There was not much done on the atrium except to discover that one needs a lot more bents to support the atrium properly. This leads to a series of designing questions that tend to be somewhat ignored when in a designing mode. One of them involves physical support of said structure.

One of my design projects is an interesting one in that I've gone and started combining 2 DPM corner buildings with an atrium. The atrium will provide an all year round outside style cafe and shopping center while at the same time provide me with an exercise in testing an idea that some people I came across have been asking. We scratchbash all kinds of existing buildings but hardly do we see people go into the raw design aspect of the scratchbash and outright redo or completely do up an --dare I use this term-'imaginary' building? Become our own architect in other words.

Several little things cropped up in my musings lately while laying out the Dettmer Spur on my Emerald, Leemer & Southern route. One is related to the ideas recently expounded upon regarding how much detail is really needed. And my wife, who does interior design work. threw me this---we may be seeing a form of minimalism in model railroading.

I'm having a little fun with the idea of clutter and the way that some modellers have created a reality by moving the concept of reality--to one less 'cluttered'--ie; to any area that resembles anyplace in the semi-arid to arid regions of North America. Or, in the case of Lance Mindheim, creating a less cluttered approach by placing one layout in a more modern industrial park--more modern buildings being cleaner in outline and form. In a way we can now discuss this as a form of minimalist realism.

I tend to think of this thing a lot lately. The idea of scenery and how much is too much has even come into more subdued play in here I find. One set of recent articles in MRR have caught my attention with various mentions of certain layouts with less 'clutter'.