Buddy the Elf here!

Today is officially "Answer the Phone Like Buddy the Elf Day"

But that's not why I'm writing.

I'm so excited to tell you about the amazing world of architecture in my favorite movie - Elf!

It's just like spreading Christmas cheer but with buildings instead of candy canes!

Forced Perspective: Making Magic with Architecture

Oh boy, did you know that the North Pole scenes in Elf used some super cool architectural tricks?

They used something called "forced perspective" to make me look ginormous compared to all my elf buddies It's like magic, but with buildings!

Here's how they did it:

• They built two different sets - one bigger for the elves and one smaller for me
• They put me on sneaky platforms to make me look taller
• The camera angles were just right to make it all look real

It's like when you hold up the Leaning Tower of Pisa in a photo, but way cooler!

As a building designer, you can use forced perspective to make spaces appear larger or smaller than they actually are.

This technique can be employed to address natural optical effects in large-scale structures, similar to how the ancient Greeks used it in the Parthenon.

Forced perspective can create an illusion of greater depth in limited spaces, as seen in Francesco Borromini's Palazzo Spada.

This main hallway appears to be a nearly 60-foot-long corridor. However, Borromini did not have the physical space to create this, so he used forced perspective, drawing upon the illusion of a long hallway and a life-sized statue.

The hallway is only 26 feet long, and the floor slopes upward. The ceiling slopes downward, and the statue at the end is 24 inches tall.

The Main Street Buildings and Cinderella's Castle in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, Florida, are examples of the opposite effect.

Imagineers design Disney buildings to a 1- 5/8 – 1/2 scale. The first floor is to scale, but the second floor of the building façade is only 5/8 the size of the first floor. If there is a third floor, it is 1/2 the size of the base floor.

Disney’s Forced Perspective also works with stand-alone buildings. The most famous structure in the park, the Sleeping Beauty Castle, uses this visual trick to seem much larger than it is.

The opposite example is found in Las Vegas, where forced perspective gives massive structures an order that communicates a relatable and less intimidating scale.

It's called the "window trick."

One example is the Bellagio; from a distance, you see what appears to be regular windows.

But when you look closer, the glass is a compilation of four or six windows with a "blank" space provided to conceal the structure between floors.

This creates the visual effect of "shrinking" the building and making it more orderly and symmetrical.

Another window trick the Wynn uses is one "stripe" two stories.

The former Monte Carlo, now Park MGM, doesn't use a window trick, and the building reveals its massive nature. However, it's more pleasant than most monster buildings of its kind.

One simple way these techniques are applied in residential design includes using wall mirrors to visually double the space.

But that trick's a bit dated.

Now, designers use creative brick or woodwork and murals.

To learn more about Forced Perspective (and earn a CE unit), visit our new Creating Where People Live classroom at Study.com.

First, set up your Study.com account (it's free to be a student in our classroom). You can sign in using a Google account or with an email.

You might be asked for a "Lesson Code." Use: purple-fly-1389.

You don't have to be a member to experience the lesson.

Once you enter, you'll land on the Forced Perspective in Art & Architecture lesson page.

The full lesson and the five-question quiz should take less than ten minutes.

When you finish the quiz, you can email the results to yourself. Forward a copy of the email to CE@AIBD.org (or upload it to your transcript in MyCEapp) and request 1.0 (P3) credit.

Then reply to this email and let us know about your experience.

The A-Team is experimenting with Study.com as an educational delivery system, and your feedback will help determine if we should invest time into the project.

Happy Holidays,
The A-Team