Welcome to Curbed's first gift guide, wherein our editors sort through a retail landscape rife with tech, toys, textiles, trinkets, and tchotchkes. This year we're shopping for some rather specific recipients—though we think you'll find the gift selection broadly appealing. Shop on!
Requiring seemingly endless hours of effort and strings of sleep-deprived nights, the academic journey towards becoming an architect deserves recognition and rewards. Shopping for the successful student in your life may prove more of a challenge—you can't fall back on Lego construction sets as much anymore—but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of unique gifts made for the budding architect. Curbed's list of built world-based gifting options offers plenty of aesthetic beauties, as well as a handful of tools to help during what will, likely, be many more sleepless nights to come.
Le Corbusier: The Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut at Ronchamp • Heathered Pearl Album Artwork • Snarkitecture Architecture Camouflage T-Shirts • Antoni Gaudí: Create Your Own City Sticker Book • Jarvis Bamboo Adjustable-Height Desk • Pencil of the Month Club • Wind-Knitted Scarf • The ESPRO Press • Architect's Blueprint Paperweight
Le Corbusier: The Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut at Ronchamp
by Maria Antoinetta Crippa and Caussé Françoise
$56.80 at Amazon
A temple of faith and muse to architects, this chapel stands as one of Corbusier's masterpieces. With this new look at the celebrated Structure, give the gift of inspiration, and help kickstart what will inevitably become a very large collection of pretentious books.
Heathered Pearl Album Artwork
by Ghostly International
$130 at The Ghostly Store
Say goodbye to form following function with album artwork that isn't just a gorgeous display piece, or an "imperfect sculpture" that reveals its flaws with closer inspection, but the beginning a career-long conversation about meaning, materials, symbolism and intention that may never come up with clear answers, but always produce esoteric asides.
by Snarkitecture
$38 and up at PAOM
A line of site-specific clothing, this urban camo collection by Snarkitecture gives design fans a chance to cover themselves in penny tile, marble or brick patterns. Too bad they didn't decide to do a Brutalist line of outerwear.
Antoni Gaudí: Create Your Own City Sticker Book
by the AIA
$9.95 at the AIA Store
Consider this playful present a reality check. Building the perfect building, and doing what it takes to get the complete artistic freedom necessary to do so, can be a truly lifelong struggle. So, in the famous, inspirational words of Antoni Gaudi, "here are some stickers!"
Jarvis Bamboo Adjustable-Height Desk
by Ergo Depot
$750 at Ergo Depot
Yes, a drafting table would be cooler, but until the student in your life can afford to shell out serious cash for a midcentury gem (or develops the skills to craft their own workplace), this well-reviewed standing desk will suffice. The adjustable surface can also be raised to correspond with the burgeoning architect's growing sense of importance.
Pencil of the Month Club
by Caroline Weaver Pencil Enterprises
$80 at CW Pencil Enterprise
Maybe you've spent the last few years so engrossed in Rhino that you can't even sign your name on a Square-equipped iPad without creating an abstract thicket of lines. Or maybe you're a freehand genius who can create animated flipbooks on the fly. No matter, having a sharpened pencil at the ready, or tucked behind your ear, still gives a veneer of deep concentration and mindful design, even if no one is fooled by No. 2.
Wind-Knitted Scarf
by Merel Karhof
1,450 Swedish Krona/$167 plus shipping at No Sir
For those who view their careers and newfound skills as a way to help the environmental movement and make the world a more sustainable place, this accessory offers a low-key way to show off your commitment. Dutch designer Merel Karhof's scarves, knitted by a wind-powered machine, may be one of the few piece of clothing that could earn you LEED points (that Earth-friendly gesture may be canceled out by having it shipped from Europe, but who's really keeping track?).
The ESPRO Press
by ESPRO
$79.95 at ESPRO
One thing that won't change after graduation is your incessant need (nay, addiction to) caffeine. This streamlined, sludge-free, Kickstarter-born French press provides a stylish way to get your fix.
Architect's Blueprint Paperweight
by Tibor Kalman
$36 at MoMA Store
Consider it a practical gift and great way for a future architect to decorate their workspace. And, if they ever do get angry, it's nice to have something to throw with a little heft.
· Holiday Gift Guide [Curbed]