I am super stoked and honored to be nominated. The last time I won a competition was in 1991 when I scored myself a lady and the tramp color book. I need your help to re-live my glory days, this time all proceeds will be donated towards a charity supporting major depressive disorder, a cause that is very close to my heart.

Click here to vote archi-ninja in the  ‘Best Blogger – Architecture’ category. No sign up, no registration, literally 5 seconds to make a difference and support those affected by depression.

The voting is open until April 15th at 4pm PST, please help me, help others by voting and  sharing this article with all your friends, family and colleagues on facebook and twitter!

 Zaha Hadid: As a woman in architecture, I cant describe how personally empowering her strength and beauty was. The sudden passing of Zaha Hadid’s has led to an outpouring of heartfelt tributes from some of the profession’s most prominent figures. A “brave and radical” trailblazer, and the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize, her significant impact on the world of architecture is undeniable. She will be missed. Read more here and here. Co.Design have also put together a nice tribute by collating their favourite buildings. Read more here.

Architecture and Ego: Disparity in the values assigned to architecture and landscape architecture continues….A proposal to surround New York Central Park with a giant “sidescraper” epitomises the Architects’ disregard for designed landscapes, says president of The Cultural Landscape Foundation, Charles A Birnbaum. Read more here.

Sleeping with Sharks: Airbnb is offering its coolest accommodation yet: an underwater bedroom surrounded by 35 sharks. The one-night stay for two and your ukrainian brides is at the Aquarium de Paris. To enter the competition, contestants must submit a 50- to 550-word essay by 11:59PM CET on April 3rd, describing themselves and why they deserve to sleep with the sharp-toothed animals.

Building the Border: Not your type of competition then perhaps this is? A US art, architecture and design collective has announced an international design competition to design the ‘Trump wall’ between US and Mexico. Building the Border Wall has been organised by New York’s Third Mind Foundation and set up to test the feasibility of Trumps border idea and whether or not a solution of high architectural and humanitarian merit can be achieved. Learn more here.

Designing for the Elderly: Over fifty percent of all people in a nursing home are there because of broad social deficits, not their personal physical deficit. An interesting article about Architect Matthias Hollwich of HWKN. Hollwich seeks to rethink our aging processes, starting with the design of our homes and cities. Read more here.

Virtual Reality goes Mainstream: It is rare that a consumer technology is a giant leap forward rather than the next iterative step. For the first time in a long time Virtual reality (VR) represents just that kind of leap. With the spring launch of the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, as well as the imminent release of Sony’s PlayStation VR, high-end virtual reality has arrived.  2016 is predicted the year that VR goes mainstream. From military to fashion virtual reality is reshaping our working industries. Learn more here.

Standout Buildings: In celebration of her ten-year anniversary at the helm of the Green Building Council of Australia, Romilly Madew has released a list of Green Star certified projects that she feels have left an impact on the industry. Having worked on this from competition to completion, I am so happy to see the listing of 1 Bligh Street. “Built during the global financial crisis when there was barely a crane in Sydney, the design of 1 Bligh Street put paid to the naysayers who questioned whether a sustainable building could be beautiful. The result still takes my breath away.” Checkout the full list here.

Reimagining through Reuse: Drew Heath Architects designs Nikki Maloney’s House from scratch with old materials. In a bid to maintain the character of the old 1890’s cottage that stood on this Marrickville site, Drew Heath Architects constructed Nikki Maloney’s House by breaking up the original dwelling and recycling it to continue a dialogue with the history of the site and the memories of the client. Checkout more images and info here.

Office Trustworthiness: We spend more time protecting ourselves from untrustworthy people than we do thinking about the signals we ourselves send about our own trustworthiness. Read more here.

Designing for Happiness: Happiness is mostly anticipation and memory, “ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so,” said the philosopher John Stuart Mill. A great article on designing for happiness. Experts from Lippincott, Disney, and SoulCycle weigh in on how they craft happy experiences. Read more here.

