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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
25 years of earthquakes, Google’s 2013 efforts to build a phone in the US, bear attacks in Japan, coal seam fires, and more.
In the green hills of Ibiúna, a quiet rural town about 90 minutes from São Paulo, architect Rodrigo Ohtake has built a family retreat unlike any other. Designed for weekends away with his wife Ana Carolina and their three children, the home is both a restful hideaway and a bold experiment in modular, eco-conscious design. The result? A prefabricated house that feels anything but prefabricated, joyful, fluid, and in sync with nature.
An early version of the US Senate budget bill which passed last week included a provision to sell off between 2 and 3 million acres of federal land in western states, ostensibly to be used for homebuilding.
Brighton Sands is a four-storey family home in Melbourne designed by mckimm, blending inspiration from the LA hills with a distinctly Australian sense of place. Defined by sculptural architecture, natural materials, and a seamless connection to the outdoors, the residence offers a tranquil retreat grounded in light, texture, and flow. It’s a considered balance of form and function, where luxury is quiet, and every detail enhances daily life.
Speculative fiction about our next million years of existence.
