With the ability to manipulate every interaction players have in a game, video game designers have boundless opportunity to shape the way players experience space. Because of this, game designers often look to architecture to enhance gameplay and provide inspiration for the appearances of their virtual worlds.
In the video above, Jamin Warren of YouTube show PBS Game/Show calls Halo the “most creative architectural game,” remarking that the brutalist-inspired architecture of the series exerted a strong influence on the way players move through levels and makes the battles in the game more immersive. Warren notes that several members of Halo’s development team had backgrounds in architecture; this observation suggests that the video gaming industry views architectural design as an essential element in its creative endeavors.
Warren makes an interesting point with his remarks on Halo: while people that inhabit virtual buildings cannot experience them physically, video game buildings can still be incredibly innovative and interesting. Which other video games feature innovative architectural approaches? Check out our list of six of the most architectural video games after the break.
Earlier today, the US Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage should be legal in all 50 states, effectively overruling 14 states that so far have continued to enforce a ban (if you've been on Facebook in the last few hours, you've probably already heard). The ruling comes just in time for Pride Parades which will take place this weekend in many cities, and to celebrate this historic decision, we've rounded up some iconic buildings lit up for past Pride Parades for everybody to enjoy - equally.
https://www.archdaily.com/769278/rainbow-buildings-in-support-of-lgbt-rightsAD Editorial Team
This week COSMO begun its venture to filter more than 42,000 gallons of New York Citywater during the course of MoMA PS1's Summer Warm Up series. The 16th installation built as part of the annual Young Architect's Program (YAP), COSMO is a portable water purifier designed by Andrés Jaque / Office for Political Innovation to combat the world's clean water crisis while serving an animated backdrop to PS1's party atmosphere.
Architectural photographer Pedro Pegenaute has shared with us a video through MX-SI's Serlachius Museum Gösta in Mänttä, Finland. An expansion of the existing Joennimei manor, the new building was built to host contemporary art traveling exhibitions and accommodate the museum's growing collections. MX-SI was also commissioned to design a new bridge that connects the museum to the island of Taavetinsaari. You can see them both in the film above.
A new study shows that timber buildings can be up to 10-15% cheaper to construct than traditional designs in several different building types. The study, “Commercial Building Costing Case Studies – Traditional Design versus Timber Project,” was led by Andrew Dunn, chief executive of the Timber Development Association (TDA) in Australia. Part of a seminar series touring Australia, the report contains detailed designs of four building types in both timber and conventional construction, with a quantity surveyor comparing cost estimates between them. See how timber compared to conventional methods after the break.
The Getty Foundation has selected 14 modernist buildings from across the globe to receive grants under its Keeping It Modern initiative, which seeks to help conserve 20th century architecture by putting a focus on conservation planning and research.
“The use of concrete, while visually striking and radical for its time, has created a unique set of challenges for conserving some of the world’s most important modernist structures. Our new grants offer an excellent opportunity to advance research and conservation practices for this material. The accumulated knowledge that will result from the projects will be of tremendous benefit to the field," states the Getty Foundation.
'The Urbanist' travels to Tokyo. Image Courtesy of Monocle
For this week's editions of Section D, Monocle 24's weekly review of design, architecture and craft, and The Urbanist, their weekly "guide to making better cities," the Monocle team travel across three continents exploring the seemingly illusive question of 'quality of life.'
In this week's edition of The Urbanist, and to coincide with Monocle's annual Quality of Life survey, Andrew Tuck examines why Tokyo is at the forefront of an urban-garden revolution, how the Austrian capital is planning on self-facilitating its development as a major business hub, and talks to Robert Doyle, Lord Mayor of Melbourne, about the apparent cultural boom currently taking place in his city. In Section D, Josh Fehnert transports listeners to the UK's "post-industrial heartland" to talk to the people behind this year's Sheffield Design Week, plus more.
Designed with the architect in mind, nendo has created a morphable Architect Bag for TOD's. "In the extended form," says nendo, "the bag holds a full-size A3 drawing as well as samples with quite a bit of length. Folding it into half creates two spaces where you can store A4 size drawings and documents, and the middle part of the flex section houses rolled-up drawings, heavy catalogues or books and samples of construction materials. With the ability to store away the two handles, you can turn it into a clutch bag when you have fewer things to carry." Take a closer look, after the break.
