---
title: 'Architect Answers Architecture Questions | Tech Support | WIRED'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=Druvom03m_A'
video_id: 'Druvom03m_A'
date: 2026-08-04
duration_sec: 1125
---

# Architect Answers Architecture Questions | Tech Support | WIRED

> Source: [Architect Answers Architecture Questions | Tech Support | WIRED](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Druvom03m_A)

## Summary

In this video, an architect answers a series of questions from the internet about architecture, covering topics such as the theoretical height limits of buildings, the infamous 'Walkie Talkie' building, brutalist architecture, the influence of architecture on behavior, the use of models, the work of Zaha Hadid, the difference between an architect and an architectural designer, and more.

### Key Points

- **Theoretical height limit of buildings** [00:12] — Tall buildings are like trees with roots (pile foundations) and a spreader plate effect. Elevators restrict height; you have to transfer between elevators in very tall buildings.
- **The 'Walkie Talkie' building issue** [01:11] — The building's concave shape focused sunlight, melting cars and setting things on fire. They fixed it with a 'breeze sole' (shading device).
- **Delivering materials to a remote site** [02:05] — A project on an island in a volcano crater required helicopter drops due to weight restrictions; glass had to be loaded on the road and flown in.
- **Brutalist architecture** [03:01] — Brutalism comes from French 'beton brut' (raw concrete). It's often hammered concrete with small windows and leaking pipes. It's becoming trendy again, e.g., the Barbican.
- **Architecture influencing behavior** [05:46] — Berthold Lubetkin's penguin pool at London Zoo: the penguins became sad in the geometric environment, so the zoo added timber buildings and a pool, leading to baby penguins.
- **Use of architectural models** [06:44] — Models are used as maquettes, often made of cardboard, to explore fragments of buildings or cities, and to convey narratives in meetings.
- **Zaha Hadid and right angles** [08:11] — Zaha Hadid avoided right angles, creating voluptuous, amorphous forms. Her work was radical and not easy to build; straight lines are cheaper.
- **Architect vs. architectural designer** [09:09] — Architect is a protected title with accountability; an architectural designer typically lacks that accountability for drawings.
- **Design vs. final product** [09:49] — The process is important; unexpected things happen along the way. Example: an arcade project where sunlight entered in a magical way not intended.
- **Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water** [10:42] — Falling Water is an iconic masterpiece with water coming from beneath the terraces. It was very much of its time; a modern commission would be different.
- **Skills needed to be an architect** [11:53] — Sketching is important for communicating ideas with clients. Hand drawings create trust; CAD renderings have a hyper-real quality but are less friendly.
- **Why we don't build ornate buildings anymore** [13:04] — Ornate brickwork is expensive. Modernism, influenced by Adolf Loos's 'Ornament is a crime' (1910), led to form following function and machine-made buildings.
- **How architects know designs are feasible** [14:12] — It's not solely the architect; a series of experts collaborate. Architects make exploratory maquettes and test designs as they develop.
- **Pompidou Center** [14:59] — The Pompidou Center turned the gallery inside out, with guts (services) on the outside: water in green, electricity in yellow. The space adjacent is a gathering place.
- **Difficulty of building with concrete** [15:41] — Concrete is liquid that sets; it needs formwork and time to dry. It's not expensive itself, but mistakes are costly, making it expensive overall.
- **Engineer's worst nightmare** [16:26] — The spirit and vision must be shared between architect and engineer; a balance of pragmatism and fantasy leads to great outcomes.
- **Louvre pyramid** [17:15] — There's tension between sleek glass and old stone; many Parisians despise it, but the juxtaposition of old and new is special.
- **Why architects don't live in self-designed homes** [17:44] — Building your own home is expensive. The architect's own house had an oculus letting snow fall in and brick doors; you have to live with problems.

### Conclusion

The architect provides insights into various architectural topics, emphasizing the balance between design vision and practical constraints, and the importance of process and collaboration.

