This guide covers a workflow that moves from project parameters to generated floor plans, 3D perspective views, exterior design exploration, and site context visualization, using AI tools in place of preliminary CAD and rendering work.

If you want fast rendering, optimize the size of staging assets, textures, and light sources. Learn your rendering software inside out and construct your scenes based on actual resource needs. There is no point in using the largest, most detailed, or highest-resolution assets for every single case; doing so will only leave you frustrated with your computer and software, struggling to navigate the viewport while constantly wishing for the latest processor, graphics card, more RAM, and more money to upgrade your rig—entirely unnecessarily.

Whenever possible, choose a GPU-based renderer, such as Thea Render for SketchUp, which is used in the examples in this article.

Here are several tips to make your rendering workflow faster and more efficient:

Gentrification is not only a timely topic, but a widespread concern. Today, it might make more sense to speak of touristification, or perhaps the phenomenon itself has evolved. Nevertheless, the term gentrification can broadly encompass all these concepts related to the displacement of a neighborhood's "original" inhabitants, who are replaced by residents with higher purchasing power or by vacation rentals.

This is an issue that interests people from all walks of life, not just professionals in urban planning or architecture. It draws the attention of citizens who, like myself, set out to find explanations or try to gather clues about what the future may hold under this trend.

From my perspective as an engineer—but above all as a Madrid resident—I decided to research the data published by the City Council on the city's commercial premises to see if it was possible to draw any conclusions on the matter. The purpose of this study was purely exploratory, conducted without any external commission. I had no preconceived hypothesis or goal beyond identifying certain neighborhoods as gentrified; the analysis simply grew from there, keeping all possibilities open.

Over the course of five days, 36 third-year students from the UDD Architecture Program in Concepción, Chile, traveled to San Juan, Chiloé, to design and build a lookout for the local community. The main objective of this academic initiative was to connect students with physical materiality, marking the beginning of their professional degree cycle. The project is part of "Experiencia Detonante II" (Triggering Experience II), one of three hands-on experiences students undergo during their studies to engage directly with territory, materiality, and the discipline. Specifically, the Concepción campus, through its Escuela SurSur, fosters this connection to materiality by engaging with remote locations that preserve traditional local crafts.

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The Chilean firm TALLER25 has launched the first edition of the des_VINCULADOS workshop in Santiago. This project-based academic initiative addresses an emerging theme in Chilean practice: middle-class architecture. To this end, students were assigned a specific design intervention—extension, renovation, or new construction—and a budget estimated by the original clients: five middle-class families living in Santiago's inner ring and periphery.

"Currently, projects built for the vast majority of the country's population tend to be the result of architectural practice treated as a mere commercial service, rather than an opportunity to contribute to the discipline, improve the users' quality of life, or build a more equitable context," explain Fabiola González, Yair Estay, and Jessica Torres, the organizers of the workshop, which is part of the Encargos Comunes academic research project.

In partnership with the Department of Architecture of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Chile, and with ArchDaily as a media partner, the first edition of the workshop involved 43 students from across Santiago. They developed the following proposals after a series of sessions that included a panel discussion and five thematic sessions: practice, regulations, budget and construction, and market.

A few days ago, the “la Caixa” Banking Foundation presented the design for CaixaForum Valencia, a project led by Enric Ruiz-Geli and his studio Cloud 9. The foundation's ninth cultural venue in Spain will be located inside the Ágora in the City of Arts and Sciences, designed by Santiago Calatrava.

CaixaForum Valencia will have an area of 6,500 square meters, housing two exhibition halls, a 300-seat auditorium, two multipurpose classrooms, a bar-restaurant, a bookstore, and a family and educational space called CaixaForum Familia, as well as reception areas, offices, storage, and technical zones.

On this occasion, we present the proposal by MIAS Architects, a firm led by Josep Miàs and one of the nine offices invited by the foundation to participate in the competition. “The new CaixaForum [must] actively engage with the Ágora building, establishing a relationship that is not only volumetric but also perceptual,” the architects explain.

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Organized by INTBAU and the Rafael Manzano Prize for New Traditional Architecture, the most recent edition of the Summer School of Traditional Architecture focused its work on the Baztan Valley (Navarre, Spain). The program studied traditional construction, architecture, and urban planning to produce a manual for conservation and new traditional construction in the area. In addition, hand drawing and building surveys were the primary activities carried out by the participating students.

Although the scope of work extended to the entire Baztan Valley, the bulk of the study was carried out in Amaiur, the town that hosted the group during those two weeks. Articulated around the branch of the Camino de Santiago that passes through it, the town's urban layout is structured almost as a linear development. Along this axis, the richness, diversity, and versatility of its architectural tradition unfold, presenting a showcase of solutions from different eras that have adapted to multiple trends and functions without ever losing their essence. Accordingly, the study examined the architecture of the town center in its entirety, from fine details to the broader urban structure.

