Architecture Ransom Notes

Several years ago, we went to my wife's friend's wedding at Vallco Mall in Cupertino. To our surprise, the parking lot was empty and many of the doors were barred. We finally found an open entrance and walked in. The lights were half on and there were only several people wandering around during a time where nearby Valley Fair Mall was absolutely teeming with people. The sound of a heavy door closing shut somewhere in the mall echoed through the otherwise quiet halls. Only four businesses were open in this giant mall: A large Chinese restaurant where the wedding was held at, a movie theater, a Cold Stone, and a random eyeglasses store. It was downright eerie, like if you walk around Times Square in the late afternoon and you only see five or six people walking around. Did the zombie apocalypse just begin? No, it turns out Vallco was a victim of several anchor stores closing up, turning it into what's known as a ghost mall. Developers had purchased the nearly vacant mall in...

Everyone knows the difference between 2D and 3D. When watching The Simpsons, people can tell when they're seeing 2D Homer vs 3D Homer . Most people can also figure out 2D. People can pull up a map and reasonably figure out where they are in relation to nearby towns and geographic features. Likewise, most people can draw simple maps for others to follow. But when 3D enters the picture, for some reason, some people, even those that have power to deny building projects based on architectural drawings, have difficulty visualizing and presenting unbuilt space in three dimensions. In 3D perspectives, heights drop off with distance. Intuitively, we know this. When we see a building with a flat roof run into the distance, the roof line runs down as if shrinking, even though we know from experience that the roof line is flat. If captured on paper, the lines run down toward what's called "vanishing points" on the horizon. In architecture, we frequently draw building elevati...