A 64-metre dish on a fully steerable mount, rising out of the trees near a village whose name is Tolstoukhovo, meaning “thick-eared.” Set among ordinary pasture, treelines and a low river town, the instrument is simply too large for the landscape that holds it, like a piece of deep-space hardware dropped into farmland.
A four-sided earthen platform the size of a pyramid base, rising about 100 ft out of the ground, with a concrete staircase appearing to lead up into the sky – like a real life stairway to heaven.
A Grade II* listed Camden housing estate: a long crescent of board-marked white concrete, stepped terraces and a pedestrian street in the sky. It feels somewhat apocalyptic on a gloomy day, and the brutalist architecture peaking out from beneath a smattering of foliage gives a unique ‘solarpunk’ aesthetic straight out of a sci-fi movie.
Eero Saarinen’s 1962 TWA terminal at JFK, restored as a hotel: blood red carpets, stark white tube corridors, a sunken lounge, and the feeling of a departure hall that never fully emptied.
A 5,000-year-old passage tomb in the Boyne Valley whose long stone corridor leads to a dark inner chamber, aligned so that sunrise at the winter solstice briefly fills it with light.
A contemporary Buddhist temple complex outside Chiang Rai, built entirely in glittering white and mirror mosaic, with a bridge over a “hell” pit of reaching hands.
Reykjavík’s landmark Lutheran church: a tall, pale concrete tower that stands upon the hill of Skólavörðuholt, looms over the capital city and appears to pierce the (usually) grey sky above.
An underground 1950s pedestrian arcade of salmon-pink tiles, black granite columns and art-deco shopfronts that runs beneath Flinders Street, creating one of Melbourne’s most distinctive liminal and time-warp spaces.
Enormous climate-controlled glass biomes filled with mist, elevated walkways and carefully lit vegetation. The combination of curved glass, soft lighting and empty paths creates a strong sense of being inside a controlled, possibly rendered environment that feels straight out of an early-2000s vision of the future.
A striking modern structure of glass and futuristic forms set on the waterfront. When less crowded, the light-filled spaces feel suspended and rendered, like an optimistic architectural vision reminiscent of the Frutiger Aero aesthetic.
