Architectural Digest is a popular magazine, established in the United States of America in the year 1920, and now, a hundred years later, the magazine is the ultimate stop for all things architecture. The magazine has forayed into the fields of interior design and landscape design as well.
At the advent of social media, Architectural Digest delved into a variety of social media platforms such as Youtube. With more than 3 million subscribers, Architectural Digest has produced a lot of entertaining shows for its Youtube channel subscribers. Their videos are short and simple, comprehensible to even non-architects and non-designers. It is considered one of the most popular Youtube channels about architecture.
The channel produces glamorous and stylish architectural videos. Though most of them belong to a series of videos, the channel also releases lone video productions.
Here are some of the video series’ released on the Architectural Digest Youtube channel:
1. Unique Spaces | Architectural Digest
The “Unique Spaces” series featured properties constructed using innovative designs, techniques, and materials. The 5-10 minute long videos, hosted by the owners of the properties, give the audience an insight into economical, sustainable, functional, and unique design solutions that they could employ in their real estate.
How is the show beneficial to Architects and Designers?
The series proves to be an inspiration to architects looking for unconventional ideas but unfortunately, after three episodes the series came to a halt.
2. On The Market
The video series ‘On The Market’ is hosted by popular real estate agents in the United States of America. The hosts give a tour of high-end properties available on the market, highlighting the specialities, and amenities that each property exhibits. Each episode spans around 6-10 minutes, and its infomercial like narration helps to hold the attention of the audience.
How is the show beneficial to Architects and Designers?
The show helps architects understand what is trending and will sell in the market. Also, some architects may need to shoulder the responsibility of being a real estate agent, and the show is a virtual teacher teaching how to communicate and market houses.
3. Open Door
Perhaps, one of their most well-received shows ‘Open Door’ is a 10-15 minute video series’ where celebrities provide a tour of their own homes. The celebrity host has the full freedom to direct the narration of the video according to their whims and fancies. The hosts can focus on the features they like the most and can speak in-depth about the customisations they have executed in their house. The show’s success is mainly because the viewers get a glimpse of their favourite celebrity’s personality and personal life.
Though the show, ‘Open Door’, materialised in the year 2019, Architectural Digest previously produced another iteration of the show under the name, ‘Inside Celebrity Homes’, but the show was not interactive like ‘Open Door’ and merely provided a montage of the photographs of the house.
How is the show beneficial to Architects and Designers?
Most celebrities are influencers as well, and, they surely know what is in vogue and, the architects can take a leaf or two out of these celebrities books, and stimulate their design ideas based on the inventive designs displayed during the course of the house tours.
4. Asking Price
‘Asking Price’ was a fun four-episode mini-series, creating and presenting a new youtube challenge where a real estate agent challenges three people with different levels of expertise in real estate to guess the price of a given real estate property. The real estate agent who is also the host keeps dolling out details about the property to help the contestants refine their guesses. Real Estate agents James Harris and Leonard Steinbergs host two episodes each and manage to create a lively and amusing contest between the participants.
How is the show beneficial to Architects and Designers?
The show helps architects understand the parameters of property evaluations when they are working on projects, constructed to be resold or rented out. The architects can use these guidelines to their convenience and design a building that provides good value to the developer or real estate agent.
5. Notes On A Set | Architectural Digest
‘Notes on Set’ was a two-episode series by Architectural Digest where production designers describe their design processes to build movie sets for various scenes and different locations they had to employ. The first episode focused on the movie set of ‘The Nutcracker and the Four Realms’ and was narrated by the production designer Guy Dyas, himself. The second episode sheds light upon the production designing of the TV Show ‘Crown’ by Oscar-winner Martin Childs. The audience would have loved to watch more from the series.
How is the show beneficial to Architects and Designers?
Film enthusiasts, emerging set designers, and architects can watch the series to understand behind the scenes workings in the movie and television sets of celebrated production designers. Set designing is an alternative career path that can be considered by architects and interior designers.
6. Price Points
‘Price Points’, another two-episode series by Architectural Digest presents a fun video experience where experts try to differentiate between cheap and pricey home essentials. The ten-minute videos are quirky as well as informative helping the viewers comprehend the difference between cheap and expensive home essentials as the expert highlights the features of both.
How is the show beneficial to Architects and Designers?
These videos are useful to interior designers who, are so often asked to assist in picking out home décor items. The series also might help architects and designer who partake in the home staging business as well.
7. Every Detail
‘Every Detail’ was a 3 episode show where historians and journalists explore the architecture of design of 3 prominent structures in New York City. The videos unravel hidden secrets and other unknown details associated with the building. The videos are shot in the first-person perspective, allowing the viewers to experience the building, the same way as the narrator.
How is the show beneficial to Architects and Designers?
The show helps architects understand early architecture styles that were in practice in the USA as the show focused on buildings built during that period. The show provides some trivia facts about the buildings analysed during the course of the series.
8. AD 100
‘AD 100’ is a show where prominent Architects listed by the Architectural Digest Magazine in the AD 100 list discuss their career, experiences, advice to emerging architects, and designers, etcetera. The format of the show is in the form of an informal interview. Each video typically lasts for 2 minutes. How is the show beneficial to Architects and Designers?
The show intends to motivate architects and designers all around the world by presenting the stories of successful architects and designers.
9. Architect Breaks Down TV Show Architecture | Architectural Digest
‘Architect Breaks Down TV Show Architecture’ was an explanatory show where Architect Michael Wyetzner breaks down and sheds light on the hidden details of different types of architecture seen on TV shows based on his learnings and experience. The show was discontinued right after two episodes hindering the viewers from learning more about their favourite shows, from the learned architect.
How is the show beneficial to Architects and Designers?
Architects can use these videos to understand the evolution of architecture in the USA and the videos are not at all tedious as the host explains various details by taking the example of architecture from some of our favourite TV shows.
Architectural Digest is certainly a youtube channel that provides its subscribers with high-quality videos. The channel’s increasing subscriber count is a testimony to the fact that the subscribers appreciate their videos but are these videos really useful to the channel’s audience?
The channel certainly passes the entertainment quotient by uploading a variety of videos entertaining to both architecture and non-architects. Though the channel makes sure to upload their content regularly, it caters mostly to people with high-end taste leaving the people, who appreciate economical and modest real estate, unsatisfied.
The content uploaded does not focus much on anything apart from the exhibition of high-end properties. The youtube channel of Architectural Digest has so much more potential and they do release captivating video series’ now and then, but these shows get cancelled after two or three episodes. It is not that the current shows released by the channel are boring. They are all riveting but their cancelled shows like ‘Notes on a Set’ and ‘Every Detail’, should be continued as well as they were engaging and articulate shows that their subscribers would like to watch.
