Archinect - News

This AI converts simple sketches into photorealistic landscapes—and architecture will be next

2019-03-20T15:10:00-04:00

Today at Nvidia GTC 2019, the company unveiled a stunning image creator. Using generative adversarial networks, users of the software are with just a few clicks able to sketch images that are nearly photorealistic. The software will instantly turn a couple of lines into a gorgeous mountaintop sunset. This is MS Paint for the AI age.

The GauGAN image creation system Nvidia presented this week is an impressive foreshadowing of AI's rapid advancement into creative fields, like art and architecture—and a frightening example of the increasing ease of producing (nearly) photorealistic inauthentic imagery.

Screenshot of the GauGAN app. Image: Nvidia.

The possibilities of this crude demo tool for future, more sophisticated architectural application are hauntingly plentiful, and the company already hints at exactly that in its announcement: "GauGAN could offer a powerful tool for creating virtual worlds to everyone from architects and urban planners to landscape designers and game developers. With an AI that understands how the real world looks, these professionals could better prototype ideas and make rapid changes to a synthetic scene."

Demonstration of Nvidia's GauGAN system. Video via Nvidia on YouTube.

Since neural networks generate creations based on the set of images they have been trained on, will the creative r...

A 1950's replica town in San Diego aids patients with memory therapy

2018-09-17T14:12:00-04:00

On August 13, a brand-new town in Southern California welcomed its first residents [...] on a light-industrial stretch of Main Street in Chula Vista, a San Diego suburb. Then they emerged in Town Square®—a 9,000-square-foot working replica of a 1950s downtown, built and operated by the George G. Glenner Alzheimer’s Family Centers. Unlike the businesses around it hawking restaurant supplies and tires, Town Square trades in an intangible good: memories.

The new 50's replica town in San Diego is the largest US investment in reminiscence therapy for dementia and age-related cognitive impaired patients. The industrial warehouse has been transformed into a fake town of 14 storefronts complete with a diner, a movie theater, a pet store, a park-like square, and a city hall. Patients are aided in therapy by props from the years between 1953 and 1961. Several other locations are forthcoming, the next planned for a former Rite Aid in Baltimore.

A fake Harlem in Sweden and other architecture illusions documented by Gregor Sailer

2018-07-13T16:01:00-04:00

The caption to the photograph reveals that this isn’t New York at all, of course, but Sweden: a life-size replica of Harlem in a forest in the west of the country, near Gothenburg. The asphalt and snow are real enough, but nearly everything else is fake. The streets are void of people and cars; the store fronts are life-size photographs, printed on canvas and hung on steel frames. Welcome to the Potemkin village: a place of clones, impostors, facsimiles, frauds. Maybe don’t plan to stay.

Why is there a life-size replica of Harlem in Sweden? This bizarre space turns out to be a test track for self-driving cars. Why Harlem? Even Austrian artist Gregor Sailer who photographed the space doesn't know. Sailer traveled around the world to capture 25 of these false architectural landscapes for his project titled “The Potemkin Village”.

Check out some of these unreal images below:

“Carson City VI/Vargarda, Sweden, 2016” © Gregor Sailer

“Jeoffrécourt, French Army, France, 2015” © Gregor Sailer

“Holland Town VI, Gaoqiao New Town, China, 2016” © Gregor Sailer

“Complexe de Tir en Zone UrBaine II, French Army, France, 2015” © Gregor Sailer

“Schnöggersburg X, German Army Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany, 2017” © Gregor Sailer

“Junction City IV, Fort Irwin, U.S. Army, Mojave Desert, California, U.S.A., 2016” © Gregor Sailer

Find out more on these imitation spaces captured by Sailer from Andrew Dickson.

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Quartz digs into the trillion-dollar global black market for fake “designer” chairs

2017-07-25T14:19:00-04:00

Labeled with nice-sounding terms like “reproduction,”replica,” or “homage,” many designer chairs in offices, hotel lobbies, airports, restaurants and even big furniture stores are actually unauthorized copies. And while a knock-off Eames or Barcelona chair might seem like a harmless, budget-friendly addition to your living room, these illegal knockoffs threaten the economy and the environment, and erode the very meaning of design.

For furniture designers, protecting intellectual property is challenging—IP laws for furniture in the US don’t protect function, so designers have to prove a unique element in their design to qualify for a patent. And even when a patent is obtained, its protections often do not apply in different regions—not very useful in a global marketplace. Companies who rip off classics benefit because they can skip the years-long product development phase and often have an easier time selling their versions because consumers are already familiar with the look.

