In Response to Alain de Botton: “Why design matters”:
In Why Design matters, Alain de Botton argues that good design makes people better and that people have emotional attachments and aversions based on the looks and feel of things. Good design can take many forms: sups, phones, sunglasses, and even the small dongles and knobs attached to everyday objects. Unfortunately, bad design is even more common.
Take the design of Colorado cities. I hate them. They popped up overnight and had a checklist to fill out. Houses. Check. Schools. Check. A place to get necessities. Check. But they lack character. The houses are all the same. You must drive everywhere. The schools look like prisons. I could take a picture in any one of these pop-up towns and you couldn’t tell me where it was taken. Everything in it looks the same. On a surface level, though there are changes, the color might change from one corporate approved color to the next but the urban planners at these development companies must be alcoholics because they are forced to create such unfriendly cities.
Now take a city with good design. Take Barcelona. Each city district has a crossroads dedicated to commerce and pedestrian walkways to make each district more livable. The intersections are also more open to allow for café seating and, on occasion, are closed to cars. The city is livable and thriving as it was designed not despite it, like what we have in Colorado.