Where?

I've (almost) finished decorating my room! A few posts back I was explaining my colour choices - I've gone for a pale yellow, well 'Orchid White' - and on Pinterest I've been constantly pinning my interior inspiration. What to put up on the wall above my bed has been the most recent quandary, but I'm pretty stuck on a map. I love maps. My great aunt Joan used to go on a lot of walking holidays so we have inherited her collection of maps. The front covers, let alone the maps themselves, are beautiful. After a good old rummage I have found the one for me. It's has basically fallen apart from much use, but it's of my home county, Surrey, and it will soon have pride of place on my wall.

Home Lands

 

I'm back at home for Christmas. As much as I enjoy being in Manchester, it's so good to be back on familiar territory. I did some searching on Digimap recently and found some old historic maps of the estate where I live here in Surrey. From top to bottom, 1860s, 1930s and 1950s, you can see how the land has been developed and our house pop up during the 30s!

Images from Digimap

Map o' Harmony

Housing, mapping, drawing... here is the Map of New Harmony, Indiana drawn by Wallrath Weingartner in 1832. On each block the houses are drawn with their facade facing the street. Even some of the trees are upside down! It appears to be such a naive diagram, yet show all the necessary components of an urban plan.

Image from eril kent

Maps

Maybe it's something to do with being an architecture student and making places, or my interest in travel and the world, or simply the patterns that they make, but I really like maps!

In our current project we're masterplanning a site in Dover and through it I have created some diagrams that although technically being site plans, I think looks like a sort of graphic illustration.
And I have come across Maptote via Lena Corwin's blog that has sweet sketched of different cities across the States and the world - I'm so tempted to buy this London one!
Thinking of London, I'm a massive fan of the London tube map and since its creation it has inspired many works of art using its colours as well as other Metro and subway maps across the globe.