With the recent release of Twinmotion 2020, you can now create even more convincing visualizations and immersive experiences from your CAD and BIM models. In addition to a huge boost in realism, one of the most significant areas of improvement in the new release is project review, with a range of features for fast BIM design review and presentation.
Yesterday, on the 20th of April, we passed the cap of 111 days of the pandemic. During this time, we’ve been busy fighting in supermarket aisles over toilet paper in Australia, lining up for marijuana purchases in Amsterdam and boosting gun demand in the USA. We are conscious none of those will help in fighting the virus, but we do it, nonetheless. Beyond the bizarre human psyche, this pandemic unveils interesting trends that will, whether we like it or not, impact on Architecture and Cities.
During the academic formation process, beginner architects are educated and trained to develop projects on the most “traditional” software. Several reasons might explain that: the partnerships that these companies usually make with the university labs, the lack of time to learn a new program, or the culture to use the most popular software.
We often use the term accessibility when designing spaces for the elderly or for people with special needs. However, to guarantee effective universal design for children, it is necessary to understand and cater to their specific needs as well, especially through ergonomics, safety, lighting, colors, and some particular accessories. In this article, we will cover the most important parameters to consider when choosing dimensions and materials in public bathrooms for young children.
The impact of COVID-19 has disrupted daily life as we know it and caused a shift in technology trends within the workplace. Over recent weeks, businesses have found themselves hastily searching for and implementing temporary solutions to help them deliver an uninterrupted service. These solutions are highlighting the significant role technology plays in helping companies adapt to the situation and maintain daily operations. But what happens once the crisis is over?
Intro GPS systems and Location Based Services give access to an important amount of data that is currently being used mostly for traffic analysis - but which, if properly processed, could open up infinite possibilities for planning.The access to these Mobility Big Data is no longer a privilege of large cities; on the contrary, it is possible to effectively apply the technologies to increasingly more diverse territories, from mega-regions to contained districts and cities. These data, when retrospectively compared to previously collected ones, lend themselves to multiple applications loosely related to the traffic issue, such as socio-demographic or economical studies. Systematica opens the doors of its laboratory to show us what are the potentials and limits of these tools, starting from a direct experience - a research project, developed in the Los Angeles area.
For the 2019 Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (UABB), titled "Urban Interactions," (21 December 2019-8 March 2020) ArchDaily is working with the curators of the "Eyes of the City" section to stimulate a discussion on how new technologies might impact architecture and urban life. The contribution below is part of a series of scientific essays selected through the “Eyes of the City” call for papers, launched in preparation of the exhibitions: international scholars were asked to send their reflection in reaction to the statement by the curators Carlo Ratti Associati, Politecnico di Torino and SCUT, which you can read here.
Etudes is a rare thing amongst architecture books. Its subject is neither built nor unbuilt projects but instead imaginary places and abstract compositions by San Francisco architect John Marx. Rendered in delicate watercolours, Marx’s places are dreamlike and akin to the structure and sentiments of his taut poetry that sits alongside pages of his paintings.
Curiously, the quiet streets and vacant landscapes of Marx’s imagination speak to us in an acutely timely fashion as we find ourselves in a new world of empty cities closed for business, a world that feels as if it has come to a standstill.
Hashim Sarkis, the curator of the 17th International Architecture Exhibition organized by La Biennale di Venezia, launched a striking visionary theme at the beginning of this year: “How will we live together?”. This fundamental question finally transcends all disciplines and opens an existential portal for humanity. It does not refer only to humans but all species, the nonhuman organisms as well.
An expression of power and a symbol of surveillance, the panopticon is a notorious architectural concept intended as a disciplinary mechanism. Photographer Romain Veillon shares his images of the Panopticon-inspired prison in Autun, France.
Architects throughout the modern era have displayed their fantasies through their designs and their obsessions with how women have inhabited them. Take for example Corbusier’s infatuation with Eileen Gray and her home, E. 1027. Plagued with unconfirmed tales of how he broke into her home to paint murals on the white walls, he was also known to publicly downplay the home's design, while conversely praising it in a series of unreciprocated love letters to Gray. In the same vein, while Adolf Loos stood firmly against architectural decoration, he perhaps supported the elegance of women acting as a human ornament, an assumed notion in his envisioned home for the French Entertainer, Josephine Baker. The unbuilt proposal took on the form of a black and white striped solid which located a glass pool at the center of the space, forcing Baker to catch the male gaze of other occupants.
The relationship of sensuality and space doesn’t stop with the provocative desires of these three men, but lives on in one of the world’s most famous publications, Playboy magazine. Perhaps best known for its significance as a vanguard in the sexual revolution with its promotion of masculinity, the magazine also illustrated a showcase of swanky glass bachelor pads standing high above Beverly Hills that pushed forward a debonair lifestyle punctuated by modern design. As a generator of a glamorized lifestyle, the magazine highlighted architectural titans including Mies van der Rohe, Bucky Fuller, and Eero Saarinen, and made them palatable to a general audience.
