The accidentally resilient design of Athens apartments • Hacker News Board

Re: The accidentally resilient design of Athens apartments

#21

Post by psds2 » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 2:19 PM UTC

bobcostas55 wrote: post #19

istjohn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That part jumped out at me, too. > “There were wealthier people on the upper floors,” says Dragonas, “people who had just arrived from the countryside further down and poor students in the basement. That sort of vertical stratification inside a five-story building helped Athens to avoid horizontal stratification — there weren’t really neighborhoods that were only rich or only poor. In the US before Brown v. Board, ma…

>In many states, the vast majority of school funding comes from property taxes. So schools in wealthy neighborhoods are better funded than schools in poor neighborhoods, and this guarantees homes in wealthy school districts maintain their value since everyone wants their kids in those schools. In the US, school funding is (on average) progressive because federal and state funding more than offsets any local inequalit…

In the United States teachers school supplies, equipment for band, gear for sports and other items that contribute directly to the quality of a students education and experience are funded by bake sales, booster clubs and other sources of funding that was not at all accounted for in the article you linked or argument you make. At some schools these programs bring in six figure $ from kids reselling boutique cupcakes their mom bought, probably taking a $2 loss on each. Other schools can barely manage to raise $200 at a bake sale.

Re: The accidentally resilient design of Athens apartments

#22

Post by design-of-homes » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 2:29 PM UTC

"In poorer quality apartments, there might be full windows only along the balcony side of the apartment, their kitchens only lit naturally by dingy light wells."

Housing blocks built with 1, 2, and 3 bedroom flats (apartments) are routinely built with windowless kitchens and bathrooms today. This is regardless of whether the housing blocks are 'architect-designed' or cut from generic layouts.

In modern flats, the kitchen is shoved to the back of the living room away from windows and lacks any natural ventilation. This is sold as 'open plan living'.

Mechanical ventilation has became a crutch for many architects and housebuilders. It lets them lay out unappealing single-aspect apartments (including north-facing flats which should be banned). Single aspect means windows run across only one side of the apartment as opposed to dual-aspect design where windows run across two sides of the flat allowing cross-ventilation.

Modern blocks of flats, including 'architect-designed' ones, show a completely paucity of imagination when it comes to layout.

Re: The accidentally resilient design of Athens apartments

#23

Post by 0x01DEED » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 2:29 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #18

0x01DEED wrote: post #14

Athens is so ugly that it comes the other way around. It looks like no other. When I travel around Europe I sometimes feel that all cities look the same. When I go to Athens I feel that I am not in Europe anymore, it's a different planet.

"all cities look the same" Except, of course, for the one that has as a centrepiece a huge old fortress (still used by the local military) on the plug on an ancient volcano. ;-)

I need to be more accurate... Most cities look similar (beautiful, neat, European)

Re: The accidentally resilient design of Athens apartments

#24

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 2:35 PM UTC

> To keep costs down, developers adopted a modernist construction model — the Le Corbusier-developed Dom-Ino system, in which reinforced concrete pillars freed a building of the need for load-bearing interior walls.

A modernist, Corbusier-influenced building that actually works and that people like living in! Fantastic.

Re: The accidentally resilient design of Athens apartments

#25

Post by iguy » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 2:50 PM UTC

psds2 wrote: post #21

bobcostas55 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In many states, the vast majority of school funding comes from property taxes. So schools in wealthy neighborhoods are better funded than schools in poor neighborhoods, and this guarantees homes in wealthy school districts maintain their value since everyone wants their kids in those schools. In the US, school funding is (on average) progressive because federal and state funding more than offsets any local inequalit…

In the United States teachers school supplies, equipment for band, gear for sports and other items that contribute directly to the quality of a students education and experience are funded by bake sales, booster clubs and other sources of funding that was not at all accounted for in the article you linked or argument you make. At some schools these programs bring in six figure $ from kids reselling boutique cupcakes…

Do you know of any systematic figures on such things?

A six-figure bake sale (if I grant that it happened) is probably 1% of the school's budget (at a school of 1000 in CA, or 500 in NY). I always thought such things existed more as social occasions for parents to get to know teachers and v-v, in a more co-operative context than parent-teacher evenings.