Fairy Tales and Architecture: A team of architects from Seattle’s Olson Kundig have won Blank Space’s third annual Fairy Tales storytelling competition. Their architectural narrative, “Welcome to the 5th Facade,” takes readers to “a future that is similar enough to our own, yet ripe with new challenges, opportunities, and issues.” Visit Olson Kundig’s website to read more of head over to the Blank Space website to read more about all winning submissions.

I am super stoked and honored to be nominated. The last time I won a competition was in 1991 when I scored myself a lady and the tramp color book. I need your help to re-live my glory days, this time all proceeds will be donated towards a charity supporting major depressive disorder, a cause that is very close to my heart.

Click here to vote archi-ninja in the  ‘Best Blogger – Architecture’ category. No sign up, no registration, literally 5 seconds to make a difference and support those affected by depression.

The voting is open until April 15th at 4pm PST, please help me, help others by voting and  sharing this article with all your friends, family and colleagues on facebook and twitter!

If a picture tells 1000 words, then is a metaphor is worth 1000 pictures? How to design a metaphor takes a look at how to see the world through words. Michael Erard writes that someone who designs a metaphor isn’t trying to make something beautiful. They seek to change the way you view things, including yourself.

Lots of things have happened in my personal business recently. We now stock at Small Space Gallery in Northcote. We will be appearing at the Bend and Snap Markets on Sunday 26th July and also the Melbourne Mystery Market on Sunday 28th June. We now sell concrete and skateboard rings, bracelets and homewares. We are also currently working on some necklaces which will be on our website in a few weeks!

Looking back through personal experiences and connotations in order to look forward – This article takes a look at the results from a set of experiments published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology on how nostalgia fuels creativity. 

What the future looks like: Another article looking forward into the future of wearables, solar cooking, flying cars and electronic handshakes.

The architecture of violence: Eyal Weizman explains architecture’s key role in the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the evolution of urban warfare. “Architecture and the built environment is a kind of a slow violence. The occupation is an environment that was conceived to strangulate Palestinian communities, villages and towns, to create an environment that would be unliveable for the people there,” says Weizman.

From demountable steel structures to prefabrication and tiny construction robots this article takes a look at the future of the construction industry. 

10 solutions from around the globe that could respond to Melbourne’s housing crisis. Some solutions include modular living, floating apartments, community living and duel key housing.

In 2012, output from the prefabricated building industry globally is estimated to be more than US$90 billion, up from $60 billion in 2011. This article takes a look at building a housing industry from the relics of the dying car industry.

In his 1933 essay ” The Last Messiah,” Zapffe describes depression as the over-evolution of the mind. He compares the mind of the anxious or depressed person to a particular type of deer from paleontological times, who were thought to have died off after acquiring overly-heavy horns. Does the truth really set you free, or does it only fuck you up? This is one of the interesting short articles I have read on depression.

A chat between Tim Ferriss and Noah Kagan: Kagan (#30 at Facebook) has created 4 separate products that have generated more than 7 figures. In this conversation he talks about what to focus on when starting up a new business, including the need to clearly define, focus and invest in a single project goal that will make you profitable.

The clone that wasn’t: Can two designers come up with the exact same idea, entirely by accident? The answer according to this article is an absolute yes.

When will we find aliens? For the first time in human history, we have the means to answer the question. Chris McKay also say it’s 50/50 chance as to whether there is currently life on Mars. From stargazing to winning big on stargames.

I recently came across a wonderful blog: The Jealous Curator | Damn. I wish I thought of that. About TJC: “There is one moment, in the first few seconds, when you look at a piece of art and know that you love it. It’s the moment when, if you’re an artist yourself, you look at it and feel a rush of uplifting inspiration… and total soul-crushing jealousy all at the same time.” Another legendary website that I recently came across is This Advertising Life – which perfectly translates into ‘this architecture life.’ Quite simply a legendary collection of gifs. You can checkout their top 10 here. 

Architecture office Visiondivision are surprising as always, I am loving their Chop Stick home which gives a whole new definition of the phrase “Tree House.” The home is inspired by an ethos of “gentleness” with nature.

