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With the explosion of social media websites in recent years, you can be forgiven for feeling drowned by the countless virtual scrapbooks of Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Within the ocean of design blogs that flood every corner of the internet, it can seem nigh on impossible to separate the magnificent from the mediocre.
For this reason, image-based platform Pinterest functions as a pretty wonderful visual sieve for design ideas, due to the presence of carefully curated “Boards.” Design experts and savvy architectural enthusiasts alike have done much of the hard work for us, selecting the cream of the crop in specific niches to form Boards that are far superior than a generic Google image search.
Of course, knowing which Boards to follow is half the battle, so here are 10 crackers to get your creative juices flowing. Make sure to let us know if we’ve missed your favorite Board in the comments section below! And for an even more architecture-centric method of organizing your favorite architecture, try creating a collection with projects and products on the Architizer database: Just mouse over any image, and click on the icon on the upper-right corner to get started.
All images and captions via their respective Pinterest boards
House NA, Sou Fujimoto Architects, Tokyo
Live here – Jonathan Lo / Happymundane
If you are looking for a source of inspiration for residential architecture and interior design, you can’t go wrong with Jonathan Lo’s array of beautiful images. Diversity is the name of the game here: Experimental housing in the dense heart of Tokyo is followed by remote Mediterranean hideaways. The common thread is modern luxury — gleaming white walls, exposed timber boards and crystal clear pools are plentiful, and each house that Lo pins has a neat detail to savor.
Hotel Rosas in Merida, Mexico
Architecture + exteriors – Chloé Douglas
Canadian designer Chloé Douglas has got a great eye for texture, form and beautiful details, as proven by her splendid collection of architectural images. There are some particularly eye-catching examples of louvered façades; timber slats, perforated shutters and fine mesh screens are a common theme. Yes, if you’re a fan of dappled light falling upon pristine concrete floors, you’ve come to the right place!
A floor lamp by Aust
Erin Guy has put together an extraordinary gallery of modern lighting fixtures, including everything from salvaged copper pipes to folded sheets of gleaming aluminum, to provide wonderful inspiration for your own designs. There are many isolated fixtures, sitting upon a snow-white backdrop like the next pristine Apple product, while others are shown in context, suspended on grand cables above designer barstools and glossy kitchen counters. Whatever your preference, prepare for some seriously great ambiance on this board.
Teamwords crane
ARCHITECTURE || DRAWING – AHARON
Calina has amassed a whopping 926 pins for her collection of drawings that vary from 30-second sketches to masterworks of realism that must have taken weeks to perfect. AHARON’s chosen quote for his bio — haunting words from the late genius Lebbeus Woods — acts as a precursor to the overriding style of the board, as fractured, enigmatic imagery is peppered between tremendously intricate sketches in every conceivable medium.
Futuristic Netherlands, drawn 1970
Architectural Drawings – Evan Sharp
Evan Sharp’s short and mysterious biography, which simply reads “ex-architect,” belies his profoundly significant link to the website. He is in fact a co-founder and lead-designer of Pinterest, which he started shortly after studying architecture at Columbia’s GSAPP. The man still hasn’t forgotten his love of architecture, though, as his wonderful collection of drawings demonstrates. The board covers just about everything from sheds to ships; it’s fair game as long as it has been virtually sawed in two, so we can see all manner of beautifully rendered, painted or sketched internal details.
Islamic Cultural Center and Museum of Tolerance
If there is one mode of visualization that you probably don’t need much more of, it’s renderings — the term “architectural pornography” has become common language, as rose-tinted CGIs have come to dominate press releases for virtually every major architectural proposal in recent months. However, if you haven’t had your fill just yet, look no further than Lynn Kim’s fine collection of glossy visuals — the variety is fantastic, with everything from master plans to one-off bespoke structures rendered with tremendous skill and style.
Handmade leather shoes and bags
HOW TO DRESS LIKE AN ARCHITECT – Cate
Architecture journalist and lifestyle blogger Cate St. Hill has compiled some perfectly pretentious fashion inspiration for architects, and the biggest surprise is, it isn’t all black. The collection is primarily female-oriented, but there a few items for the Rem Koolhaas and Walter Gropius hiding within each one of us. Particularly splendid are the glasses, which range from classic tortoise shell pairs to the iconic round lens of the most timeless fashionista of them all: Le Corbusier.
© PAD Studio
Year-long incubation in the Exbury Egg
New Forms – Architizer (Official)
Architizer readers, you are spoiled for choice when it comes to cracking collections on the mothership’s official Pinterest page! Of all the boards, though, my personal favorite has to be New Forms, a gold mine of intriguing architectural oddities. The beauty of the board lies in its unpredictability — each new pin is a surprise, and if your curiosity is sufficiently piqued, you can click through the link below each image to find out the tale behind the treasure.
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