15 Architecture Firms to Follow on Instagram in 2015
By: Zach Brown
The conversations and experiences that shape trends in the world of architecture and design are happening everyday in many formats all over the world. From conversations in studios, on job sites, and in university lecture halls, to the opined articles of critics and the calls for socially minded design in emerging nations, the foundations for the design of tomorrow are being laid today. Increasingly so, these conversations are beginning to happen on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook and more interestingly, on Instagram.
“Instagram is an ideal platform for architecture and design firms”, says Emily Hooper, Social Media Specialist for IA Interior Architects. “We are a visual industry sharing our ideas on a visually based platform, through professional project photography, office candids and general inspiration.”
IA is one of a number of architecture and design firms that have chosen to embrace Instagram as an opportunity to join the conversation with other firms, individual professionals, and architecture lovers the world over through visual content. Whether it be snaps of hand sketches during the ideation process, a well built model of a current project, or a beautiful photo of a newly completed structure, more and more firms are giving people a peek behind the curtain of everyday life as a designer. Some firms have taken the conversation to the next level experimenting with recruiting new talent through Instagram like, Berkeley, California based Envelope A+D, or sharing elements of the entire process from inspiration to completion and life in-between like London’s Amos Goldreich Architecture. As Emily Hooper observes, Instagram “affords an opportunity to show a different side of yourself or business that doesn’t have to tie directly to your business-focused website. You can be really casual and have a lot of fun.”
Many in the architecture and design world have passed on social media failing to recognize its potential from the marketing, PR, branding, or even a purely creative standpoint. The firms that have gone headlong into the social media breach are finding that just showing up, while vital, is not the entirety of the ever-changing social landscape. New voices enter the conversation daily and the exchanges go on 24-hours a day as each time zone wakes up to check their feeds. We are in an age where the global conversation about architecture and design happens in real-time between designers and users on different continents and from different cultures. To voluntarily miss out on that is to willingly handicap oneself from being able to keep up with the shift in thinking and behavior that will dominate the next century. In other words, don’t miss the boat!
Not sure where to start? Don’t worry, I have hand-picked 15 Instagram feeds curated by architecture and design firms from Bergen to Queensland. Download the app, follow these engaging feeds filled with design goodness and then join the conversation yourself! Here are the 15 Architecture Firms To Follow On Instagram in 2015 (in no particular order):
SHoP Architects | @shoparchitects | NYC, USA
Brininstool+Lynch | @blarchitecture | Chicago, USA
SOM | @skidmoreowingsmerrill | Chicago, USA
Commune Design | @communedesign | Los Angeles, USA
IA Interior Architects | @iaarchitects | San Francisco, USA
Bark Architects | @barkarchitects | Queensland, Australia
Amos Goldreich | @agarchitecture | London, England
dmdg2 | @dmdg2 | Boston, USA
Olson Kundig Architects | @olsonkundig | Seattle, USA
Boor Bridges | @boorbridges | San Francisco, USA
Snøhetta | @snohetta | Oslo, Norway
Envelope A+D | @envelopead | Berkeley, USA
Richard Kirk | @richardkirkarch | Queensland, Australia
ABC | @architecture_building_culture | Portland, USA
Saunders | @saundersarchitecture | Bergen, Norway
