The sad beige aesthetic: why has the world suddenly turned taupe?
66 comments
·January 9, 2025Xcelerate
apothegm
New buildings are meant for the floor to ceiling windows to look good to the people who will have them in their corner offices, but the floor plans are too deep to save the peons from overhead tube fluorescents.
What are really awesome are office buildings constructed before electric lighting was ubiquitous. They’re designed with shallow floor plates or inner open spaces so that (unless you break them up too much with cubicle walls) every desk can be fully illuminated with natural light.
bayindirh
Plus, when I last checked they are very inefficient in terms of heat isolation. The energy required to keep them at comfortable temperatures are way higher when compared to traditional building techniques.
I recently saw a special glass which is warmer to touch and has way less thermal conductivity, but even with that, the savings are ~20% at most. A brick wall with isolation adds minimum of 25% savings when compared to the same wall provides without isolation, which is way better than the glass to begin with.
throw0101a
> Plus, when I last checked they are very inefficient in terms of heat isolation. The energy required to keep them at comfortable temperatures are way higher when compared to traditional building techniques.
There are two things in play here: the first is, as you mention, the insulation quality (R-value / U-factor) of windows is abysmal, both in absolute terms and relative to other wall assemblies. Heat leaks out of windows in winter in high amounts (and then you also have to deal with unwanted thermal gain in summer, raising AC costs).
The other thing is mean radiant temperature:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_radiant_temperature
Many folks think that if the thermostat reads the correct temperature in a room, you're done: that is not the case. The thermostat reads the air temperature, and air temperature is often only half of what you feel in a room: the other half is what is radiated from all the surfaces around you.
A camp fire, fireplace, or radiator feels warm because it is at a temperature higher than your skin, and so the energy goes from it to you. But if there is something that is lower than your skin temperature, the energy will go from you to it and you will feel cold—regardless of what the air temperature is.
This is why in offices, even though a thermometer / thermostat reads 20C/70F in both summer and winter, people feel cold: the giant office windows work as "anti-radiators", where energy wants to move from your body/skin to them.
rsynnott
There's _some_ tension with insulation there, though really at this point it's largely surmountable with triple-glazing etc. Small windows in older buildings are to some extent a legacy of that; when you were working with single glazing it was really a very big problem.
But big windows are technology-driven rather than fashion-driven to an extent; most people like them, so they'll probably stick around.
throw0101c
> There's _some_ tension with insulation there, though really at this point it's largely surmountable with triple-glazing etc.
A typical triple-glazed window can maybe hit R-8 (U 0.125). A typical wall can be R-20 (or greater).
There is no surmounting, relative to other assemblies, the suckiness of glass as an insulator.
But few people want to live/work in an bunker with no windows if they had a choice, so we accept the compromise. But make no mistake it is a compromise when it comes to energy efficiency.
throw0101a
> I immediately notice the difference in my mood walking into a modern office where the walls are essentially giant glass windows […]
What's the R-value [1] / U-factor on all of those windows? In offices, even though a thermometer / thermostat reads 20C/70F in both summer and winter, people feel cold: the giant office windows work as "anti-radiators", where energy wants to move from your body/skin to them.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_radiant_temperature
I also find the first thing that what many folks do is pull down the blinds on windows in offices so they can actually see their screens. :)
GuB-42
The reason for tiny windows is more technical. Windows are weak, expensive, offer poor insulation, privacy and security. Modern techniques mitigate this problem: better structure allows for less reliance on walls for support and therefore more room for windows, mass production make them cheaper, double pane glass improve insulation, security and privacy can be dealt with large motorized rolling shutters.
I don't believe the lack of sunlight is the reason for vivid colors of the past. If anything, the colors were darker, though more saturated. Also, while tiny windows did not allow for a lot of sunlight, it is the opposite at night, where modern lighting is much brighter thanks to cheap, powerful and efficient LEDs. Here, I think it is just fashion, nothing technical.
throw0101c
> Windows are […] expensive […]
I think it's the opposite: glass is really cheap, which makes up most of the window. Less expensive than rebar and concrete and the labour for the form work and such. Certainly the frame can be pricey, but most of the surface area is glass.
So glass is a popular facade because it saves the builder money: CapEx. But of course glass sucks an insulation the other side of the equation is heating/cooling: OpEx, which the builder may not care about.)
lupusreal
As a society we need to do whatever it takes to keep architects happy. Whenever they get depressed they have a tendency to take it out on the rest of us. If they despair, they want everybody else to suffer too and design inhuman monstrosities that beat down the spirit.
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Penn_Station_conco...
rsynnott
I mean, that's like that because they wanted to build Madison Square Garden on top of it; any architects involved were working under impossible constraints.
lupusreal
Just because the plan requires a low ceiling doesn't mean the end result needs to look like a dead midwest shopping mall.
It doesn't have to be like this specifically, but it demonstrates the point: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=moscow+subway&iax=images&ia=images
mingus88
> I’m just going to say that maybe you’re criticising it because you yourself cannot achieve it. Or you want to be like that, but you just don’t know how,” she says.
Man, these influencer people are exhausting… it’s hard to believe that some people think this way
worthless-trash
Only the insane stand out.
gazchop
Yep. A friend of mine was dating one a while back. We went on a double date and had to stop 22 times on the South Bank in London so she could do fish face and get a good picture for Instagram. Not talking about an iPhone here either. A Sony DSLR on a gimball.
The date I had said "maybe we should push her in the river?".
(They didn't last. Neither did we. At least ours was over a disagreement on a statistical model on an academic paper though)
oneeyedpigeon
> How does she feel about having the accusation of being sad and beige levelled against her? “Pretty neutral.”
