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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 →
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 →
Just veering off into geometry here…. In November I was watching Eric Broug, an Islamic geometric design guru, give a talk online at an Islamic art conference, and I noticed that behind him they were projecting an interesting pattern on the scrim. I froze the video and grabbed a screenshot… What the heck is this? … Continue reading Constructing Bourgoin’s Figure 171 – Part 1 →
The Maps for Books collection has a new page: Peter Erasmus’s Buffalo Days and Nights. In 1920, Henry Thompson, an Alberta newspaperman, began interviewing 87-year-old Peter Erasmus, who lived near him in the area of Whitefish Lake, Alberta. Erasmus, who had been born in 1833 in the Red River settlement of what is now Manitoba, … Continue reading Mapping “Buffalo Days and Nights” by Peter Erasmus →
More in architecture
One extra home can change the rules, the costs, and who can afford to build.
The AIA has released its latest 2030 Commitment By the Numbers report. The initiative tracks the architecture and design industry’s progress toward carbon-neutral buildings by 2030. Based on performance data from 2025, the report found that 67% of whole-building projects submitted through the program were energy modeled, indicating continued adoption of building performance analysis among participating firms. However, reported reductions in energy use declined compared with previous results. Related on Archinect: 10 standout sustainable projects honored at AIA COTE Top Ten Award 2026. Marlboro Music Reich Hall by HGA. Image credit: Albert Vecerka/Esto According to the AIA, the decline partly reflects changes in how energy performance is measured. Energy-modeled projects use baselines determined by individual firms rather than values from the 2003 Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey, which the organization says may provide more realistic comparisons of building performanc...
The internet and AI haven't killed the classroom. Instead, they’ve changed what university buildings can and should be used for.
How college life created quiet logistical constraints against clutter
I really intended to post this when it was the correct week (I don’t remember the day)…four weeks ago…but in any case last month marks the 50th anniversary of me starting to commute by subway, in 7th grade. At first it was simply the 7 train to Grand Central for school in east Midtown; the […]