Why biophilic architecture works: five reasons and case studies. Another article which more specifically looks at green facades. 

Oculus Touch Teases The Motion-Controlled Future Of Gaming: After three years of speculation, anticipation, and experimentation, we now know what Oculus’s first consumer-focused virtual reality headset is going to look (and feel) like.

100 Homes In 100 Days: How A Startup Plans To Rebuild Haiti Where The Red Cross Failed. One by one, New Story is crowdfunding the construction of new homes—and being completely open about how each dollar is spent.

I hope you found inspiration from my distractions. I’d love you to share your own interesting distractions in the comment section below.

A swarm of 3-D printing, concrete mixing robots called “Minibuilders” explore the possibility of rethinking construction building processes in the near future. 3-D printing architecture is not new, but this method seems more realistic than the other gantry-based systems. Read the full article here. 

It is not just the price of land, the cost of building and tax regimes that are behind Australia’s housing affordability crisis. Social stigma and misunderstanding also play a role in delaying and derailing projects, according to recent research by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute. Read the full article here.

When we think of Fitzroy, Collingwood, Richmond and Carlton (MELB, Australia) we think of expensive houses, trendy cafes and hipsters. Yet only 60 years ago these suburban areas were inner city slums, checkout these these haunting images of the streets that were once decrepit and destitute.

Starships, swords, and the faded grandeur of science fantasy: This interesting article proposes the idea of “super science” whereby the improbability of science fiction comes together with the impossibility of fantasy.

The plastic reef: Corals in the Great Barrier Reef (QLD, Australia) are now ingesting micro-plastics at the same rate as feeding on marine plankton. This article explores the implications.

Architecture Invasion by French artist Charles Pétillon seeks to change the way we see the things we live alongside each day. The installation seeks to go beyond practical perception to aesthetic experience. Each balloon has its own dimensions but remains part of a bigger and fragile composition.

Bob Mazzer On The Tube: Underground London in the 1970’s and 80’s is captured in a series of intriguing photographs by Bob Mazzer. Mazzer spent two decades commuting to work and back on the tube using his Leica M4 to collate a unique perspective of Londoners, commuters and tourists as they journeyed through the capital’s network of tunnels.

1965 -Sidewalk surfers on the streets and in the parks of NYC: More photographs, this time from 1965 capturing the skateboard culture of New York City. The stunning photographs are alongside an equally interesing article describing what skateboarding represented at the time; “Today’s skateboarders are founders in this sport – they’re pioneers – they are the first. There is no history in Skateboarding – it’s being made now – by you.”  John Severson, the Quarterly Skateboarder, 1964.

The Mad Genius Paradox: Researchers love to argue about whether there is a link between creativity and mental illness. This article is suggestive that both camps are right by tying creativity to both sanity and madness.

The Architecture of Dr. Seuss: Theodor Seuss Geisel, also known as Dr. Seuss, was a prolific architectural thinker. His experimental drawings show speculative domestic houses and pueblo-like villages with oddly sloped roofs, multiple off-set levels, and wild colour schemes, always looking as if they were on the verge of falling over. They were something like a cross between an overgrown victorian house and a small shanty made of tin and wood. This article explores the history of his drawings and his influence on the profession.

Deep in the remote hills of rural Chile, there lies a brilliantly bizarre settlement with a unique history: Ciudad Abierta, or ‘Open City,’ is an ode to experimental design, formed by a group of students and teachers working at the intersection of poetry and architectural exploration. The history of the Open City dates back to the 1960’s when an increasing number of artists and urban thinkers were attracted to utopian European philosophies pertaining to localism and a desire for urban populations to get back in touch with nature. Checkout the full article here.

America’s Failed 1979 Supertrain: On February 7th, 1979, thousands of Americans were introduced to the Supertrain, which ran from New York to Los Angeles. Nuclear-powered, the super-wide-bodied train topped out at 190 miles per hour and boasted on-board luxuries like a swimming pool, a discotheque, a shopping center and a movie theater. The train only made nine voyages in three months…The Supertrain wasn’t a real vehicle at all, but a fictional NBC television show, the most expensive ever produced at the time.

