Architecture+Theme+Park+Quest

 Overview
Architecture is one of those things that greatly influences our daily lives in such a subtle manner that it remains largely unnoticed and/or under-appreciated. According to Emily Athen's article, “Building Around the Mind,” featured in the April/May/June 2009 issue of Scientific American Mind, the architecture which surrounds us affects the relationship between us and the environment. Architecture can impact our creativity, focus, attention, mood, and social ability, influencing our thoughts and behaviors. [[|1]] Aside from the huge impact on our minds, architecture can also very aesthetically pleasing, which is largely the reason why it's the subject of this blog theme park:


 * 1) Contemporist: http://www.contemporist.com/

Contemporist is a blog that presents products and projects in the world of contemporary design. Although their About section blatantly says it caters to architects and interior designers, it has been fairly popular, boasting 4 million unique visitors and 11 million page views since its launch in October 2007. What makes this site successful is the simple (and basic) layout as well as the short and succinct delivery manner, as each post displays a picture, a title, a caption that names the project/product and designer(s), and a “Click here to see the rest...” link which redirects visitors to a page with a description and several more pictures of the product/project. The descriptions are not very interesting at all, though – just cut-and dry measurements and whatnot.
 * 1) ArchDaily: http://www.archdaily.com/

ArchDaily boasts the title of the most popular English-written architecture blog in 2009 and the tagline, “The World's Most Visited Architecture Website.” The blog features a slightly busier layout than Contemporist, but has a similarly simple presentation of content, showing: the name of the architects, the location, the project area, the project year, the name of the photographer of the pictures they use, etc. They pretty much credit all the major players involved with the featured product. The “Read more” link redirects visitors to a slightly more interesting description, and among the pictures are floor plans and concept art.


 * 1) [the belly of an architect]: []

Despite being the English edition, this blog focuses less on the specs of buildings and more on the content of the projects, as most posts are coupled descriptions of how the featured project interacts with other buildings, the landscape and the people. It is a little dry to read sometimes, but that's probably because it's the translated version.

> +MOOD is an architecture blog that also specializes in contemporary design, but it widens itself to cover interior design, landscape design and products, among other things. This blog is not as shy with its ads, and the layout makes it so the posts are displayed in a grid-like manner (which I hate). However, like [the belly of an architect], this blog features less specs and more descriptions.
 * 1) +MOOD: []


 * 1) The Architecture Blog: []

This blog is all sourced pictures and no description. The only reason I like it is because it runs on Tumblr, so I can follow the blog and have its posts streamed onto my aggregated Dashboard, and then I can “like” certain posts, which basically bookmarks the posts so I can get to them later.

To be completely honest, I only like these blogs for the pictures!

[1] http://emilyanthes.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/building-around-the-mind1.pdf

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