## Transcript

I'm here today to answer your questions from the internet. [upbeat music]
Is there a theoretical limit of how tall a building can be on Earth without collapsing? to do a building over a kilometer high.
I mean, in theory, tall buildings are built It's rather like a tree, the roots, the pile foundations a kind of spreader plate effect
Obviously, there's ways to make a frame building to a point at the top as the Burj Khalifa does. Elevators restrict the height of a building.
Tall buildings you have to get out of one into another. Ultra Saurus. that melted cars and set buildings on fire in 2013.
as the walkie talkie 'cause of the shape of it. because of the setting fire to things. What happened was the angle of the sun on the glass,
It was increasing the power of the sun's rays and in the end they had to fix like a breeze sole,
You can't necessarily predict something like this. and typically if you're going to step out you have to have the stomach for the fact
They found a solution, but yeah, it's not ideal. you've ever faced?
that was on an island in a volcano crater. It was a 15 minute walk from the nearest road How on earth was I going to deliver building materials?
but they don't do that anymore. And I'd also designed this huge pivoting arched window and the answer was to do helicopter drops.
was the weight restriction of the helicopter. and the glass had to be loaded up on the road
and then come around the mountain of guys waiting on site. I did ask them to film it so I could see it afterwards,
Huadpe says, change my view. Brutalist architecture is ugly. It comes from the French "beton brut."
It's usually hammered concrete. so it's small windows of leaking pipes.
I mean, funnily enough, they're becoming trendy again, I think it's the way that people view these kind of monsters and then insert something soft and emotional into them.
Take for instance, the Barbican. bush hammered concrete. but it was a utopian vision of how Londoners would live.
It's quite a complicated piece There are two types of lifts. you're not on the right floor.
of the architecture that is quite off-putting. and it is full of architects, Brutalist architecture is almost like
If you compare the enhanced the Kardashian approach versus I mean I think there's something quite interesting. Is that ugly?
So from the Architecture Subreddit, how architecture is built? They're dealing with snow.
of the local architecture takes on The other end of the scale, when I was in India recently that I visited.
smaller windows, not really glass to passive solar gain to cool spaces
and the orientation of those spaces to create shade That said, it's strange also in India to be witnessing high rise going up with air conditioning,
and not the same fundamental intelligent approach to Polite Architecture asks, can architecture influence human decisions or behavior?
I mean, when I was a young architect, I was a massive fan by Berthold Lubetkin.
The penguins could jump off and play and jump into the pool and architecturally it's absolutely exquisite. The interesting thing is the penguins became very sad
in that environment and the zoo keepers decided simple timber buildings, a pool where they could interact, into this sort of geometric form.
having baby penguins. It's really interesting how a kind of beautiful piece have that effect on living creatures.
SecondnameIA is asking do people really build for new projects? Certainly there are models that are made for show,
We use models in a slightly different way, we can use them as like little maquettes, usually make them out of cardboard and that can be everything from a small part of a city
that might be the fragment of a building. to break off from drawings in two dimensions It's typically very useful when you have meetings with,
to convey the narrative of There's a gallery roof building we designed in Mayfair.
to create these uninterrupted floor spaces, We used the roof structure. you know that it has an inherent strength.
So we started to explore how we could actually use that. what you're seeing on the inside. and the installation and all of that would work.
is just quite a useful thing to do. why doesn't Zaha Hadid believe in using right angles? She came many times to inspire my students.
I think that her sense of space, voluptuous space was so inspiring, like almost on a cosmic level that the sense to be not registering the story heights of buildings,
amorphous form. when they're built, they're like amazing. But you know, it was radical, radical what she was doing,
and it's not easy to build her forms, not at all. Straight lines are much cheaper.
between an architecture designer versus an architect? It's protected as a professional title.
An architectural designer is typically someone but they don't have any accountability for the drawings
It depends on the scale of the project, details of buildings. So you'll know that it won't leak and it'll stand up.