The Transformation of Subway Cars into Artificial Reefs: In a moment of inspiration, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority stumbled on a way to help the environment and its own bottom line by donating retired subway trains to the little-known cause of creating artificial reefs. Sinking the subway cars cost about half as much as selling them for scrap.

The Rise Of The Niche Manufacturer: Entrepreneurs are starting up their own small manufacturing companies, making unique products at low affordable prices in popular hubs. The phenomenon continues to grow changing the way be develop and manufacture new products.

The marvels of 3D printing continue to amaze. Dutch designer Michiel van der Kley spent three years developing and building this egg-shaped pavilion with the help of 3D printers. Project EGG is constructed of 4,760 3D printed “stones”, each slightly different, to form the 60 cubic meter organic module. Checkout the full article here. 

I hope you found inspiration from my distractions. I’d love you to share your own interesting distractions in the comment section below.

The odd psychology of the compassionate crowd is an article with some interesting observations on social psychology and individual and collective identity. Rather than crazes, Michael Bond depicts the crowd composed of highly co-operative individuals driven who share a common goal and objective.

Architecture Continues To Implode: After Frank Ghery said that “98% of everything that is built and designed today is pure sh*t, more insiders continue to admit that the profession is failing. The article describes architecture’s disconnect as both physical and spiritual. Architects are attempting to sell buildings and neighbourhoods that people don’t want and in a language they don’t understand.

I have recently taken on a new role which has allowed me to do some really fun and interesting research on pre-fabricated housing. I recently came across some housing gems by Frank Lloyd Wright. Between 1915 and 1917 Frank Lloyd Wright built 4 unique and affordable prefabricated homes in Milwaukee You can check them out here.

Another interesting find is an article by Country Living who have collected some great pictures of 44 tiny houses. Collectively they are stunning and very cool. From Cottages to homes on the water you can check them out here.

Yet another beautiful prefabricated home this time by Madrid-based architect Camino Alonso who compares the design of her tiny house to a Monopoly game piece. The secret to making a tiny space feel airy? High ceilings with a steep roof line. Checkout the article and images here.

Next time you accidentally drop a piece of food on the ground, think of all the tiny bugs that are about to have a feast. A new study finds that arthropods, like millipedes, spiders and ants, chow down hard on junk food discarded in New York City alone. Along the Broadway/West St. corridor in Manhattan, they eat over 2,100 pounds of junk food each year. That’s the equivalent of 60,000 hot dogs. Checkout the article here.

This Victorian Terrace in Fitzroy North is located just around the corner from my humble abode. The home, frozen in time is a relic of life in the once working-class suburb. The photos here are stunning and a short story about the previous occupants give a beautiful insight into their daily lives.

So this is the future of our smart home: In just a few years, you’ll awake in the morning to the sound of your alarm, and the hidden sensors in the room will know you’re getting up. The lights will automatically, but gradually turn on and the thermostat will warm the rooms you’re about to use — the bathroom, the kitchen and, a few minutes later, your car. All the technology to make this happen is there, it’s more about consumer awareness and adoption.

Strange Visions of the Hyper-Congested Megacities of the Future: Photographer Marcus Lyon creates large-scale visions of globalisation and human activity. The images aren’t just photos of Moscow or Mumbai, but composites of hundreds of images meant to overwhelm you with the enormity of it all.

Once again, Chinese company WinSun Decoration Design Engineering Co has expanded the capabilities of 3D printing. After constructing ten houses in under twenty-four hours last year, now they are back with both the world’s tallest 3D printed building – a five-story apartment block – and a 1,100 square meter mansion with internal and external decoration to boot. Checkout the full article here.

The Architact Collective recently wrote an article about how to succeed as a modern maker. As we transition into a more dominant service industry the article identifies the modern maker as is the idea maker.

Makerbot have recently announced the ability to 3D print new materials. What are the implications and possibilities for designers? This article takes a look at what to expect from 3-D printed wood, metal, and stone.