The Eames took out a full page ad warning customers about fakes. The ad on the back cover of Arts and Architecture magazine instructed buyers to look for Herman Miller’s logo, the only authorized manufacturer of their chairs at the time.

To combat the spread of cheap knock-offs a five-year-old consortium of furniture manufacturers and design firms called BeOriginal Americas has been training US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers to ...

Robert Venturi, Prince Charles & that false Corinthian column

2015-05-05T13:53:00-04:00

Today it houses one of London’s best permanent collection displays, but the 1991 Sainsbury Wing extension to the National Gallery in London was almost scuppered when Prince Charles and the other trustees opposed the architect of the new building, Robert Venturi. The row was over a false Corinthian column that the US architect wanted as a decorative feature on the Trafalgar Square façade of the new extension.

Chinese art institute resembles Hogwarts Castle

2014-12-15T14:06:00-05:00

The Hebei Academy of Fine Arts in China’s Hebei Province has constructed a new campus in Xinle City that, rather than resembling local architecture, adheres more to Gothic and European styles. Specifically, it bears a striking resemblance to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. [...] But the new building is actually called “Cinderella’s Castle,” and was modeled on structures from medieval Europe. Unfortunately, the building has little to do with Cinderella or Hogwarts.

Previously: Chinese Colleges Are Trying to Look Like the Ivy League

Architectural historian discovers Chartres Cathedral has started faking it

2014-12-15T12:05:00-05:00

The first portion she pointed out was a pale ochre wall patterned with thin, perpendicular white lines mimicking mortar between masonry blocks. Looking upward we then saw panels of blue faux marbre, high above them gilded column capitals and bosses (the ornamental knobs where vault ribs intersect), and, nearby, floor-to-ceiling piers covered in glossy yellow trompe l’oeil marbling, like some funeral parlor in Little Italy.

Back to the future: the fake relics of the 'old' Chinese city of Datong

2014-10-22T13:22:00-04:00

Six years ago the then-mayor launched an ambitious plan to reconstruct the lost walls, watchtowers and Ming-style homes of the city – resettling tens of thousands of residents and transforming Datong into a tourist site. Now few want to live here

Copyrighting Cartography with Fictional Places

2014-07-21T14:43:00-04:00

With all the time and energy cartographers spend preparing maps, it makes sense that they would want to protect their investment. One of the ways they do so — although they don’t always admit it — is by including “trap streets,” deliberate mistakes added to maps to catch unsuspecting copyright violators. These may include fake streets, as the name suggests, but the term is also applied to other erroneous cartographic data included to embarrass those who might steal it.

From Tower Bridge to Sydney Harbour, welcome to China's city of clones

2014-06-03T13:21:00-04:00

Suzhou is like many Chinese cities. It has a historic core, including nine Unesco world heritage sites, as well as many beautiful gardens, waterways and temples. [...] But Suzhou has also embarked on another fascinating project: urban mimicry. From Venetian-style “water town” districts to Dutch-style suburban living, Suzhou hosts what journalist Bianca Bosker calls “original copies”: simulations of western landmarks. The city is fast becoming China’s city of clones.

Previously:

Colossal Bavarian Castle Set To Open In Dalian, China

2014-05-21T13:47:00-04:00

Luxury hotel chain Starwood Hotels unveiled the upcoming opening of The Castle Hotel in Dalian, a major seaport city in China’s northeastern Liaoning province. This makes it one of the various examples of European-inspired architecture sprouting across China in recent years. Starwood Hotels announced in a press release of the opening of The Castle Hotel later this year, when it is done with its final stages of interior renovation.

Previously: Chinese secretly copy Austrian town

China Has a Fake Paris, and It’s a Ghost Town

2013-08-05T18:35:00-04:00

That’s a nice photo of Paris, isn’t it? Nope! That’s not Paris and no, it’s not Disney World or even the Las Vegas Strip; it’s a replica Paris in China. What makes this clone of Paris even more weird is that it’s a ghost town. Only about 2,000 people live there, which means that those giant skyscrapers, with 700+ units tend to only have around 30 people living in each of them. This city has become a place to take wedding photos for Chinese citizens who can’t afford to travel to the real Paris...