archminute

Take a minute to admire this.  In my mind, incredible doesn't even begin to describe it. Frank Lloyd Wright's "Kalil House" is one of my all-time favorite pieces of residential architecture. Maybe it's not your cup of tea, and I can understand that, but you just have to wonder:  What would living in it be like?  As it turns out, there's not much sense in wasting your time with that question-- odds are that neither you nor I will ever find out. The reason for that is the same reason why the Kalil House, one of Wright's great triumphs, was a complete failure. The house was designed in his "Usonian Automatic" fashion, calling for concrete block modular construction. The idea behind this was that the building was simple to construct, like a home made of big Legos, and that the homeowners-to-be could work on it themselves to save money. In fact, almost every principle of the Usonian Automatic style was aimed toward designing inexpensive housing that f...

I’ll be honest, I’m out of my depth on this one.  But the whole point of this page is giving myself excuses to read and write about interesting things, so we’re forging on. Church of the Light in Ibaraki, Japan  (Tadao Ando) How do we represent the divine on Earth? It’s an age-old question, and one that has been answered in countless ways. The Greeks and Romans sought to impress their pantheon by constructing feats of engineering, buildings of a scale befitting the gods. Acropolis at Athens The Catholic Church took a similar approach in the Gothic period by stretching what was materially possible at the time, building their cathedrals up into the heavens. The goal was for the structures to awe and inspire visitors into faith, and to this end they struck upon another pillar of religious architecture: Light. The intricate stained-glass windows and large open spaces created a sort of holy light in the cathedral at a time when many buildings were lit with dim candles. Chartres C...

The folding chair.  I sort of love it, you sort of love it, we all sort of love it. Probably because it's only sort of a chair. It wobbles and creaks, it's not terrifically comfortable, and it's not devilishly handsome either. But what if I told you that the humble chair you see before you is part of an urban solution to electrify public spaces? One of the basic problems of designing a public space is that you could never in a million years conceive of all the ways that it will end up being used. You may plan for a public fountain that becomes an impromptu swimming pool. You might design a beautiful bench seating area that winds up as a bird-dropping collector more than anything else. People are going to take your space and run with it, so why not make it a little easier? Enter: the movable chair. The proposed solution by William Whyte, one of the patron saints of urban planning, moveable chairs allow the designed space to become a designable space . Benches are static and ...

The Purist.  If you've taken classes in architecture, chances are good that you've had one-- a professor that wears all black, writes exclusively in the upper-case, and cannot (read CANNOT) to tell you enough about the importance of  f o r m . To be fair they've probably forgotten more things about architecture than I've ever known so they deserve respect in their own right. Nonetheless, I have a bone to pick: I was taught about color, but I was never shown. Or maybe I was never encouraged, I can't tell the difference.  The list of acceptable materials for our models was as follows: brilliant white museum board, preferably with the laser-burnt edges sanded off to restore the whiteness; cool gray or, if you were feeling a little saucy, warm gray chipboard; virgin, unprinted cardboard sheets of uniform thickness; light basswood sheets and basswood sticks (for when you simply must operate outside the realm of planes). If you'd skipped that paragraph, I wouldn'...

 Allow me to introduce you to my first car: a Mercedes S-Class If only.  My actual first car was a clapped-out Chevy Lumina (though she was good to me). But what my car did have were airbags and ABS brakes-- two features that were once considered to be luxury features  exclusive to cars like the S-Class, yet somehow found their way onto a car that I bought from my cousin for $800. If it seems like I'm getting somewhere, it's because I'm trying to. Research is expensive. There's not really any way around that unfortunate fact, nor around the equally unfortunate fact that someone has to pay for it. I don't know about you, but I definitely can't afford to. Here's where luxury comes in. If rich people want to pay prices that would make you or I limp at the knees in order to have the latest-and-greatest gadgets and doodads then, hey, they have my best wishes. The money that luxury consumers pay for the honor of being the first to use these newer and better techn...

First, an admission of guilt.  I too have spent an excessive amount of time looking for the perfect render of my design to post to Instagram. After working so hard on a project, nobody's going to blame you for taking pride in it. The real problem rears its ugly head when that juicy render starts to consume a little too much of your headspace and you design everything else around it.  It's not uncommon these days for a design firm to receive a commission with the specific instructions that the finished product be utterly and perfectly "instagrammable", a request akin to asking a graphic designer to "make it pop" (I apologize for the cold chill running down your spine). The underlying issue of instagram-ablility is that it has nothing to do with the usability of the design, the benefits to the user, or even the experience of having the dang thing; all that matters on Instagram is that it makes people think:  "Wow, I've never seen that before!" *d...

A short year and a half later, here we are-- the first post. Let's start with the basics: What is archminute? archminute is a blog and personal project of mine that delves into issues of design, architecture, and planning. Based on the concept of the arcminute, archminute aims to be both focused and brief, satisfying yet easy. Looking for quick reads that'll leave you thinking? You're in the right spot.  Who am I? I go by jonah embey, I'm a design semi-pro, and I'm currently studying Urban Planning and Development. I'd like to make this a regular thing, maybe once a week or so. If anyone's reading this, leave comments asking for posts about things you're interested in or just letting me know you're around to keep me honest. Ready? Go!