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Documenting the urban landscape is a task photographers have undertaken almost since the birth of photography in the second half of the nineteenth century. Inexhaustible, the city continues to serve as raw material for photography, which, in turn, offers an image of the city that is simultaneously identical to and distinct from what is felt when experiencing the urban space.

Mauro Restiffe is perhaps one of the photographers who most deeply experiences the city and its residual spaces—an aspect that becomes immediately apparent upon viewing the selection of photographs chosen for the exhibition São Paulo, Out of Reach, on display at the Instituto Moreira Salles in São Paulo, curated by Thyago Nogueira. Bringing together photos that record moments of urban transformation and decay in places such as Cracolândia, Bom Retiro, Luz, Itaquera, and Ipiranga, among other neighborhoods, Restiffe composes a fragmented image of São Paulo between 2012 and 2014. Yet—partly due to his technique and, above all, his gaze—it also represents other eras of this metropolis.

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In 1988, upon the death of Luis Barragán, a process began to manage the assets he bequeathed to a group of architects based in Guadalajara, Jalisco. This led to the creation of the Fundación de Arquitectura Tapatía Luis Barragán, established to safeguard a portion of his real estate, his library, and certain personal belongings. Consequently, the foundation secured the necessary funding to acquire the Luis Barragán House and Studio, preserving it as the house-museum it is today.

We spoke with architect Salvador Macías, co-founder of Estudio Macías Peredo, who now directs this venue, which aims to provide a public space for reflection and the dissemination of architecture.

The lessons that can be drawn from visiting or studying a work of architecture are both many and varied. Whether we focus on programming, construction details, material solutions, relationship to context, siting, or any other aspect, these considerations yield clear concepts that can later be applied to our own projects.

With this in mind, and recognizing that there are multiple ways to approach an architectural problem, we have compiled a list of design strategies that define specific spatial qualities in classics of Chilean residential architecture, grouping together some of the most remarkable design moves from each case.

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For optimal and wider propagation of TV and radio frequencies, antennas must be positioned in strategic and, above all, elevated locations. When the local topography is unfavorable, the construction of broadcasting towers and masts becomes essential. Yet, beyond serving a crucial function, these structures stand as visual landmarks, offering an extraordinary opportunity to transform urban infrastructure into pieces of unique aesthetic value. Renowned architects and their teams have designed radio and television towers that marry rigorous structural engineering with the plastic inventiveness of their chosen design solutions. We have selected a brief collection of television and radio transmission towers. See them below:

Some urban changes go deeper than the surface. These are transformative projects with the power to generate an impact far greater than aesthetic or infrastructural updates. They are initiatives that positively influence the economy, the environment, and the host community—in unexpected or even unprecedented ways.

América Economía magazine has published its most recent ranking of Chilean universities, just a few months ahead of the upcoming 2019 higher education admission process. In addition to the general evaluation—in which the Universidad de Chile remains in first place for the fourth consecutive year—the publication features the specific ranking of the 16 "most in-demand or highly regarded and prestigious" programs in Chile, including Architecture.

With our commitment to providing the most comprehensive information for university applicants, in this article we share the ranking of the best universities to study Architecture in Chile. This list includes technical data on average admission scores, faculty specialization levels, annual tuition costs and variations, and first-year post-graduation employability rates, among other key metrics.

The city of Lima and the Rímac River seem to be at odds, despite the river crossing (and nourishing) the city from east to west. This is why we highlight the word “friendship” as an added value for addressing this issue: a way of understanding this relationship with the solidity and integration it deserves. This is the premise of the project presented here, which we have retrieved from our archives to bring to light. As summer begins and the El Niño phenomenon approaches, bringing inevitable rising water levels to the Rímac, it is impossible not to recall the mudslides (huaycos) that caused disaster a year ago. Little to nothing has been done to address this disconnect between the city and the river; thus, let us take a fresh look. 

After analyzing 94 projects by undergraduate students from 20 architecture schools across 8 regions in Chile, the jury of the 2018 Arquitectura Caliente Competition has announced the winning projects of its latest edition.

These projects span the entire country and encompass diverse typologies, ranging from urban planning to student housing, as well as landscape designs and structural emergency initiatives.

Below, we present the award-winning third-year projects:

The Architectural League of New York is an independent architecture forum that aims to "stimulate thinking and debate about the critical design and architectural issues of our time." Each year, through the 'Emerging Voices' competition, they recognize the work of various North American architectural practices with the potential to positively influence how architecture is conceptualized and built across the continent.

This year, they highlight the work of three Mexican firms: Comunal Taller de Arquitectura, Fernanda Canales, and Luis Aldrete. Learn more about their work below:

The modernization of Bogotá between 1940 and 1970, captured in urban and architectural photographic essays, has been documented in various books, magazines, and photobooks of the era, as well as in images from the city's public and private archives. These photographs reveal a deliberate, and even critical, approach to how modern architecture reconfigured city centers, bringing new buildings and urban spaces into relation with the existing cityscape.

