Archinect - News

RIBA pairs with Google Arts & Culture to expand its audience with a slate of online exhibitions

2021-05-26T12:39:00-04:00

RIBA is partnering with Google Arts & Culture to launch an innovative new online exhibition of curated stories using items and artifacts culled from its collection in order to highlight the 187-year-old organization's influence on the field.

The announcement was made this week and culminated in the publication of a web platform that will play host to a series of small exhibitions that educate viewers on a slate of different architectural stories: ranging from the construction of Central Park to the civic architecture shaping modern Ghana in a first for any design institution in the UK.

Design for a metropolitan cathedral by architect Etienne-Louis Boulee, 1782. Credit: RIBA Collections.

The platform’s 15 stories showcase a variety of items from its collective including photographs, manuscripts, interviews, and drawings by major figures such as Étienne-Louis Boullée and Sir Charles Barry. Viewers can immerse themselves in an architectural tour of Venice or indulge in a history of the ...

Exploring empty architecture in the age of social distance

2020-03-25T13:14:00-04:00

"I'm going around the world photographing places using live feed cameras," proclaims Twitter user Noah Kalina — kicking off a fascinating and chilling collection of empty streets, vacant squares, deserted piazzas, and desolate agorae.

Public spaces and tourist magnets, once bustling with life, are now, in the sudden age of COVID-19 social distancing and shelter-in-place orders, devoid of the human occupants and civic life they were designed for.

St. Peter's Square. Vatican City. 3/24/2020 13:44 pic.twitter.com/0ZfL3JmfbI
— Noah Kalina (@noahkalina) March 24, 2020 Times Square. New York City. 3/24/2020 08:15 pic.twitter.com/ep4HINXmGF
— Noah Kalina (@noahkalina) March 24, 2020 Trevi Fountain - Rome. 3/23/2020 16:40 pic.twitter.com/N2jDCuXbm1
— Noah Kalina (@noahkalina) March 23, 2020 Bourbon Street. New Orleans, Louisiana. 3/23/2020 14:43 pic.twitter.com/RSteFfcjpn
— Noah Kalina (@noahkalina) March 23, 2020 Milan Cathedral. Milan, Italy. 3/23/202 17:49 pic.twitter.com/xntheacv2n
— No...

Virtual museum tours enjoy new relevance in the age of COVID-19

2020-03-16T19:37:00-04:00

As coronavirus (Covid-19) continues to spread and disrupt the daily lives of people across the globe, forcing many to self-quarantine, we are compiling the best online offerings from artists, museums and galleries. Whether you are staying at home or your local museums and galleries have closed, here are some of the best digital initiatives to satisfy your creative cravings.

With prominent events around the world canceled or postponed and cultural institutions hunkering down during this COVID-19 outbreak, online art exhibitions and virtual museum tours can, or at least attempt to, fill the gap. The Art Newspaper's roundup includes Google Arts & Culture's vast digital offerings, the Louvre's online tours, and others.

For Archinect's growing list of the architecture and design events that have been canceled or postponed, as well as affected schools, click here.

This tool instantly draws all of the streets in any city

2020-01-24T15:13:00-05:00

City Roads, an online tool developed by software engineer Andrei Kashcha, allows users to search any city and instantly receive back only the streets by pulling data from OpenStreetMap. Simply search, click, and enjoy the beauty of urban planning. You can print your city of choice on a mug for purchase, save it as a .png file or even as a vector file.

Here are a couple of US cities generated from the online tool:

And here are some outside of the US:

The 'Stonewall Forever' augmented reality monument celebrates 50 years of LGBTQ Pride history

2019-06-05T17:31:00-04:00

The Stonewall Riots in June 1969 set forth the fight for LGBTQ rights that continues today. To honor the last five decades of its lasting impact, the LGBT Community Center of NYC teamed up with the National Park Service, with support from Google, to create an interactive, augmented reality monument called “Stonewall Forever”, which commemorates the 50th anniversary of Stonewall and aims to preserve LGBTQ history and amplify voices from the community.

