Amman’s Facades Lost between Identity and Veracity; Factors Impacting Facades’ Design

Abstract

Today`s building façades continuously lose connection to their local identities and contextual surroundings, more attention is required when designing façades in order to come up with designs that synergize with  their unique surroundings. This does not imply that building façades should be approached in a typical traditional manner, but rather that their design should be a result of different factors, interacting and overlapping, and in respect to the physical and non-physical context.  Façades should be designed in respect to high performance, aesthetics and efficient constructability for example, and this in return indicates that variations in façade designs are a positive indication that buildings are responding to their built and natural contexts. Architects and designers should respond to side effects of globalization resulting in the spreading of out of context styles, unresponsive and kitschy, in order to save the visual interest in the city and the beyond  physical meaning of architecture. It is advised here that architects and designers articulate the very meaning of modernity within local architecture and environment. This article tries to discuss various factors impacting façade design generally, relating discussions to the current situation Amman, the metropolis, and its buildings are undergoing.

Keywords: Façade design, contemporary façade, local identity, Amman.