Headington Hall, the first place that made me feel like I was home freshman year. I lived here my freshman year and it was a place where I was always happy. Going home after class and hanging out with my roomates and going downstairs to the study rooms was amazing. I miss these days and I wish I could live here again. Something interesting is that Rick Skaggs, my interior design professor freshman year, was actually one of the designers on this project. This was the one place on campus where I felt at home no matter the situation. It’s hard to come in as a freshman and live in a new place, but the way headington was designed made it so easy. The rooms were designed so each person had their own rooms, but shared bathrooms and living spaces. One thing I loved about the architecture of the building was the front entrance. It was so elegant and grande. Walking through the hallways felt like a dorm, but the exterior never did.

This stadium, Minute Maid Park, has a special place in my heart. Not only is it an amazing structure, but it is like home to me. I began going to baseball games at the age of five with my family, and have been going ever since. Walking into the stadium, breathing the fresh air and the smell of hot dogs and popcorn is the best feeling on earth. My favorite thing was to go all the way to the top and look down at all the corners of the stadium to see what cool features I could see. The best part about this stadium is the train that moves every time there is a homerun. The. exterior of the stadium is just as amazing as the interior. I remember one of the first games I went to during covid. Seeing all these people still coming together in a space shows how much buildings and their functions have on people. It’s a second home for all of Houston. The architecture of this building is so great that Dallas Rangers literally copied it for their new stadium… but oh well. Minute Maid park is actually built in honor of the railroads. A tie between Houston’s past and its ballpark is a physical line to Union Station. The building is a symbol of the important role the railroad has played in the city’s upbringing. The once Union Station is now an area within the stadium. A buildings architecture comes from a lot of a places history, adding meaning to it.

As most people know, Chicago is a massive city with an even bigger airport. Today, Chicago O’Hare International airport is the sixth busiest airport in the United States. This airport is also about to do a complete remodel making the space modern ands fresh. When I was 16 i was traveling from Houston, Texas to North Carolina with a layover in Chicago. This was truly one of the most terrifying times in my life. The first flight went smoothly from Houston to Chicago, but once I landed I had found out my flight to North Carolina had been cancelled due to weather. I get off the plane crying not knowing where I am or how to even get around this airport. I live in Houston, so i was used to big and busy airports, but nothing like this. The paths were confusing, the signs made no sense, and the way you had to take trains to other terminals was a whole other issue. I had never felt so alone in a place filled with people. Everything was so big to me I felt like an ant. The architecture of this airport is old, which is why there is a remodel on the way! Something interesting to me is that we really only look at the exterior from above in the plane. Most of the time we are in the airports interior, and even when driving to the airport it is usually in a parking garage with transportation.

Dale Hall, the building that makes our campus look a little less beautiful. For this building being the first one you see driving into campus off Lindsey, it should be a little more breathtaking. Dale Hall opened in 1967, and Dale Hall Tower was built two years later. These two buildings were named for the University of Oklahoma historian, Edward Everett Dale. I remember my first day of freshman year walking into Dale, marking the worst day of college in the past three years here. I had a class right before in Sarkeys Energy Center which is a 15 minute walk, but I only had a 10 minute gap. I was speed walking across the south oval in 95 degree heat sweating on every inch of my body. As I was walking up the stairs in the entry, I slipped and fell down the stairs. I was horrified. As I get into class on the first day I started walking all the way to the top, trying not to look at everyone as I was nearly 15 minutes late. As I sit in the seat I slip out and fall. One again, horrified. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the entire semester, something always seemed to go wrong in that building. As an interior design/ architecture major I have always hated Dale. Not only is the architecture off, but there is not a single ounce of natural light within any of the classrooms. Everybody loves windows. While the architecture and design is unique, it is not functional for life these days. I always felt so far away from the professor which allowed for me to not pay attention to anything. I will forever have a hate for Dale, hoping I never have a class in there again.

The Pantheon is the best preserved building from ancient Rome. Stepping into this structure, you can feel the history and how incredible this construction is today, let alone when it was originally built. The original structure burned down and then a second was built on the same plot of land. The second was struck by lightning and burned again. The third building was built on the same plot of land, which still stands today.

