The Jut lecture hall was built in Taipei in 2017, to represent a greener landscape inside the building. This is something quite different to the normal paint job, where the whole room is actually lined in a variety of textiles which took over a year to complete. The hyper urban environment of Taipei needs more rooms like this throughout their buildings. It gives of a naturalistic vibe without actually using real nature.

I would personally prefer if there were a few changes made to this room however. I believe their should be a better use of natural light, It would bring a good aspect to the space and make you feel more outdoors. I also think their could have been more distinct images within the textiles. It would give it more of an oomph to have an accent wall or structural piece.

I do love that they allowed an artist to create the space, instead of normal painting. If more spaces allowed for artists to put their spin on different spaces through buildings then we would come up with objectively more diverse spaces, that represent the local community around them better.

The Dallas County Courthouse is an iconic building within the heart of Downtown Dallas. It is known as the Big Red Brick Building and has kept much of it’s mystique and charm over the years. It was built in 1892 and is constructed of red sandstone with marble accents. It has since then been renovated and was also added to the National Register of Historic Places. It is the country’s longest standing courthouse and at the time of construction, was only $350,000 to design and build.

This building is interesting and memorable to me because it is so recognizable and is a key structure to Downtown Dallas. Everyone knows it as “The Big Red Building” and it is often used as a point of wayfinding around downtown. My dad worked in downtown Dallas when I was little and I remember walking around near this building and sitting on the front steps. At the time of course, I did not know it was a courthouse but it is still ingrained in my memory to this day.

The building is on the property normally home to many 17th century estates. In order to fit in with the scene of the area the building was designed to look similar to the old country estates with a new modern flare. I really enjoyed what the company came up with when designing this project, there’s just enough old mixed with new.

I particularly enjoyed the use of multiple types of stone, with the large amounts of glass. It looks like someone blew up the building and filled the missing pieces with the glass. Inside the building is just as interesting, with a full wall library and steps that look carved out of the stone. For every type of rock is a new cube on the inside forming a new space. These different cubes represent different types of buildings in the region which is just another way to connect the old country estate with the new.

The OU library has been, off and on, one of the most important buildings for me in the last four years. In it I’ve spent many hours working in groups, doing homework between classes, Skyping my family, cramming long final papers, studying Old English with my professor, and even playing games and having adventures with friends.

Naturally, I’ve spent a lot of my time on the first basement level and the ground floor. But one of the most important places I’ve experienced this building has been on the second (or first, if you’re British) floor in the old section of the building. I saw it when I toured before enrolling at OU, and shortly after coming I went in search of it: the Great Reading Room.

This room is a beautiful work which well deserves its title. Its lights are visible from outside the library at night. Inside the room its lighting, its finish, its shape and scope, and the generations of dissertations on the walls inspire admiration from visitors. Some people walk through to see it. Some people sit down to work – but it is, as a rule, totally quiet. Opening a backpack is an awkwardly loud business.

I prefer more noise when working, so I have not used the Great Reading Room often. But occasionally I have ventured in there to think or to write, and I well remember one day – a football game day – freshman year when I went there to work on a paper. I did not get a lot done on the paper (it was not very interesting), and instead walked around the area. Just across from the entrances to the hall are the Stacks: an area in the old section of the library consisting of old, semi-transparent floors with shelves and shelves of books (many very old). The low ceilings, rickety metal stairs, long rows of shelves, and florescent lighting add to the eeriness of the Stacks. There are plenty of ghost stories about them on campus.

I walked around this section for a while, particularly on the basement floor. There I found many very old works which caught my interest: theologians, philosophers, and the rest. There were condensed in that area some of those long-dead writers whom I most respected. There were books there published as long ago as the early-to-mid 1800s. There were far more than I was going to be able to read (indeed, to this day I have read few of them). It was an awesome experience to see that wealth of knowledge lined up before me. In a time where I was choosing the direction for my life and studies it was also a humbling and enlightening, timely experience. After long perusal and wonder, I returned to the Great Reading Room where I wrote about it to a like-minded friend.

It was a good experience because of the authors and the books, but also because of the fascinating eeriness and grandeur of the aged building that held them. Every part of that work of architecture contributed to the mood that inspired such awe and respect for the wealth of knowledge contained therein.