Dreamspaces was a short lived BBC Three documentary series that I fell in love with a few years back, and like every short lived show, it managed to break my heart. I loosely compare it to Top Gear because for someone not that into architecture it had me enthralled in a way I didn’t think a show about buildings (or cars) could, and because of the brilliant production and beautifully shot stories.

Presented by David Adjaye, Justine Frischmann and Charlie Luxton it was part architecture geek out, part travel show, and always showed the emotional connections we have to our surroundings. To this day I still have high on my list of travel destinations places that were visited by the Dreamspaces team, and no segment from the show changed my thinking more then Justine Frischmann’s look at Brazil’s planned capital; Brasilia.

As a long time resident of a planned city myself, I have this show to thank for my heightened appreciation of the design in which I live, and its a credit to the quality of the show (from its opening sequence in the first video, to the story on Brasilia in the second) that the places presented on it have stayed with me as long as they have.

UPDATE: FULL EPISODE DOWNLOADS.

The show is yet to recieve a DVD release, however I have managed to track down 10 of the 12 episodes produced in the series and made them available for download below. Episode one is fairly ordinary quality, but the rest are quite respectable.

Episode One: Download (148mb)

- Manhatten, where the shops are cooler than the clothers

- The buildings of Puerto Rico

- Libraries with a novel approach

- Dave Gorman goes off the rails at Canary Whart

Episode Two: Download (188mb)

- City centre living you can actually afford

- Inside the building taste forgot

- Britains new bridges, Get over them!

- Mrs Doyle on why Ireland’s National Gallery is her cup of tea

Episode Three: Download (194mb)

- Get into the groove with the 80’s revival

- Why art deco makes Miami nice

- The fall & rise of the highrise

- Jaime Theakston goes batty for Lords

Episode Four: Download (206mb)

- Antwerp, The hippest city you’ve never visited

- Pull up to the bunker, Baby!

- Parks designed for big kids

- Natalie cases the joint at Lloyds of London

Episode Five: Download (173mb)

- Clear the decks for the DJ bar

- Architecture by the boys of Brasila

- Berlin’s embassies take our breath away

- Lock Stock’s Nick Moran on one smoking tower

Episode Six: Download (175mb)

- Helsinki puts the ‘in’ into Finland

- The future for London’s last power stations

- Offices so cool, they make you want to go to work

- Mark Radcliffe on why the Lowery is better than Lard

Episode Seven: Download (203mb)

- Stand up for the new Mexican Wave

- Why buildings don’t look like buildings anymore

- The leading man in Hollywood houses

- The place that rocks Seb Fontaine’s box

Episode Nine: Download (228mb)

- New department stores, never knowingly under designed

- On a Moroccan roll in Casablanca

- Will Britians new parliments get your vote?

- Dawson’s Sheek, Pacey’s favourite placey

Episode Ten: Download (237mb)

- Fear & Loathing in Vegas casinos

- Meet the beatles of architecture

- Why Valencia is the new Barcelona

- Smack the pony, Hit the bar with Doon Mackichan

Episode Eleven: Download (218mb)

- Putting the ‘In’ into Innsbruck

- Buildings in camouflage, So this season!

- Members only, The ace of clubs

- Paul Kay gets a kick from Highbury Stadium

All videos are encoded in iPod friendly H264, and will also play on your Mac or PC in either Quicktime or VLC. The quality varies between files, which is why some episodes are larger than others.

via Dreamspaces: The ‘Top Gear’ of Architecture. at idents.tv.