In his ground breaking book The Architecture of the City, the Pritzker Prize winning Italian architect Aldo Rossi talks of experiencing American towns and cities for the first time and discovering an unexpected power in the buildings he encountered. As a student, he was taught that the strength of American cities was based on the “disparate examples of good architecture, to be sought out with guides…in a sea of mediocrity and businessmen's buildings. The exact opposite is true.”
Ultimately, all of the buildings that make up our towns and cities, the houses of worship, and the museums as well as the residences and offices, are businessmen's buildings. This website is based on the philosophy that the design of buildings is an investment made by a client in a project’s success and, like everything in life and business, necessarily should have a measurable impact as well as the more intangible benefits associated with good
architecture. This investment should be made strategically to help developers, organizations, universities, or communities to achieve their goals. Every dollar spent on architectural design should ultimately lead to measurable success.
With that in mind, this website seeks to focus the current architecture conversation on design as a tool for business achievement. Ideally, this will lead to great design that betters the communities involved - local neighborhoods, university campuses, office parks and the users, visitors, developers, investors, and other stakeholders of each project.
For architects, this conversation can be liberating. It gives our community a chance to share knowledge, insight, opinions, and strategic points-of-view about design and design's role in the current world. It will also enable us to connect with each other around an idea that ultimately serves our clients.
Return on Design was conceived and developed as an independent website by BLT Architects, an architecture and interiors firm that specializes in the strategic design of academic, hospitality, multi-family residential, office, transportation and mixed use projects.
|
|