Snøhetta has unveiled plans for a flagship public market in Portland - the city's first in over 70 years. Named after a famous chef and Portland native who helped initiate the fresh food movement in the US, the James Beard Public Market will showcase Oregon's best cuisine within an "ambitious civic hub" that will reenergize an underutilized site in Downtown Portland.
"Linking the city to the river, the market will be an asset for residents and visitors alike," says Snøhetta. The market will feature more than 60 permanent vendors, 30 day tables, full-service restaurants, a teaching kitchen and event space.
Despite harsh criticism for being too large and costly, Tokyo's 2020Zaha Hadid-designed National Stadium will be realized. As USA Today reports, the Japanese government has announced its decision to move forward with the design, saying any major modifications would lead to construction delays.
The 80,000-seat stadium has already undergone some design changes, due to backlash led by Pritzker laureatesToyo Ito and Fumihiko Maki; it's most recent design is said to be more "efficient, user-focussed, adaptable and sustainable." However controversy continues as the city and central government must now decide how to split the stadium's estimated $2 billion bill.
Architecture Sans Frontières has announced the winners of their inaugural ASF International Awards, which aim to recognize “efficient solutions developed by architects globally to the many social, environmental and economic challenges facing the built environment.”
From 68 submissions, three winners were selected: PICO Estudio & Movimiento Por la Paz y la Vida’s Espacios de Paz (Spaces for Peace) project in Venezuela; ASF France’s La Passerelle in Saint-Denis, France; and Building Trust International for their work in Asia and Africa.
Learn more about the winning projects after the break.
We're just three days into the four-month display of SelgasCano's 2015 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion and the comments it has generated from ArchDaily readers have already been as colorful as the pavilion itself - with criticisms ranging from "worst Serpentine Gallery Pavilion ever" to "trash bag monster" and a few other comparisons that I'd rather not even repeat. This may surprise some people, but at ArchDaily we do actually read the comments section, and we get it: unless you're the brave and persistent soul who comments as "notyourproblem," who thinks "it must be exciting getting inside those tunnels," there's a good chance that you hate this pavilion - and I don't use the word "hate" lightly.
But is this violent dismissal warranted? In short, is SelgasCano's pavilion as bad as you probably think it is? Fortunately, we're not the only publication giving the pavilion extensive coverage: as usual the Serpentine Gallery has attracted a number of the UK's most well-known critics. Find out what they thought of the pavilion after the break.
Floor Module in Shelter. Image Courtesy of Emergency Floor
Millions of refugees across the globe, due to global conflict or natural phenomena, are forced to leave their homes and live in low-quality, temporary housing. The majority of these shelters lack a fundamental component of safety and well-being: floors. Emergency Floor is an initiative developed by Sam Brisendine and Scott Key to solve this problem, and bring safety to refugee shelters and the people in them. With their new Indiegogo campaign, Emergency Floor is working to provide efficient, inexpensive flooring that is directly geared towards assisting relief agencies.
The ruins of Tintagel Castle, one of English Heritage's most visited sites, has been announced as the site for a new two-stage international ideas competition. The castle, which is linked to the legend of King Arthur, is located in north Cornwall (in the south of the UK) and is built on a rocky outcrop connected to the mainland by a narrow, now eroded, land-bridge. English Heritage require a new footbridge which will be 28 metres higher than the current one, spanning a total distance of 72 metres, with an estimated budget of around £4million (around $6.3million).
Goettsch Partners (GP) has been commissioned to design a 605-foot-tall "Park Tower" for San Francisco. Planned to rise in the SOMA district, on the corner of Howard and Beale streets, across from the new Transbay Transit Center, the new building will feature a variety of office space, flanked by a series of outdoor terraces - "mini-parks in the sky," hence the tower's name.
With the demands of sustainability today placing tight restrictions on performance metrics such as how airtight a building is, one of the sacrifices that often has to be made is user control. Windows are often no longer openable; shades and blinds often replaced with non-openable louvers. In recent years new technology such as smart glass (sometimes called "switchable glass) has promised a modicum of compromise, allowing windows to be tinted on demand. But smart glass is limited - it's either on or off, clear or tinted.