"We hope that this effort lifts up a broad array of voices and creates a connection to Stonewall's legacy for people everywhere,” the Stonewall Forever website states.

The rainbow “living monument” lets users scroll through scores of videos, a documentary film, historic photos, audio, and text that tell the ever-growing, multi-faceted story of the LGBTQ community. Also, anyone anywhere can add their own images and text to the monument.

In 2017, Google.org — the tech giant's philanthropic arm — granted $1 million to the LGBT Community Ce...

Google's Environmental Insights Explorer tracks carbon pollution on a local level

2018-10-05T18:35:00-04:00

Google has started estimating greenhouse-gas emissions for individual cities, part of what it recently described as an ambitious new plan to deploy its hoard of geographic information on the side of climate-concerned local leaders.

Google has launched a new online tool, the Environmental Insights Explorer, which tracks emissions inventory on a city scale. The program is still in beta mode and currently only provides data for five cities (Pittsburgh, PA; Mountain View, CA; Victoria, BC; Melbourne, AU; Buenos Aires, AR) but could eventually turn into an enormously helpful planning tool for municipalities—especially while the consensus on man-made global warming can be frustratingly murky on the state and federal level.

As augmented reality further permeates the urban environment, do architects play a role in planning virtual spaces?

2018-10-03T17:59:00-04:00

Over the past couple of decades, artists and designers have developed augmented realities that propose vastly different, and often more radical perspectives of what a digitally enhanced public realm could look like. [...] many actually existing AR projects instead ask critical questions about the implementation of this novel technology and its potential to shift both the everyday experiences and political economies of architecture and cities.

In his latest Failed Architecture piece, Joshua McWhirter offers an insightful history of noteworthy augmented reality-powered works of art, activism, game design, and simulation while also issuing a warning call about the impending privatization and commodification of the virtual public space without much input from architects. "And as this landscape increasingly constitutes a public realm in and of itself," McWhirter writes, "a collection of hybrid real-virtual public spaces, there are even glimmers of direct challenges to its creeping privatization."

The 'Tinder' for apartment swapping launches in the Netherlands

2018-01-23T15:06:00-05:00

Dutch social renters wanting to move to a new apartment can now use an app to swap houses with other renters. One precondition, both renters need to ‘like’ each other’s apartment to get a match. [...] Young renters with small apartments may swap with older residents who live in bigger apartments. In this way, the issue of scheefwonen (skew living — when people live in apartments that do not match their needs and desires) within the Dutch rental sector could be solved.

"After two apartments are matched, the users are introduced to each other, after which they have to find out if their rental agreements are compatible enough for the renters to swap house."

Win John Cary's book, “Design for Good: A New Era of Architecture for Everyone”

2018-01-22T12:00:00-05:00

Esteemed designer and entrepreneur John Cary created the book “Design for Good: A New Era of Architecture for Everyone” to bring attention to impactful designs that address critical issues of inequity and accessibility, as well as challenge the widespread assumption that good design is a luxury. Thanks to publisher Island Press, Archinect is giving away five copies of the book to our readers!

The book starts with a foreword by philanthropist Melinda Gates. “Great design is not a finite resource; it is a choice we can all make by listening more, empathizing more, and demanding more for humanity,” Gates writes.

The book highlights 20 human-centered projects from around the world that not only demonstrate how design can elevate communities, but how it can be achieved. It features in-depth interviews with designers, clients, and users, alongside full-color photographs.

St. Jerome's Children's Centre in Murunyu, Nakuru, Kenya, by Orkidstudio. Photo: Odysseas Mourtzouchos.

Women's Opportu...

Looking to buy an unfinished skyscraper? This Chinese online auction has one listed (starting price: $84m).