When analyzing the impact of street photography, it is essential to discuss Leo Matiz, Armando Matiz and Hernán Díaz. These three photographers captured the people, events, and daily urban life of Bogotá. From their extensive bodies of work, we have selected shots of streets, plazas, intersections, and representative buildings—both iconic and anonymous spaces that, through photography, anchor modern heritage in the collective memory, with architecture and urban spaces taking center stage.

In this edition of Bogotá in the Eyes of 10 Photographers we explore the legacy of Armando Matiz:

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Through March 10, Chilean architect Pilar Pinchart presents her exhibition “Sección” at Galería PanAm.

The exhibition is divided into two parts showcasing the interests that have shaped Pinchart's work over the last ten years, synthesized in a conceptual installation on high-rise housing.

The first part of the exhibition features a study of Le Corbusier's 1992 sketch for the City of Three Million Inhabitants, understood as the section of an envisioned city—the starting point for the exhibition #100andesfrommywindow, presented in Aarhus, Denmark, in May 2017. It comprises 15 pop-up models and fragments of balcony facades built in Santiago, Chile, between 1940 and 2015, which show the evolution from the balcony to the terrace and to the concept of the high-rise garden. This gives rise to the centerpiece of the exhibition, a complex installation displaying five built structures designed to be read through the information provided by their sections in relation to vegetation and use.

On April 19, Argentina's first sustainable public school was officially inaugurated in the town of Mar Chiquita.

The project was realized under the Una Escuela Sustentable program, an initiative by the Uruguayan organization Tagma that aims to build a symbolic regional network—with a sustainable public school in every Latin American country—in partnership with Garbage Warrior Michael Reynolds and his team at Earthship Biotecture.

Below, the organizers outline the seven core principles and the construction process of this project.

Bogotá is well-known for its diverse public markets, which not only host the sale of meat, grains, fruits, and vegetables, but also serve as spatial representations of Colombian culture.

These traditional establishments have grown alongside the city's population, undergoing significant spatial transformations over time. For locals, they remain the essential place for grocery shopping, while for tourists, they are major attractions offering a sensory exploration of Colombia's diverse flavors, aromas, and textures.

Opened last Saturday (16) at the Museu da Casa Brasileira in São Paulo, the exhibition “Experimenting Le Corbusier – Contemporary interpretations of modernism”—curated by Pierre Colnet and Hadrien Lelong of design publisher Cremme, with exhibition design by the São Paulo-based office MNMA Studio—seeks to foster a reflection on the implications of the Franco-Swiss architect's work for the architectural, urban, ideological, and social development of Brazilian modernism.

Featuring 20 guest artists—architects, designers, and visual artists—who developed various works and research based on the canons of the architect's work, the exhibition seeks to operate through the “transdisciplinarity of art,” as noted by Mariana Schmidt, the partner-architect responsible for the exhibition design.

Architect Rafael Pina Lupiáñez, writing for the ARKRIT Collective, reflects on the single-family house as an experimental manifesto of the modern architect—a space where the designer's theories, trends, and concerns materialize through a close, collaborative relationship with the client. By comparing two houses built in Quito, Ecuador, by architects Daniel Moreno and Sebastián Calero, this article illustrates how housing can serve as the perfect stage to unify design experience, client participation, environmental awareness, the reuse of waste materials, and other contemporary ethical approaches.

2018 was a busy year for ArchDaily Brasil. We had the opportunity to publish a wide range of content—articles, news, and projects—specially curated for you, our daily reader. Beyond our platform, our Instagram account served as a daily hub for sharing content through stories, IGTV, and, above all, the dozens of photographs shared each week.

With nearly 150,000 followers on our Brazilian profile (@archdailybr) who follow us daily and show their support for the best architectural photography of projects by Brazilian and Portuguese architects, we decided to put together a year-end roundup of the 15 most-liked photos. Check out the list below!

Architecture and urban planning is a field that constantly evolves in tandem with technological advancements. This is true for heavy machinery used in construction, building materials, and design tools alike. Today, this evolution is closely tied to BIM technology.

BIM stands for Building Information Modeling. It is a workflow that gathers, through digital tools, all information regarding the construction of a building. 

Jointly organized by the Cámara de la Madera, Mueble y Equipamiento de Córdoba (CAMMEC) and the Faculty of Architecture, Urbanism, and Design at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, the 'Toco Madera XL' workshop emerged within the framework of the Second Design Biennial in Córdoba, Argentina, with the primary goal of promoting the use of wood.

Nine teams made up of more than 200 students and 50 professors designed installations using this material exclusively, which were then placed in various public spaces across the city. The initiative sought to showcase and highlight the regional timber industry, positioning the city as a benchmark for local and international design.

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