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The key to a happy life, it’s been discovered, is living near to Georgian architecture and a Waitrose. Bath, York, Chichester, Stamford, Skipton, Harrogate, Oxford and Cambridge are among the towns listed in the Sunday Times 20 nicest places to live in Britain survey. Almost all these areas have one thing in common: they all feature a great deal of Georgian housing. And they’re all mostly unaffordable. There is a fair amount of research suggesting that traditional architecture, such as Georgian and Victorian terraces and mansion blocks, contributes to our wellbeing. Beauty makes people happy. –– ADVERTISEMENT –– This can...

New Photos Offer an Inside Look at Apple Campus 2 Thursday December 8, 2016 10:13 am PST by Juli Clover Apple shared some updated photos and information on its spaceship-shaped second campus with employees, which French site MacGeneration managed to get a hold of. The photos give a detailed view of the exterior building, and give us one of our first glimpses at its interior. Apple Campus 2 has been in development for more than two years, and is nearing its completion date. We've seen a series of monthly drone videos cataloguing progress at the site, and as of December,...

An obsession with cities has masked profound changes in rural America that helped Donald Trump sweep to victory in the US presidential election, according to architect Rem Koolhaas. "I'm not saying that Trump was inevitable but the scale of upheaval in the centre of America made it very understandable for me that something else was going to happen," the founder of OMA told Dezeen. "I was not completely surprised when Trump won." The Dutch architect also attacked the "complacency" of Silicon Valley firms, who have for years preached the benefits of disruption. "For me, one of the very good things...

hile many in media lament the fact that Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump has an occasional vulgar mouth, these shortsighted fifth columnists fail to consider the entire man. There is one aspect of his life that has been decidedly refined, and that is his architectural taste. In fact, >b>Trump is the consummate conservative when it comes to his developments; his is an explicit rejection of what we might find in an authoritarian or totalitarian regimes. The Washington Post, among the many other old media outlets, ran several screeds complaining about the renovations of Donald Trump’s International Hotel, which is the...

For over a decade, architecture students at Rural Studio, Auburn University's design-build program in a tiny town in West Alabama, have worked on a nearly impossible problem. How do you design a home that someone living below the poverty line can afford, but that anyone would want—while also providing a living wage for the local construction team that builds it? In January, after years of building prototypes, the team finished their first pilot project in the real world. Partnering with a commercial developer outside Atlanta, in a tiny community called Serenbe, they built two one-bedroom houses, with materials that cost...

A new book by Lonely Planet called Toilets: A Spotter's Guide features pictures of the world's wackiest loos There are more than 100 WCs featured in the book from places like Antarctica, Alaska, Brazil, Finland and Zambia The book says: 'Whatever you prefer to call them toilets are a window into the secret soul of a destination'

DUBAI—Dubai’s flagship developer Emaar Properties on Sunday unveiled plans to construct the world’s tallest tower in the Middle Eastern emirate, set to rise slightly above the Burj Khalifa that currently holds the title. The announcement by Emaar underlines Dubai’s ambition to establish itself as a global investment and tourism hub by often pursuing futuristic megaprojects such as artificial islands off its coast or an indoor ski slope. Emaar aims to deliver the tower, which won't be for residential use but contain an observation deck and possibly a small hotel, before Dubai hosts the World Expo fair in 2020. It will...

Emaar Properties, the same developers behind the Burj Khalifa, currently the world’s tallest building, has announced plans to build a $1 billion (£710 million) tower in Dubai that will exceed the height of the 828m (2,716 ft) record-holder.

A Russian architect has designed a skyscraper shaped like a cobra, predicting that his snake-like tower to be built in a prominent Middle Eastern city. The majestic design features a round base to appear like a serpent's body, as well as an open-mouthed head, set to house a terraced 'restaurant or nightclub'. The aptly named 'Asian Cobra Tower' has been designed by Monaco-based architect Vasily Klyukin, from Moscow.

Church architecture reflects the faith of the people who build churches.These days many of the modern Catholic churches I have seen look more like municipal airport buildings than structures to house the most sacred thing humans can undertake, the place where heaven and earth meet.I was recently sent a link to a site about a new church in Moscow. The church was recently completed and consecrated by Patriarch Kirill in December 2015. A Miracle of Liturgical Art: The Church of the Protection of the Mother of God at Yasenevo[…]But most astonishing by far was the project to decorate the interior...