2018-01-02T14:45:00-05:00

A 156m (511ft) skyscraper in northern Shanxi province has been listed on Taobao, China's largest e-commerce website, by a local court. [...] Construction on the building first began in 2006 and was due to be completed by 2011, according to Chinese state media outlet Xinhua. However, the developer ran into funding troubles. The building was eventually seized by the Shanxi Provincial Higher People's Court.

Fresh coat of paint, some shiplap here and there, and this puppy can be open for business in no time.

If a 511-ft fixer upper in the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan has been on your real estate wishlist for some time, and you happen to have at least 553m yuan ($84 million) sitting idly by, then this listing on China's popular Taobao online auction site is your biggest good news of 2018 yet.

Hurry though, the campaign ends later today.

Win a “Concrete New York” map city guide!

2017-11-30T12:00:00-05:00

Explore New York City the (mostly) old-fashioned way with the “Concrete New York” Map, the latest paper architectural map by Blue Crow Media. This unique two-sided city guide highlights a selection of NYC's most celebrated concrete buildings as a gateway to discovering historic gems like Battery Hill at Fort Tilden or contemporary works like Steven Holl Architects’ Hunters Point Community Library or Dattner Architects' Spring Street Salt Shed. Thanks to Blue Crow Media, Archinect is giving away five Concrete New York maps to our readers!

The foldable map includes an intro by Brooklyn-based writer Allison C. Meier, photographs by Jason Woods, and project details of over 50 of NYC's concrete buildings and structures, including Frank Lloyd Wright’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Marcel Breuer’s Brutalist Begrisch Hall, and the Eero Saarinen-designed TWA Flight Center.

Detail of the Concrete New York map. Image courtesy of Blue Crow Media.

Begrisch Hall at Bronx Community College by Marce...

Penn State's College of Arts and Architecture launches digital photo archive

2017-07-31T13:49:00-04:00

After three years of planning and design, the College of Arts and Architecture has launched a public, searchable photo archive of images from within the college. The online photo archive, Arts and Architecture Resource Collaborative (AARC), is the product of a partnership among the College of Arts and Architecture Alumni and Communications Office, the Visual Resources Centre (VRC), and Arts and Architecture Information Technology (AAIT).

"AARC features images provided by multiple photographers with search criteria customized for the college, including department names, keywords, proper names and dates. Through a series of focus groups with key users and uploaders, the AARC team built a robust metadata structure, providing easy access and user-friendly instructions for searching and uploading images."

As the cities change, Google Street View records

2017-05-26T15:27:00-04:00

It’s been a decade since Google Street View launched, giving folks all the tools they need to virtually travel to far-flung places without leaving the comfort of their couch. But the tool is also useful for those who are curious about the evolution of places over time—and few places have experienced as drastic a change to their landscape in the past decade as New York City.

Consider how much NYC has transformed in the past ten years. It is hard to even imagine the city's appearance in 2007 — prior to 20 skyscrapers' rising above the southern side of Central Park, before projects like Hudson Yards, the High Line, Pacific Park even begun their construction, and back when Williamsburg and Long Island City were not nearly as dense as today.

To see it for yourself, head over to Google Street View for some time-traveling. The feature can be activated by pressing the clock icon below your location.

View of 339 11th St in 2009 vs 2016

Saving Modern buildings, one hashtag at a time: World Monuments Fund kicks off #ModernCentury Instagram campaign

2017-04-27T15:04:00-04:00

The World Monuments Fund (WMF) launched its first Instagram campaign [...] to draw attention to the plight of the world’s Modern buildings, an increasing number of which are at risk because of the lack of regulations or political will needed to protect them. The fund kicks off the programme with a list of 30 sites nominated by architects, experts and students posted on its website and is appealing to the public to add to this list by submitting nominations via Instagram.

"The list will be sent to an advisory council formed of architects, including Annabelle Selldorf, designers and critics, who will advise the WMF on the next phase of the Modern Century programme."

