23. YouTube for Architects

A professional Architect’s watch list.

My YouTube search history reveals an interesting trend. While I am a professional architect and a novice gardener, my YouTube viewing preferences skew heavily toward gardening videos. I suppose that makes sense, I already know a lot about architecture, whereas I am eager to learn more about what I don’t know in the landscape.

There are three notable exceptions to my garden heavy video list:

• Grand Designs

• The Build Show

• The Local Project.

Grand Designs

My hands down favorite TV show; perhaps it is nostalgia — we lived in England for four years — or maybe it is the witty host, Kevin McCloud. The show features one house per episode, from the start of construction to the final walkthrough. Super interesting to see both the construction and drama around building a home. Originally a TV show, with some episodes now available on YouTube.

56.2K subscribers and 40 videos

Check out their channel: @GrandDesigns7585

Matt Risinger — The Build Show

Texas based general contractor Matt Risinger shares construction progress videos and product reviews. Some videos feature guest host Architect Steve Baczek to discuss building design and performance. A wealth of interesting and relevant information for my work on custom single family homes.

1.09M subscribers and 1.3K videos

Check out his channel: @BuildShow

The Local Project

This channel keeps showing up in my searches, and I keep clicking — and enjoying — the videos! High quality tours of architectural masterpieces mostly from Australia and New Zealand. Founded by Aidan Anderson to “champion the best of local design.”

1.06M subscribers and 273 videos

Check out his channel: @TheLocalProject

My next step is to think about what is it about the format, content, and quality of the videos that I like so that I could try to make videos about Would-Be that others would enjoy.