In the midst of a pandemic that has already affected 184 countries and infected more than a million people around the world, we seek to cover all topics that relate the coronavirus within architecture and space, and ways to make social distancing less painful.
Architectural and fine art photographer Pygmalion Karatzas is presenting a number of free online architectural photography resources for readers to explore in the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. The selected resources include e-books, numerous interviews with renowned photographers from around the world, educational presentations (academic papers, lectures, workshops), and videos.
As author Jeremy Lent points out in a recent article, the phrase “social distancing” is helpfully being recast as “physical distancing” since this pandemic is bringing people closer together in solidarity than ever before, and we are witnessing a heartwarming rediscovery of the value of community, and humanity’s prosocial impulses like altruism and compassion manifesting across sectors and boundaries.
What size is this room? What is the view from the meeting room like? What would you see if you looked from the outside in? These are all recognizable examples of questions designers are asked. Is there any better answer than immediately showing the view in question? XUVER provides a user-friendly way to share an online-rendered visualization of your design within a minute. No additional software is required; all you need is a link and a web browser. A voice module also enables you to discuss your design simultaneously.
As cities around the world go on lockdown in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, most individuals have been asked to stay at home, leaving only essential workers - EMTs and other healthcare professionals, grocery workers, bus drivers, deliverymen, and more - continuing to go out to keep the world running. Other families and individuals have found themselves spending most of their time at home, permitted to leave only to buy groceries or exercise for limited periods of time. With many no doubt searching for ways to pass the time in replacement of social interaction, we suggest several ways to brighten up your home while practicing social distancing, both improving the space you’re in and giving possible activities to pass the time.
Big Data refers to data that, due to its quantity and complexity, requires specific applications in order to be processed. New trends in urbanism, data collection, and management, not to mention the development of new platforms and tools, have given rise to a new era in urban analysis, creating new resources to understand, evaluate, and manage the evolution of cities.
While an overwhelming majority of the world is still fighting against COVID-19, the economic and social situation in China has shown beginning signs of a return to a new normal way of life in recent weeks. In another sign of good news, the Chinese government recently announced that the two hospitals in Wuhan that were built from ground up within 10 days would close on April 15th and the remaining 30 patients will be transferred to other hospitals in Wuhan to receive further treatment. Other regions of China have followed similar steps, also announcing the closure of temporary hospitals, showing a positive sign that the COVID-19 pandemic is finally being defeated where it first began.
We've compiled a list with the temporary hospitals constructed in the first two months of 2020, designed specifically to treat patients with COVID-19 symptoms. In total, China constructed more than 30 temporary hospitals built across the country. The speed at which these medical facilities were built was achieved through the hard work of tens of thousands of people working around the clock.
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Given the sheer magnitude and influence of its recorded history, Italy as we know it is a surprisingly young country. For centuries, the region was divided between powerful (and sometimes warring) city-states, each with their own identity, culture, and, fortunes, and influence. Some are eternally famous. Rome is a cradle of history and heart of religion; cool Milan is a hub of contemporary fashion and design; Florence is synonymous with the Renaissance and all the epoch’s relationship to the arts.
Turin’s history is arguably less romantic. The small city in Savoy, a north-Italian region bordering France, has established an identity as an industrial powerhouse. It is home to FIAT and some of Italy’s finest universities; the streets are dotted with works by Nervi, Botta, and Rossi. But despite the design pedigree, perhaps nothing better illustrates the region’s faceted history better than Castello di Rivoli.
We are increasingly accustomed to relying on technologies to read and process data referring to the past, in order to interpret the present and predict the future. At the same time, a growing number of studies show that the number and types of variables governing our societies is in constant change. As the natural world reacts to change by experimenting with the evolution of new species that are not necessarily destined to survive, so we should take momentary distances from the deterministic application of data-driven predictions. Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Karl-Heinz Machat propose a number of possible scenarios in which the Eyes of the City are made to blink from time to time, allowing for alternative modes of urbanity to be tried and tested. Half strategy, half tactic, these glitches offer the space in which to measure the agency of the unpredictable at various scales.
For the 2019 Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (UABB), titled "Urban Interactions," (21 December 2019-8 March 2020) ArchDaily is working with the curators of the "Eyes of the City" section to stimulate a discussion on how new technologies might impact architecture and urban life. The contribution below is part of a series of scientific essays selected through the “Eyes of the City” call for papers, launched in preparation of the exhibitions: international scholars were asked to send their reflection in reaction to the statement by the curators Carlo Ratti Associati, Politecnico di Torino and SCUT, which you can read here.
.jpg?1548265246 "Castello di Rivoli / Andrea Bruno (Refurbishment). Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu")
.jpg?1548265270 "Castello di Rivoli / Andrea Bruno (Refurbishment). Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu")
.jpg?1548265404 "Castello di Rivoli / Andrea Bruno (Refurbishment). Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu")
.jpg?1548265416 "Castello di Rivoli / Andrea Bruno (Refurbishment). Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu")
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