Imagine this progression.
Your eating a meal in a cafeteria. Your holding a fork. It is not square at all.
There are plates and cups on your meal tray. They are circles.
Your meal tray is square.
It is on a square table.
That square table is on a floor made of squares, which is in a square room, which is alongside a series of square rooms to make up the floor of the building.
The square floors of the building are stacked up to form a square building which is adjacent to square buildings which make up the square block they are on in the city.
The city is a series of square blocks that form the grid that make up the city.
So the big question is: Why all the squares?
Well first imagine you starting to build a row of buildings. What shape should you make them? The quick answer is square because that is the shape that allows for the least amount of wasted space. Try putting any other shape in a row, your simply can't beat the square.
Now you have square buildings, what are you going to put in those buildings? Triangles, circles, lozenges? Of course not, squares fit inside squares. You will make square beds and tables. The floor tiles will be squares and the doors will be squares and you simply won't break the trend.
That is until a threshold is met. The moment that the objects in the house become more about how they physically interact with humans, the less square they become. Think of chairs, and stoles. They are designed with your body in mind, yet also to fit into the square shape of the building. Consider the fork. It is designed for your hand. It is small and does not require extreme efficiency in how it is integrated into your house. I think the most extreme example of design that is not square is that of clothing. It is simply designed to fit your body, with no intention of ever trying to fit into the square context of a building.
So considering my belief in the very two dimensional manner that the brain can think, this square theory makes a lot of sense. Squares shouldn't be considered boring and uncreative, they should simply be accepted as the standard. If you want to make a statement and express another idea, sure use a different shape, but squares in our society fit in for a reason.
In terms of evolution. Once you have one square, all square objects will have an advantage afterwards, as they will all fit together better, and simply yield more square design
Kyler
1 comment:
so, on the grand scale it's Hippodamian planning (I *know* I misspelled that!). The grid form of city planning was conceived in the time of the ancient Greeks. The main advantages were that (like you said) there was less wasted space, and it was pretty straightforward. The main disadvantages were that fitting things like gymnasia or theatres in the set-up was difficult (think of all the unused corners) and that intruders could find their way around pretty easily. That, and from firsthand experience, it does nothing to stop the wind (I guess this is useful in the summer?). Anyway, I think you're right on the reasons that it's the standard right now... it's simply the most convenient and logical. I mean, look at how easy it is to get around Calgary because of the grid system. I agree that it's not necessarily uncreative, but rather most efficient.
However, that said, don't forget we live on a spherical earth. ;)
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