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I was flipping through Owen Jones’s Grammar of Ornament a couple months ago, and my eye was caught by this handsome pattern I had not noticed before. This is Jones’s Plate XLII, in the chapter on designs from the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. He calls it, “Part of the ceiling of the Portico of the … Continue reading Constructing the Pattern on the Sala de la Barca Ceiling →
(This is the math geek part about the Sala de la Barca ceiling. For instructions on constructing the pattern with compass and straightedge, go over to Part 1.) In the process of figuring out how to draw this pattern, I ran into a lot of questions, and had to do more than a little math … Continue reading The Mathematics of the Pattern on the Sala de la Barca Ceiling →
Nord de Guerre Here’s a survey plat made in 1919 by a US Army unit in France. In the aftermath of WW1, teams of American military surveyors produced these as they went around France mapping the grave sites of fallen soldiers. On this plat we can see a number of bearings and distances from the … Continue reading Transforming French WW1 Lambert Coordinates to WGS84 →
This story begins one day when I was assembling a map of the city of Edmonton, Alberta from OpenStreetMap data. It was going to be a big map, a 42″ (106 cm) wide poster for a wall. The data was good, but the standard OSM colours were not. They would work fine for a street … Continue reading Cartographic palettes and colour harmonies →
Now that we know our way around the pattern (go back to Part 1), it should be fairly straightforward to construct with a compass and straightedge. But be aware: any pattern that requires you to construct a pentagon is an advanced challenge. They are trickier to make than squares or hexagons. Here’s what we want … Continue reading Constructing Bourgoin’s Figure 171 – Part 2 →
More in architecture
Microplastics in the air, the Blanchard lathe, the report on the OceanGate sub disaster, a plan to visit a black hole, and more.
Sam Kaplan Hall recounts his wide-ranging life in a new memoir that contains more than a few great personal stories.
Manhattan: So much to do, so little time! To make New York City's most densely populated borough more accessible for out-of-towners and residents alike, we've asked Julia Gamolina to host today's Archinect City Guide. Beyond her role as the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the award-winning Madame Architect platform, she is also an Associate Principal at Ennead Architects' NYC studio and a Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute. In this City Guide, Gamolina reveals her favorite Manhattan spots for Eastern European treats, tasty cocktails, and the best parks for picnics and walks. Are you a Manhattan local with your own go-to spots? Or have a city you think we should cover next? Share your thoughts, suggestions, and favorite places in the comments.
A talk with photographer Stanley Greenberg about his new book documenting the vast infrastructure of the city’s water system.
I recently had the pleasure of attending a press preview of the new documentary Architecton, directed by Victor Kossakovsky and released last week by A24. The screening I attended was held inside a Cedars-Sinai medical imaging center in west Los Angeles; seeing this particular film, with its intensely granular focus on the geological underpinnings of … Continue reading "Mineral Hurricane"
