The Revit Importer converts families and building elements to SketchUp’s native tags and components. It optimizes geometry creating a lightweight and well-organized SketchUp file that is ready-to-use.

Construction on Kengo Kuma’s V&A Museum Dundee is well underway, with the structure’s inclined concrete walls already beginning to take shape. This new video produced by the V&A Museum shows the latest progress of the building, with commentary from several figures working on the project, including Kuma himself.

Videos

From giant squids to sunken treasure, the ocean has a way of hiding secrets better than any other place on Earth – so why not hide your personal information down there too?

That scenario may soon be our reality, as Microsoft has unveiled that, for the past year and a half, they have been testing a prototype data center that is completely submerged underwater. Devised by Microsoft engineer Sean James, the theory argues that placing the massive server farms underwater could dramatically reduce both construction and cooling costs, as well as provide a reliable source of renewable energy and even improve their performance.

For nearly 100 years, the JL Hudson's Department Store in downtown Detroit stood as a mecca of shopping – the 25-story structure at one point holding the record for world’s tallest retail building. Then in 1983, following a downturn of the Detroit economy, the department store was closed. Its implosion followed in 1998. In the years since, the important site has laid mainly vacant, save for an underground parking structure inserted into the store’s former underground retail levels. But now, plans have been revealed to return the site to its former glory.

Announced yesterday by Detroit-based development group Bedrock, the site is set to receive a brand new 1.2 million-square-foot development designed by SHoP Architects and consisting of a nine-story retail podium and a 52-story, 734-foot tower that would claim the title of Detroit’s tallest building.

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Envisioning the harbor front as an extension of the city center, “Pargas Maritime Limestone Landscape” designed by the young Danish practice Schauman & Nordgren Architects has been named the winning entry of a waterfront masterplan competition by the City of Pargas, Finland.

The proposal was selected for its “thorough analysis of the city, its history, structure, character, potentials and challenge”, in response to the area’s development as a new residential hub and functional harbor. The competition introduced the notion of maintaining Pargas’ dominant maritime identity, while simultaneously strengthening the city’s character with various urban elements, such as hotels, a beach, saunas, and offices.

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The Los Angeles Department of City planning has released a new study surrounding Herzog & de Meuron’s 6AM mixed-use development planned for LA’s Arts District. Originally revealed last fall, the estimated $2 billion complex would constitute the Swiss firm’s first project in the Southern California city, and could play a major role in the revitalization of the downtown area.

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Architecture lovers, rejoice! First, there was the zoom feature that we all love, now Instagram has rolled out a new feature that will make documenting and sharing your favorite buildings even easier. Just released this week, the update to the iOS app will now allow you to create photosets (with videos included) in one single post.

Frank Gehry has been selected by online education platform MasterClass to lead an interactive architecture and design course on his creative process. The course will include 15 video lessons, and critique from the architect himself on select student work.

At a cost of $90, the lessons will cover Gehry’s career and architectural philosophy, illustrated with sketches and models from Gehry’s private model archive. Each lesson will offer a downloadable workbook with notes and assignments for the week. Students will then be able to upload videos for the opportunity to get feedback from the class and Frank himself.

The 2017 Portuguese Commemorative Coins were unveiled this week in the Casa da Moeda, where the themes, authors and designs for the commemorative, chain and collector's coins to be issued throughout the year were shown. 

Among the novelties, a new series dedicated to Portuguese Architecture stands out, which includes a coin dedicated to Álvaro Siza Vieira designed by Eduardo Souto Moura, two great names in Portuguese architecture.

The Boston Society of Architects (BSA) has announced announced Mecanoo and Sasaki as the winners of the 2016 Harleston Parker Medal for their design of the Bruce C. Bolling Municipal Building. Awarded each year by the BSA and the City of Boston, the prestigious award honors “the single most beautiful” building or structure built in the metropolitan Boston area over the past 10 years.

David Chipperfield’s West Village Apartment Building in New York City is finally getting off the ground. Following three rejected planning applications, originally submitted in July 2016, the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) has finally given the six-story building the go-ahead. Located at 11-19 Jane Street, the site sits within the Greenwich Village Historic District, designated as a historic preservation district by the LPC in 1969.

Apple today announced that Apple Park (also referred to as Apple Campus 2) will be ready to occupy beginning in April. Envisioned by Steve Jobs as a “center for creativity and collaboration,” the 175-acre campus will serve as a new home for more than 12,000 employees, who will be moved-in over a six month period. Construction on outer buildings and park spaces will continue through the summer.

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The Harvard University Graduate School of Design in Massachusetts has announced the winners of the Richard Rogers Fellowship 2017. Launched in October 2016, the Fellowship seeks to act as an international platform assembling experts and practitioners from a broad range of disciplines, using the built environment to positively impact on the quality of human life. The six inaugural Fellows, selected from 200 applicants worldwide, will undertake three months of research at the Wimbledon House, a Grade II listed residence in London gifted to the School by world-renowned British architect Richard Rogers.

Zupagrafika, creators of make-your-own-paper-model sets of "brut-iful" architecture in London, Paris, Warsaw, and Katowice, have released their newest set, Brutal East.

The creators' selection captures the "certainly brutal" charm of the "functionalist panelák estates and otherworldly concrete grand designs" of the Eastern Bloc. With Brutal East you can build your own...

Planning can be a complex task depending on the factors at play such as time, participants, and topics.

Since 2012 a Swedish firm called MethodKit has dedicated itself to designing kits to simplify task in many professional disciplines using cards that raise an issue and guide the discussion.

Initially, these kits were oriented towards design and digital technology, however, with such a collaborative and easy to use tool they were expanded to architecture and urban planning.

Fresh off winning the “Design of the Year” for their refugee housing solution, the “Better Shelter,” IKEA is again making waves for a pioneering, flat pack solution to societal needs. Developed by the IKEA innovation lab Space10 alongside architects sine lindholm and mads-ulrik husum, the spherical “Growroom” is a DIY garden structure intended to help people “grow their own food much more locally in a beautiful and sustainable way.” And now, plans for the structure have been made available online for free via Space10’s open source platform, giving anyone the opportunity to build their own 3-dimensional garden.

The World Architecture Festival has announced the launch of the 10th edition of the event referred to as the “Oscars of architecture” by launching the “WAF Manifesto,” which identifies key challenges the profession will face over the next ten years. Aimed at generated funding for architectural research, the manifesto outlines a range of topics where architects can use their influence to affect society as a whole.

Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios has been selected as the winners of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) competition to design the new Faculty of Arts Building at the University of Warwick, in Coventry, England. Lauded for its flexibility and collaboration-fostering design, the winning proposal was selected over finalist entries from Foster + Partners, Grimshaw, White Arkitekter and Wilkinson Eyre.