william woods

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Damien Frost has photographed the most eye-popping members of the vibrant drag scene in London – from homages to Magritte to outfits made of tabloid newspaper.

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Amazing Thing #5

My final amazing thing is my recent tattoo. I think that tattoos, in a way, are like the ultimate form of art because they exist on a body, and travel with you forever. As an artistic person i feel like there’s nothing greater you can do than to be so attached to pieces of art that you want them to become part of you. People often say they have connections to certain pieces of art or feel moved when they look at them, but having art that moves with you is a different experience entirely. I haven’t yet gotten a tattoo of any of my original artwork on myself yet but i feel like that will be an even more incredible experience. Seeing the kinds of tattoos that people get can tell you a lot about what they’re like without even talking to them a lot of the time. Lots of people that say they aren’t really artistic or interested in art have tattoos, and it’s definitely a really interesting way to connect the world with art.

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Amazing Thing #4

My fourth amazing thing was performing in the drag show for Sex Week. I only recently became interested in drag queens, but immersing myself in drag culture has really helped me to accept the little differences about myself and become more accepting of others and in turn, to have more confidence. But i also think that a lot of my new-found confidence can be attributed to being in architecture school, because you have to be confident in your ideas in order for people to take you seriously. My drag makeup style was slightly unconventional, and may have attracted criticism, but i was able to own it and i was proud of how i looked. I also know that i’d never have been able to stand up and perform in front of hundreds of people if it weren’t for my experience in my first semester of architecture, where i had to present my work to my studio every time we had class. It’s strange to say that an education in architecture and performing as a drag queen could even be similar in the slightest, but amazingly, they are.

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04-14-2016

Sharp contrast between ground and sky. The girl doing a flip defines the sky space as she heads into the heavens. Interesting how the girl is flying but the goose is sitting on the ground.

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Paul Eis

Paul Eis is an architecture photographer based in Berlin that creates colorful version of buildings in Berlin and Hamburg buildings by digitally altering their sober modernist facades. If you want to see more of these candy colored creations check out his Instagram account.

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Three Views / A House New Wave Architecture

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Five Rules

Realize that everything is design. Meaning that everything that you interact with was most likely designed in some way. If you don’t appreciate that already, learn to. 

Don’t be unwilling to put more time into your work than is necessary. If you don’t thin you did your best work on something, don’t be unwilling to try again even if it takes you more time. 

Try not to let your work be to bounded by project parameters. It’s important to meet the requirements of each assignment, but don’t let yourself stop at that. Push yourself further and you’ll be a standout in your class, and if not, at least you grew personally. 

Allow people to be critical of your work. Let yourself be open to suggestions from others about what you could change that would be to your advantage, rather than have them focus only on what you’ve already done successfully.

Admit to being bad at something. There’s no harm in confessing that you may not know how to use a certain program, or cant draw very well. 

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04-19-2016

Pencil sketch of a building. Building has a triangular slant pointed up towards the street, commanding to be looked at. Building is also made the focus of the picture because it is drawn very lightly and everything else; buildings and roads, are in shadow. 

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Mumbai House S+PSARCHITECTS

S+PSARCHITECTS adds recycled doors and windows to Mumbai House façade. The house façade is composed of a double height curtain wall of recycled doors and windows 

When living in Mumbai, India, it is impossible to ignore the informal settlements in the city, and if looked at closely, there are many lessons to be learned from frugality, adaptability, multi-tasking, resourcefulness, and ingenuity. Local-based S+PSARCHITECTS have seen how a visual language emerges in found objects, ad-hoc, eclectic, patched and collaged elements. an attempt has been made here to apply some of these lessons without romanticizing or fetishizing them. the project looks at the idea of collage and recycling in several ways, from the very physical — like materials, energy, etc. to the intangible — like history, space, and memories.

Images and text via

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Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut

Last week we had a guest lecturer, Max Robinson, speak to us. He delivered to us an interesting lecture on the Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut, which has many fantastic qualities. The chapel has a flowing “blanket-like” roof that slopes on the exterior. Small spaces are also set into the walls which allows light to stream into the inside at odd but heavenly patterns. Figures of the Virgin Mary are also set inside and outside of windows.

This building doesn’t resemble any sort of “chapel” as I’ve come to understand what they’re supposed to look like, and it seemed unlikely to me at first that this structure could serve as one. However in keeping away from the traditional chapel architecture, this chapel seems to resemble many Christian religious elements, and aspects of biblical stories and becomes even more of a religious experience with its smooth curves and natural light streaking from its many tiny windows, it creates a sense of being in heaven, it seems.  The curve and color of the roof almost resemble the ark built by Noah, and the back, with it’s two parallel tall white columns and protruding curved white walls on each side resemble the wings of an angel, outstretched. While it doesn’t adhere to the traditional architectural standards of a Christian worship space, the Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut serves not only as a place to worship God, but feels like a place where God himself may even reside.  

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Casa Horta Guillermo Santomà

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Subway Maps

Colored lines represent a hidden underbelly of an otherwise normal looking map of Manhattan. Most riders probably only know where the stations are that they get on and off of their trains, but these maps show the exact paths of the busiest public transport system in the city, carrying millions of people in and out of Manhattan every day. It’s reminiscent of abstract artwork, and there has probably even been abstract artwork based off of subway maps. It’s so interesting that something as straightforward as a map that displays such vital data could be read in such an abstract way. These messy lines crisscrossing the city also seem almost like a child’s artwork, defacing the clean layout of the city with a much less uniform design. We trust these seemingly haphazard lines to be accurate and to get us from point A to point B.

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04-12-2016

Abstract drawing. The two hands are reaching for the center door. There’s blocked out spaces where there is less color and more black and white.

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Taylor Street House SAS design BUILD

The South End in Boston is a world of intimate streets lined by brick townhouses, often with swelling bowfronts and high stoops. Most houses predate the Civil War. Among residents, the preservation ethic is strong. But preservation finds common ground with modernism in the design of this remarkable house.

Images and text via

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04-07-2016

A seemingly post apocalyptic landscape. Combines modern building elements with older vehicles in a blend of time periods. Natural and man made elements are combined in the architecture. 

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The Attic Witch

John La Farge watercolors, whistler paintings, Victorian lamps and Oriental screens, little velvet boxes stuffed with human hair. She was the witch that lived in the attic. Practicing spells by candlelight and making spooky artwork. She collected materials for her spells and lived secluded between them, hidden away; her own little world she’d built for herself, and that helped her mentally cultivate her craft. Immortal; she’d collected this variety of possessions over hundreds of years. The hair; locks taken from people she had loved. She’d known many great artists personally, and felt spiritually connected with them. She knew spells to talk to them, and they helped inspire her own artwork, which in turn inspired her spells. 

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Amazing Thing #3

My third amazing thing is my recent acquiring of my new fish, Saitama. He lives in my room, and may as well be my roommate, since I no longer have an actual, human, roommate. A fish may be an easy pet to take care of, but he’s the first pet I’ve had in years that has been solely mine to take care of, and despite the fact that I’m twenty years old and should be fully able to care for something by myself, it is a little stressful, admittedly, since he will die if ignored. Setting up the fish tank and arranging it so my fish would be most comfortable is reminiscent of design in architecture; you have to make sure the occupants are going to be comfortable and happy in the space.