Smarticulation
Smarticulation is facade articulation intended to make a building look purposeful and important. It is primarily found in large buildings with glass curtainwalls and achieved by crisply projecting or recessing an area of the facade by two or three feet. This shallow modeling has no impact on the use of the building, so it can be applied as an afterthought to a fully worked out design, and anywhere on the face of the building without impact on function. Smarticulation is therefore often applied retroactively by designers who worry that their projects look dull.
The Orion, Cetra/Ruddy Architects' condominium tower at 350 West 42nd Street, projects smarticulation to liven up and slim down its north facade.
Smarticulation may or may not actually occur where there's a special function behind the articulated surface, but it neither serves nor expresses any underlying special use. This is for the best, given that the details of a large building's inner workings are almost certain to change during the many years that pass between its design and completion of construction.
Sources close to SOM's design for the expansion of John Jay College, currently under construction, say there's nothing very special going on behind the one-story slice of smarticulation that turns the corner of West 59th Street and Eleventh Avenue. It animates a blocky shape and provides a smooth horizontal counterpoint to the building's bristling vertical fins. But that's already more than you're meant to know.
In addition to being meaningless, a critical distinction of smarticulation is that it must not be part of a regular surface pattern, but seemingly arbitrary and therefore conspicuously indifferent to the comprehension of the man on the street.
The Time Warner Center's condominium entrance features an excrutiatingly expensive high-tech glazing system that mainly covers a blank wall. This is not smarticulation, but an ego-coddling strategy intended to make the condominium owner feel like he's lighting a cigar with a hundred dollar bill every time he comes or goes. This conspicuous consumption articulation is the urban equivalent of the suburban tract mansion's piling up of dormers, gables, arched windows and pediments.
The Trump Soho Hotel, nearing completion at 246 Spring Street, was designed by Handel Architects. Will Il Donald address New York from one of the incised balconies at the top? The building's answer is, "that's for Mr. Trump to know".
Q: Can I be smarticulate even if I'm not a building?
A: Yes! Just look purposeful and indifferent to others. Dance out into the street trying to flag down off-duty cabs and when they pass by, look at your watch, stick out your jaw and shake your head. You score extra points for wearing a suit or sunglasses, carrying a briefcase or having a cell phone clamped to your head. In fact, you can be smarticulate just by walking down the sidewalk pretending to use your cell phone.




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