Archinect - Features

How Digital Spaces Can Shape Cities as We Exit the Pandemic

2021-04-20T17:50:00-04:00

In May 2019, Nike released Nike Fit Digital Foot Measurement, an app that creates hyper-accurate sizing for its shoes by scanning the user’s feet through the camera of a smartphone. The reactions to this novel idea felt like another blow to a struggling typology, the shopping mall. People clamored for more augmented reality tools in the fashion industry that would limit the need for visiting physical shopping malls, for more neoteric features in digital spaces for online shopping, and for comfort in the absence of tangible architecture. With an evolving digital space that includes social media, virtual reality platforms, gaming worlds, online shopping platforms, and many others, public spaces have lost the title of being anchor social spaces while digital spaces are slowly becoming traditional ways of interacting in public life. In the quest for better cities, digital spaces might be a friend or foe to architecture, but as the pandemic forced cities to go on breaks, it’s a reflectio...

How Will Architecture be Affected by the Rise of Blockchain Technologies like NFTs?

2021-03-24T08:53:00-04:00

In the midst of a media cycle dominated by the ongoing pandemic, last week’s news that Christie’s sale of artist Beeple’s Everdays for a staggering $69 million made its way into national headlines. A rarity for any art event even in normal times. This served as a watershed moment for the growing online community of crypto collectors, whose use of blockchain technology and platforms like SuperRare to acquire digital art sold as Non-Fungible Tokens (or NFTs for short) has shaken up art sales in ways that are only now starting to become clear.

X-WORLDS: UCLA's 2020 IDEAS Summer Studio Transforms Their Summer Programming Into an Incubator for Remote Exploration

2020-11-15T12:59:00-05:00

Summer 2020 proved to be a season of tackling the unknown as the pandemic impacted architectural academia. With nearly all summer programs pivoting and transitioning to remote learning, popular summer programs aimed to find a way to motivate students during such challenging times with online experiences that allowed them to explore digital possibilities within architecture.

UCLA's IDEAS Summer studio shares with Archinect, "This year's IDEAS Summer Studio "X-WORLDS" marked the first entirely virtual introduction to the one-year Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design (M.S.AUD) program at UCLA Architecture and Urban Design. The six-week program provided an immersion into the intersecting worlds of each of the four M.S.AUD research studios: Entertainment, Mobility, Technology, and Urban Strategy."

Archinect connected with the team from UCLA's IDEAS Campus Summer Studio to learn about the program's goals and highlight the work of student participants created during their s...

How CO Architects Transitioned a 110+ Team to Work From Home

2020-04-01T12:51:00-04:00

We’ve been able to dive into various perspectives on remote work in architecture. More recently, we heard from Leah Alissa Bayer and Jennifer Kretchmer on running a fully virtual architectural practice. Further back, we connected with Diana Nicklaus of Saam Architecture to learn from her insights on “radical flexibility” and running a remote firm in Boston. But, what about firms who have had to shift their model from in-person to fully remote? And what about large practices? Our previous investigations have looked at important strategies and methods to successful virtual management, but those insights have all come from architects who already have had remote work models in place. Moreover, our previous explorations looked more at smaller-sized practices.

In this discussion, from Thursday, March 19th, I connected with Scott Kelsey, FAIA, the managing principal over at CO Architects to discuss how he and the rest of the leadership at the Los Angeles-based practice navigated this rapid...

USC Architecture Faculty Share Insights on Virtual Learning

2020-03-27T12:24:00-04:00

As institutions of higher learning round out the shift to online instruction, architecture schools also have had to address the pivot. However, the tactile nature of architectural education lends itself to the curious case of duplicating the tactile benefits of studio digitally. There's no doubt schools of architecture across the country have risen to the task at hand. Archinect has even reached out to educators and students across our international community to learn more about the diverse experiences and approaches to this unorthodox learning model.

In this piece, I had the pleasure to connect with the faculty over at the USC School of Architecture to discuss everything from how they mobilized so quickly, solving this debacle of online learning in design to the challenges they faced along the way. While only a perspective of one institution, this exploration should prove valuable to students, professionals, and educators alike.

Managing a Virtual Design Studio with Leah Alissa Bayer

2020-03-24T12:59:00-04:00

As we continue our investigation of virtual practice in architecture, the diverse range of insights and approaches represented attest to the creative spirit of the architectural profession. We recently spoke with Jennifer Kretschmer, AIA, founder of J Kretschmer Architect, a fully virtual architectural practice. We learned valuable insights from Kretschmer’s experience in virtual practice prior to this pandemic.

Today we connect with another professional who manages an entirely virtual team. Leah Alissa Bayer is a licensed architect in California, Washington, and Hawaii. She is the founder and studio director of EVIA Studio, a fully virtual research-based architecture and consulting firm in Silicon Valley. Leah’s portfolio includes multi-family housing, high-end custom residential, master planning, and workplace design. Before founding her own studio, Leah worked as an Architect at Perkins and Will in San Francisco.

In this discussion, we learn from Leah’s experience in running a v...