The sites included on the initial list of 30 nominees are:

Hall of Nations (pictured in the cover photo above, demolished on April 23, 2017), New Delhi, India

Thompson Center (State of Illinois Building), Chicago, Illinois, USA (Photo: Mobilus In Mobili, Flickr)

Algiers Polytechnic School of Architecture and Urbanism, Algiers, Algeria

Hiraoka City Hall, Hiraoka, Japan

Honduras National Congress, Tegucigalpa, Honduras

SESC Pompéia, Sao Paulo, Brazil (Photo: Markus Lanz, Flickr)

Sirius Building, Sydney, Australia

Alexandria Zoo, Alexandria, Egypt

South Humber Park Pavilion, Toronto, Canada

Spomen Dom, Kolašin, Montenegro (Photo: Boban Scepanovic)

Restaurante Panorâmico de Monsanto, Lisbon, Portugal

Scala Theater, Bangkok, Thailand

Painted Desert Community Complex, Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, ...

AutoDraw, Google's newest A.I. Experiment, guesses what you're trying to draw

2017-04-17T13:29:00-04:00

You simply start drawing your best version of a pizza, or house, or dog, or birthday cake and the algorithms try to figure out what it is that you’re trying to draw. It then tries to match your squiggles with drawings in its database, and if it finds any possible matches, it’ll show them in a list at the top of your virtual canvas. If you like one of those options, you simply click on it and AutoDraw replaces your amateurish creation with something a bit slicker.

The new AutoDraw tool is part of Google's A.I. Experiments sandbox and pairs machine learning with artist drawings from a growing, crowd-sourced library. "AutoDraw’s suggestion tool uses the same technology used in QuickDraw, to guess what you’re trying to draw," states the tool's About page. "Right now, it can guess hundreds of drawings and we look forward to adding more over time."

While simplicity and intuitive accessibility are the striking features of this early version, AutoDraw—and a universe of variations—show a lot of potential for architectural sketching and prototyping.

Designing Together in the Cloud: How architects and engineers use cloud collaboration to increase productivity

2017-02-13T09:00:00-05:00

This post is brought to you by BIM 360 Team

Your latest building design project is moving forward quickly. But you discovered a small hitch yesterday: the MEP engineers referred to an old version of the structural model while modifying the duct work. Luckily, the team spotted and resolved the issue before it created serious problems or caused more than a couple hours of rework. Not a big deal, but it could have led to the kind of design error that 21% of architects consider to be a top cause of uncertainty and potential issues on projects. Working in the cloud delivers the power to prevent those kinds of errors.

According to the Construction Industry Council, cloud computing is on track to become the leading way firms store and share design models. That’s because when design teams work in the cloud, they get anytime, anywhere access to the latest design information. They can also quickly review any up-to-date changes without even opening the latest version of the model in their Build...

VACANT NEW YORK maps Manhattan's shuttered storefronts

2016-09-02T13:23:00-04:00

This is high-rent blight. The vacancy problem is immediately visible but lacking in hard data. The intent of this project is to provide some background around commercial vacancies and use a map to give some insight into the extent of the issue, ideally doubling as a tool for community groups and policymakers to identify areas for intervention. It's an obvious problem without a clear set of causes or solutions, but there are several contributing factors [...]

Click here for the interactive VACANT NEW YORK map.

You can now explore the Guggenheim rotunda galleries online via Google Street View

2016-01-22T18:28:00-05:00

Online visitors from around the world can now explore the interior of the iconic Frank Lloyd Wright–designed Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum through Google Street View technology. Additionally, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, in collaboration with the Google Cultural Institute, has made available over 120 artworks from its collection for online viewing. [...] The Guggenheim’s architecture presented unique challenges for Google’s engineers and Street View team.

Ready to immerse yourself? Click here to start your stroll down the rotunda.

All images courtesy of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Kickstart this! Archinect's Kickstarter picks for July + August 2015

2015-08-17T14:16:00-04:00

Time for the next Kickstart this! list. Check out what sorts of crowdfunding projects made it onto the July and August round-up for Archinect's curated Kickstarter page.

