Archinect - News

The mutual attraction of architecture and pastries; 4 architects turned pastry chefs

2018-01-23T15:07:00-05:00

Ms. Yee, who oversees pastry for all the restaurants in the Resurgens Hospitality Group, used to be an architect, and she designs desserts the way she once did building interiors: meticulously sketching every element, testing many prototypes. And these days she has plenty of company: Many of the country’s top pastry chefs have practiced or studied architecture.

As we have shown in Archinect's ongoing series Working Out of the Box, architects have a background and skillset that can be applied in many ways outside of traditional architecture practice. For example, these prominent pastry chefs all started off as architects and switched to designing cakes instead. Each chef has translated the intent of an architect into food design in unique ways, from 3D printed cake molds to creating pastries from sketches and blueprints.

Check out some of the their delicious designs below:

Dinara Kasko began as a Ukrainian architect:

Berry-almond tart with a surface constructed from a mold made by a 3D printer by Dinara Kasko. Image: Dinara Kasko.

Jennifer Yee has a degree in interior architecture:

Lemon Fleur éclair by Jennifer Yee. Image: Jennifer Yee.

Jansen Chan studied architecture at UC Berkeley:

Nectarine Orchata and Lemon Balm Broth by Jansen Chan. Image: Antoinette Bruno.

Baruch Ellsworth studied architecture at a California community college:

Choco...

Artist Joshua Smith builds urban decay miniatures

2017-12-01T13:14:00-05:00

Australia-based artist Joshua Smith expresses his love of decrepit urban spaces by recreating them in 1:20 scale. Building all of his miniatures from scratch, Smith designs every element himself. The artist's work is built on his past experiences as a stencil artist and gallery director. Inspired by street art, graffiti, and old forgotten buildings, Smith is fascinated by the layers and history found within the dirt and grime of city spaces.

Pictured above is a recreation of 23 Temple Street, a building in the Kowloon area of Hong Kong, made by the artist for New York's VOLTA art fair. Smith's process starts with hours of searching on google street view for his next subject. Once his next project is underway, it can take months to finish a piece. The 23 Temple Street miniature took Smith three months of full time work to complete.

Scroll down and check out these mini architectural masterpieces.

'Big Bang Fireworks Company', based on 10 Pell Street in Chinatown NYC, by Joshua Smi...

A chess set that forms the New York City skyline

2017-06-20T13:53:00-04:00

First-name-only architects Chris and Ian of Skyline Chess have already rendered landmark buildings of London into chess pieces, and now they're trying to create a similar set of New York City, provided they receive enough funding via their Kickstarter.

Each building has been carefully chosen to represent a particular chess piece. As the architects explain:

"We gave careful consideration to selecting each piece on the board, to ensure that it both visually reflected the appropriate chess piece and also reflected the architectural status and scale of that building in the city.

King - One World Trade Tower
Queen - Empire State Building
Bishop - Chrysler Building
Knight - Flatiron Building
Rook - Guggenheim Museum
Pawn - Brownstone House"

Each piece has been weighted and given a felt bottom to make them enjoyable to hold and maneuver.

Probable truth: People don’t actually like creativity

2016-02-01T13:51:00-05:00

Online job boards burst with ads recruiting “idea people” and “out of the box” thinkers. We are taught that our own creativity will be celebrated as well, and that if we have good ideas, we will succeed. It’s all a lie.