My family goes skiing for Christmas, and this is the airport that we usually fly into on Christmas day. I think the way that the building has been camouflaged into the mountains makes it really unique. By creating the fabric roof, it saved the airport thousands of tons of steel. It also lowered the time that it would have taken to complete the project. This sparked a movement for environmentally responsible airport design.

This house is an example of Frank Lloyd Wright’s “usonian” design. This style of architecture included one story homes with natural elements and a simple design. This was meant to connect the structure to the earth. This is the first and only Frank Lloyd home I have visited, but it solidified my love for architecture and interior design. The spaces feel truly custom and perfectly tailored to the original users.

This is a German castle that directly translates to “New Swan Stone”. It was built in 1868 and was never fully completed. The castle was only lived in for about 6 months and then opened to the public as a museum. This castle holds an intense sense of grandeur. Standing in front of it you can truly tell how large it is. It is something out of a fairytale and many have modeled their stories after this structure.

Dale Hall is a building that I do not have good memories of, I have had a handful of classes there some of which are good and some of which are not as good, all together the building has had a negative impact on me. The first class I ever had in Dale Hall was communications, it was my freshmen year and it was my very first college course, not counting the ones I took at high school. Growing up in Norman near campus Dale hall is a building that was always used as a landmark when talking about directions, only I didn’t know the name at the time so it was just the tall red building on Lindsey Street, and after seeing it so much I began to forget about it. On my first day at the University of Oklahoma, I had my very first class in Dale Hall for communications and when I walked into the inside I was very excited because it was my first day of college and it was exciting the building wasn’t like high school at all it had two stories and giant lecture rooms at the time I was very impressed. But just like the outside of the building, I began to forget the inside too, I can’t say I had my worst classes in Dale in fact I’ve had some of my best, but something about the style of the building the old wood and dark and uninviting environment made me grow to not like the building, the overall feeling was negative and the more I had classes in there the more I hated having to go there.

Dale Hall was built in 1967 and was named after Edward Everett Dale, the head of the history department from 1924 to 1942. The building is a tall red tower made of brick and concrete and has striped windows going up the building, I don’t mind the red brick and personally I think the concrete looks great with brick so the style is pretty unique. The most unique part about the Dale Hall is the top of the building that has a top that shrinks and is surrounded by windows and the topped with a flat concrete looking roofing. I think the top of Dale Hall is its most unique part, inside you can look all around the campus, in fact it might be one of my favorite parts of campus is that room, its the only room in the building that doesn’t give me a negative feeling.

Dale Hall has impacted me negatively because of it interior design and overall flow of the building. I still think that the top of Dale Hall is a great place to go and if you haven’t been there before then I highly encourage you to go. I think one of the reasons I like the top so much despite not liking the building is because of the view from the top, there is an old saying of a man who ate at the top of the Eiffel Tower every day because he hated the look of the Effel Tower and it was the only place he could eat in the city that didn’t have a view of the tower, which is kinda like how I feel about the top of Dale Hall. If Dale Hall were to redo the inside and make the overall atmosphere more inviting and bright then I would probably rank it higher but since it does not I hated having classes there giving me a negative impact with the classes and building.

Retrived picture from http://fall2017.thedude.oucreate.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/dall-tower.jpg

The 9/11 Memorial opened September 11, 20111, 10 years after the 9/11 attacks. The main mission of the memorial was to pay tribute to those who lost their lives in the attacks. There was an international competition beginning in 2003 to choose the design for the memorial site. There were 5,201 submissions from 63 different countries, the one chosen was submitted by architect Michael Arad and Peter Walker called Reflecting Absence. “Their design features twin waterfall pools surrounded by bronze parapets that list the names of the victims of the 8/11 attacks and 1993 World Trade Center bombing.”

When I was 15 my family took a trip to New York City. We got the chance to visit the Memorial, but while we were there the museum was closed. It was such an impactful experience because even though there were lots of people around, it was like everyone was in a moment of silence. All you could hear was the running water from the waterfall pools. I thought the idea of having two twin pools in place of the Twin Towers was such a great idea. Also, engraving the names of the victims from the attacks around the outside of the pools was a unique way to pay tribute to them while incorporating their names in the design. I will never forget my experience at the 9/11 Memorial and would recommend anyone to visit there if they take a trip to New York City.

Source: About the Memorial | National September 11 Memorial & Museum (911memorial.org)