Random architectural musing, while driving through the Carolinas Medical Center complex over the weekend: Do they teach classes in architectural school on how to make medical office buildings ugly?
They must, because otherwise the law of randomness would mean now and again there would be a medical office building constructed that wasn’t ugly and was even, you know, agreeable to look at. Ditto for hospitals. (Presbyterian Hospital, at least the older red brick part, on Hawthorne/Queens, is the pleasant exception to this pattern.)
You’d think doctors’ groups and medical institutions would be particularly on the lookout for designs that encourage people to walk — you know, get exercise? Ward off heart disease and diabetes and obesity? You’d be wrong. Most of their buildings are surrounded by moats of asphalt parking lots.
OK, end of random thought.