The hottest Architecture Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Technology Topics

Five... Places to See Pieces of Canadian History in London

Londonist: Time Machine • 59 implied HN points • 21 Apr 24
🏝 Travel History Art Architecture Culture Exhibitions
  1. London has various places with fragments of Canadian history, often overlooked, that can be explored.
  2. 128 Regent Street holds significance as the location where Lord Stanley purchased the original Stanley Cup trophy in 1892.
  3. Canada House, located in the heart of Little Canada in London, offers a gallery promoting Canadian art across different regions and eras.

Five... History Walking Tours You Can Join in June

Londonist: Time Machine • 39 implied HN points • 26 May 24
🏝 Travel Architecture London Walking
  1. June 1, 2024 marks the start of the 20th London Festival of Architecture with various activities like talks, walks, tours, and workshops celebrating the city's architecture.
  2. Walking tours during the festival offer a chance to explore hidden historical sites such as the lost Walbrook River, providing insights into London's rich architectural history.
  3. The festival includes a mix of well-known landmarks and lesser-known architectural wonders, making it a diverse and exciting event for architecture enthusiasts.

A true mini store

Tabletops • 137 implied HN points • 08 Jan 24
🎨 Art & Illustration Design Architecture
  1. A new mini store was created in a 1:64 scale model of Apple Garosugil in Seoul, meticulously detailed and crafted by Juyeong.
  2. Apple Hongdae, a new outdoor store in Seoul, is set to open on January 20 with a unique curved glass corner entrance near Hongik University.
  3. Apple Nanjing East in China underwent renovations, including a new upper level design with Avenues and a rare 5-foot MagSafe bay.
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Signs of the Times

Street Smart Naturalist: Explorations of the Urban Kind • 179 implied HN points • 16 Nov 23
🎭️ Culture Urban Exploration History Architecture Local culture Literature
  1. Seattle has unique street markers made from tiles and metal. These have different styles and date back to the early 1900s.
  2. In 1902, Seattle decided to mark sidewalks with street names, but these old tiles often became hard to see due to visibility issues.
  3. Kids used to vandalize the street signs, which led to attempts to put fines in place for those caught throwing stones.

So... what is Stateless Architecture in Software Engineering[System Design Sundays]

Technology Made Simple • 199 implied HN points • 04 Jun 23
🕹 Technology Software Engineering Cloud Computing Architecture
  1. To understand stateless architecture, it's important to know the background of traditional client-server patterns and why moving towards stateless is beneficial.
  2. The concept of state in an application is crucial, and stateless architecture outsources state handling to more efficient systems like using cookies and shared instances for storing state.
  3. Stateless architecture simplifies state management, enhances client-side performance, and makes server scaling easier, aligning well with modern computing capabilities.

Landmarks of London

Cosmographia • 199 implied HN points • 27 Jul 23
🎨 Art & Illustration Landmarks Architecture Art Literature Photography
  1. London is known for its iconic landmarks like red buses, black cabs, the Underground, and telephone boxes.
  2. The enduring symbols of London are its many architectural landmarks, which reflect the city's rich history and culture.
  3. This post explores 9 of London's architectural landmarks through various artistic lenses like art, poetry, cartography, literature, and photography.

#127 Sick of design 🤢

Design Lobster • 339 implied HN points • 06 Feb 23
🪑 Design Architecture Product Design Quotes
  1. Good design can promote health: Architectural design, like in sanatoriums, can aid in patient recovery by providing optimal conditions like sunlight and fresh air.
  2. Design for comfort: SEETROËN glasses use innovative design to combat travel sickness, but the attention-grabbing appearance can deter people from using them.
  3. Design as a solution: Better design can be the answer to various problems, bringing functionality and aesthetics together.

Making architecture easy

The Works in Progress Newsletter • 18 implied HN points • 22 Nov 24
🪑 Design Architecture Urban planning Aesthetics
  1. Architectural styles should prioritize ease of appreciation for the public, as buildings are experienced by many, not just their owners. This makes it important for styles to be friendly and accessible to everyone.
  2. There's a difference between 'easy' and 'challenging' styles in architecture. Easy styles are enjoyable without much effort, while challenging styles can be difficult to appreciate for most people.
  3. Modern architecture often tends to be less appealing to the general public, leading to a need for styles that blend traditional principles to ensure buildings fit well into everyday environments.

