WHAT’S THAT BUILDING?

Aiming to get readers thinking like architects and imbued with the fundamental principle that form follows function, Donnelly tallies basic requirements for a collection of buildings that Cho incorporates into a series of compelling and absorbing cutaway views. A school, for instance, should ideally have both learning and office spaces with easy access between floors, locations for eating and physical activity, and places to store supplies—all of which can be picked out in the spread-filling illustration that follows. Other structures, from shopping mall and museum to bakery, planetarium, and veterinary clinic, require distinctive mixes of similar and unique features. Cho sometimes skips essentials like restrooms and HVAC systems, although the omission is hardly noticeable. Her busy, finely detailed spaces are filled to the brim with bustling, individually drawn users who not only encompass a great range of ages, races, body types, and dress, but also include an “architect” whom viewers are invited to spot in each scene, as well as the occasional disguised animal or space alien.