WFH Show & Tell: Alvin Huang

2020-03-20T18:20:00-04:00

As the world shifts to a work-from-home (WFH) survival strategy, architects and architectural academics have been forced to learn a variety of new tools and methods to keep moving forward in the face of the growing COVID-19 pandemic. While many in our community are already fluent in this approach to work, due to opportunities brought to us with the internet, in a field that often requires travel and on-site work, many are struggling with not just the technology, but also the lack of personal connection with our friends and colleagues.

In this new series of features, Archinect is sharing some stories from members of our community about their own transitions, with personal experiences and images of what their new work environment looks like.

In this first installment, we're profiling Alvin Huang, an LA-based architect and educator. Alvin tells us about the changes he's made to adjust to continuing work with his staff and students.

Running a Virtual Architecture Practice With Jennifer Kretschmer

2020-03-17T13:23:00-04:00

With drastic measures underway to mitigate the novel COVID-19 pandemic, many architects are transitioning to remote work. Firms, both large and small, are making the shift towards a virtual practice, and for many, the move brings new terrain. Remote work has been a topic of discussion for quite some time, but there has always been a certain stigma in its relationship to architectural practice. Is this a feasible way for the design community to work?

As the industry continues to run this compelled experiment, we may soon find out. But, in the meantime, we know the integration of remote work is not novel to architecture. Just recently, Archinect connected with Diana Nicklaus, co-founder and principal at Saam Architecture, to discuss the firm’s remote work model and the fluidity with which it has been able to operate. And as we continue our investigation into the tools and tactics of the virtual office, this week we talk to Jennifer Kretschmer, AIA, founder of J Kretschmer Architect.

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Exploring Virtual Design Possibilities Through BIM and Modular Construction

2019-12-19T09:00:00-05:00

Demand for individuals with an expertise in Building Information Modeling (BIM) is increasing throughout the job market. A modeling platform that has changed the the building industry, many firms have transitioned to using BIM over the last decade to take advantage of the inherent potential for collaboration and coordination the technology offers, both in the studio and on the job site. (For a nuts-and-bolts view of what it's like to work as a BIM Specialist, see Archinect's recent story unpacking the ins and outs of the job title)

Due to BIM's multi-disciplinary scope, construction firms like Windover Construction use the BIM framework and other visual design technologies to bring efficiency to complex construction projects, like those that utilize modular and prefab building components.

To learn more about the implementations of BIM and virtual design within this realm, Archinect spoke with Windover Construction Director of Virtual Design and Construction Amr Raafat and Senior Pr...

Morphogenesis, an Odyssey Through the Digital and Physical World

2017-03-18T11:15:00-04:00

Morphogenesis, a virtual reality art installation, is touring the globe, bringing a primal, otherworldly experience to audiences without the need for a ticket to Burning Man.

Behind the scenes of 'The Witness', a video game designed by architects

2016-08-23T09:28:00-04:00

"This is so beautiful – can I live here?” asks user GhostRobo on his YouTube walkthrough of the puzzle game the Witness, verbalizing what many probably feel after first leaving the dark tunnel where the player begins. This a game where the design, built in part by a team of architects and landscape architects, rivals the gameplay.

To design a secure bank, ask a bank robber

2016-06-30T08:22:00-04:00

Joe Loya, a former bank robber turned TV writer, learned to read spaces the way other criminals learned to crack safes. His insights illuminate the changing role of privacy in the architecture of crime prevention design for banks.

Rendered reality: the VR journalism of Emblematic Group

2016-01-25T11:15:00-05:00

“We took all the 911 phone calls – because this is all we know, I mean everyone is conjecturing and everything, but this is all we know – and we animated them,” explained Michael Licht, co-founder and executive producer for the Emblematic Group, sitting in his Santa Monica laboratory. Helmed by Licht and the journalist Nonny de la Peña, the Group has pioneered the use of virtual reality technologies for journalism, using original audio and other information from real events as the source material for virtual reconstructions.

AfterShock #4: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Neuroscientific Architecture Research

2014-10-14T15:50:00-04:00

You’ve heard it before. In the span of architecture folklore, this origin story is old hat: I wanted to become an architect because it combines art and science. As pithy as it sounds, this always struck me as problematic, because it presumes that such a combination is easily wrought. What is really going on, at the arguably-genetic root of architectural practice, that manages the push and pull between expression and empiricism? Architecture occupies that limbo space between the quantifiable and the phenomenological, and that gap is insistently being narrowed by technology – not only in design, but in how we actually perceive our surroundings.

Cutting Room: Listen to John Szot, creator of "Architecture and the Unspeakable", discuss cyber-architectural realities and speculative practice

2014-05-19T11:08:00-04:00

John Szot, architect and creator of the Architecture and the Unspeakable film series, is a pioneer in film's unique architectural exploration, working with digital animation to investigate parts of the built environment that remain hidden at the street level. In our interview for Cutting Room, an audio series at the intersection of architecture and film, Szot spoke with me about his architectural background and how he started making films.