Taco Time Architecture

The basic site plan is good: it more-or-less follows "The Three Rules."

But the mirrored-glass (violating one of the Rules' coda) prevents the permeability/transparency which a building needs if it is to be urban. If the owners replace the mirrored-glass with "see-through" glass (what a funny idea!) the building would have a totally-different impact on the street.

Furthermore, where I differ from Hinshaw slightly is in his apparent stress in this article on the appearance of buildings. The point needs to be made over-and-over again-and it was Hinshaw himself who first led me to understand this-that urban design rules are NOT aesthetic so much as behavioral i.e. we want the design of buildings to encourage a different civic experience and human behavior on the street. Because of its mirrored-glass, the Taco Time is a good example of "almost but not quite."