Ross Brady
Whoever coined the phrase “Those who can’t do, teach” clearly didn’t go to architecture school. Anyo ne who’s been through today’s system of architectural education can attest that there is a heavy overlap of architectural educators and working professionals. Practitioners who teach concurrent with active architectural careers are a common sight in academia — a crossover…
It’s no surprise that the phrase “chained to your desk” has negative connotations. The notion that o ne must stay put to get work done is deeply rooted in our society, but deeper than that lies the reason for its associations of dread: People don’t like to sit still. From jail cells to frozen passports, restrictions…
The cantilever is arguably one of the most dramatic structural moves available in architectural desi gn. As a visually striking element, its appearance in built form is constantly being manipulated and tweaked to produce ever more unique and breathtaking effects. So it goes for this year’s A+Awards Finalists: these projects demonstrate a wide range of uses…
The current system of architectural education is woefully out of step with the profession it serves. Prohibitively expensive relative to average salaries, unreflective of actual workplace functioning and out of touch with the rest of society, it threatens to keep the profession of architecture stuck facing the same problems it has today for decades to…
What’s in a name? That depends who’s giving it. In the case of high-profile architecture, a large nu mber of buildings have official names, but the more distinctive forms among those structures tend to attract popular sobriquets bestowed on them by the public. These nicknames can run the gamut from humorous to disparaging and are often…
Designing a facility for international border control can be a tricky proposition amounting to an ar chitectural tightrope walk. The imperative for almost every border crossing is to communicate contradictory messages of welcoming and surveillance, at once making desired border-crossers feel at ease while trying to make potentially threatening border-crossers feel watched and intimidated. In meeting…
The subconscious associations of color is something that building occupants pick up on, whether they realize it or not, and as evidenced below, orange is no exception.
Cross-cultural understandings of blue as the color of a subdued, passive feeling ensures it will hav e a strong effect when used in architecture.
In general, there are two ways to go about this problem: to work with it or against it.