Sarah Ewbank spent the last year researching the ancient monument and applying her architectural background to the site to determine what its purpose and form once might have been. She has concluded, based on the layout of the stones, that they were used as support structures for a massive wooden frame that featured a second story for the site as well as an enormous round roof. Ewbank argues that a roof at the monument would allow for it to have been used throughout the year which, she believes, makes more sense that it simply being a religious site used on...

London’s Saint Martin-in-the-Fields is famed not only as a great work of architecture, but as the prototype for hundreds of churches throughout the world and especially in the United States. Designed by the Anglo-Palladian architect James Gibbs (1682–1754) and completed in 1726, Saint Martin was one of the first parish churches in England specifically planned to accommodate the Protestant worship style of eighteenth-century Anglicans.1 This is ironic since Gibbs himself was raised and remained a Roman Catholic, albeit discreet in the practice of his faith. Gibbs’s original proposal called for a circular church, inspired by Sir Christopher Wren’s first scheme...

French fascism is alive and well, and its current headquarters (as I write this) are not in the offices of the Front National but, appropriately enough, in the ugliest building in the world in the most beautiful capital city in the world, the Centre Pompidou in Paris. It is here that has been held the completely uncritical exhibition to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Le Corbusier, the fascist architect, under the title Le Corbusier, Mesures de l’homme.

The queen consort of George V was consistent in her sense of duty and unswerving in how she expressed it. Crowned with dignity and corseted with confidence, at five feet six inches, Mary of Teck was the same height as the king, but they were called George the Fifth and Mary the Four-fifths. Of her many benefactions to Empire, not least, and perhaps most conspicuous, was her habit of removing climbing ivy from regal residences and public buildings. Her detestation of climbing ivy was a life-long obsession, quite the opposite of Queen AnneÂ’s love affair with boxwood. Even in...

On the Biblical Roots and Requirements of Church Design Msgr. Charles Pope • July 30, 2015 • In yesterday’s readings at Mass we read about how Moses laid out the “tent of meeting” exactly according to the pattern God gave him up on the mountain. A millennium later John described a similar scene of the sanctuary in Heaven.Few Catholics today realize that God actually did indicate a good deal about how He expects our churches to be designed. And while some degree of variation is allowed and has existed, most modern churches have significantly departed from the instructions God gave....

We were probably right to leave behind many hallmarks of yesterday's home, but it's time to reconsider these 15 once-popular details, not for their novelty, but for their practicality.

Bishop Castle, 46 years in the making, which one man dedicated his life to building, has been turned over to a new owner. A frequent visitor of the castle and friend of the creator is now in charge but the family who built the attraction says they were conned into signing over the deed. The creator of the castle, Jim Bishop, has been fighting a rare form of cancer for the past few months and his family now feels like they've been taken advantage of.

Everyone should respond thee way they feel. IMHO this may not be the best time to post, discuss what's on your mind. My reaction to seeing it was to just look at it, ponder the terrible, unbelievable irony, tragedy of what the future, fate had in store for all those involved and beyond.

ANAHEIM – By day, county Supervisor Shawn Nelson sees a sand crab when he drives past the new transit hub in his district. By night, he thinks “disco roller rink” when colorful lights illuminate the building. “I don’t think this is what the taxpayers had in mind,” said Nelson, who is also board chairman of the Orange County Transportation Authority. Many local architects, however, call the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center, set to open Dec. 6., a modern marvel and the future of transportation.

The Denver Post is wondering if Union Station is itself racist. Columnist Ray Mark Rinaldi wonders, "Did diversity miss the train in Union Station's architecture?" He continues, (emphasis mine) "The urban playground at Union Station isn't drawing people of color and it may be the building's fault." How can an inanimate object be racist? The newly designed Union Station is very popular, says Rinaldi. "If, that is," he warns, "you are white and not paying attention. Or if you think diversity doesn't matter." It's design is an "Architecture of exclusivity," he writes. "The symmetry, arched windows, ornate cornice and stacked,...