Archinect - Features

Narrative, Media, and AI in Architectural Academia; A Conversation with Natasha Sandmeier

2023-11-06T13:00:00-05:00

Archinect last spoke with Natasha Sandmeier on the themes of visual media and narrative storytelling in 2019. Back then, few could have imagined the seismic impact that generative AI would have on such fields. In her leading role at UCLA AUD's Entertainment Studio, Sandmeier sits at the forefront of an architectural academic landscape, already asking what the recent popularized adoption of AI in design and world-building means for authorship, ethics, representation, learning criteria, and the role of the architect.

The intervening four years since 2019 have also seen a shift in Sandmeier's own responsibilities. Beyond her position as an assistant adjunct professor at UCLA, Sandmeier is now the Executive Director of Los Angeles' A+D Museum, offering yet another outlet to explore the question of how technology is changing the face of architecture and media. The latest appointment adds to Sandmeier's long list of prior positions in the worlds of architectural academia, practice, and cu...

From Start-Up to Industry Leader: Enscape Develops A Real-Time 3D Experience That Puts User Experience At the Forefront Of Designer Workflow

2021-03-17T21:05:00-04:00

Enscape, the leading provider of real-time rendering and virtual reality technology for the global Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) market announces the release of Enscape version 3.0 and its new branding. More than a recent update, 3.0 is a milestone in Enscape's company history. Their latest release and branding reflect its mission to unleash a designer's creativity through continuous innovation in accessible design technology.

Archinect unpacks Enscape's latest software launch and explores how this will impact the architecture industry as it continues to move forward with project planning, client interaction, and architectural visualization.

UofT Daniels Graduate Mariam Malaty Architecturalizes Grottoes

2020-09-03T11:57:00-04:00

M.Arch graduate Mariam Malaty of the University of Toronto John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design used the figurative and literal forms of grottoes to explore formal concepts in pursuit of "fantastical design" possibilities. In her thesis, The Grotto of Illusive Forms, Malaty explains, "these propositions are an open exploration of form found within the spectrum of the 'familiar' and the 'unfamiliar.'” The result, Malaty tells Archinect, "is the creation of four grottoes, each the venue and the result of three acts of colonization."

Archinect connected with Malaty to learn about her thesis, the process for creating the "digital artifacts" that make up her project, and how she has applied the skills she learned in architecture school to her family's residential and hotel business.

Archinect's Spotlight on 2020 Thesis Projects: 2020 has been an extraordinarily challenging year for architecture graduates. Students were displaced as schools shut down, academic ...

Kilograph and Climate Cents Team Up To Rewrite L.A.’s Climate Action Narrative

2020-01-03T14:57:00-05:00

Discussions regarding climate change and the need to make progressive reforms in the built environment are everywhere these days.

Over the last year, calls from architects and the architecture community to strengthen their involvement in fighting the growing climate crisis have increased markedly. From international organizations like Architects Declare to efforts on the part of individual practices to create manifestos to ensure their own accountability towards this issue, it's difficult to avoid talking about sustainability and climate action when discussing architecture.

Individually, however, the task of reinforcing action and follow-through can be tough, but collectively, entities and groups of firms can band together to create not only moments of change, but also movements that advocate for continuous action. To learn more about such collaborations, Archinect spoke with Keely Colcleugh, CEO of Kilograph and Sean Cushing board member of Climate Cents. Together, they unpack th...

Exploring the Future of Narrative in Architecture with Natasha Sandmeier and Nathan Su of UCLA's IDEAS Entertainment Studio

2019-11-14T20:30:00-05:00

Narrative, drama, and fiction have always played a key role in the production of architecture.

During the 19th Century, for example, architects like Louis Sullivan and McKim Mead & White mixed organic and formal languages to tell stories about the activities that took place within the buildings they designed, while Modernist architect Le Corbusier often worked through episodic vignettes while designing buildings and urban plans alike. In the 1980s, Jon Jerde mixed these approaches to create his trademark "experience architectures," precedents that architects like Rem Koolhaas and Zaha Hadid melded with an urban focus to create buildings that extend the street indoors and create seamless collections of spaces that blur the distinction between inside and outside.

In recent years, architecture's narrative turn has largely focused on a variety of digital fronts, where virtual and augmented reality experiments, filmic approaches, and sophisticated visualizations are creating yet another ...

Soapbox: Virtual Reality

2018-05-30T09:00:00-04:00

Soapbox is a weekly series delivering a curated set of lectures, talks and symposia concerning contemporary themes but explored through the archives of lectures past and present. With the plethora of lectures, talks, symposia and panels occurring world wide on a daily basis, how can we begin to keep up and if not, find them once they are gone? Soapbox looks to assemble a selection of recent, archived and outlier lectures surrounding a given theme. Soapbox looks to curate this never-ending library of ideas into an engaging and diverse list of thoughts and provocations. Soapbox is just that, a collection aimed at discovering the occasional needle in a haystack.