We read this story about a new middle school and high school in Baltimore, the Baltimore Design School (BDS). The architecture firm, Ziger Snead Architects, transfigured an old and crusty factory building into a gorgeous and sparkling school that would inspire even the most bored student into a creative genius. Taking a worn out, abandoned, […]
Category: learn about architecture
Birds have Good Taste
We love this idea of what a birdhouse really looks like inside. A beverage company created this video that makes us wonder if every bird has such good taste. We are also pondering the idea of other bird houses. Have you ever seen a bald eagle’s nest? They are incredible and HUGE. We are city […]
AHA! for Zaha Hadid
A series of buildings of circles that are piled on top of each other and all rounded structures and curves and white and swirly – that is what the Galaxy Soho building in Beijing is all about. Architect Zaha Hadid, one of the most famous living architects – is probably the most famous female architect. […]
Taller by a Needle
Since 1974, Chicago was the home of the “Tallest Building in America.” The Sears Tower, (named that because it was paid for by the Sears Company – not because Sears employees worked in all 100 floors) was crowned the tallest building at 442 meters tall. By the way, the Sears Tower is now called the […]
Sticks and Stonehenge
If you look back in the farthest history of architecture, you might discover Stonehenge. What is this collection of rocks? Well, it is not a random pile of stones that happened upon the countryside in England. Nope. Located in Wiltshire, these are a series of ancient stones that were placed in a semicircular pattern around […]
Bus Stop Beauty
Waiting for the bus in Krumbach is more interesting now than ever. This small town in Austria decided to invite a bunch of architects from around the world to design bus shelters. Instead of the same old ones that we see in all of our towns and cities, either glass with a little bench, or […]
Why a Purple Hotel?
Outside of Chicago, a hotel was built in 1962. Everyone who ever saw it remembers it. It was purple. Bright, shocking, and no-doubt-about-it-PURPLE. The original architect, John Macsai, never planned on it being that color. So how did it happen? How does a building end up not being what the architect designed? As the Purple […]
PreFab-ulous
Prefab is fab-ulous, right? Why? Because it allows for buildings to be built more cheaply and quickly than traditional construction. Walls can be built in factories and the wiring and plumbing pipes can be installed inside of the walls and then these walls can be shipped to the building site and then assembled into a […]
A Great Architecture Book
[amazon_link id=”0547238924″ target=”_blank” ][/amazon_link]This book, titled “If you Lived Here: Houses of the World” [amazon_link id=”0547238924″ target=”_blank” ]”If You Lived Here: Houses of the World”[/amazon_link] has fantastic illustrations. They are collages that are intricate, accurate and colorful, and in real life they are 3-D. Houses of the world includes structures from Spain, South Africa, Canada […]
Architecture Video Candy
This video is so sweet, you may just want to eat it for a snack. It is an alphabet video of famous architects and a building that they built. It is simple and colorful and the buildings are a bit jumpy and excited. It is as if they are jumping for joy to be included […]