iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Brian Miller

Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

I was blown away to see this rebuttal to anti-urban sentiment in an 1896 home ec manual. I would have to go searching to find a male reformer who talks about the isolation of country wives archive.org/details/hous...

Now, in truth, God made the town in a far more vital sense than he made the country. The country is simply the raw material, the undeveloped substance of towns. We might as appropriately say, " God made the paint and man made the picture," or "God made the piano and man made the music." The city, as an expression of man's higher life, is in closer relation to God than are earth and trees. As to the specific evils of city life,—some of them, as dirt, disease, and immorality exist in equal proportion to the population in the country; while their accompanying virtues, those public works to provide for cleanliness, health, and morals,—these are physically impossible in the country.
The evils of overcrowding, of noise, of nervous strain, and the like, are not civic evils, but economic evils, which will pass when we are wiser.
The farmer's wife goes mad in her isolation, silence, and lack of stimulus, just as the citizen's wife has nervous prostration under opposite conditions. The farmer breaks down under the strain of paying the mortgage, just as the citizen breaks down under a closer competition. These are economic evils, not due to city or country.

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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

anything over 2700k is a personal affront and anything over 3500k is injurious

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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

part of the great aesthetic inversion, where seniors who remember the Jockey Club want to feel more younger and modern so they get a bright white and grey restaurant while Gen Z yearns for the original Jockey Club aesthetic they never had, as seen in the brand new Oak Room in Georgetown

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Reposted by Brian Miller

Soren Spicknall @sorenspicknall.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

POV: it's the mid-1980s, your lucrative privately held industrial firm is in need of a new exurban HQ building, and you decide to get a little funky with it

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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

need a ceiling picture and team stats here for any credibility

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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

we’re counting Five Guys at first right?

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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

he wants the intermediate handrail!

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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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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

hmm, either an incorrect description or a deeper story about the building - didn’t see any concrete walls in the interior renderings (just the exposed ceilings)

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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

updating the paint schedule to "Tactical White Dove"

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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

as with all “oldest bar” claims, there are caveats: - the original Willard was a combination on several buildings on the site (pictured) - the bar at the original Willard wasn’t called the Round Robin, and was in the lobby - the present hotel was built in 1901 - it was closed from 1968-1986

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Reposted by Brian Miller

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 Commons

Hotel Maritim, Cologne. Photo by Elke Wetzig/Elya via Wikimedia Commons

Züblin Haus Stuttgart. Photo by Ricardo Calovi via Flickr

Center 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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Reposted by Brian Miller

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 · 12/08/2026

to be fair, shadow senator does sound conspiratorial

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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

your audience will only truly understand you if you post on community forum-based social network procore

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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

and the difference between paint and gold leaf

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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

it was the first time I’d seen the term used but I’m ever vigilant

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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

as soon as I make peace with one term another rises to challenge me and yesterday it was “vinyl players”

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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.

close 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

$3000/sf, I guess the build was nearly impossible www.nytimes.com/2026/07/22/r...

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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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Reposted by Brian Miller

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 · 21/07/2026

a bold vision that dares to ask “what if Las Ramblas was empty 345 days a year?”

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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

the projections have to assume they’re taking events from other venues - same mistake ESA made - and if an uncovered Audi Field isn’t pulling events from Merriweather Post Pavilion, how’s a covered venue going to pull from Capital One Arena?

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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 · 17/07/2026

pyrrhic victory now that every press mention will say “ZHA, formerly Zaha Hadid Architects”

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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

sorry what I can only assume was your nomination for Moombahton Mondays didn’t make the cut

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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

the roman mind could never... (but they would have committed insane crimes against proportion if they had structural steel)

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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

if it goes far enough it starts to work as a colossus of rhodes-type option

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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

the omelette is almost certainly inspired by the popular one served nearby at Mountain, with spider crab and seaweed butter

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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

in the pocket of adorable developers

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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

this is the most irreconcilable difference - a cornice line is a defining punctuation for most older buildings, whereas set back zoning wants to pretend the top of a building doesn’t exist

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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 · 07/07/2026

seeing Eliel Saarinen's Cranbrook house, especially the dining room, all over IG right now too - an all-time favorite that still feels fresh and distinct in every room

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Reposted by Brian Miller

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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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

things are dire - Hirshhorn, SAAM, Renwick, Asian Art, African Art, and the whole NGA have a grand total of six upcoming shows listed

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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Giovannini drew the same parallel - you’re right on the different conditions, at the Hirshhorn the inner ring is secondary to moving through the galleries, an optional access. They seem to have solved the wall problem in the last decade with huge wrapping pieces. lareviewofbooks.org/article/lacm...

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Reposted by Brian Miller

◥◤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

I do NOT miss that rubber urethane (or whatever it was) coating on the seat back rails though, that was always disgusting and flaking off (as you can see from lower left rail in this image from the wiki)

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