10 Cheap Apps I Use Daily
This article will be pretty nerdy, but the reality is that we all rely on computers for our jobs, and we all need little tasks performed more efficiently. Here’s my list of time-savers. 1. Launchbar I used to be a big point-and-click guy but years of AutoCad command line shortcuts cured me of that habit. now, if there’s a way to do something as a keyboard shortcut, I’ll learn...
Read More7 Seductive Saloon Songbirds
If Hollywood movies are to be believed, the only women west of the Mississippi until World War I were the singers in the dusty town saloons. I believe everything I see on the big screen, so I can only assume that the Wild West was populated by one woman for every 200 men. The jealous mistress trope is a common device to further the misunderstandings of the main love interest in many movies. There...
Read MoreIce Cube Celebrates Eames
It turns out, rapper Ice Cube studied architectural drafting, before stumbling upon the far more lucrative career of rhymin’, spinnin’, and chillin’ with Snoop on Fridays. I think Ice would’ve been an off-the-hook CAD operator. Those window details would be perfect, no red-marks, no need to “Check Yo Sill, Before You Wreck Yo Sill”. (see what I did there?) But...
Read MoreMy Professional Dichotomy
As a lifelong student of architecture and entertainment (production) design, I am regularly asked to comment about the similarities between the two professions. There are indeed parallels in the two disciplines; both are fields of design and require a keen sense of structures, history, form and function. Both use the same principles, such as line, form, color, texture, repetition, balance, etc....
Read MoreDystopia Fatigue
Dystopia dys·to·pi·a/disˈtōpēə/ Noun: An imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one. I fear for the future of our built environment. Not because of neglect, but because of a lack of design optimism. In one of my recent classes, I asked groups of students students to compile a triptych of a landscape in the past...
Read MoreThe ShopSmith: an unlikely link to Steve Jobs’ legacy.
I remember it clearly; a crisp autumn day in 1985, when my friend and I were outside throwing the football, listening to the whirr of the table saw as my dad worked in the garage. Suddenly the whirr slowed and dulled and then came back to its original speed, like my Dad had just run through a particularly stubborn knot in a board. It wasn’t a board, it was my Dad’s finger, slowing the...
Read MoreApple’s New Campus Building (Update)
In a rather unprecedented move, the city of Cupertino has posted an informative set of drawings of the new Apple campus on their website. These are original drawings from Fosters + Partners, which is Apple’s go-to architect for retail and office space. Below are the links to the...
Read MoreSteve Jobs Pitches a New Building to Cupertino
I want to be clear, right from the beginning: Apple makes great products. Innovative software on reliable hardware. It shouldn’t be a revolutionary concept, but there it is. If you’ve watched any of Steve Jobs announcements over the years, it’s easy to see the power that this man has over his fan base. Call it the “Cult of Jobs”, “drinking the kool-aid”,...
Read MorePlastic
plas·tic adj \ˈplas-tik\ 1. formative, creative (plastic forces in nature) 2. capable of being molded or modeled or capable of adapting to varying conditions : pliable 3. capable of being deformed continuously and permanently in any direction without rupture. 4. sculptural Computers allow us to experiment with architectural and sculptural forms that would be unheard of only 20 years ago. Add...
Read MoreJargon Watch
Architecture Programs at academic institutions are a bountiful source for flowery jargon. For instance, graduate students at the Architectural Association in London created an adaptive cloth-like building material, which they described as “Thigmo-Morphogenesis.” (I couldn’t make that up if I tried) Best intro in their thesis: Architectural structures endeavour to be complex...
Read MoreHelicoptors to replace cranes
Some would think that construction cranes marring the skylines of many cities are a blight, but I find them to be an icon of a prosperous urban center. I love seeing cranes in the air; they symbolize a city’s ability to adapt, improve, rebuild, and reinvent itself. According to researchers at UPenn’s robotics lab, however, cranes are soooo 20th century. They are developing...
Read More12 Reasons to Hire a Renderer
Marc Joseph, a writer for a long-gone website called Young Architect, penned these 12 reasons why any architect or designer should avoid the lure of 3d modeling and rendering. I’ve seen each one of these symptoms first-hand in architecture and engineering offices, both large and small. 1. You Will Lose Track of Time You can really get lost in your modeling. A whole work day can go by...
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