Making Design Plans For Nigel

The architectural design critic has to be one of the top jobs in the list of Most Utterly Pointless Professions. Some people get paid to look at a building and slag it off in print for not being buildingly enough for them. John Loudon, a Victorian arbiter of design taste, declared that: “To hang an open iron gate to a wooden doorframe is a gross violation.”

People vehemently objecting to particular designs predate Prince Charles and his carbuncle outburst by some measure. Only this week a Guardian journalist was laying in to the government’s Starter Homes Design document as if its authors had stolen his mum’s pension and were responsible for the Erlkönigin.

“There is no doubt whatever about the influence of architecture and structure upon human character and action.We make our buildings and afterwards they make us. They regulate the course of our lives.”
Winston Churchill, addressing the English Architectural Association, 1924

For a long time 3^rd Gen equipment was distinctive by its regional influence and easily identifiable as such. While European manufacturers aimed for a simplicity of form, clean lines and plain steel, Americans broke out the engraving kits to add their own take on flair. Meanwhile, over in the Philippines, mod makers appeared to load up on hallucinogenics and engage in a game of Dare to see who could produce the gaudiest thing possible. The word gaudy predates Antoni Gaudí but it is as though he had a hand in the making of Pinoy mech.

It seems appropriate that the circle features so prominently in mod design, especially given that medieval scholars believed there was something intrinsically divine found in them; our quest for the perfect vape to be found within the set of points on a plane, all equidistant from the centre.

There are many reasons why I value Satburn’s Sat22 atomiser above all the other gear that has drifted through my hands – but none more so than its appearance. There is a glorious Bauhaus quality to it. I find simply looking at it mesmerising, it rewards beyond the vape; an appreciation of the design styles that extend to admiring the concentric circles of the Squape-R spreading out like pond ripples.

Brutalist box mods dominate sales currently, buyers opting for pure functionality in their purchase. As minimalist as they are, as one of the few in the country who adored Northampton’s sadly no more bus station, I adore them. Meanwhile the high end boxes are embracing the C-curve which, when I see it in conjunction with a StiG logo, sings modernism to me.

Of course, some people would say: “shut up talking guff and just vape.”