A view of Sean Gallagher's work as seen in Morpholio's Trace App. Image Courtesy of Morpholio
If you visit an architecture office today, you may sense a slight change. The days of bulky desktops, ergonomic mouse pads and tower-high stacks of drawing sets are slowly giving way to digital pencils, tablets, and tons of architects’ hand-drawings—both physical and digital. Architects across the globe are clearing their desks, literally, and utilizing emerging touchscreen tools and software for designing, sharing and collaborating. It seems possible that, for the first time in years, the architecture profession could revisit Bernard Tschumi’s “paperless” studio which formed a key part of his tenure as dean of Columbia University’s GSAPP in the mid-1990s. However, this time, “paperless” starts with a pencil, instead of a click.
Modeling on the computer and physically building scale models are essential modes of iteration for the modern architecture studio. But what if this creative process of digital and physical ideation could be made accessible to everyone: children, hobbyists, and architects alike?
That is the question I set out to answer by designing an entirely new snapping block system, from the ground up, for the aesthetic and experiential expectations of the 21st century. It's called Kible, and after putting architecture aside and developing it since November 2015, I've recently launched the product on Kickstarter.
Mapacad is a website that offers downloads of .dwgs of dozens of cities. With 200 metropolises in their database, the founders have shared a set of their most-downloaded cities.
The files contain closed polyline layers for buildings, streets, highways, city limits, and geographical data--all ready for use in CAD programs like Autocad, Rhino, BricsCad and SketchUp.
目前在纽约市的现代艺术博物馆（MoMA）展出的是建筑师扎哈哈迪德（Zaha Hadid）为她的开创性未建成项目香港太平山（The Peak in Hong Kong）所做的概念画作。本作品作于1991年，正处于3D CAD软件的普及为建筑制图的革命注入了一剂强心针的时期边缘。太平山（The Peak）画作出现于建筑制图因其自身原因的革新的末期，和旨在展示现实世界的可缩放，滚动，渲染时代的来临。只有这种新的图像创作软件在绘图功能上与以前的时代具有很大不同并且开创了新的制图风格，工具和过程通过对用户与他们的互动施加预定的议程来对设计进行约束。
在这个数字时代，像勒布贝斯·伍兹（Lebbeus Woods）和迈克尔·格雷夫斯（Michael Graves）这样的以手绘艺术而闻名的建筑师，推翻了建筑制图中占据主导地位的超级现实主义。 然而，根据 Sam Jacob 在“Metropolis”杂志上发布的最新文章，我们可能正在进入以“后数字”（post-digital）所代表的时代。 在后数字时期，建筑师重回传统制图时代，但是是通过创造新的方法论和重新评估过去数十年来最适合的数字工具。目前在建筑实践中还是大大倾向于拼贴技术，但是对于后数字制图的研究仍旧会在事务所和高等学府中继续。
In order to support the design work of our readers, the company Teka has shared with us a series of .DWG files of its various kitchen products. The files include both 2D and 3D drawings and can be downloaded directly from this article.
Download the objects below, which have been separated into the following categories: drop-in sinks, built-in sinks, undermount sinks, built-in ovens, faucets, stoves, extractor hoods, and refrigerators.
https://www.archdaily.com/868231/stoves-sinks-and-refrigerators-downloadable-cad-blocks-for-kitchen-designsArchDaily Team
The following excerpt was originally published in Natascha Meuser's Construction and Design Manual: Architecture Drawings (DOM Publishers). With our industry's technological advances, "the designing architect is not simultaneously the drawing architect." Meuser's manual aims to help architects develop and hone their technical drawing skills as the "practical basis and form of communication for architects, artists, and engineers." Read on for ten freehand drawing exercises that tackle issues ranging from proportion and order to perspective and space.
What is beauty? A few years ago, a group of international researchers sought to unravel the mysteries of human beauty. They used state-of-the-art, totally impartial computer technology and a huge dataset to establish once and for all why particular faces are perceived as beautiful, and whether beauty exists independently of ethnic, social and cultural background; in other words, whether it can be calculated mathematically. The scientists input countless photos of faces from all over the world, each described by survey respondents as particularly beautiful, into a powerful computer. The resulting information, they believed, could be used to generate a face that would be recognized by any human being as possessing absolute beauty. But what the computer eventually spat out was a picture of an ordinary face, neither beautiful nor ugly, devoid of both life and character. It left most viewers cold. The accumulated data had created not superhuman beauty, but a statistically correct average.
The best thing about Revit templates is how much time they can save you. The worst thing about Revit templates is how much time they take to create.
It’s a bit of a catch-22. In order to save time, you need to spend time. It’s not easy to find that time when you have billable projects to work on and deadlines to meet. Believe me, I know.
And once you do finish the template, how often do you review it and keep it updated? What if you have a project that’s a new building-type? Does your template still work for that kind of building? What if you need to follow an owner’s BIM standard? Can you modify your template to fit their requirements?
