every architect is strangely compelled to entrap a single existing tree within a small courtyard www.dezeen.com/2026/08/14/l...
Brian Miller
@b-miller.bsky.social
architect/interior designer in DC, co-founder of Edit at Streetsense (https://streetsense.com/interior-architecture/), shorter thoughts on spaces/places/sounds/smells/tastes here, longer thoughts at grossgreat.substack.com
Went to the Memorial Bridge equestrian sculptures today and it’s not a reflecting pool situation, the work was done by top notch craftspeople from The Gilders’ Studio and you can faintly see the gold leaf squares in the last pic. You can hate the expenditure and aesthetic, but it’s the real deal.
I would never tell my clients a build would be nearly impossible, that’s practically means and methods.
the DC Council should look at how event projections panned for the CareFirst Area (St Elizabeth's) they funded before committing to Audi Field upgrades based on equally delusional projections
Steve Kiviat@dcsuburbanite.bsky.social · last mo.Hmmm, I find it hard to believe that an expanded & enclosed Audi Field will get 100 events a year as DC Council Chair Mendelson suggests, and that will cover a $300 million expenditure of DC taxpayers money.
a good piece about can designs that signal to buyers "don't worry, I'm not an IPA" (the first canned craft beer, Dale's Pale Ale, was introduced in 2002, is quite hoppy, and strangely has since evolved their can design to feel like more of a mass market lager throwback)
Kate Bernot@kbernot.bsky.social · last mo.What's with all the new lager brands wanting to look like they're 50 years old? I dig into the dynamics behind the retro branding boom for WaPo: www.washingtonpost.com/food/2026/07...
new GROSS/GREAT up now, going deep on the new LACMA building’s baffling approach to lighting artwork open.substack.com/pub/grossgre...
new GROSS/GREAT up now, going deep on the new LACMA building’s baffling approach to lighting artwork open.substack.com/pub/grossgre...
I feel like this room from Paul Rudolph’s Edersheim Residence (1970) is THE au courant reference in hospitality interiors, at least from what I’m seeing in new work and renderings. Wraparound walls and built-in shelving, a glammy ceiling echoing the seating area below, a narrow warm palette.
Haven't visited LACMA yet but @b-miller.bsky.social's solution sounds like a sensible one: Arrange the works by where they make the most sense with the lighting open.substack.com/pub/grossgre...
LACMA, Upon Reflection
An uneasy relationship with light at Zumthor's new David Geffen Galleries
open.substack.com
the open gangway and higher capacity cars are good changes but I'd vastly prefer the color palette and warmer lighting from the originals, more vibrant by day and more inviting and less clinical by night www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...
I've always admired Herzog & de Meuron's ability to work at the top of the field without a signature style and against the grain, heirs to Saarinen in the way they approach each project as a unique set of challenges and solutions www.dezeen.com/2026/06/11/h...
Herzog & de Meuron transforms Titlis Tower into "iconic sculpture"
Herzog & de Meuron has transformed the industrial structure of the Titlis Tower in the Swiss Alps into a sculptural tourist destination.
dezeen.com
"They look out for each other. They’re a clique. They don’t like outsiders, they really don’t. They’re cutthroat. They’re ruthless.” Inside the food truck mafia that's become a fixture of the National Mall ⤵️ washingtonian.com/2026/06/29/d...
Inside the Food Truck Mafia Wreaking Havoc Around the National Mall
Turf wars. Food and fire hazards. $15 ice-cream cones. How an organized network of unlicensed food trucks took over America's Front Lawn.
washingtonian.com
bring back restaurants that just say they have fusion cuisine instead of making up a story about a trade route and cultural exchange that (quite famously!) did not exist between Japan and the Mediterranean
PoPville@popville.bsky.social · 3mo ago“First Look: Grand Hyatt Washington’s Oribu Brings Japanese-Mediterranean Dining to DC This June” www.popville.com/2026/05/firs...
akin to Peter Saville’s 1993 cover for New Order’s Republic
People‘s Graphic Design Archive@peoplesgdarchive.bsky.social · 3mo agoRed Hot Chili Peppers’ Californication album cover, 1999 designed by Lawrence Azerrad. Archied by Team 12 Archive “…symbolizes the artificiality and ‘inverted’ reality of Hollywood.” #PeoplesGDArchive #GDArchive
at what point does an interchange qualify as a textile from a woven art perspective
Warren Wells, AICP@warrenjwells.bsky.social · 3mo agoNothing says Caltrans' vision of "The Future of California's Freeways" like a *triple decker* interchange. bsky.app/profile/infr...
restaurants/bars/nightclubs that opened before 1980 and still feel that way should have a vibes-based exemption from smoking bans
Liz roots out the midwest's most distinctive places like a truffle pig for worn naugahyde booths, and in this piece I spoke with her about the things that give restaurants a soul and the shift from places with regional identity to personal identity
Liz Cook@lizcookkc.bsky.social · 4mo agoFor Haterade, I wrote long about restaurant design, regionalism, and identity. Photos are of the Sons of Norway Kringen Lodge in Fargo, ND, which doesn’t need my help. haterade.substack.com/p/where-am-i
this is entirely too credulous towards the actual parameters of parametricism - it’s an aesthetically driven practice that points to technology as determining the forms while in reality it’s more like rolling dice until they show the outcome you wanted in the first place
Dezeen@dezeen.com · 4mo agoParametricism has been billed by its originator as the defining architecture style of the 21st century. To kick off a new Dezeen series on the controversial and famously complex theory, Owen Hopkins provides an overview. https://www.dezeen.com/2026/05/05/parametricism-introduction-owen-hopkins/
I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many candles in my life as I did during Semana Santa in Seville last month - at their peak during the moments when some plazas and streets would shut off their lights while processions passed
the Kengo Kuma portico at Angers Cathedral is catching a lot of flak but it's no more radical in appearance or function than the baroque loggia of Santa Maria Maggiore, screening but set apart from the romanesque facade www.dezeen.com/2026/04/29/k... www.liturgicalartsjournal.com/2022/02/the-...
a reminder that a lot of the things people find unpleasant about cities - along with the noise and dirtiness - are largely a product of filling them with cars. get rid of the cars and the pleasantness of the environment improves dramatically
Doug Gordon@brooklynspoke.bsky.social · 4mo agoAmazing. In Paris, school streets "with the full treatment — trees, gardens, light-colored pavement — were on average, an astonishing 9 degrees (Fahrenheit) cooler than nearby non-school streets."
Oh my god I want to live on this floor
Brian Miller@b-miller.bsky.social · 4mo agoRye Bunny, a new counter service restaurant we designed in DC’s Adams Morgan. It’s a cozier revamp of the former Michelin-starred Tail Up Goat space we designed a decade ago for the same owners, reflecting a shift to more casual dining even at the high end. washingtonian.com/2026/03/31/r...
Rye Bunny, a new counter service restaurant we designed in DC’s Adams Morgan. It’s a cozier revamp of the former Michelin-starred Tail Up Goat space we designed a decade ago for the same owners, reflecting a shift to more casual dining even at the high end. washingtonian.com/2026/03/31/r...
The monastery of San Juan de Los Reyes in Toledo, an Isabelline style complex bringing Flemish and Mudéjar touches to the late Gothic. Not much from the outside but it opens into my favorite cloister in Spain, completed in 1504.