I'm sure that response was cleverly edited (or a masterfully self-aware joke), but it sure demonstrates how the decor reflects their attitude. "If I don't survive, tell my wife 'Hello'", indeed.
jl6
I get wanting a neutral background. It makes the feature foreground stand out. But for the foreground to be neutral too?
What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were they just born with a heart full of neutrality?
EPWN3D
I think part of it is that it's difficult to use bright colors well. It's very easy to go overboard and be tacky with non-neutrals.
My wife and I worked with a designer for our house, and we agreed that we would not leave a single wall white. The results are fantastic, and the house has so much more personality than would be possible with a neutral pallet. But the color and wallpaper choices were very deliberate and considered, not to mention how expensive the whole process was.
sudders
Now I am interested in the result. Care to share some photos?
permo-w
I think this article, and the general reaction to this trend online completely misunderstands what's going on. this isn't some depressive conservative neutrality and lack of conviction, it's a conscious rejection of the blaring in-your-face marketing excite-o-sphere that we've all been herded into over the last 70 years. the real sad thing is that people think bright colours = happiness, not that some kids are being dressed more like their grandparents might have been.
rsynnott
It's all cyclical; we've been here before.
As long as we don't go back to the nightmarish patterned carpets of the 1970s...
esperent
> nightmarish patterned carpets of the 1970s
The modern equivalent is Hello Kitty rugs.
GuB-42
To be honest, I am seeing so much blandness that I will welcome patterned carpets for a change.
I would definitely go to the hotel featured in "The Shining" if it wasn't for the murders.
strken
I once lived in a sharehouse with blue paisley carpets and dark wood trim in the living room. It had a lot of natural light and honestly wasn't too bad.
bell-cot
The painted carpets weren't* nearly as bad as the kitchens. I was stuck with avocado appliances and FD-arrived-too-late brown cabinets once.
*Well, usually. If you shopped at a reasonable store, and had decent tastes. If not - horribly and ugly things have been available in every era.
mtrovo
Looking forward to the great comeback of the popcorn ceiling.
world2vec
I'm one of those people that wear full black clothing, head to toe, most of the days (maybe some white and grey here and there). But for my home I prefer some vibrant colours thrown in, something to contrast.
VincentEvans
Is this still covered by "Millennium Gray" trend or is it something new?
wolfhumble
No, this something completely New(ish)!™
It is: Warmer, softer and cosier!
"Joa Studholme, a colour advisor for Farrow & Ball, thinks the proliferation of beige is a reaction to grey – sometimes dubbed “millennial grey” thanks to its association with a generation of renters out of ideas . . .
It’s a neutral with warmth – beige shades are softer, cosier and a little less hard-edged.”
wink
In my parents' house we had one beige and one grey bathroom (different floors) and the jury was still out 15y later which one looked better :P
null
amenhotep
I sometimes think that I am neurotic, then I read an article like this and boggle at the lengths other people take neuroticism to.
getToTheChopin
I noticed this in Seoul and Busan -- almost everyone was wearing similar outfits, predominantly in Beige / White / Black.
herbst
Sadly in most of Europe this pattern is taking over too. There are just a few cities in between that seem like a colourful bastion against the boring mainstream.
And not in their architecture, it's seems to be more about the youth scene. Pilsen in Czech republic is a mostly grey boring city, but the people wear much more colorful clothes than in similar cities. The main difference I saw is more nature and a healthy pub culture.
raziel2p
in Amsterdam, there seems to have been a slight counter culture movement against this in the last few years, combined with heavy 80s-00s nostalgia. the beige look feels very influencer or tasteless upper/middle class to me.
herbst
When I've been to the Netherlands (could be 6 years or so) Rotterdam was a grey nightmare for me. Streets, People (and weather that time of the year). Haarlem oder the other side was colorful even with bad weather (Amsterdam felt full of colour anyway :)
wink
I used to dress mostly in black (with an exception for blue jeans and camo cargo pants, and the prints on t-shirts) but since I turned 30 to my surprise I find myself wearing more grey stuff.
At least it's good for jokes that I finally introduced some colors.
throw0101c
> […] but since I turned 30 to my surprise I find myself wearing more grey stuff.
Perhaps in a few years you will go from Wink the Grey to Wink the White (just hope you don't need an encounter with a Balrog to accomplish it).
KingMob
For sure. I live in Thailand, and it's super-dominant amongst East Asian tourists here.
esperent
I run a cafe in Vietnam. 90% Western tourists clientele especially over xmas. During the Christmas day rush, every table full (maybe 40 people total), my partner pointed out that every single person, young, old, and even most of the children, were wearing black with just a bit of white and grey.
raziel2p
I'm a western tourist in SEA currently, packed very light and realized I really don't know how to dress for warm weather because I'm so not used to it!
that combined with limited luggage space meant I left my colorful clothes behind and am wearing a lot of white, black, beige. hope I don't get judged too harsh!
jq-r
In Croatia all the youth are wearing black, and what makes even less sense, they wear black during summer too. Boggles the mind.
Regardless of the vibrancy of the colors, one trend I really like that I hope doesn’t reverse any time soon is how bright and sunny many new buildings are nowadays.
I immediately notice the difference in my mood walking into a modern office where the walls are essentially giant glass windows vs a building in an office park built over the last few decades. Old brick buildings with tiny windows on college campuses feel claustrophobic compared to the newer ones. Modern coffee shops are airier and cheerier compared to the dark caves of yore. Even homes are being built with larger windows now.
Not everyone likes this trend (and many people who code still prefer dark rooms), but for me I think it’s great. I thrive on a lot of sunlight.
Perhaps the bright and varied colors of the past were more so a counterbalance to the lack of sunlight? With more natural light available, muted color schemes feel more appropriate.