Freetimephotography asks design versus final product. and then you actually, it goes through all these processes but it's the process
and you just go, well, this is my idea and that's how it must be, actually, you're missing a trick because often things happen along the way
We did a project with an arcade, and what I hadn't understood was how the light would enter and it was like this magical moment when the beams
of sunshine shone in before we'd finished the actual design Not in the way that we intended to do it. So yeah, I think it's good to be quite open
Iridescentlight, why is Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture The most iconic masterpiece of American architectural houses has gotta be Falling Water.
kind of extraordinary intervention in nature with the water coming from beneath the terraces.
It's a motif almost that people go, In fact, it was very much of its time. I think if one was to commission today's Frank Lloyd Wright,
modernist way. and thoughtful about the location. It's effectively a spiraling ramp.
the gallery is on the ramp. So you're seeing a linear exhibition from top to bottom to view the show.
to be an architect? When you're talking through ideas with a client, to pull out a pencil and then quickly sketch.
It's not about being good at drawing and doing watercolors. There's a lot of clients who would ask for a CAD rendering These have a slightly weird, like a hyper real quality.
So what we tend to do is we might build a computer model of a building, but we will by hand sort of draw the spaces and there's a sort of level of trust between architect
That I think comes across when you have hand drawings. with this is exactly what it's gonna look like.
it's a little more friendly, it's a little more uncertain. and you can draw, great, that's what you need.
Chetoos08, why do we not build ornate buildings anymore? If you look up as you walk through the streets of a city, skilled amazing brickwork on Victorian buildings.
and the reason is that it's expensive to do that. of modernism in, I think it was 1910, Adolf Loos wrote an essay, which was the foundations
of the Bauhaus Studio, which was ornament is a crime. That's because the modernists were saying that once you add ornament to everyday objects, they go out
And we should actually think about the form follows the function, with the advent of the machine age, buildings were no longer typically made
by stone masons with beautiful carved gargoyles, whatever. They're often machine made offsite and then they come So there's not necessarily the same regard
Alternative-Big-6493 is asking how do architects know that their designs are feasible, It's not entirely down to the architect.
Obviously buildings are made with a series of experts to actually put together all the ideas in a way It might be shapes and forms.
because that is very restricting. We'll also make exploratory maquettes. So as the design develops, we will test it.
So an EnglishmaninParis says, Pompidou, of course, it's that 1970s optimism It's also very interesting that the architects chose
to really reinvent the gallery space, turning it inside out. of the buildings which are normally hidden. The water's in green, the electricity's in yellow
So the guts are on the outside. adjacent to the Pompidou Center. and lovely place for people to gather.
as an iconic form, but it's the space in between that iconic form Ahmqur asks how difficult is it to build
Concrete is a liquid thing that sets, it needs You have to create form work, so you pour the concrete in, and the concrete needs to dry out.
So although concrete itself isn't expensive, it's basically something that is, it's like a moment But you have very little opportunity to make mistakes
and as a result, it's quite expensive to do, Then-Feeling-7989 is asking, is an engineer's worst nightmare.
The spirit and the vision has to be a shared thing. And for a structural engineer to work well of pragmatism on the one hand and fantasm on the other.
that's when great things come out. of the world's greatest structural engineers to the outcome of the building.
Sanandrios asks, why does the Louvre pyramid get a pass? that place is there's definitely a tension between the sleek glass versus the old stone buildings
A lot of Parisians despise it. and yet, very interestingly, The juxtaposition of the old with the new.
and I think it's quite special. It's a difficult thing to pull off, but I think he did. why don't most architects live in self-designed homes?
It's very expensive to build your own home. My own realization is So my last house had an oculus in the roof open
to let the snow fall in, apparently into the bedrooms. It had brick doors that swing open. when you're doing your own house
to actually introduce magic and excitement if there's problems, you gotta live with them. This has been Architecture Support.
[upbeat music]