HeyJaredCreating Aesthetic Cities
Newsletter of The Aesthetic City. Investigating important questions in the built environment: how to improve the human condition through design, how to achieve long-lasting beauty and livable places, and reflections on architecture & urban design
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- Sep 17, 2026
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What I Would Tell A First-Year Architecture Student (opens the original)
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I recently got a question in my DM's: what would I tell a first-year architecture student? I was about to write the usual long message full of advice, tips and encouragement.This question keeps coming up, and I expect it will keep coming. So I thought: let's turn this into an article instead.To this person I say: here you go, and thank you.So, what I would say:First of all, I'm going to assume this is a question about learning traditional architecture, as there's plenty other people to ask this
The Failure of the Density Gospel (opens the original)
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Having ‘high density’ as the only goal for a new development is stupid.It's just one ingredient of a multi-ingredient recipe for a good, livable and humane place. Today, many cities are panicking and rushing to build skyscraper dystopias.Countless sterile blocks filled with small studio apartments - all in an effort to crank up the housing numbers.But the experience at street level is abysmal.<a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7mQt!,f_auto,
Aesthetic City Principles #7: Active Ground Floors (opens the original)
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Active ground floors - urbanists talk about it all the time. And understandably so: with the work of Jane Jacobs work, Jan Gehl and the New Urbanists, attention for ‘eyes on the street’ was reignited.It truly makes places more pleasant and livable:<source type="image/webp" /
Muskian Futurism: The Aesthetics of Elon Musk (opens the original)
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Something that bothers me with Elon Musk's vision on the aesthetics of the future is that it doesn't make sense.To be clear, this is not an article aimed at Musk-bashing, but an exercise in discovering what the world's first trillionaire's views and actual impact are on aesthetics and architecture.He has stated multiple times: ‘the future should look like the future’ - which is nonsensical in many different ways.First of all: it is based on the premise that the future has one particular look. Th
Why Europe Needs A New Kind of Architecture School (opens the original)
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Since the 1960's, Modernism has reigned supreme in architecture schools. Its rise was unstoppable. A building boom and connected commercial interests made the stark & simple lines of Modernist buildings extremely attractive to architects. The new types of designs didn't need ornament and were way faster to draw - reducing the need for extra draftsmen, which were seeing a shortage in the post-war era. Also, people were ready for a new kind of architecture - reflecting a new, peaceful and futurist
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