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Burnett Plaza: where human-centered architecture almost gets the shaft.

Poking out over the squat, one-story barbecue joint in the photo above is a relentlessly iterative office building, with not a single variation in its fenestration across all thirty-nine of its upper floors.  Windows look the exact same, row after row after row.  The only exception is the far left and far right of this

Brand refresh: Barnes & Noble goes on a tear. No books destroyed in the process.

A quick look at the photo above and it should be obvious that something’s afoot at this particular location of Barnes and Noble.  Incidentally, I only heavily scrutinized a Barnes and Noble once before, also in Maryland, when I noticed a repositioning of merchandise within the interior just a few months ago.  This time, the

Castle on a cul-de-sac: homes like this will always exist. But that doesn’t mean they’ll survive.

It’s rare that I feature two back-to-back articles on the same subject, and even rarer that the subject includes massive, opulent houses.  But these houses—each one a castle, or what we would contemporaneously (and pejoratively) call “McMansions”—are the backdrop for what ultimately is an entirely different focal point.  Over on Geist Reservoir, in the northeastern

Man cave goes luxurious…and literal. 

When it comes to residential real estate, amenities can fall in and out of saliency in a matter of months.  By 2023 standards, it’s hard to believe that galley kitchens or intimate parlor rooms might have been popular at one time.  Those of us of a certain age can recall an era when full-length mirrors

Bel Air and phantom storefronts: hiding the vacancy with little gems.

First-time visitors to the town of Bel Air, Maryland aren’t likely to be surprised by what they see—at this point, a well-kept small-town main street isn’t exactly a rarity—but chances are it’ll still charm them.  After all, Bel Air is a distant suburb of Baltimore – Charm City.  It’s the seat of government for Harford

Al fresco platforms: expanding café dining to…former parking spaces? Permanently?

It’s been a mere two weeks since I explored the sacrifice of on-street parking spaces for transportation enhancements in a Washington DC neighborhood.  And here I go at it again.  Why should I delve into the subject so soon?  Well, this time around, it’s not quite identical: instead of bike lanes, the enhancement is more

Chestnut Hill switching station: a subtle shield for an ugly use, or a waste of space?

Public utilities are a tough nut to crack, especially in urban settings, where the population density is greater—and so, consequently, is the demand for electricity, gas, water, wastewater, fiber optics, and so forth.  With higher density comes greater intricacy of the conduit; there’s more of it, and it must be more economical with its use

Lock box: the security safeguard in a low-trust era.

The photo below captures an item so banal that I don’t think it has yet entered popular conversation, and I’m not sure it ever will.  It isn’t controversial to my knowledge, and it’s hardly conspicuous enough to arouse ire for visual blight.  Yet.  Virtually everyone understands why they exist, or if they don’t understand, it

Protected bike lanes: a plush solution for a pedestrian problem.

Never afraid to rouse the ire of urban activists by challenging their orthodoxy, I’m going to give it a try in what will remain my current stomping grounds at least a little while longer: Washington DC.  Yes, even amidst all the eggheads around these parts, and despite a generally commendable urban fabric (most of DC

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Man cave goes luxurious…and literal. 

When it comes to residential real estate, amenities can fall in and out of saliency in a matter of months.  By 2023 standards, it’s hard to believe that galley kitchens or intimate parlor

Recent Comments

Recent Comments