Until now, that is. At the AIA convention in May, SageGlass revealed a range of innovations that greatly increase the options available to designers when specifying smart glass.
After two months of a decreasing demand for design services, the US Architecture Billing Index (ABI) has bounced back into positive territory. As the American Institute of Architects (AIA) report, May's ABI score was 51.9, up from a mark of 48.8 in April. The new projects inquiry index was 61.5, up from a reading of 60.1 the previous month. This growth was lead by a growing demand for new schools, hospitals, cultural facilities and municipal buildings.
A breakdown of regional highlights, after the break.
The NewSchool of Architecture and Design has awarded Gianandrea Barreca their Global Design and Innovation Award for his extensive and creative work. Barreca co-founded Boeri Studio (now recognized as Barreca & La Varra and Stefano Boeri Architetti), and is known for putting an emphasis on both human interaction and public art.
When the first images of Cornell University's new campus on Roosevelt Island were unveiled last year, the First Academic Building (now known as the Bloomberg Center) was highlighted as a design driven by sustainability. In this interview, originally published by Arup's newly-revamped online magazine Arup Doggerel as "Net zero learning," Sarah Wesseler talks to members of the team from Morphosis, Arup and Cornell about how they designed the building to be one of the most sustainable education facilities in the world.
For its new tech-focused New York City campus, Cornell University set out to create one of America’s most sustainable university centers. With the net zero Bloomberg Center now in construction, I interviewed three leaders of the design team — Diana Allegretti, Assistant Director for Design and Construction at Cornell; Ung Joo Scott Lee, a principal at Morphosis; and Tom Rice, a structural engineer and project manager at Arup.
ReDeBOSTON 2100; Architerra. Image Courtesy of Boston Living with Water
The winning projects of the Boston Living with Water competition have been announced. The competition “sought design solutions envisioning a beautiful, vibrant, and resilient Boston that is prepared for end-of-the-century climate conditions and rising sea levels.” Out of 50 teams, three were selected, each for separate sites—one for a building, one for a neighborhood, and one for a significant piece of city infrastructure—in addition to one honorable mention. Each of the winners will receive a $13,000 prize funded by the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management and the Barr Foundation.
The Boston Living with Water competition was organized by the City of Boston, The Boston Harbor Association, the Boston Redevelopment Authority, and the Boston Society of Architects. As Mayor Martin J. Walsh honored the winners, he noted that “competition ideas and strategies are already informing Boston’s future, including revisions to building plans and zoning codes, and influencing ‘Imagine Boston 2030.’” Winning projects will be on display at BSA Space through June 2015. Learn more about the winners, after the break.
Best Residential Architecture – Single Family: Haffenden House / PARA-Project . Image Courtesy of AZURE
AZURE has announced the winners of its fifth annual AZ Awards, which recognize excellence in design and architecture worldwide. The 19 winners were chosen from a shortlist of 66 projects.
The jury included Winka Dubbeldam of Archi-Tectonics (New York), architect Brendan MacFarlane of Jakob + MacFarlane (Paris), designer Anwar Mekhayech of the Design Agency (Toronto), landscape architect Janet Rosenberg of Janet Rosenberg & Studio (Toronto) and designer Philippe Malouin (London).
View all of the winning projects after the break.
https://www.archdaily.com/769058/azure-announces-az-award-winnersAD Editorial Team
In 2009 Stanton Williams won an international competition to transform the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nantes, one of France's six largest Fine Art Museums outside of Paris. Their design for this, the London-based practice's first major project in France, connects a number of historic buildings through one new "monolithic extension, glazed with thin layers of Portuguese white marble and glass façade." The museum is slated to open to the public in 2016.
.jpg?1435226672 "© Laurian Ghinitoiu")
.jpg?1435226660 "© Laurian Ghinitoiu")
.jpg?1435226627 "© Laurian Ghinitoiu")
.jpg?1435151136&format=webp&width=640&height=580)
_-_Final_Boards_4.jpg?1434518015&format=webp&width=640&height=580)
