Above Magazine:: a new bible?

It never ceases to amaze me when I come across truly sublime things. Okay yeah sunsets, rainbows, etc. Today at B&N I stumbled across this fantastic magazine that is worth choking the $10/issue price (hello Mom- birthday gift idea!), and revealed the most blissfully casual yet
intellectually stimulating read in a very long time.I couldn't resist a tag line that reads "beauty
will save the earth" as I googled the zine when I got home. And more than that, the awesomely user-friendly site lets you flip through the zine page by page! And the articles were just pure COOL, featuring fabulously divine industrial designers such as Stuart Heygarth and his chandeliers made out of recycled eyeglass lenses (left) and toys (right).
Other articles that peaked my interest were designs by Gary Harvey- couture dresses made of newspaper and recycled "green" bags. Another was a five-page spread with glorious photos of the Everglades, and an article filled with history, passion, and a cry for our help.

I was almost disappointed to come to the last page!

Searching for Passion Between the Pages

I have a dilemma. I am embarking on my fifth year as an architecture student at Syracuse University. And I'm officially stumped. As part of the intensive 5-year B.ARCH degree, the summation of our education reaches its pinnacle at the fifth year thesis. And I just have NO idea what I want to spend the next year (hypothetically) developing and designing.


The fall semester is dedicated to a project proposal in which we conduct thorough, on-site research in order to develop an intellectual design problem. Ideally, the research and design problem will evolve into a project, filled with site and design strategies, comprehensive drawings, gripping renderings, and phases of final exquisite models. Ugh. My head hurts just to think about it.

So, in an effort to get a jump on it (something, in theory love doing, I just never seems to follow through to see the fruits of my early labor at the end of such endeavors), I set out on possibly the hottest day this year (thus far, and in my non-AC, broken radio antenna 1980 Accord) to Barnes and Nobles.

B&N is like the holy grail to me. I feel more intellectual just walking down the sacred aisles. On a typical trip, I'd aimlessly grab books off of the shelves, sometimes feigning interest in a book I likely skimmed at best in 9th grade English/Lit, and nonchalantly return them to their perch.

But today, I was on a mission to find a social ill. A dilemma in our world that I could care about enough. Something that could provide me enough fodder to sustain me for research and inevitable project. Well, I didn't find it today. Instead, I was exposed to dozens of new magazines that I had never seen before!

Here's my new favorite: Above Magazine