Where the stores are

Tabletops • 176 implied HN points • 08 May 23
🕹 Technology Retail Events Architecture History
  1. A glimpse into the nostalgic past of Apple store openings in malls.
  2. Interesting details about the first Apple store locations and connections to other brands.
  3. Apple's recent event at the Tower Theatre showcased the blend of classical music and technology.

Exploring the Efficient Frontier of LLMs

Gradient Flow • 59 implied HN points • 21 Mar 24
🕹 Technology AI Efficiency Architecture Hardware Inference
  1. Efficiency in large language models (LLMs) is crucial for success in the competitive market. Focus on delivering models that are not only accurate but also faster and cost-effective to stay ahead.
  2. Investing in data tools for better data efficiency can significantly enhance model performance and save costs. Sophisticated data tools tailored for diverse data types play a pivotal role.
  3. Architectural innovations like sparse architectures and Mixture of Experts engines can boost efficiency in LLMs. Strategic partnerships and quality hardware for training are essential for enhancing model efficiency.

#122 Finding Patterns 🧩

Design Lobster • 379 implied HN points • 14 Nov 22
🪑 Design Architecture Software Privacy Facial Recognition
  1. Understanding the concept of design patterns and their importance in architecture and software design.
  2. Exploring the use of CV Dazzle makeup to elude facial recognition algorithms by disrupting key facial features.
  3. Seeking to understand deeper patterns in situations and contexts before designing solutions, as highlighted by Fritjof Capra's quote.

Inside the utopian cities of Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power

The Novelleist • 629 implied HN points • 04 May 23
🎨 Art & Illustration Design Architecture Fantasy Technology
  1. Designing for utopian worlds involves incorporating greenery and water to create a sense of life and comfort.
  2. Political structures can impact the ability to create utopian cities, as seen in contrasting examples like Saudi Arabia and the democratic process in Santa Monica.
  3. Technology can enhance our future, but it's essential to ensure it sustains human connection and values, like community and empathy.

The Mosaic of Urban Memory

The New Urban Order • 159 implied HN points • 04 Oct 23
🎭️ Culture Architecture History Urbanism Art Society
  1. St. Louis has a deep history reflected in its urban architecture, but faces challenges due to population decline and urban renewal.
  2. The exhibit 'Urban Archeology: Lost Buildings of St. Louis' showcases salvaged architectural elements to create a 'mosaic of urban memory' that tells a story of past communities and structures.
  3. The exhibit emphasizes a different approach to historical preservation, focusing on individual artifacts to understand the broader narrative of St. Louis's urban fabric and the importance of valuing and defending historical elements.

Amazon Prime Video reduced costs by 90% by ditching Microservices [System Design Sundays]

Technology Made Simple • 159 implied HN points • 07 May 23
🕹 Technology System Design Microservices Architecture Scaling
  1. Amazon Prime Video saw a 90% cost reduction by moving away from Microservices to a monolith architecture. This change improved scalability and reduced infrastructure costs significantly.
  2. The challenges Amazon faced with their initial microservices implementation included hitting scaling limits and high overall costs of the system. Moving to a monolith architecture helped address these issues and allowed for better scaling.
  3. While the debate between Microservices and Monoliths continues, the decision should depend on factors like team size, emphasis on scale, and complexity. Microservices offer scalability but require careful planning, while monoliths are easier to design and manage.

The Tech Buffet #1: How To Design a System To Chat With Your Private Data

The Tech Buffet • 159 implied HN points • 04 Sep 23
🕹 Technology AI Data science Software Development Architecture Machine Learning
  1. Building a custom chatbot helps in getting accurate answers from specific internal data without the risk of it making things up. This is especially useful for specialized knowledge.
  2. Using a chatbot saves time and makes it super easy to find information quickly, boosting productivity for users.
  3. You can keep improving and updating the bot as your data changes, and you have full control over privacy by using open-source tools.

Decoding Whisper: An In-Depth Look at its Architecture and Transcription Process

Amgad’s Substack • 79 implied HN points • 21 Jan 24
🕹 Technology AI Speech Recognition Architecture
  1. The focus of the project 'Whisper' was on scaling training with massive amounts of data, using a proven encoder-decoder architecture to avoid complicating findings with model improvements.
  2. The model architecture features an encoder with stem and blocks, along with a decoder incorporating cross-attention layers, and an audio processor that prepares input features from audio segments.
  3. Improvements in Whisper's accuracy and robustness primarily came from the scale and quality of the data, showcasing the significance of data processing over novel architecture decisions.

