dingbat

• definition:
  Dingbat The building type most profoundly destructive to pedestrian frontage. A building is raised on columns in order to maximize parking underneath. This type inadvertently created by C.S.D. codes which key the allowed building area to the quantity of parking accommodated on-site. P.N.D. codes specifically preclude this type. A private building which denies typological discipline without functional justification or is otherwise disruptive to the urban fabric. Modernist buildings tend to extremes of articulation and heterogeneity of tectonic expression tend to be Dingbats, as the modernist design process values unconstrained invention over emulation or urban determinants. P.N.D. Codes attempt to preclude Dingbats except with public and civic buildings, which are expected to be fully expressive of the institutions they embody.

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  (dingbats in los angeles: )
  
  

  • floating:
    They were called dingbat houses because of the quick and shoddy way they were constructed. Frank Carroll: Three room house, living room, bedroom and bathroom. The crew was two men and they put the frame up and the plywood and the roof and had it ready to go in a day and a half and if you wanted your windows you put em in and screens you put em in and any other finishing you wanted done. You may leave in the morning and yours was the last house on the block, and come home and there were two more just below yours, now yours was not the last house on the block. The dingbat houses were a great improvement over the squatters' camps, but the ragged construction style created hazards of its own. Dust blew in through the cracks in the walls and doorways, piling up against the houses, creating small dunes throughout the neighborhood. Pat Lappin: That was the worst for the women besides the heat. They couldn't put the babies on the floor because it was so splintery. About the first thing they did when they got a paycheck was to get congoleum for the floor. And of course that helped the dust problem but at least their kids could crawl around w/o getting splinters.