ArtsStreams
David Taylor, Deputy Editor of The Architects'Journal reveals his top five architecture related websites
Text Transcript
As Deputy Editor of The Architects' Journal, I find using the internet very useful. Some of my favourite sites are firstly Architectstoday.net. This I find interesting because it's so-called sticky, ie you go back to the site because there are things that make you go back. It's organised into three areas, first of all 'your first coffee', secondly 'your working day', thirdly 'after hours'. The middle bit is the stuff that architects might find useful because it's got links to practices, professional bodies, organisations etc. The first bit 'your first coffee' includes things like games, puzzles etc. 'Solve puzzle win muffins' it says even. And the final one is also fun stuff away from sort of design area, including buying wine online, links to the BBC, The Guardian, fun stuff which keeps you coming back. And it's a good-looking sight.
Secondly, designarchitecture.com. Now this is a world-wide site and has a very useful news link whereby the organisers of the site seem to scan every single paper in the world by the looks of things and every wire to come up with stories about architecture and architects. They provide the links and, if you register, this comes to you every day. So it's very useful. Just today for example, there's an article about Harry Sidler, the Australian architect from The Sydney Morning Herald as well as an article on green belts in Wales which just shows you how wide ranging they are.
Thirdly archinet.co.uk. This one's been around for some time and is very strong on members, ie the amount of practices that are listed alphabetically, one click away, Foster and Partners, Alsop, Terry Farrell and Partners, many others and many links to industry related websites, there's competitions, there's a forum and there's many other features including jobs.
My penultimate site is called 'deathbyarchitecture', at deathbyarch.com. Not quite sure why they call it that, but it's a very useful site for architects predominately because it lists all the competitions for, or pretty much all the competitions for buildings which are going on at the moment in the world with contact numbers. So it's pretty useful for them to get in touch with if they want to design this theatre or that sports arena.
And the final site, I can't get away without giving a bit of a plug to our own site, ajplus.co.uk but I do so because I think it's one of the better ones around. Things it includes - news, very good news link updated every day, there's an archive of AJ building studies and a buildings bank. But the feature I like most about this is the photo-gallery which is a feature whereby you can actually go to a lot of the buildings which are current as if you're there and look around. It uses an iPix camera, don't ask me to explain the technology there, but it enables you to, as it were, stand on the middle of say the Millennium Bridge (in London) and look around by dragging your mouse from left to right. So you can do it even without the wobble.
www.architectstoday.net
www.designarchitecture.com
www.archinet.co.uk
www.deathbyarch.com
www.ajplus.co.uk