The Tracks of My Tears is one man’s quest to make male crying be socially acceptable. The premise of the message is that when people move past the spectacle of a man crying they are able to discover raw and genuine emotion, creating a space wide open, for deeper intimacy of ideas.

Philosophers and scientists have been at war for decades over the question of what makes human beings more than complex robots, this article takes a look at why the world’s greatest minds can’t solve the mystery of consciousness.

Love Letters to a City: Stephen Powers and ICY Signs resuscitate the art of sign-painting – along with the morale of those in Baltimore’s poorest neighbourhoods: Steven says “Yeah, I’m a romantic! Duh!,” he says. “I’m jealous of musicians, jealous of how music is a medium people integrate into their lives in a way they rarely do with art. Everything is for love,” he concludes. “It’s the original motivation for everything.”

What your personality has to do with your neighbourhood: It’s not just social and economic forces that shape our neighbourhoods, it’s psychological ones, too.

I hope you found inspiration from my distractions. I’d love you to share your own interesting distractions in the comment section below.

Ron Carlson is the creator of one of the most hated thing on the internet: the pop-up ad. In this article he apologises, “What we wanted to do was spill boiling oil onto the heads of our enemies as they attempted to bang down the gates of our village. But as everyone now knows, we had some problems, primarily technical problems, that prevented us from doing what we wanted to do the way we had hoped to do it. What we’re asking for today is another chance.”

City Googs is a street art project about the personification of cities in areas that are otherwise ignored. Googly eyes are placed on city objects to create life and a distinct character. They photograph the characters and give them unique narratives. Makes me happy every time I checkout their latest character.

Why do we help one another and why do some people help other people more often? The biology of altruism, good deeds may be rooted in the brain. This article also forms an interesting connection between a psychopath and an altruist.

You are barreling through a tube until all of a sudden…WHEEE! You are thrown out like a rag doll before plunging into a chlorinated pool. Photographer Krista Long captures this moment and the absurd joy of water-slides in a photographic series entitled “I Love Summer.”

Magic to Colon is what fog is to San Francisco: it forms the omnipresent backdrop to the city. Welcome to Colon; Magic Capital of the World! This interesting article talks about the importance of magic and how it identifies the city.

This year, I have been doing lots of research into offices that that offer both design and construction services. Oswald Homes is a wonderful example who remain a constant leader in the Australian high-end housing industry. Be sure to checkout their work.

Madness and the Muse: We are captivated by the idea of the troubled genius. But is it a fiction? The notion that there is an established connection between mental illness and creativity is far from undisputed. A new generation of researchers, who came of age in the era of positive psychology, frame creativity in terms of flow states and mindfulness; in other words, not as symptoms of disease but as evidence of human flourishing. Such an interesting read, filled with links to more interesting reads.

What makes for compelling design? This article goes through some interesting notions about embracing drama, playing on fear, identifying hope and the concept of same same but different.

Why are Victorian houses so creepy? Frank Lloyd Wright, the Adams Family and Hitchcock: How Victorian Architecture became the default haunted house.

NPR Cities: Nature Reclaims it space. A wonderful photographic collection of nature growth in unexpected city spaces.

I love Joan Didion’s article on self-respect. The article was published in the pages of Vogue in 1961. “People with self-respect have the courage of their mistakes. They know the price of things.”

A Pickpocket’s Tale: The spectacular thefts of Apollo Robbins. In magic circles, Robbins is regarded as a kind of legend. Psychiatrists, neuroscientists, and the military study his methods for what they reveal about the nature of human attention.

Five Things Tinder Guys Don’t Know about Being an Independent Filmmaker. I love this article because it applies to anyone independent and relates so much to my transition from architecture into writing and jewellery design. Namely, most of the time you will feel like you are not actually doing what you set out to do.

Innovation–by definition–includes an element of newness. The more you know about a topic the less likely you are to be open to truly groundbreaking advances in the same area. Your expertise got you where you are. But will it keep you from seeing where to go next? Is it possible that your expertise is actually undermining your ability to think creatively and be open to new ideas?

