One person’s ego-centric vision of how cities should adapt to their own particular individual needs encroaches upon the dreams of another, as revealed by MVRDV’s Tetris-like open-walled ‘(W)Ego House.’ The design is part art installation, part futuristic vision, part warning against architecture that’s one-size-fits-all. Originally created in 2015 and displayed at Dutch Design Week 2017, it’s now reassembled for UABB, the seventh Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture in Shenzhen.

MVRDV worked with The Why Factory, a think tank and research institute associated with the Delft University of Technology, to create the installation, which “represents a window into the future of adaptable housing to the user’s needs. The vision allows the coexistence of multiple lifestyles in an optimized dense reality.”

Dwelling on the concept of coexistence, the architects posit that we all have to learn to negotiate with each other to optimize use of limited urban space. The layout of (W)ego is meant to be adaptable and reconfigurable, though the installation displays it as stacked static rooms.

As far as the architects are concerned, this process of negotiation is a good thing, and W(Ego City) displays a novel way in which various kinds of housing can be Tetrised into a single building taking up a relatively small footprint in a city where undeveloped land is hard to come by. They argue that every dwelling could be unique, each one ergonomic and tailor-made to particular spatial needs. Some people might need an accessible space all on one level toward the bottom floor, others may prefer a more unusual space that requires active climbing, others are happy to pay less for a smaller and simpler unit.

That may be true, but is the firm accidentally making a statement on the impact of class, and how the dreams of the rich impede upon the everyday comfort and survival of those with fewer resources at their disposal? While some might look at (W)Ego City and see a playground where they can choose the customized residence of their heart’s desire, others see a maze of ridiculous spaces that aren’t just unavailable to them, but produce irregular, impractical, virtually unusable ‘leftover’ spaces that would likely rent for lower prices.

MVRDV co-founder Winy Maas says “Through gaming and other tools, (W)ego explores participatory design processes to model the competing desires and egos of each resident in the fairest possible way.”

But when multiple people are ‘negotiating’ with each other to build their own spaces however they want within a limited envelope, and not everyone has the same financial resources, physical strength, entitlement and pushy personalities, who wins?

Some buildings are so ugly, the only thing that could possibly improve them is a wrecking ball. It’s even worse when the structures are high-profile and expensive, making you wonder how many people who had to sign off at each stage of planning and construction actually thought to themselves, “Yes, this looks good.” Here are 15 examples of astonishingly ugly architecture that only a mother (or rather, the designers responsible) could love.

The Rock, Wellington International Airport, New Zealand

Perhaps this addition to the Wellington International Airport by Warren and Mahoney was designed to resemble a robotic cockroach in order to remind us of what will rise up and take our places on earth once we’ve succeeded in making ourselves extinct.

Renmin Ribao Building, Beijing, China

Beijing’s ‘penis building’ aka the headquarters of the communist People’s Daily newspaper has drawn wonder and incredulity from local residents, as well as worldwide notoriety. But the building will soon be sheathed, as the architect decided to give it a makeover after all the backlash. There’s probably a joke about state-sponsored journalism in there somewhere.

Frank Gehry’s Australian Blunder

“The building so ugly, it has to wear a paper bag” is Frank Gehry’s first project in Australia, inspired by a mashup of Sydney architecture and a treehouse. The curving structure was created using 320,000 custom-designed bricks.

ArcelorMittal Orbit Sculpture, London, England

Famed artist Anish Kapoor teamed up with engineer Cecil Balmond to create a sky-high tower in London that looks like a tangle of junk you pulled out of a drawer in your garage. The ArcelorMittal Orbit is a 376-foot-tall sculptural observation point overlooking the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

The Elephant Building, Bangkok, Thailand

Shaped like Thailand’s national animal, the Elephant Building in Bangkok is a 32-story mixed-use complex housing condos, offices and a language school.

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Ugly Architecture 15 Of The Worlds Most Hideous Buildings

In order to get around strict city zoning regulations that forbid new structures from putting neighbors in the shade for more than two hours a day, architecture firm MVRDV devised a tower that twists upon itself to the point of seeming as if it could snap and fall over at any time. The twist creates an ultra-narrow profile right at the section of the building that would cast a shadow on nearby buildings.

From certain angles, it seems like chunks of the Hochhaus Tower have been taken right out near the base in a Jenga-like effect. Not only does this mean the bottom ten floors won’t cut off sunlight, it also routes strong winds away from the building’s plaza.

The twisting floors have outdoor terraces, while the rest feature glazed walls and 12-foot ceilings for sweeping views of Vienna and lots of natural daylight. The steel and glass facade will also have operable windows and full-height French doors.

Designed to be multifunctional for residential units, offices or other businesses, the Hochhaus Tower won three-stage international competition. Construction will begin in 2016, with an expected completion date of 2018.

For decades, no one could quite agree on what should go in this critical location between the town hall and central church in war-damaged Schijndel, Holland … until MVDRV showed up with a radical proposal remixing old and new. Their solution: printing local historical-building photographs right onto glass.

It was agreed that the new structure should respect the original building envelope and regional vernacular without a kitschy attempt at reproducing a false past. Hence, this glazed facade made to look like a traditional thatch-roof brick farmhouse via images provided by photographer Frank van der Salm.

Window and door openings are given curious treatment, shown as semi-erased visual voids that do not conform to the structure depicted on the printed-glass surfaces. Close up, they provide useful cues to pedestrians – at a distance, they simply blend into the building or hide among reflected architecture.

Inside this so-called Glass Farm envelope, shops, restaurants and offices look back out on the mirror-image translucent farmhouse, providing fascinating interactions both within and without.  Whether or not you love this solution, it raises compelling questions – instead of masquerading as a faux-historical structure, MRVDV’s smoke-and-mirrors approach invites interactions with history via an overlapping combination of illusion, photography, reflection and reality.

In a bid to host the World Horticultural Expo in 2022, the Dutch city of Almere has commissioned MVRDV to design an artificial pavilion that would extend the city out into a lake. The concept would enable the city to host the six-month festival, and would also create a permanent platform for a new university as well as offices, homes and leisure facilities.

Measuring about 111 acres, the extension would be covered in a patchwork of gardens called ‘plant libraries’, as well as pavilions and greenhouses. This vibrant new urban neighborhood stands opposite the current city center in Almere, bringing it out onto the water. MVRDV aims to create a 300% greener exhibition than the current standard, “both literally green and sustainable.”

“We dream of making green cities. City that is literally green as well as ecological. A city that produces food and energy, cleans its own water, recycles waste and holds a great biodiversity. A city which might even be autarkic: A symbiotic world of people, plants and animals. Can this symbiosis between city and countryside offer essential argumentation to the global concerns regarding urbanisation and consumption? Can we realise in the next ten years an exemplary ‘green’ city which realises this synthesis? And could this city be the Floriade 2022?”

Each block of the city extension will be devoted to different plants, and the planned university will be home to a stacked botanical garden, “a vertical ecosystem in which each classroom will have a different climate to grow certain plants.” Newly constructed homes, which will help ease some of the cramped conditions in the rapidly growing city, will be located in orchards.

Almere is one of four Dutch cities currently up for consideration to host the festival, and a decision will come in October.