In order to support the design work of our readers, the company Porcelanosa Grupo has shared with us a series of .DWG files of its various bathroom products. The files include both 2D and 3D drawings and can be downloaded directly from this article.
Download the objects below, which have been separated into the following categories: Shower Heads, Toilets, Sinks, Faucets and Tubs.
https://www.archdaily.com/805903/sinks-toilets-shower-heads-and-faucets-downloadable-bathroom-cad-blocksArchDaily Team
Following last year’s introduction of MultiFab, a multi-material 3D printer, researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory has pioneered a system for designing multi-material objects. The new interface, Foundry, is meant to be accessible to non-programmers, whereas multi-material 3D printing technology has historically been prohibitive both with respect to cost and user-friendliness.
The key to quick, efficient CAD modeling is to have a solid library of CAD blocks - pre-prepared sets of common objects and details that you can simply drop into your drawing as and when they are required. Fortunately, there are many ways you can build up your own CAD blocks library without having to create all of your own objects from scratch. One of them is to purchase sets of blocks from websites like boss888.net, which has a wide array of CAD objects available for download - and is even offering a selection of their catalog for free.
https://www.archdaily.com/802406/60-free-cad-blocks-and-drawingsAD Editorial Team
With the aim of supporting the design work of our readers, the company UrbanPlay has shared with us a series of files in .DWG format for different models of children's games, playgrounds, and equipment for public space. Files can be downloaded directly in this article and include 2D and 3D files.
While using technical drawings, Zema Vieira makes architectural illustrations by using only AutoCAD without any further techniques. Her body of work became a project called “Fachada Frontal” or "Front Facade." In it, the artist depicts buildings from cities around the world, with a particular focus on Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
Check out below the illustrations made by the artist.
A team of engineers at Autodesk have been pushing the limitations of conventional 3D printing -- not by redesigning the machines themselves, but by creating a network to harness their collective power. Autodesk's "Project Escher" is a new printing system that utilizes the power of several 3D printers at once to fabricate complex parts in unison, reports FastCoDesign. The new system can increase production speed by up to 90%.
In contemporary architecture practice, proficiency in an ever-widening array of architecture software is becoming increasingly important. For almost every job in the field, it is no longer enough to bring a skilled mind and a pencil; different jobs may require different levels of expertise and different types of software, but one thing that seems universally accepted is that some level of involvement with software is now a requirement.
While software has opened a huge range of capabilities for architects, it also presents a challenge: universities have taken wildly different approaches to the teaching of software, with some offering classes and access to experts while others prefer to teach design theory and expect students to pick up software skills in their own time. New architecture graduates therefore already face a divide in skills - and that's not to mention the many, many architects who went to school before AutoCAD was even an industry standard, and have spent the past decades keeping up with new tools.
The internet has therefore been a huge democratizing effect in this regard, offering tutorials, often for free, to anyone with a connection - as long as you know where to look. That's why ArchDaily wants your help to create a directory of the internet's best architecture tutorial websites. Find out how to help (and see our own short list to get you started) after the break.
In the architecture world, there are a handful of persistent debates that arise time and time again: the challenges of being a woman in the field of architecture is one of them, for example; the problems of a culture of long hours and hard work is another. But one of the most enduring arguments in architecture - especially in the academic sphere - is the battle between hand drawing and computer aided design. Both schools have their famous proponents: Michael Graves, for example, was known as a huge talent with a pencil and paper, and came to the defense of drawing in articles for the New York Times, among others. Patrik Schumacher, on the other hand, is famous for his commitment to the capabilities of the computer.
To advance this heated conversation, two weeks ago we reached out to our readers to provide their thoughts on this topic in an attempt to get a broad cross-section of opinions from architects from all walks of life. Read some of the best responses after the break.
Use the flowchart to find out which software is your perfect fit (click to enlarge). Image Courtesy of ArchSmarter
One of the biggest decisions to make when setting out alone - either as an independent architect or starting your own firm - is which software to use. It can be tempting to simply choose an industry leader, but you may end up paying over the odds for a product which doesn't suit your style. In this post, originally published on ArchSmarter as "Which architectural software is right for me?" Michael Kilkelly works through the factors that should influence your decision, whether you're making it for the first time or reviewing a choice you made long ago.
Which CAD or BIM software should you use? Well, that depends. What functionality to you need? What are your priorities with regard to cost, comparability, interoperability? Are you using a Mac or a PC?
In 2014 renowned Dutch politician Neelie Kroes, then a commissioner for the European Union, stated that coding should be taught in elementary school in the Netherlands, arguing that “Coding is the reading and writing of the future” and that if the Dutch didn’t incorporate it into their education system it would fall behind school systems in other countries. The reactions to both Kroes’ statement and Michael Kilkelly's article "5 Reasons Architects Should Learn To Code" were quite similar. Those already capable of writing code agreed; many who have never even seen, let alone written any script responded negatively. Many reactions to Micheal Kilkelly's article covered the same ideas: “There's no time!” “Coding is not designing!” Or just plain, “No!”