Architectural historians like to place architects into neat categories: Art Deco, Modernist, Post-Modernist, etc. Antoni Gaudí always escapes their efforts. His work is an eccentric mix of art nouveau, gothic revival, non-Western historical influences, and all of these manifest in the Sagrada Famila in Barcelona. Checkout this wonderful exhibition on his unfinished masterpiece. 

I have always been fascinated by the relationship between architecture and skateboarding. The sinuous and solid forms of the skate park are unlike any other form of landscape design. 5 very cool skate parks designed by architects.

Taking drones to the top of Hong Kong capturing some incredible footage of our built environment. Checkout their wonderful photos and videos. Other people inspired to reach new heights? Fruity King is not about just being satisfied but also the drive and thrill. Supercasino on the other hand is about over the top gaming.

You only live once; buildings that are so audacious, so over-the-top that they can only be described as YOLO. Brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld has a few of these bold projects in his portfolio and they are incredibly stunning. Check them out here. 

Cold War Kid: During the 1961 Berlin Crisis President John F. Kennedy vowed to identify spaces in “existing structures both public and private that could be used for fallout shelters in case of attack.” After JFK’s speech, a fallout shelter economy occurred almost immediately in the U.S. There were door to door bomb-shelter salesmen, shelter displays at malls and county fairs, and pamphlets for sale on every magazine rack.

Can Inflated Concrete Homes Help Solve the World’s Housing Woes? The Binishell is an idea for inflated concrete domes dreamed up by Dr. Dante Bini in the 1960’s. 

Origins of Common UI Symbols: They are road signs for your daily rituals – the instantly recognised symbols and icons you press, click and ogle countless times a day when you interact with your computer. But how much do you know about their origins?

I am loving the installation entitled Wendy by HWKN. Wendy is a spiky, blue, pollution-busting installation for MoMA PS1’s ever-popular Summer Warm-Up series. Check out images and info here. 

Days of future past: When it opened in 1958, Pacific Ocean Park was solid competition for Disneyland. It had thrill rides, funhouse attractions, exhibits and animal shows, mixing Googie architecture, space age modernist and Tiki aesthetics. Attendance was fantastic – initially – and over the next ten years the park was a setting for many TV shows and films. The P.O.P. auditorium – ‘Cheetah’ – hosted rock bands like The Beach Boys, The Byrds, The Doors, and Pink Floyd. But by 1967 the park was in debt and closed, the ruins of the decaying park became a popular hangout for teens and the legendarily street tough Dogtown surfers. The saga is documented in a new 264-page book entitled Pacific Ocean Park: The Rise and Fall of Los Angeles’ Space-Age Nautical Pleasure Pier. 

Take a look at New York Cities $20 billion quest to build a neighbourhood from nothing. The ambitious project bring into question whether we can create that buzzy neighbourhood feel when building over 17.4 million square feet.

Fuck Yeah Brutalism is a shout out to one of the coolest websites; Posting one high-resolution scanned image per day, Fuck Yeah Brutalism chronicles the evolution of the distinctive modernist architectural sub-genre Brutalism.

Loving the Dogtrot House by Dunn and Hillam Architects. The house is located in NSW, Australia. The Architects describe the house as a permanent campsite. The form of this building can be traced back to the early one room cabins that were built by farmers and fishermen. As the family grew another cabin would be built and connected with a common roof.

Also loving the Bunkie house by 608 Design and BLDG Workshop. The house is an inexpensive, eco-friendly, prefabricated home in the countryside, just big enough for you and friend or two to hang out and take in the outdoors.

The possibilities and limitations of our built environment have historically been defined and redefined by advancements in lift technology. The new ‘UltraRope Elevator‘ will let cities soar higher than ever before.

What makes you happy? Everyone wants to be happy. But how, exactly, does one go about it? In this epic TED talk playlist, psychologists, journalists, Buddhist monks and more gives answers that may surprise. 

Images of architecture across Germany, known for its clean lines, cutting-edge design, and elements of play.

From Dystopia to Utopia (not forgetting Dinotopia) checkout the list of possible futures, ranked from least desirable to most desirable and a whole heap of funny comments.

