing stock was terrible - outside toilets, little or no insulation, no central heating, and often poorly built. So blocks were a solution of sorts. But they usually were poorly built and unimaginatively designed, optimised for low cost, but with no practical understanding of community or community spaces. A typical UK block has some decorative grass around it, but that's it. There's no common space, no common facilities, and no colour or texture. Later renovations which add at least some of the above are more popular and have fewer social problems.

brimble 4y ago

That hallway gives me strong middle school vibes. Or maybe that one older building on a university campus.

clairity 4y ago

chapman court in LA was originally built with that kind of hallway on the 2nd floor of a series of work-loft spaces (studio below, living space above). i got to see it via an LA Conservancy tour a few years back. unfortunately, i couldn't find pictures of the hallway, but here are promo pages for the recent renovation with some other pictures ('creative offices' in the 2nd shows one of the loft interiors): https://kfalosangeles.com/project/chapman-court/ https://kfalosangeles.com/project/chapman-court/ https://www.ottodesigngroup.com/07_chapman-court https://www.ottodesigngroup.com/07_chapman-court