Hacker News Reader

Comment by tycho-newman | Hacker News Reader

Ehh, pearl clutching over homogeneity in art and architecture is par for the course. What the writer needs to do is expand their horizons, and possibly, their vertices. There's tons of options out there if you take a minute to look outside of -/checks notes/- ... AirBnB? Really? Is AirBnB a good place to find a representative sample of interior design diversity?

Also, homogeneity is great when properly deployed. Imagine going to a city and not having to think about how the street numbering system works, or how to navigate the metro, or how to find an ATM because of a human-centered design aesthetic that is built around routines of daily life, instead of the 9-5 commute.

View on HN

I completely disagree. The article can be viewed as analysing the effects of globalisation, the growing homogeneity of spaces that starts at AirBnB and cafes and spreads. Something is lost if you visit a new country and the layout is exactly the same as where you live. If I visit Hong Kong and I see a London tube type rail map, I'm going to be disappointed. There is a tradeoff in not immediately knowing how to use the trains or immediately knowing how the postcode is layed out - but the gain is individuality. I lean towards keeping the individuality and not sucking out every drop of exploration into the unknown. Isn't that a big part of travelling?

The author showed some skylines from a distance and claimed all cities look the same. But that’s juts not true. Hong Kong and London look, feel, and work very differently from each other, even though the latter was a British colony.

City of London and Hong Kong are very much the same. Historical London at large is not. But I think you’re missing the point on purpose here.

> the growing homogeneity of spaces that starts at AirBnB and cafes and spreads

Like I said, there's options when you look outside AirBnB. There is diversity in design if you look outside the haunts of the bourgeois classes.

And look, some people want to struggle reading metro maps. I am not one of them. I, for one, am glad that Harry Beck designed the tube map that would become so influential all over the world. Praise be to Harry Beck! https://youtu.be/cTLCfl01zuE?t=201

But you could go to Paris and have the equally iconic and functional plan illuminé, and it instantly felt like Paris.

Paris is is the crown jewel of the petit bourgeois.

I don't know if AirBnB is representative, but I clicked on 5 random airbnb properties from the homepage, and they all had white walls! And most had some exposed wood! Admittedly, one also had some slate walls. And another had red tiled flooring. And one was a log cabin. But if you ignore all of the differences, they are strictly identical in every respect.

> Imagine going to a city and not having to think about how the street numbering system works

I used to spend a lot of time in Seattle, which makes heavy use of numbered streets. Compared to cities with alphabetic street names, I found it harder to navigate. It's too easy to mix up a "51st Ave N" with "51st Ave NW" or a Street for an Avenue. Humans are just better at reading and remembering names.

These days all navigation is electronic. The verbosity of text names acts as a kind of redundant check on the information stream. Numbers are more of a hindrance than a help.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com