With the core winter months upon Cleveland, we know what’s ahead: blistering Lake-effect snow, pitch-black skies and… bundling up with movies.  In this spirit, I present here a blog series, A Designer’s Winter Hibernation Film List, to ensure even in this bitter Northeast Ohio winter you’ll stay warm and delighted. Every two weeks I'll include picks from a designer in our office plus a local film/design voice. Let's kick off with my recommendations and Steve Felix's from Akron Film + Pixel: HALLIE DELVILLAN, Bialosky + Partners Architects

1. Playtime (1967): Explore building space/envelopes of Paris following a wandering Frenchman who is a bit stunned by modernity. The second half is a very curious one, with a building collapsing in the middle of a grand party – with the architect present.
2. Vidal Sassoon (2010): Modern architecture is the spark of inspiration for Vidal Sassoon’s revolution in modernizing hair. Incredible footage of his ultra-sleek salons of the 1960s is worth the viewing alone.
3. Wait Until Dark (1967): Audrey Hepburn stars as a young blind woman wrapped up in a criminal drug mystery. Mostly taking place in her small New York City apartment, her acute senses allow her to maneuver space without sight and become a match for the violent criminals.
4. I Am Legend (2007): A post-apocalyptic world where nature takes back New York City. (If you're still hungry for evacuated wasteland metropolises, follow up with the History Channel's series, Life Without People)
5. Elizabeth: the Golden Age (2007): Filled with impressive Gothic cathedrals and castles, with moments of a close focus on architectural details.

STEVE FELIX, Director, Akron Film + Pixel

1. Primer (2004): Technologies with profound implications call for profound forethought. It's a visceral expression of the ethics and consequences of engineering unchecked by design.
2. The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (1988): A humorous study of human behavior as it applies to placemaking.
3. Minority Report (2002): In 2002, Minority Report made some prescient guesses about interaction design, predicting and perhaps inspiring multi-touch displays. And its vision of pervasive advertising may still be realized, if we're unlucky.
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968): Full of realistic but mostly invented, extrapolated design, from chairs to computers to space stations.
5. Koyaanisqatsi (1982): With eye-filling cinematography, Koyaanisqatsi deals with the human development as a natural force and part of landscape.