Contrary to popular belief multicoloured balconies are not some kind of definitive answer to designing social housing. Just as multicoloured fins are not all you need for an award winning office façade.
It would seem that a multitude of ears perked up when somebody suggested that fluorescent colours might improve our collective disposition. Is this commercial architecture telling us that it’s fun? It’s a difficult area of the industry, that’s for sure, but what gets me is the instantaneous multiplication. Presumably somebody somewhere was being quite flamboyant (almost certainly from behind a pair of Buddy Holly glasses) but now there’s this enormous bandwagon thundering through town.
In a great many cases these features are used as the key ingredient of a ‘one-liner’ in terms of design concept. What’s more is that the one-liner appears to me very shallow. Where do these colours come from? What do they say? (call me a modernist but…) An early use of these popular strips of colour could be David Adjaye’s Idea Store in Whitechapel but here the blue and green stripes are a direct reference to the adjacent market stalls that line the Whitechapel road and provide context for the library.
Architecture is often liked to fashion and with the fickle, immediateness of trends that come and go, fashion is a dangerous relation. Things go out of fashion as quickly as they come in and in some worlds, such as clothing, a trend can simply disappear from the streets over night, never to be seen again. We are rather more stuck with architecture, especially if we want to be remotely sustainable. I suppose you could say that design must be either timeless or temporary; anything in-between is liable to become a blot.
Occasionally Architectural 
NJArtitecture
November 7, 2010
Hmm, it’s a sad fate when architecture becomes like fashion, and you see a lot of it in America, unfortunately.
It’s interesting to think about what makes architecture timeless though: Functionality (our basic needs are always going to be our basic needs)? Site and orientation (always going to give you the best benefits from nature if you get this right)? Aesthetics? Systems of belief? etc. . . . I do think architects and designers are shifting towards more sustainable design; now only if more architects (and not builders or developers) could actually be involved in building our communal structures we might have more of an impact!
Trevor Taw
November 11, 2010
All good points. I think architects are indeed moving toward more sustainable design (unfortunately largely because its fashionable and something of a cash cow) and planning laws are taking a hard line on it here (all new homes must reach ‘carbon zero’ by 2016). As essential as it is though I don’t think sustainability is a design solution in itself as some designers seem to think it is… It is something that must be inherent and may influence design but it need not dictate form.
Now communal structures and community building, there’s an exciting area that needs some development!