Archinect - Features

'Open Mushware': Making the Invisible Visible in Tactical Urbanism

2016-11-25T13:18:00-05:00

In 2012, the Network Architecture Lab was invited to participate in the Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA) “Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities” exhibition, curated by Pedro Gadanho. The exhibition was the third installment in the “Issues in Contemporary Architecture Series,” which included “Rising Currents,” a contemplation on future sea level rise in New York City, and “Foreclosed,” a study of the architectural responses to the foreclosure crisis.

Michael Rotondi's GamerLab™ Wants to Revolutionize Architecture Education Through Gaming

2016-10-31T15:41:00-04:00

In a typical media narrative, video games are responsible for social isolation, decreased attention spans, and even violent tendencies. But according to GamerLab™, a new educational platform and pedagogical method developed by the LA-based RotoLab, as well as an increasingly large body of research, games can offer major benefits for education, particularly when it comes to architecture.

Win ECO-MONOPOLY by playing for sustainability, not profit

2016-09-07T11:42:00-04:00

When the Parker Brothers' version of the game Monopoly was released in 1935, it was primarily a celebration of capitalism; players were encouraged to build as much high-priced real estate as they could by acquiring desirable tracts of land and then forcibly renting them out to unlucky arrivals. The goal was to bankrupt the other players, all the while dodging the slings and arrows of the often financially ruinous 'Chance' cards.

An expert's thoughts on how to negotiate, at any point in your career

2016-09-06T11:59:00-04:00

After a few intense years of late nights and long days, you’re now ready to embark on even more years of late nights and long days in the form of your next job. However, you do have some say in your working conditions. How should an architect negotiate the terms of their new position to create the ideal environment?

Level up: using video games to unlock the city

2016-09-02T12:02:00-04:00

From Monopoly to SimCity, games can foster a special sort of engagement with an urban environment, helping us hash out and represent the complex socioeconomic and political forces that determine its morphology. It’s no surprise, then, that architects employ games to work out and convey new ideas, or that game designers look to the city for inspiration.

Gaming the System: role-playing spatial and political change

2016-09-01T09:13:00-04:00

"[The] sovereign art, of course, will be the one whose laws rule over the relations among men in their totality. That is, Politics.

Nothing is alien to Politics, because nothing is alien to the superior art that rules the relations among men.

Medicine, war, architecture, etc. – minor and major arts, all without exception – are subject to, and make up, that sovereign art." — Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed, 1973

Upping the ante: the high and low culture of architecture competitions

2016-08-31T12:05:00-04:00

Entering an architecture competition is basically a form of speculative investment. Time is money, and competitions tend to require a lot of both. Models, renders, and prints—not to mention wages—can deplete the coffer quickly, especially for a young practice. A studio will invest their time and money in an entry in the hope that, at a later date, it will generate a return: a commission or some recognition. Unfortunately, competitions tend to be risky investments.

London is a game of life or death in 'Metropoly'

2016-08-31T09:33:00-04:00

“The city has long been a tool for social development and progression,” writes Adam Fryett in Metropoly, his submission to Archinect’s open call for August. “It is clear however that the neoliberal age of consumer capital has led to a regression of the social standards of modern city development, leading to a vast reduction in both the quality of life and life itself of a vast number of inhabitants.”

Using game theory to fine-tune architectural diplomacy

2016-08-25T09:31:00-04:00

When you think of game theory, you might imagine numbers scrawled with a wax pencil on a pane of glass by a troubled genius—calculations extrapolating order out of the apparent chaos of human activity. After all, that’s pretty much how it goes in A Beautiful Mind, the biopic of the mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr., a major contributor to the field. But game theory isn’t just the domain of high-minded academics; it has very real and practical applications, including for architectural design. I talked with the London-based firm Mzo Tarr about their use of game theory in “every aspect of the design process”.

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.

Cuteness and the fight for architectural preservation

2016-08-19T09:19:00-04:00

We all know architecture is a deathly serious business—but sometimes, that severity weighs so heavily that it becomes oppressive, restricting debate to an academic mean and setting a glacial pace of cultural influence. When that happens, the key to liberating architectural discourse might just arrive in a coat made of kittens, painted in Lisa Frank fluorescence.

Playtime! 7 bold and whimsical playgrounds from around the world

2016-08-12T12:44:00-04:00

The act of play rests heavily on the ability to indulge in the imagination. While a certain degree of functionality is required for elements like swings, slides, and climbing walls, the key to any great playground design is that it be inspiring: and oddly enough, it doesn’t always have to be strictly for children. Game-playing takes multiple forms, from the stream of consciousness rules of a child's adventure to the psychologically penetrating/illuminating construct of an artist. These examples of architectural spaces for play from around the world openly embrace the esoteric and playful.

In honor of the Rio Games, 6 momentous projects from the Olympics' 21st-century history

2016-08-05T12:28:00-04:00

20 kilometer long traffic jams, eleven dead construction workers, and one slain jaguar: the lead-up to the 2016 Rio Olympics has not been problem-free. Zika, pollution and political turmoil came alongside construction delays and problematic venues, with competitors refusing to move into the athletes' village until the wiring was fixed. And yet, aren't these types of problems just par for the course when it comes to the Olympics?