• Cyburbia is a friendly big tent, where we share our experiences and thoughts about urban planning practice, the built environment, planning adjacent topics, and anything else that comes to mind. No ads, no spam, and it's free. It's easy to join!

Easter eggs and humor in architectural and planning drawings

Dan

Dan

ADHDP / Dear Leader
Staff member
Moderator
Messages
20,892
Points
72
I've been going over the thousands of images I've collected through the years for the Unbuilt Buffalo project. As we've probably encountered before, sometimes there's a little touch of whimsy, humor, or cheekiness that someone will sneak into an architectural or planning drawing. Here's a few examples.

This is from the plan for the Audubon New Community project from 1972. The little girl seems really interested in the little boy with the balloon. Yes, she's walking by herself, but consider she's probably an early free range Generation Xer.

More Audubon 8.jpg


Dogs inside a shopping mall? There's an unruly poodle, and in the background, a girl pulling mommy towards a toy store.

More Audubon 9.jpg


Henry Hobson Richardson also snuck some unruly dogs into this sketch for a proposal for the downtown Buffalo Library In the oh-so-serious late 1800s.

Building - Young Mens Association Library HH Richardson - 1884-xx-xx 01.jpg


What's going on here?

dorm.jpg

I'll admit to scattering easter eggs all over the form-based code I wrote at my last job. A few examples.

3 neighborhood design - thoroughfares - through street cross-section 01.png


4 lots and buildings - architecture - service station canopy 01.png


5 site improvements - fences - finish side out 01.png
5 site improvements - screening - dumpster 01.png



What kinds of easter eggs or touches of humor have you encountered in architectural or planning drawings?
 
When I was a draftsman at my first job out of college in 1986, I drafted the front entries to all of the orange line stops in Boston and I would always insert my initials into a detail
 
A good friend of mine and pretty popular designer around here easter eggs members and equipment from the A-Team into his drawings. The most aggressive thing I've seen him do was drop the A-team helicopter into a parking space in a larger rendering. But you would routinely see the black van, Mr. T and George Peppard, etc. He dabbles with other 80s pop culture easter eggs as well, but I always go looking for the van!
 
Couple easter eggs I've seen by local people, one guy puts his jeep Cherokee in all the drawings. It's set up for offroading so it's kind of obvious. Another person likes to put Danny Devito in the windows.
 
Back in the mid 2000s, I posted on Cyburbia a site plan I came across online of a LGBTQ friendly development (or at least on of those letters) which the site on paper had the very distinct image of a female from an OBGYN's perspective. I don't think the site plan was unintentional.
 
Back
Top