Stupid Belconnen Architects
March 15th, 2006 at 04:52pm
It amazes me how utterly stupid the designers of most large buildings in the Belconnen area really are. You would think that if you were designing buildings that the general public will need to be able to navigate quickly and easily, you would have a logical layout for the building…but not in Belconnen.
No, in Belconnen it is common to have buildings which are more like a maze than a building. One level may be multiple levels joined by starnge bridges and spiral staircases, with odd branches off to other different but connected buildings, which may share the same floor but use different floor numbers. Entrances are another strangeness of the area, you have to walk half way around a building to find a small unmarked and by no means obvious door which might just be an entrance, and hope that it doesn’t have a small “staff only” marking on it.
And don’t get me started on the interior grounds which often need to be navigated in order to find an entrance. These undulating maze like areas with paths that don’t really have any general direction and have many offshoots going in directions without any signs telling where they lead to, are often worse than the buildings themselves.
It could just be that I am used to the majority of buildings in the inner north where one level is one level, not many different levels on different buildings that might actually be the same building but are just split into many “organisational” buildings for no apparent reason. In the inner north, a corridor has logical room numbering, the staircases are predictable, and the signs point in the right direction. Perhaps I am just lucky to spend most of my time in logical buildings.
I do hope that the Belconnen experience hasn’t been repeated in too many other locations, as it is utterly ridiculous, and in a perfect world would be a criminal offence which would see the designers stripped of their legal ability to design buildings.
I just hope I don’t have to visit one of the buildings again in the near future.
Samuel
Entry Filed under: Canberra Stories,Samuel's Editorials
10 Comments
1. Chuck A. Spear | March 16th, 2006 at 12:42 am
Architects are renowned for being pompous and egotistic. The famed Dane Jorn Utzon epitomised this when he stole all that money from the NSW government and took off without finishing the Opera House.
Walter Burley Griffin preceeded this when he was trying to divert funds from the war effort to fund his grand plan for Canberra. He stated:
“I have planned a city that is not like any other in the world. I have planned it not in a way that I expected any government authorities in the world would accept. I have planned an ideal city – a city that meets my ideal of the city of the future.”
Because of Speer’s grandios plans for Germany he diverted Hitler’s attention away from winning the war. Speer hoped he could start from a clean slate but the Russian architect Volstek ruined this because of his plans for a huge wall seperating east and west.
If it weren’t for meddling conceited architects, we may have a Third Reich today. ‘Hey Dad’ would have never have been made.
Architects are the problem with this world. Look at Federation Square in Melbourne. Is it an architecural wonderland? Or a self indulgent nightmare?
2. John B1_B5 | March 16th, 2006 at 5:55 am
Belconnen gives me the s **** !
3. Kerces | March 16th, 2006 at 10:21 am
Are you talking about the CIT campus here Sam?
4. thatsallfolks | March 16th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
The entire city of Canberra is ridiculously set-out. I would have thought you would be used to navigating your way around an area seemingly built with no rhyme or reason. Down here in melbourne everything is ona grid, evenly spaced, streets run parallel to each other, it’s perfect. Now if we could just get rid of the Commonwealth Games tourists!
5. Samuel | March 16th, 2006 at 7:04 pm
That would be one good example Kerces, but by no means the only one.
Thatsallfolks,
There is some logic to Canberra, although it doesn’t seem to flow through to the newer suburbs.
John,
Many share your sentiments…although I don’t think many of them live in Belconnen.
Chuck,
Where would we be without “Hey Dad”?
6. Chuck A. Spear | March 17th, 2006 at 12:13 am
True Samuel. It was a good after school show. Except for that annoying little next door neighbour of theirs.
7. John B1_B5 | March 17th, 2006 at 6:57 am
Somebody once said that more “paupers” live in Belconnen than any other part of Canberra .
8. Samuel | March 17th, 2006 at 7:00 am
An interesting observation, I suppose a look at Australian Bureau Of Statistics data would either prove or dispell the statement.
9. John B1_B5 | March 17th, 2006 at 7:12 am
Yes…. an interesting topic to look at …..and if true …. why ? … etc .
10. Samuel | March 17th, 2006 at 10:11 am
Actually John, I think my bus driver friend would agree with your first comment.