Apple Eaton Centre

Tabletops • 137 implied HN points • 01 Jul 23
🕹 Technology Retail Architecture Innovation History
  1. Apple's second store in Canada opened at Toronto Eaton Centre on May 6, 2006, as a testbed for new ideas.
  2. The store featured innovative design elements like The Studio for creative projects and unique display pedestals.
  3. Apple Eaton Centre underwent rapid renovations in 2008 and later reopened in a larger space below its original location.

To Build a Healthy Super-Organism: A City for Citizens

Holodoxa • 139 implied HN points • 15 Jun 23
🎭️ Culture Urbanism Architecture Criticism Community Public spaces
  1. Jane Jacobs emphasized that cities should be viewed through the collective lives of their citizens, not just imposed rational designs.
  2. Jacobs advocated for grassroots, decentralized approaches to city development, challenging orthodoxies of urban planning from the mid-to-late 20th century.
  3. Critics point out that Jacobs' ideas may overlook factors like human capital, centralized planning benefits, and power dynamics within urban communities, but her work remains influential in urban planning and design.

FIT-RAG: Are RAG Architectures Settling On A Standardised Approach?

Cobus Greyling on LLMs, NLU, NLP, chatbots & voicebots • 39 implied HN points • 02 Apr 24
🕹 Technology AI Architecture Data science Language Models Machine Learning
  1. As RAG systems evolve, they are integrating more smart features to enhance their effectiveness. This means they are not just providing basic responses but are becoming more advanced and adaptable.
  2. The challenges with RAG include static rules for retrieving data and the problem of excessive tokens during processing. These issues can slow down performance and reduce efficiency.
  3. FIT-RAG is addressing these challenges with new tools, like a special document scorer and token reduction strategies, to improve how information is retrieved and used. This helps RAG systems provide better answers while using fewer resources.

Summer in the Kingdom

Shore Leave • 119 implied HN points • 01 Sep 23
🎭️ Culture Travel Food & Drink Architecture Education Social Dynamics
  1. Driving in Riyadh is chaotic and unique. It seems like everyone follows their own rules, making the roads feel like a wild game.
  2. The city has new, fancy buildings but feels incomplete and poorly managed. Many places seem to crumble, even though a lot of money has been spent.
  3. Interacting with the local culture is both surprising and complex. Despite strict traditions, there's a mix of modern influences, and young people are excited about change.

#115 Curve ball

Design Lobster • 339 implied HN points • 08 Aug 22
🪑 Design Furniture Architecture Innovation
  1. Cyma curves, also known as 'S' curves or the line of beauty, flow in reference to an invisible straight line or 'chord', adding elegance and sophistication to designs.
  2. Vladimir Kagan revolutionized sofa design by incorporating padding within the frame, creating iconic pieces like the Serpentine sofa, emphasizing curved shapes for comfort and social interaction.
  3. Curves in design can evoke both historical and future elements, as seen in Oscar Niemeyer's architectural work, showcasing the dynamic nature of curved forms.

Critique of Kvarteret Backklövern detailed development plan in Solna

The Third Place • 59 implied HN points • 24 Jan 24
🪑 Design Urban planning Architecture Sustainability Aesthetics
  1. Encouraging diversity in building typology within neighborhoods can foster inclusivity and community integration.
  2. Prioritizing pedestrian and cyclist accessibility in urban planning can lead to sustainable and vibrant communities, like Barcelona's superblocks.
  3. Balancing practicality with cultural enrichment, such as including entertainment or cultural facilities in development plans, is essential for creating thriving and lively communities.

How Would The Architecture For An LLM Agent Platform Look?

Cobus Greyling on LLMs, NLU, NLP, chatbots & voicebots • 19 implied HN points • 24 May 24
🕹 Technology AI NLP Software Architecture Systems
  1. The architecture for an LLM agent platform could develop in three stages, starting with a simple AI that recommends tools based on user needs.
  2. As the platform grows, it will enable interactions between multiple tools and the AI, allowing for dynamic exchanges of information.
  3. Future improvements will focus on enhancing the agent's capabilities through better tools and more collaboration among them.