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I’m from Chicago. So you may think I’m just being spoiled when I say this, but aside from the occasional painted lady, I find San Francisco architecture uninspiring at best.

Not so the slew of new buildings going up in and around the future UCSF Mission Bay campus. That area contains some of the most interesting examples of modern architecture I’ve seen outside of magazines. The new Madrone residences have extensive rooftop gardens, and there are innovative uses of material everywhere. Even the parking garages look cool. I’d love to see the neighborhood when the work’s all finished, but that’ll take years yet.

If you live in SF and dig architecture, the next time you have a free hour or so, do yourself a favor and walk around down there. There are far worse ways to spend your time. Oh, and be sure to check out the Chihuly in the lobby of the Nektar/Bayer building. Nice.

So since I moved recently, I’ve had decorating on the brain, as I decided to dip into my savings a bit in an attempt to de-Ikea my place and invest in some furniture I’d like to keep long-term. So in addition to poring over the Crate & Barrel, Room & Board, Design Within Reach (whose reach?!), etc. catalogs, I’ve been getting various home magazines and in general seeking out design resources on the web and in print to try and get inspiration for how to put my space together.

And as a result, I’ve become a bit more conversant with design trends and big names in the industry, specifically having to do with the mid-century modern aesthetic (think the Jetsons’ living room) that’s enjoying a powerful, pervasive resurgence these days. If you’d asked me a month ago who Charles and Ray Eames, Alexander Girard, George Nelson and Eero Saarinen were, I wouldn’t have had the faintest idea. Now, I not only know who they all are, I can also identify pieces they’re known for (the Eames molded plywood chair, the Saarinen Tulip table).

Now, I like mid-century modern, but I prefer a more timeless look in my own place, so what I’ve cobbled together, while it’s definitely modern in feel, has touches of mid-century modern, deco, and the nameless aesthetic popular in recent years that I will call American modern, which puts an emphasis on rich textures and colors combined with clean lines.

One unexpected outcome of all this research is that I have a new favorite magazine: dwell^*. While it’s concerned less with interior design and more with architecture and trends in building technologies, it’s a very well put-together publication and holds my attention cover to cover. So now I have a subscription.

I have to say I really enjoy reading these more obscure magazines, the ones that assume a certain knowledge that laypeople may not have, because it opens up a whole new world of concepts I’d never previously thought about. Fascinating stuff!

^*I would have said Blueprint, hands down the best lifestyle magazine I’ve ever read, but I found out after I picked up the January issue that it would be the last one ever published, as Martha Stewart Living (its parent company) was going to stop publication in order to focus more on their Weddings magazine. I think that sucks.

Some Japanese architects have come up with a way to help solve urban overcrowding problems: build up and not out. They want to build a vertical city in Tokyo; this ambitious project is called Sky City, and you can view an interactive model here.