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Brian Miller

@b-miller.bsky.social
155 followers 195 following 371 posts

architect/interior designer in DC, co-founder of Edit at Streetsense (streetsense.com/interior-architectu…), shorter thoughts on spaces/places/sounds/smells/tastes here, longer thoughts at grossgreat.substack.com

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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
“I am the code” is something you normally only hear in DC from health department inspectors on final walkthrough overriding previously approved plans
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Alexander Luckmann @aluckmann.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I'm a huge fan of the "gabled glass lobby between two masonry wings" building typology. Its master was Gottfried Böhm from about 1975-1990
Schloss Saarbrücken, renovation with new center. Photo by Wolfgang Staudt via Wikimedia CommonsHotel Maritim, Cologne. Photo by Elke Wetzig/Elya via Wikimedia CommonsZüblin Haus Stuttgart. Photo by Ricardo Calovi via FlickrCenter of the Stadthaus in Rheinberg. Photo by Thomas Vogt via Baukunst NRW, https://www.baukunst-nrw.de/objekte/10493-stadthaus-in-rheinberg
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Max Dubler 🏳️‍🌈 @maxdubler.com · 11/09/2026
America’s broad consensus view on housing is that it should be cheap when people are buying it (affordability!) and expensive when people are selling it (Building Generational Wealth For Families!).
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Foster continues to innovate as the industry leader in autonomous vehicle-related proposals that will clearly never result in anything, congrats once again to their PR department
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
if an airport lounge can be “authentic” then the word has no meaning (it has no meaning and it’s not a helpful descriptor in any situation)
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
the NYT piece also claims DC has never built a racetrack but that’s not true - there was a Le Mans Gran Prix event near RFK Stadium in 2002 and it was so disruptive that it only happened once, the rest of the ten year contract was cancelled en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Gr....
The pairing also raised novel challenges.
Washington builds infrastructure for an inauguration every four years, fireworks every Fourth of July and innumerable street festivals - but never a racetrack.
Penske has designed tracks through city blocks, but never through both federal and municipal grounds with a tangle of buildings that include the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission and the National Archives.
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
every architect is strangely compelled to entrap a single existing tree within a small courtyard www.dezeen.com/2026/08/14/l...
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Went to the Memorial Bridge equestrian sculptures today and it’s not a reflecting pool situation, the work was done by top notch craftspeople from The Gilders’ Studio and you can faintly see the gold leaf squares in the last pic. You can hate the expenditure and aesthetic, but it’s the real deal.
very gold equestrian statuevery gold equestrian statuevery gold equestrian statueclose up of a very gold equestrian statue showing faint evidence of square gold leaf application
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
I would never tell my clients a build would be nearly impossible, that’s practically means and methods.
NYT article: Even the Architects Said the Build Would Be Nearly Impossible
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Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
check this out, y'all: roachclip_fuzz90bpm.midi
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
the DC Council should look at how event projections panned for the CareFirst Area (St Elizabeth's) they funded before committing to Audi Field upgrades based on equally delusional projections
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
a good piece about can designs that signal to buyers "don't worry, I'm not an IPA" (the first canned craft beer, Dale's Pale Ale, was introduced in 2002, is quite hoppy, and strangely has since evolved their can design to feel like more of a mass market lager throwback)
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
"Nothing requires the architect's care more than the due proportions of buildings." - Vitruvius
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
only legal to build like this in Culver City
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
new GROSS/GREAT up now, going deep on the new LACMA building’s baffling approach to lighting artwork open.substack.com/pub/grossgre...
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
new GROSS/GREAT up now, going deep on the new LACMA building’s baffling approach to lighting artwork open.substack.com/pub/grossgre...
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
I feel like this room from Paul Rudolph’s Edersheim Residence (1970) is THE au courant reference in hospitality interiors, at least from what I’m seeing in new work and renderings. Wraparound walls and built-in shelving, a glammy ceiling echoing the seating area below, a narrow warm palette.
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◥◤Kriston Capps 250 @kristoncapps.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Haven't visited LACMA yet but @b-miller.bsky.social's solution sounds like a sensible one: Arrange the works by where they make the most sense with the lighting open.substack.com/pub/grossgre...
open.substack.com
LACMA, Upon Reflection
An uneasy relationship with light at Zumthor's new David Geffen Galleries
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
the open gangway and higher capacity cars are good changes but I'd vastly prefer the color palette and warmer lighting from the originals, more vibrant by day and more inviting and less clinical by night www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
I've always admired Herzog & de Meuron's ability to work at the top of the field without a signature style and against the grain, heirs to Saarinen in the way they approach each project as a unique set of challenges and solutions www.dezeen.com/2026/06/11/h...
dezeen.com
Herzog & de Meuron transforms Titlis Tower into "iconic sculpture"
Herzog & de Meuron has transformed the industrial structure of the Titlis Tower in the Swiss Alps into a sculptural tourist destination.
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Jessica Sidman @jessicasidman.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
"They look out for each other. They’re a clique. They don’t like outsiders, they really don’t. They’re cutthroat. They’re ruthless.” Inside the food truck mafia that's become a fixture of the National Mall ⤵️ washingtonian.com/2026/06/29/d...
washingtonian.com