Operating outside the law to make a difference, Rebel Architects are a collection of men and women who have created some amazing structures, from floating homes to disaster-proof houses and bamboo domes. 

German creative studio Urbanscreen have just unveiled ‘320 Licht.’ The project is a stunning light projection inside a cathedral-like interior of the 20,000 square meter Gasometer Oberhausen in Germany. Gasometer Oberhausen is the same space that housed Christo’s Big Air Package last year.

Loving these images created by surfer and sand artist Jim Denevan. Denevan is also the man behind the traveling outdoor dining experience Outstanding in the Field. His geometric sand sculptures are made with rakes and sticks and can span miles of North California beaches. The pieces take many hours to create but can often disappear much quicker as the incoming tide gently erases them from earth.

Clay Robotics: The future of architecture is happening now on Grymsdyke Farm where students are experimenting with robotics, new technologies and local materials. Their work is beautiful.

Revisiting one of my favourite Melbourne houses, the Cloud House by McBride Charles Ryan. From the front the house is an inconspicuous white Edwardian home, but things are not what they seem; when you step inside the home morphs into a dreamy cloud. Check it out here. 

A short and wonderful podcast on Sutro Baths investigates on the common human desire to be confronted with antiquity and physical reminders of human permanence (or impermanence). Definitely worth listening to!

Reading Paul Rudolph‘s new monograph, The Architecture of Paul Rudolph. Equally admired and maligned for his remarkable Brutalist buildings, Paul Rudolph (1918–1997) shaped both late modernist architecture and a generation of architects.

Thank you to the power of query, every day the distance between questions and answers shortens by milliseconds. In a world structured to provide the immediate gratification of “answers,” this article explores the need for our “questions” to be more meaningful and in doing so allows new invention. Super article in full here.

Photographer Ksenia Yurkova has an eye for the unusual. Her series Zarechny succeeds in capturing a rare relic of the Soviet era. The town of Zarechny sits some 640km southeast of Moscow. It is one of the 44 last remaining closed cities left in Russia; under Communism it was not even shown on the map. Although they are free to come and go, the city’s 62,000 inhabitants live encircled by a fence of barbed wire. Checkout the incredible photos here.

Pixel Perfect, the story of Eboy: where the 8 bit revolution all started. “Pixel art signifies a return to a simple time, when all the elements of a picture and style were individually identifiable,” Jesper Juul. 

Will architecture be the next victim of rapid digitalisation? Will drones and computers begin to take over the building of our cities? Will the computer programmer take over the role of the architect? 

Take a look inside one of the worlds largest man-made holes; everything is huge, including machines the length of two soccer fields and as tall as high rise buildings. Full article and images here.

How amusement parks hijack your brain: An amusement park is like no other patch of land on earth, they are perfectly engineered to push psychological buttons you didn’t even know you had.

Ivan Puig and Andrés Padilla Domene (Los Ferronautas) have built a striking silver road-rail SEFT-1 vehicle to explore the abandoned passenger railways of Mexico and Ecuador, capturing their journeys in videos, photographs and collected objects. Check out their vehicle and explorations here. 

The Mad-Genius Paradox: Creativity Could Be Tied To Both Sanity And Madness: Interesting arguments about whether there is a link between creativity and mental illness.

During a difficult week, a sneaky Oprah Winfrey quote caught my attention: “Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.” Oprah Winfrey.

The urban built environment is responsible for 75% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Notes from a convention, rethinking the American city here.

Fish! Thousands of fish have taken up residence in the charred remains of the shopping centre that lost its roof in a massive fire that broke out after its closure in 1997 due to building code violations. Full article and images here. 

Dedication to the cause: A filmmaker spends half his life designing a video game no one will ever play. Adam Butcher spent 13 years designing an eight-bit video game. Article here.

The city of Boston has been the stage for a long history of experiments with public space. Most notably, the Boston Common is the oldest public park in the country – and perhaps the first public urban park in the world. Originally a shared cow pasture until overgrazing led to a real-life example of “the tragedy of the commons”, the 50 acre plot of land later bore witness to the Revolutionary War, public executions, riots, protests, and concerts. Now, Boston is leading the way to adopt small parks as a means of activating and extending sidewalks into public space. Full article here.