BIG's STEAM RING GENERATOR FOR WORLD'S CLEANEST POWER PLANT

Bjarke Ingels and Jakob Lange set up a Kickstarter to build the final prototype of BIG's steam ring generator, as part of the upcoming power plant in Copenhagen that is slated for completion in 2017. Once built, the generator will puff out a steam ring for every ton of CO2 burned in the plant.

49 Cities: 3rd Edition deluxe reprint

Out of print since 2010, WorkAC principals Dan Wood and Amale Andraos are bringing back "49 Cities", a unique reference guide that "embrace[s] scale and common sense combined with delirious imagination as tools to reinvent the city." The new edition includes interviews between Amale Andraos, Da...

The evolution of street photography in the Instagram age

2015-05-07T13:06:00-04:00

Instagram may very well have enabled a whole generation of false artisans—and even encouraged cliché street imagery by promoting hashtags like #middleoftheroad and #strideby through its Weekend Hashtag Project—but the effect may not be so terrible. Quoted in The Telegraph in 2011, Teru Kuwayama, a photojournalist who is now photo community manager at Facebook, compared the rise of Instagram to the advent of electronic music, both of which stimulated “amateur expression.”

Kickstart this! Archinect's Kickstarter picks for April 2015

2015-04-28T12:44:00-04:00

Another month has gone by, so that means it's time for the latest Kickstart this! list. Check out what sorts of crowdfunding projects made it onto the April round-up for Archinect's curated Kickstarter page.

The Urban Death Project: Laying Our Loved Ones to Rest

The Urban Death Project presents a sustainable burial process that uses decomposition to transform deceased bodies into soil. In a more spiritual sense, the project allows those laid to rest to eventually grow into a new form of life like a tree, bush, or maybe a field.

Thames Baths - a new, beautiful lido for the River Thames

The Thames Baths by Studio Octopi would add a self-filtering open-air swimming pool to London's River Thames in ideally two years, instead of 10. The lido would add a communal, recreational space in the river for both swimmers and non-swimmers.

FLATLAND

Design and publishing studio Epilogue plans on recreating Edwin A. Abbott's 1884 classic, Flatland -- but with extra perks. Aside the book's on-trend minima...

Find your ideal neighborhood with this new 'Livability Index' online tool

2015-04-21T08:30:00-04:00

Every year, surveys and lists are published that purport to know the “best places to live in America,” but AARP’s new livability index is based on exhaustive research and data, providing scores for all of the 200,000-plus Census block groups in the country. Each neighborhood has scores that take into account seven categories: transportation, environment, health, civic and social engagement, and educational and employment opportunities.

Kickstart this! Archinect's Kickstarter picks for March 2015

2015-03-27T20:12:00-04:00

Time for the latest Kickstarter picks for Archinect's curated Kickstarter page. Check out what sorts of crowdfunding projects made it onto this month's list...

Organic Growth. Summer Pavilion on Governors Island 2015

Izaskun Chinchilla Architects was chosen as one of the winners in the 2015 ‘City of Dreams’ Pavilion competition to have their proposal "Organic Growth" constructed on Governors Island, NY. Dubbed by the firm as "NY's biggest bike bouquet", the proposed 95 sq.m. canopy puts space-filling waste materials to crafty use.

Billion Oyster Pavilion

Another winning City of Dreams Pavilion design by BanG Studios. All the materials in the Billion Oyster Pavilion would be used by the New York Harbor School to rebuild oyster habitats in NY's waterways.

2015 CGarchitect Visualization Conference

CGarchitect.com/CGSchool's Jeff Mottle and CGSchool business partner Brian Zajac teamed up to create the first annual CGarchitect 3D Architectural Visualization Conference. Out of an ambitious fund...

Kickstart this! Archinect's Kickstarter picks for November 2014 + December 2014

2014-12-26T15:48:00-05:00

In the blink of an eye, another year has passed. Check out our last 2014 list of interesting crowdfunding campaigns for Archinect's curated Kickstarter page.

