Oooh Billy, Iâm not sure thatâs humour. 
Architecture is a serious business, just as an Architect 
On reflection Iâll move this out of the humour thread.
I thought it made a valid point, somewhat humorously.
We live in an odd world - at the same time some cultural distinctions deepen as we withdraw into our individual âtribesâ - Christian against Muslim, East against West etc, but within the cultures we are also losing diversity - that same social media feedback which magnifies certain messages quashes others - speak a minority language? Sorry, not many of those around try English instead if you want to make your voice heard - what the UK did to Wales, Ireland and Scotland or France did to Brittany in terms of eradicating their native language, and culture with it, happens surreptitiously without people noticing.
It also brings us closer by providing a uniform experience of the world - we are losing the distinction between Brittany and the Dordogne, between Provence and the Alsace - âthey do things the same there nowâ.
Itâs all quite sad, really.
Vanilla Europeans by over control.
Iâd (instinctively) disagree, surely it depends on the criteria employed to make such an assertion.
Happy to debate this further, but am going to bedâŠ
Identity loss is endemic.
Are you drawing on experience?
Tourism play a significant part in this âgreyingâ of cultures. Billy is making a valid point, and itâs one of the reasons Brexit looked like a good idea to some.
Expect to see unlikely alliances in the future too, like those with different religious faiths standing together against militant atheism.
I think you might mean âease of travel & transportâ rather than tourism.
There was a time when buildings were a product of the materials available locally. Ease of transport means that is no longer the case. Also climate change will mean that there will be changes to building styles in order to keep them cool/warm/flood resistant etc.
So those who have faith is something will find it necessary to somehow oppose those who donât? Surely if your faith is real then what others think is of no concern.
Absolutely, and Iâd love to know what militant atheism is.
In the case of the first part, I was going beyond just buildings, thinking of places where culture has been changed to make âtourists feel at homeâ.
In the case of the second, Iâve certainly come across people both online and in meatspace who will aggressively attack anything connected with a faith. All Muslims are murderous jihadists oppressing their women, all priests are paedophiles, any kind of charitable work is automatically invasive proselytising etc. They are often disciples of Dawkins, but will sometimes try to distance themselves from him.
New houses have to be built to strict rules now. RT2020 is very strict. Also, houses have to be affordable. To build a âtraditionalâ house of a particular area now with traditional materials and methods would be prohibitively expensive, probably several times the price of a new style house. I donât think though that it should be too hard to design new properties that reflect some of the classic design traits of an areas traditional housing. I donât think that generally happens though which is a shame.
I see what you mean now, thankfully I have not personally come across any such people. As to Dawkins, I donât know anything about him other than that he is an atheist, so canât comment.
I agree Billy, especially about regional architecture which is slowly being replaced by modern boxes.
Yes unfortunately but far cheaper to build than traditional buildings whereby some of the materials may no longer be available. We had this in Bretagne where, in my case, the house was built with very local hand hewn roof slates, very thick and heavy but because there were no longer any quarries digging them out of the granite, the authorities agreed that the spanish oblong black thin slates should be used instead. Mind you, when we had the back building renovated, I got a fair bit from a local roofer for the old slates and we did the new roofing ourselves for which the money almost bought what we needed. The building normes also demand higher regulations now as well, many of which cannot be incorporated into traditional buildings and again, the cost which people are not prepared to fund nor do the artisans have the knowledge of how they were constructed originally.
Rather in the way language becomes more uniform as it is regulated, so I suspect weâll see fewer variations in ordinary housing. Only those who can afford it will have houses with more local character.
Having said that, one of the most recent estates in Bicester has had some more unusual and interesting house designs compared to the other estates, but they have no trace of local character.
We all want to be the same, but different.
I spent much of my working life on trying to safeguard local character and design quality, particularly through planning system and working with major house builders. Sadly much of what we put in place was ripped up in 2010 by the Tories.
So depends on local authorities caring about their place. But some doâŠ