Re: The accidentally resilient design of Athens apartments

#26

Post by erfgh » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 3:09 PM UTC

Athens is an extremely ugly city. It's so ugly that, if you grow up there or live there long enough, the ugliness slowly seeps inside of you and empties your inside, too.

Everything looks as if beauty has no role to play in our lives. The ugliness is not confined to the buildings, people dress in ugly clothes and are poorly groomed and rude.

Working for a Greek employer is hell. People hate working and all the time they talk about how much they hate working. Everyone is eager to start their own business in order to avoid having a Greek boss. This has resulted in a fragmented economy with a huge number of self-employed people that invest nothing.

Litter is everywhere, stray dogs are everywhere, dog shit on the pavement is a certainty.

Re: The accidentally resilient design of Athens apartments

#27

Post by bitcurious » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 3:15 PM UTC

>The municipality of Athens only practiced zoning for heavy industry, leaving people free to set up shop in a polikatoikia.

Really, this should be the article. Zoning is responsible for resiliency and affordability. The actual implementation (Polikatoikias) is just an accident of fate.

Re: The accidentally resilient design of Athens apartments

#28

Post by alistairSH » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 3:20 PM UTC

design-of-homes wrote: post #22

"In poorer quality apartments, there might be full windows only along the balcony side of the apartment, their kitchens only lit naturally by dingy light wells." Housing blocks built with 1, 2, and 3 bedroom flats (apartments) are routinely built with windowless kitchens and bathrooms today. This is regardless of whether the housing blocks are 'architect-designed' or cut from generic layouts. In modern flats, the kit…

I frequently think I should sell my townhouse and buy a flat, but then I look at photos in various real-estate listings and they're all dark and gloomy. It seems you're lucky if the flat has floor-ceiling windows in the main room, even luckier if it has a balcony. I don't know how people live in such darkness. As it is, the dining room in my townhome sits between thee kitchen and living room and is noticeable darker then either (and subsequently rarely used).

Re: The accidentally resilient design of Athens apartments

#29

Post by throwaway0a5e » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 3:21 PM UTC

psds2 wrote: post #21

bobcostas55 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In many states, the vast majority of school funding comes from property taxes. So schools in wealthy neighborhoods are better funded than schools in poor neighborhoods, and this guarantees homes in wealthy school districts maintain their value since everyone wants their kids in those schools. In the US, school funding is (on average) progressive because federal and state funding more than offsets any local inequalit…

In the United States teachers school supplies, equipment for band, gear for sports and other items that contribute directly to the quality of a students education and experience are funded by bake sales, booster clubs and other sources of funding that was not at all accounted for in the article you linked or argument you make. At some schools these programs bring in six figure $ from kids reselling boutique cupcakes…

>band, gear for sports and other items that contribute directly to the quality of a students education and experience

You don't fiddle your way out of generations of poverty.

Parents like to see their kids do extracurricular activities but technical skills (math, also physics) and communication skills (English) are what people need to succeed in life if they are coming from a background lacking in material wealth. When you don't have a lot of opportunities coming your way you need to be able to make good on the ones you do get.

Re: The accidentally resilient design of Athens apartments

#30

Post by jacobr1 » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 3:25 PM UTC

ip26 wrote: post #20

arethuza wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communities are interesting things - I grew up in a small fishing village in the north of Scotland which was extremely socially integrated - everyone went to the same school regardless if their parents were worth millions (and some were, although I only realised this years later) or were unemployed. Then I lived in Edinburgh's New Town for over 20 years which is utterly gorgeous but a bit lacking in community as ther…

My whole life growing up I was taught about how repressive the socially integrated model was, where everybody knows everybody, and how we should celebrate that the modern world has left it behind. As time goes by, I'm starting to realize that while it can be very repressive for people who don't fit in, in trying to discard that model outright we've lost something incredibly important.

I think what is important is that everybody find community. And it shouldn't be a surprise that that is easiest in the smaller settings that most humans have lived their lives in before the modern era. But we can have both. The great cities of the world have vibrant local neighborhoods AND "scenes" based on common interests. And for the smaller towns and villages the internet enables both online communities, and more importantly, the coordination of regional communities of shared interests. More Meetup.com, less twitter.