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Elizabeth line testing ways of banishing its "ghosts in the walls"

ianvisits.co.uk

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Re: Elizabeth line testing ways of banishing its "ghosts in the walls"

#71

Post by captaincrisp »

concordDance wrote: post #48
Wytwwww wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> difficult to make thousands of up-front planning decisions perfectly. So don't. Just use something well tried and tested and don't try to be innovative (in areas we you can't dedicated significant amounts of resources for up-front planning)

This seems a bit defeatist. Some hope for and striving for improvement is good for a society.

I feel the point is a bit subtler. We should strive for improvement. We should also understand that that takes more than the normal amount of resources to do something different and better & either commit to spending what's required or, if we can't afford to, use something already proven instead.

The half-done or broken improvements still get called "innovations" and give innovation overall a worse reputation.

Re: Elizabeth line testing ways of banishing its "ghosts in the walls"

#73

Post by chilmers »

sph wrote: post #55
Gare wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also hostile architecture - benches with no backrests.

The wall is the backrest.

Except the wall curves inward, which pushes your head, neck and upper back forward. Having sat on them, it's rather uncomfortable, and must be worse for people taller than me. That said, I'm not convinced it's deliberately hostile, I just think it's incompetent design, favouring a minimalist style over functionality.

Re: Elizabeth line testing ways of banishing its "ghosts in the walls"

#74

Post by yardstick »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #30
jeroenhd wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the (quite useless) armrests weren't there to prevent the homeless from sleeping on them, people wouldn't be sitting in the exact same spot every time, causing a light smear instead of defined person-like shaped on the wall.

While it's an interesting point. I'm not sure I agree that these are here purely to stop homeless people from sleeping on them. For a start, I would give anyone on the underground about 3 minutes, if they attempted to sleep anywhere, before they were moved on. It's one of the few places where you regularly see staff on the public transport network in London. I think there is a legitimate argument that these arm rests…

> I think there is a legitimate argument that these arm rests are actually providing a useful service by delimiting the space for each person. Few people will naturally sit on the spot at the end of a bench seat which is already partially occupied (and other people will discourage it by sitting near the middle). Where as people will take an empty seat which is clearly free and separated from the other people on the bench.

Yes, exactly this! Especially when the platforms are crowded, it makes so much sense to be efficient on the allocation of seats.

Now we’ve still got to deal with some people bag-spreading but normally most people take their bags off as soon as it gets busy or someone asks.

Re: Elizabeth line testing ways of banishing its "ghosts in the walls"

#77

Post by yardstick »

Gare wrote: post #45
chilmers wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, the material they chose for the station walls is a sort of porous cement that is likely uncleanable.

Also hostile architecture - benches with no backrests.

The benches are designed to be used for on average 4-5mins, maybe 20mins if having to wait for a special train. Their purpose is to serve commuters using the trains. Not as an alternative to proper social housing (which the UK has lots of).

Re: Elizabeth line testing ways of banishing its "ghosts in the walls"

#78

Post by wongarsu »

bluenose69 wrote: post #44
Havoc wrote: post #17

I noticed some other weird design choices in the new tube stations as well. Eg air vents that are very fine and visibly clog up. It’s like they designed it to look shiny for day one but ignored decades of practical experience

I've seen similar things where I work. In a new building, the architects called for small air vents that would look nice according to some aesthetic criterion. Unfortunately, the vents were so small that, to maintain air flow, the fans inside them had to spin so fast they screamed. This made for a very unpleasant environment. This was where high-profile events tended to take place, to show off the bright new shiny th…

Same issue as UX and features in enterprise software. When a product is sold to people who don't have to use it then optics are more important than practicality

Re: Elizabeth line testing ways of banishing its "ghosts in the walls"

#79

Post by ajb »

lhnz wrote: post #50
bluenose69 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen similar things where I work. In a new building, the architects called for small air vents that would look nice according to some aesthetic criterion. Unfortunately, the vents were so small that, to maintain air flow, the fans inside them had to spin so fast they screamed. This made for a very unpleasant environment. This was where high-profile events tended to take place, to show off the bright new shiny th…

This is a negative outcome of the Town and Country Planning Act. We've mandated by law that all planning is done upfront and due to the possibility of construction fraud provide detailed designs to building contractors that disallow them from substituting any materials or design choices without it being explicitly requested by the employer. In theory, there can be conversation between individual subcontractors and th…

Building is not a waterfall process because of the Planning act. It's waterfall because of the cost structure of building. Every time you iterate physically, you are throwing a lot of money away in time and materials. So any iteration is pushed back to the paper part of the exercise, in which case it might just as well happen before planning approval.

Also, it's possible to request a variation, especially if something wasn't going to work. There is a category called 'non-material variation' which the planning officers are lenient with.

If you got rid of planning (and building control) I guarantee that the quality of buildings would go down. Before building control, many unhealthy buildings were built due to bad drainage, etc.

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