Inside the Food Truck Mafia Wreaking Havoc Around the National Mall
Turf wars. Food and fire hazards. $15 ice-cream cones. How an organized network of unlicensed food trucks took over America's Front Lawn.
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
an embarrassment of riches
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
bring back restaurants that just say they have fusion cuisine instead of making up a story about a trade route and cultural exchange that (quite famously!) did not exist between Japan and the Mediterranean
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
akin to Peter Saville’s 1993 cover for New Order’s Republic
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
at what point does an interchange qualify as a textile from a woven art perspective
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
restaurants/bars/nightclubs that opened before 1980 and still feel that way should have a vibes-based exemption from smoking bans
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Liz roots out the midwest's most distinctive places like a truffle pig for worn naugahyde booths, and in this piece I spoke with her about the things that give restaurants a soul and the shift from places with regional identity to personal identity
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
this is entirely too credulous towards the actual parameters of parametricism - it’s an aesthetically driven practice that points to technology as determining the forms while in reality it’s more like rolling dice until they show the outcome you wanted in the first place
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
real bicentennial 1976 vibe to all these kiosk names
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many candles in my life as I did during Semana Santa in Seville last month - at their peak during the moments when some plazas and streets would shut off their lights while processions passed
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
the Kengo Kuma portico at Angers Cathedral is catching a lot of flak but it's no more radical in appearance or function than the baroque loggia of Santa Maria Maggiore, screening but set apart from the romanesque facade www.dezeen.com/2026/04/29/k... www.liturgicalartsjournal.com/2022/02/the-...
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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
a reminder that a lot of the things people find unpleasant about cities - along with the noise and dirtiness - are largely a product of filling them with cars. get rid of the cars and the pleasantness of the environment improves dramatically
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
😈 some from Seville
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bankbryan @bankbryan.com · 29/04/2026
Oh my god I want to live on this floor
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
Rye Bunny, a new counter service restaurant we designed in DC’s Adams Morgan. It’s a cozier revamp of the former Michelin-starred Tail Up Goat space we designed a decade ago for the same owners, reflecting a shift to more casual dining even at the high end. washingtonian.com/2026/03/31/r...
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
The monastery of San Juan de Los Reyes in Toledo, an Isabelline style complex bringing Flemish and Mudéjar touches to the late Gothic. Not much from the outside but it opens into my favorite cloister in Spain, completed in 1504.
a view of the two story cloister around a small gardenthe lower cloister facing the chapel entrythe chapel, quite grand for a monastery, reflecting its original intended (but unrealized) use as the resting place of the Catholic monarchsMudéjar wood tracery ceiling, restored in the 19th century and probably again later based on the condition
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
we’re all tremendously humbled to be designing the tower of babel, a project that at its core is all about demonstrating our ability to communicate with one another
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
construction material and labor pricing is up enormously BUT I think we’d also be able to build remarkable things with today’s budgets if we didn’t have to include HVAC and sprinklers and designed according to early 20th century electrical and plumbing standards
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
William H. Whyte would have loved this www.nytimes.com/2026/04/16/d...
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
the Washington Post ran a piece on Zwiesel Fortessa’s Jupiter glassware series, crediting them as the originator of the style when they’re very obviously copying Iittala’s Kastehelmi series, designed by Oiva Toikka and first produced in 1964, reintroduced in 2010 and quite popular
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
to be fair this is someone who’s spent decades repackaging the the original creative output of others under his name, he’d understand the appeal of the technology better than most
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
one of many perfect two line exchanges in Jacques Tourneur’s noir Out of the Past (1947) with Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
seems like the simple answer here is “the AI slop food images are LESS off-putting than they food they’re turning out”
“For a restaurant owner, there is the option of taking a photo of the actual food you make on your phone which takes great photos.”real bad-looking food from the restaurant in question
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
rendering vs. reality, sucks so bad that glass, shear walls, and cantilevers have real physical properties
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
used to think El Greco painted crazy then I went to Toledo and it just looks like that
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
“Writing about accolades given to Providence- and Portland-based chefs and restaurants is the closest Boston publications will come to writing about national achievements in food.” www.richardeaglespoon.com/blog/boston
richardeaglespoon.com
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
Toledo Cathedral, 13th-15th century, really magnificent Spanish Gothic with some French roots and Mudéjar aspects, a shame the anteroom of the chapterhouse was closed but it’s still an embarrassment of riches
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
100% of AI psychosis cases would cease immediately if models didn’t validate/compliment their users
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
for all the bullshit that living in DC currently entails, our collection of free museums have long been the greatest interface between the federal city and local residents - an incredible resource in both quantity and quality
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 28/03/2026
León Cathedral, Spanish Gothic with a very French accent, 13th-15th century
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