Archinect - News

Forensic Architecture has been named a 2022 Peabody Award winner

2022-03-30T18:30:00-04:00

The activist community can rejoice today on the news that groundbreaking London-based collective Forensic Architecture (FA) has been given an Institutional Peabody Award for its continued public service and contributions to electronic media.

The group was cited for their work documenting the use of Israeli spyware called Pegasus, the ongoing exhibition Cloud Studies, and myriad investigations into police brutality, war crimes, surveillance culture, environmental racism, and the illegal occupation of Palestine.

FA’s use of various forms of data, 3D visualization technology, photogrammetry, lidar, and citizen videos was likewise commended for its innovation and incorporation into what the awards jury deemed “sophisticated architectural techniques.”

The twelve-year-old group founded by Israeli academic Eyal Weizman is coming off of another banner year in which its pursu...

Take a virtual look at the Tenement Museum thanks to this new photogrammetric tour from The Washington Post

2021-12-09T17:14:00-05:00

Step into its cramped spaces to follow this brick structure along the y-axis of time, as landlords and residents grappled with such diseases as tuberculosis, cholera and influenza, — and as the fear of fire and bad air, even immigrants themselves, left indelible marks on its design and structure.

New York City's Tenement Museum itself has undergone severe financial strain dating back before the pandemic and was rumored to be closing its doors permanently after 33 years in operation before reopening to tourists again in mid-June.

Located at the edge of the Bowery along Orchard Street, the two buildings were home to at least 15,000 mostly immigrant inhabitants before 1935. The fascinating tour is the vision of the Washington Post’s new Lede Lab and their own Pulitizer-winning art and architecture critic Philip Kennicott.

“At The Post we are constantly experimenting with the latest innovative technology to help enrich The Post’s storytelling,” Jenna Pirog, deputy editor of strategic initiatives, said in an update. “How 3D immersive spaces can be presented on the web continues to evolve, and this project was a great way to use this tool to let readers see and explore the Tenement Museum space from their homes.”

The New York Times R+D team dives into photogrammetry

2020-07-28T19:50:00-04:00

Visual journalists are always searching for new technologies to help them capture more detail and get the news out faster. But they’ve operated within the constraints of a camera lens, a two-hundred-year-old technology that gives readers a single, 2D representation of an event. What if we could break free of the rectangle and let readers experience a setting the same way the journalist did? Instead of just looking at a photo of a space, what if we could move through it?

The New York Times shares its research using photogrammetry for journalistic purposes. Dovetailing on the sophisticated and exacting approaches employed by investigative groups like Forensic Architecture to reconstruct contested and often tragic events, the NYT team instead harnesses the power of 3D-scanning to convey the spatial qualities of their stories, in this case, the destruction left in the wake of Hurricane Dorian and the interiors of an artist's residence, among other examples.

Cultural organizations band together to bring 3D scanned heritage objects into public domain

2020-02-27T15:31:00-05:00

27 cultural organizations, including the Smithsonian Institution, have signed on to an initiative that aims to bring their 3D scanned cultural heritage collections into the public domain.

The initiative, launched by Sketchfab, "allows museums and similar organizations to share their 3D data more openly" by having them release scans of objects, artworks, and other collection items into the so-called Creative Commons 0 Public Domain Dedication realm.

Side Chair by Smithsonian Institution on Sketchfab

The designation allows for these scans to be used in creative and commercial endeavors without requiring new users to request permission from these institutions if they follow certain guidelines.

According to Sketchfab, the license requires that one "must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made," it also allows for users to "copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without ask...