Germany’s BIG DUMB BOXES ARE AWESOME.

The "don't build big dumb boxes" has 3 components:
A "big box" is fine as long as it's not "dumb" i.e. featureless. This seems to be the North American go-to solution; just add nooks and jut-outs galore and set the top 2 floors back, oh and also use 4 different facade materials and styles for different parts of the same building.
A "big dumb" building would be (actually look) fine as long as it's not a box. Take that library for example. It's big and featureless, but doesn't just look like "more of the same" because it's not a box.
A "dumb box" is fine, as long as it's not big. If you have only 1 or 2 featureless apartment building along the face of a city block (or 3 identical "tower in the park" style buildings), their size and uniformity is overwhelming. But if you have 5 or 10 smaller dumb boxes along the side of a block that are all different (even just painted differently) you avoid the problems. Interest comes from variation; and if you have a whole city then there's no law that says that that variation has to be within a single building.

If you have a "small" building which is also not a box (think a single-family house with slanted roof), then you generally don't need to make sure that it's not dumb. Unless you make it stand on it's own with exaggerated setbacks and/or in a sea of equally sized buildings, which is how McMansions are forced to be so ridiculously over-detailed.

And the 4th bonus component is the plural in "boxes". If your city has a single big dumb box, it may be fine, as long as there's enough variation in the other parts of the built environment.

They might be cheap and easy to build, but they are so ugly. Local communities in Germany often dictate the style of buildings and even the colour and the angle of the roofs for aesthetic reasons, but at the same time they allow those ugly boxes. Why not at least paint them in fancy colours? That can't be much more expensive than white. We are not in Dubai, where people build white buildings for cooling reasons. Most of the year it is so cold in Germany that actually a black building might be optimal, because the sun would heat it.

I have conflicting emotions on this topic. As an American engineer, I appreciate efficient, cost effective designs. However, as a tourist in Europe, I appreciate the art of building. Many cities are essentially outdoor art galleries!
Yes, there is a price to pay for beauty, whether it's a building or an article of clothing, furniture, etc. But how much is too much? I agree that glass boxes are the worst, both aesthetically and efficiency.
Perhaps a happy median is a box shape, but with multilateral facade with artfully
designed windows and a few other embellishments. And public nuildings can afford a rew more embellishments as the cost is spread throughout the population.
Part of the quality of life in Europe is that one is surrounded by beauty, unlike the USA.

To your last question: what would I suggest to increase both quality of life and climate saving? I would suggest a big choice of shops for everyday necessities within walking distance. I live in an absolutely boring neighbourhood, but I can reach about 100 shops on foot within ten minutes. That is quality of life. A neighbourhood without shops is a dead neighbourhood and CO2 production by use of cars is inevitable.

Dumb boxes in themselves aren’t the issue. For me it’s the ugly facade and also the gaps between them, which is just useless, ecologically and economically dead waste of land. Most dumb boxes in the Güterbahnhof area are already ugly when new and they will look even uglier when 30-40 years old… I don’t get it because a nice facade, e.g. in the style of Gründerzeit, doesn’t even cost 1% of the total budget of new construction, it’s not a question of money. If it was super expensive to build nice houses, we wouldn’t have such nice quarters from centuries ago all over Europe because back then people were much poorer than we are today. But they cared a lot about traditions and nobody wanted to live in the ugliest building of the street.

Ich habe den bau und abriss der alten Unibibliothek miterlebt und die neue passt nun auch nicht … irgendwie liegt da ein fluch drauf.

Dumb boxes are actually the smart boxes.
Learning from history is no bad thing. People where as smart then as they are now. The cost effect then was maybe more important as it is now. Heating was a serious problem until 100 years ago. If you look in old city centers "dumb boxes" can be made really attractive by only adding some architectural show elements to the facade.

I def see the pros, my only problem is that housing prices are exploding while buildings are seemingly increasingly ugly and made of cheaper material. For public and affordable housing solutions, fine cut costs, but there is no reason that an apartment that costs $1 million+ should be devoid of beauty and character. The rent is too damn high. If savings were passed down to the end consumer fine, but landlords charge as much as they possibly can in any given market. I think supply & demand is governing housing cots much more than the cost of materials to build each additional unit. Until we change the economics of housing, where the inelastic demand will cause a 1 bedroom apartment in a small town to be $2k a month no matter what, then at the very least we can demand quality materials that are built to achieve not only a functional, but beautiful aesthetic

Flat roofs? Definitely not regarded as a good thing on single homes in UK (been tried in new towns, had to have pitched roofs added later, at least here in North-east England). Most of UK has long periods of the year when moisture can accumulate on a flat roof and gradually wear out the materials and accumulate vegetation. Don't know if there is a difference in cost and maintenance if it's a building with, say, 20 dwellings in it?

we live in a slightly smaler dump box and i like it . 2 Storys, 4 appartments and one office on the main level. the building is a perfet square. It would most likly be taler if it wasnt so old (1948)

Acronym K.I.S.S. Keep it simple stupid😊🏢

what you explained is commie blocks from eastern Europe…but a bit modern. And definitely the best place to grow up, bunch of kids to play with, stores and other businesses close by.