Brave the Storm - Aguantar La Tempestad

As annual typhoons continue to rage in the Philippines, the "Brave the Storm" project has been working to bring to affected communities an improved withstanding aerodynamic shelter based on traditional bamboo building techniques.

ARCHITECTURE | EMBRACING ART

This collaborative project by architects Hee Jun Sim and Su Jeong Park of Archiworks with Dutch artist Karel Stoop features a rotunda-shaped outdoor pavilion (to be designed by Sim and Park) whose inner walls will showcase Stoop's abstract paintings. If all runs smoothly, the pavilion is expected to be open to the public in May 2016.

Project GREGORY

In the search for alternative solutions to alleviate homelessness, Project Gregory thought of creating living spaces behind billboard advertisements. The creators are currently designing a resid...

Street view: a virtual tour across Russia by remote camera

2014-11-21T14:53:00-05:00

The idea for Yandex. Street Photographer came to Daniill Maksyokov on a Friday night, while he was surfing the internet [...] “In Yandex.Maps there’s an analogue of Google Street View called Panoramas but it only has views of Russian cities and some former-Soviet countries [...]” say Maksyokov. “What’s more, faces, labels, registration numbers of vehicles and other personal data are not blurred … As a result you have a complete sense of presence and can see everything from a fresh perspective.”

Kickstart this! Archinect's Kickstarter picks for September + October 2014

2014-10-26T13:28:00-04:00

We have our latest selection of crowdfunding campaigns from Kickstarter that piqued our interest. In our September and October 2014 picks for Archinect's curated Kickstarter page, you'll find floating objects, more 3D-printing gadgets, sea-plastic furniture, and some stylish everyday products.

Floating Sauna

It was smooth sailing for Seattle-based goCstudio's "wa_sauna" campaign, which aims to bring their wood-fired floating sauna project to life by next summer. Right now, the studio is working to have the first wa_sauna be built and is searching for the best locations for its 2015 launch.

Carvey: The 3D carving machine for the maker in all of us

Created by the Inventables, Carvey is a 3D-carving machine that let you make quality objects out of wood, metal, plastic and other materials in three steps: create your design on Easel (Carvey's software program), pick your material, and click carve. At this point, the Kickstarter has raised over $500K -- and it still has about three weeks left...

The Five Benefits of Getting the Right Domain Name

2014-09-08T11:00:00-04:00

Did you know that great domain names are the easiest way for customers to find you online? You can help your visitors find you by using a domain name that is short and memorable. This year the architectural community got its very own domain name extension with .ARCHI, a dedicated domain name extension launched in June, which has quickly become the go-to extension used by the architectural community.

Choosing the right .ARCHI domain name is very important and can lead to significant increases in traffic to your website. It’s not hard to begin using a .ARCHI domain name for an existing website or a new project and here are five benefits you’ll see if you make the switch.

1. Easy-to-Remember Domain Names
A good domain name will be easy to remember, making your website easy to find. It’s not easy to find short memorable domain names anymore, since over 128 million .com and .net names are currently already taken. .ARCHI is a totally blank-canvas domain space so if you register one today you...

Win $1,000 subscription to create your website

2013-12-06T15:27:00-05:00

This sponsored post is brought to you by IM Creator:

Creating your own portfolio website

Some of you might not believe it but there are still a few architect that do not have their own website. Every small business needs a website to serve as their online business card and allow them to:

Display their portfolio
Help potential customers find them on Google
Communicate with customers
Share information and grow as an industry leader.

It doesn’t matter if you are a freelance or a small company - these days having your own website a must, especially with all the tools out there that allow you to build your own website without any knowledge of coding or design. In some of these tools you can actually get your website live in just a few minutes and

Today we are very happy to invite you to our special Archinect-IM Creator Giveaway!

IM Creator is an easy to use website building tool that created special templates for architects plus many templates for anyone who...