Archdaily is currently doing incredible coverage of the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale Fundamentals. You can checkout all the action here, including some wonderful interviews with Daniel Libeskind, Phyllis Lambert and Rem Koolhaas.

The following Architecture book recommendations are from Architects who have inspired their peers and generations of students to follow.

This is part two in a three part series where I have asked influential Architects to share the books that have inspired them. For recommendations from Daniel Libeskind, Bernard Tschumi, Ben Van Berkel (UN Studio), Ricardo Scofidio (DS+R) and Michael Sorkin you can checkout part 1 here. For recommendations from Alex Mustonen (Snarkitecture), Steven Holl, Maya Lin, Greg Lynn, Richard Meier and Denise Scott Brown you can checkout part 2 here. 

The following architecture books are a must-have for every Architect, student Architect and Architect enthusiast.

1. Best architecture book recommendations from Marco Casagrande:

1. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Dark allegory describes the narrator’s journey up the Congo River and his meeting with, and fascination by, Mr. Kurtz, a mysterious personage who dominates the unruly inhabitants of the region. Masterly blend of adventure, character development, psychological penetration. Considered by many Conrad’s finest, most enigmatic story.

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2. Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a “full empty,” something goes wrong. And the news he gets from his girlfriend upon his return makes it inevitable that he’ll keep going back to the Zone, again and again, until he finds the answer to all his problems. First published in 1972, Roadside Picnic is still widely regarded as one of the greatest science fiction novels, despite the fact that it has been out of print in the United States for almost thirty years. This authoritative new translation corrects many errors and omissions and has been supplemented with a foreword by Ursula K. Le Guin and a new afterword by Boris Strugatsky explaining the strange history of the novel’s publication in Russia.

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3. The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu is one of the most widely read and deeply cherished books in the world, a work many consider the wisest book ever written. In his introduction, translator Brian Browne Walker says, “It is less a book than a living, breathing angel.” In his new translation, Walker stays close to the direct literal accuracy of the Chinese characters while producing a modern, exceptionally clear version that has the ring and voice of Lao Tzu, a man who may or may not have been a single individual. “I have come to think of Lao Tzu less as a man who once lived,” Walker writes, “and more as a song that plays, eternal and abiding.”

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2. Best architecture book recommendations from Anders Berensson and Ulf Mejergren (Vision Division):

1. Architecture without Architects by Bernard Rudofsky

In this book, Bernard Rudofsky steps outside the narrowly defined discipline that has governed our sense of architectural history and discusses the art of building as a universal phenomenon. He introduces the reader to communal architecture–architecture produced not by specialists but by the spontaneous and continuing activity of a whole people with a common heritage, acting within a community experience. Indeed, Rudofsky sees the philosophy and practical knowledge of the untutored builders as untapped sources of inspiration for industrial man trapped in his chaotic cities.

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2. A History of Architecture by Spiro Kostof

Spiro Kostof’s groundbreaking work, A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals, helped to reshape the study of architectural history. His book extended beyond the discussion of great monuments to find connections with ordinary dwellings, urbanism, and different cultures from around the world.When the late Spiro Kostof’s A History of Architecture appeared in 1985, it was universally hailed as a masterpiece. Insightful, engagingly written and graced with close to a thousand superb illustrations, the book offers a sweeping narrative that examines architecture as it reflects the social, economic, and technological aspects of human history.

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3. Delirious New York by Rem Koolhaas

Since its original publication in 1978, Delirious New York has attained mythic status. This influential cultural, architectural, and social history of New York is even more popular, selling out its first printing on publication. Rem Koolhaas’s celebration and analysis of New York depicts the city as a metaphor for the incredible variety of human behavior. At the end of the nineteenth century, population, information, and technology explosions made Manhattan a laboratory for the invention and testing of a metropolitan lifestyle — “the culture of congestion” — and its architecture.

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