architecture

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Tallest timber tower reaches full height in Sydney with design by SHoP
2 months ago
- Steel and concrete provide strength across the high-rise structure.
- Around 10,000 cubic meters of Austrian timber enter the build.
- The Frank Gehry-designed museum opens on December 11th, 2026.
- Since 1989, children's play is recognized as a fundamental right alongside education, shelter, and care.
- A series of rounded rock-like forms rise as a vertical landscape with planted terraces, public routes, and immersive spaces to make climate action tangible.
- Timber, clay, cork, and eelgrass shape a workplace where material performance is experienced through everyday use.
The Hackathon Where We Mostly Just Talked
2 months ago
- Chrome now has a built-in AI LLM that runs locally without server calls or API keys.
- The hackathon team built Photoslider, a tool that lets users adjust abstract attribute sliders (e.g., mystery, brightness) to modify images instead of writing prompts.
- All code was written by an AI agent (Gemini CLI) based on verbal descriptions; the team spent most time discussing design and architecture.
- The experience shifted the main difficulty from debugging code to maintaining architectural coherence while building at 10× speed.
- The author proposes a new hackathon format called "The Iron Vibecoder" that tests participants' ability to keep architecture clean under pressure.
- The format includes a mid-event twist (e.g., adding real-time features) to stress-test whether the architecture can flex without turning into spaghetti.
- The author calls for participants, judges, twist ideas, and sponsors to help run this experimental hackathon.
- A reader comments expressing excitement and interest in participating.
As Complexity Grows, Architecture Dominates Material
2 months ago
- Alan Kay's dog house analogy illustrates that scaling systems without proper architecture leads to structural collapse.
- Two responses to failure: either plaster over problems (pyramid approach) or invent architecture (arches) that leverages non-obvious interactions.
- Architecture like Chartres Cathedral uses less material than the Parthenon by cunningly arranging components to create greater integrity.
- In software, chaining agents multiplies failure rates; adding retries and guardrails compounds fragility rather than solving it.
- Prompt objects use message passing with LLM interpretation, allowing objects to reflect, adapt, and recover, leading to emergent antifragility.
- This approach inverts the failure multiplication: longer chains become more robust through compounding recovery.
- A simple ARC-AGI solver built with prompt objects costs under $1/task and avoids complex orchestration, demonstrating architecture over material.
- Formalization should come after exploration; premature constraints risk locking in wrong shapes.
The old-school way of keeping the summer heat out of your home
2 months ago
- Traditional shutters offer an alternative to modern air conditioning for cooling homes, working with the climate rather than against it.
- Italian 'persiane alla genovese' shutters have louvred panels that open in sequence for privacy and cooling, painted green for uniformity.
- French 'jalousies' shutters allow viewing out without being seen, with white or sage colors for reflection and dust hiding.
- Caribbean Bahama shutters open vertically, act as canopies against hurricanes and rain, and are made from durable materials.
- Maltese 'muxrabija' shutters are latticed timber boxes that filter light and provide privacy, fully integrated into building facades.
- Ancient Greek stone screens used thinly cut marble to let in light while blocking elements, inspiring a return to simple, seasonal architecture.
The Irony of Technology: As Technology Increases We Suck More at Craft
2 months ago
- Technological advances in building have led to a decline in craftsmanship, as seen in modern cabinet making.
- Historic structures like the Parthenon and Gothic cathedrals were built with low technology but exhibit enduring beauty and detail.
- Modern production cabinets rely on software, CNC routers, and standard parts, resulting in identical, low-quality designs.
- Handcrafted elements in homes, such as doors and windows, create uniqueness and magic that machines cannot replicate.
- The human touch in building is vital for beauty and longevity; technology should complement craft, not replace it.
- Looking to historical designs inspires breaking molds and solving problems, leading to better building practices.
- Hand-worked surfaces provide ongoing visual depth, unlike machine-made items that quickly become unnoticeable.
- Neuroscience research shows that varied, detailed facades improve mood and engagement compared to blank walls.
All 253 Patterns from Christopher Alexander's a Pattern Language Summarized
2 months ago
- Christopher Alexander's 'A Pattern Language' contains 253 patterns for designing towns, buildings, and construction details, organized into three sections.
- Patterns 1-94 (Towns) focus on gradual, piecemeal development with small individual acts to fit larger global patterns, emphasizing human scale and community.
- Patterns 95-204 (Buildings) are under control of individuals or small groups, giving three-dimensional shape to structures with principles like natural light and intimacy gradients.
- Patterns 205-253 (Construction) provide detailed methods for making buildings that encompass larger patterns, using materials and structures that are organic and adaptable.
- Key themes include independent regions, local transport, human-scaled spaces, and the importance of nature, social interaction, and personal expression in design.
The mathematical secrets of Barcelona's Sagrada Familia
3 months ago
- The Sagrada Família's design is guided by a proportional system based on the number 12 and a 7.5-meter module.
- Mathematician Claudi Alsina discovered that ratios between divisors of 12 (like 1:4, 1:3, 1:2) explain much of the basilica's proportions.
- Key dimensions of the temple, including length (90m), width (60m), and various heights, are multiples of 7.5m.
- Towers feature polyhedral shapes, such as dodecahedrons, truncated octahedrons, and cubes, with symbolic elements like a 12-pointed star.
- Structural elements include catenary arches and double-helix torsion columns, optimized for load-bearing and light projection.
- Hidden symbolic features include a heptagonal canopy representing the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and a magic square summing to 33.
Do Wavy Walls Use Fewer Bricks? I Tested It in Blender
3 months ago
- Crinkle Crankle walls are curvy brick walls that originated in ancient Egypt but are now more common in England.
- Online sources often claim these wavy walls use fewer bricks and are stronger than straight walls, but details are sparse and contradictory.
- The author built procedural serpentine and straight walls in Blender's geometry nodes to test brick usage and strength.
- At 100 meters, the serpentine wall used 55% as many bricks as a typical straight wall, confirming the brick-saving myth.
- Lateral impact tests with heavy balls showed both wall types failed, but the serpentine wall suffered less damage, potentially lowering repair material costs.

architecture

Tallest timber tower reaches full height in Sydney with design by SHoP

The Hackathon Where We Mostly Just Talked

As Complexity Grows, Architecture Dominates Material

The old-school way of keeping the summer heat out of your home

The Irony of Technology: As Technology Increases We Suck More at Craft

All 253 Patterns from Christopher Alexander's a Pattern Language Summarized

The mathematical secrets of Barcelona's Sagrada Familia

Do Wavy Walls Use Fewer Bricks? I Tested It in Blender