Inspiration

A global competition where winners' thesis books will be promoted on Design observer and Blurb and d iscussed by a design jury.

In architecture school, impressionable students are taught to reach for the stars in their mission t o create the greatest buildings of their generation. Thomas Wong, partner and Design Principal at Ennead Architects, has taken this advice to heart, channeling all manner of heavenly influence in his proposal for Shanghai’s latest civic landmark, a 38,000 square-meter…

A household name in contemporary architecture circles, Sam Jacob recently sat down to talk with Arch itizer about his ongoing work with students and drawing in the digital age. We mostly discussed his studio at Yale last semester, taught in collaboration with his FAT buddy Sean Griffiths, and how that was informed by broader notions about…

The Mall of America is home to one of the largest indoor theme parks in the world, and, like any goo d theme park, it has a roller coaster. The tracks swoop and swirl around under an enormous space frame/skylight system that mimics the outdoors without the hassle of the harsh Minnesota winter. The coaster also…

One of the most iconic architectural typologies in history is set to be resurrected in Cairo! Four a nd half millennia after the Pyramids of Giza were completed on the outskirts of the city, the Ministry of Housing has unveiled a proposal for a tower, Zayed Crystal Spark, to anchor the planned development of Sheikh Zayed…

In the early 1980s, Bonnie Littman was working at Chemical Bank, as her sister Sandy was launching a new decorating lighting company. To steward that brand’s meteoric growth, Bonnie became president of the American Glass Lite Company in 1983. “Even then I knew was an entrepreneur,” she recalls, and ultimately that flair led Bonnie and…

Have you ever been lost in IKEA? There are new unofficial regroup locations that are perfect for “re charging.” Starting in April, you will be able to charge your phone with new IKEA furniture. And, if already have an apartment full of IKEA furniture, for $33 you can upgrade existing furniture with an add-on kit. Images…

Imagine if you could take Photoshop out into the streets and use it to change the world around you. Shrub, Linked by Air’s drawing app for iOS, lets you do precisely that, or at least part of that. The city (or landscape) becomes the material for a clone-stamp-like brush that grabs your surroundings and lets…

Welcome to the future! The Googleplex is coming, and it’s exactly how you imagined it: a bustling me tropolis full of luscious parks, cyber cafés, public art, cycle paths and yoga classes … all encased in gargantuan glazed bubbles, naturally. When Google’s Vice President of Real Estate David Radcliffe spoke of his company’s search for the…