Technology Drives ‘Fifth Façade’
November 6th, 2006
With the popularity of Google Earth – 100 million downloads since 2005 – architects and planners are reevaluating how they design the roof, long the place to stash anonymous machinery. New buildings are often catering to views from high above, from individual museums’ green space, suburban parks’ balloon rides, and (most obviously) in the latest Dubai megaprojects.
In many ways, Google Earth is slowly teaching average people to think like architects, to see cities in plan form and develop design opinions based on aerial photography. The success of green roof movements in Chicago, San Francisco, and other cities can be attributed to the emerging public understanding of architecture through tools like Google Earth.
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