Launch day

Launched October 2026

It is live

The Architectural Atlas is open. 26 of the world's most famous buildings, each one an exploded 3D model you can pull apart piece by piece in your browser and put back together. 4,779 named parts in total. The Colosseum is 128 parts. The Empire State Building is 109.

Every building carries its full story: the construction, the failures, the films it appeared in, the paintings it inspired, and the myths that need correcting. And 39 more structures are already built and waiting. Which one gets added next is not my decision. A public vote on the leaderboard decides the order, one structure at a time.

How it got here

In September 2026, Ashe Magalhaes posted her Human Atlas on X: an interactive 3D model of the human body that pulls apart into 2,234 pieces. I saw her launch video on X, and I kept thinking this is exactly how I want to look at buildings. So I forked the viewer and started over with architecture. The origin story and the software are on the About page. This page is about the road from there to launch.

First, the models. Every building is generated in code from published dimensions, one generator script per building, no two models sharing geometry. Each comes in two versions: Simple for the readable silhouette, Detailed past 100 named components grouped into systems. All of the modeling code is open in the GitHub repository under the MIT license.

Then the stories. Each building got a researched story with a timeline and a map, plus a section on its place in the cultural conversation: films, paintings, famous moments. Where the famous story is wrong, the story says so. The Brandenburg Gate entry separates Ronald Reagan's 1987 speech at the Gate from the Berlin moments that happened somewhere else entirely.

Then the part that makes the site more than a gallery. The site is built to be read by AI as well as people: an llms.txt file and a poll on every page that agents answer.

Then the videos. 52 silent assembly clips, 24 seconds each, one per building in both directions: exploded to assembled and back. They roll out one per weekday from launch, and I add the audio.

What happens next

Two things, in this order. First, the vote: the leaderboard decides which of the 39 waiting structures joins the atlas next, and the releases keep coming in that order. Second, the videos: one per weekday until all 52 are out.

Nothing about the launch changes the deal on the site itself. The models stay open on GitHub. The stories keep correcting myths instead of repeating them. The vote stays public.