Archinect - News

Refik Anadol unveils ‘first-of-its-kind’ AI artwork NFTs

2021-09-17T11:37:00-04:00

Refik Anadol Studio has announced details of their Machine Hallucinations -Space: Metaverse NFT Collection, which is set to be auctioned by Sotheby’s Hong Kong. To create the NFTs, Anadol has minted a machine’s memories and dreams of space onto the blockchain, manifested through eight unique artworks. The works are set to become the first-ever examples of immersive digital experiences being converted into NFTs.

Image copyright: Refik Anadol Studio for Sotheby’s

The eight works consist of an immersive physical experience, three infinitely generative data paintings, three unique AI data paintings, and a one-of-a-kind robotically-produced AI data sculpture. Following their online auction from Sotheby’s Hong Kong from September 30th to October 4th, the works will be exhibited at the Digital Art Fair in Hong Kong from October 1st to 17th, 2021.

Image copyright: Refik Anadol Studio for Sotheby’s

“Since 2015, I have been speculating the relationship between the human mind, architecture, ...

Design collaborative launches open-source 'bee homes'

2020-06-03T13:08:00-04:00

IKEA's research and design lab SPACE10 has teamed up with Bakken & Bæck and designer Tanita Klein to launch an open-source Bee Home. The offering is in response to the collaborative's recognition of the essentiality of bees for life on earth, which includes one third of all of the food we eat. The team's aim is to mitigate the impact humans have made on bees' natural habitats.

Bee Home is free and open-source, allowing users to customize, fabricate, and assemble a design of their making locally. "For almost 80 years, IKEA has enabled people to create a better everyday life at home," said Kaave Pour, Director at SPACE10 in a statement. "But our home is more than just four walls, our home is also the planet we live on. That is why we launch Bee Home: we want to enable people everywhere to help rebalance our relationship with the planet and ensure a sustainable home for all of us."

Constructing a Bee Home is a fairly simple process. One would first design their structure online, select...

Decoys & Depictions: Images of the Digital Symposium at Washington University in St. Louis

2019-10-18T13:58:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis an Archinect School Partner

In architecture today, nothing is what it seems. Familiar outputs in the form of drawings, models, and photographs are now produced through sophisticated digital tools and techniques. And though these products of electronic imaging may seem like replicas of their predecessors, they are in fact something entirely new.

So argues Constance Vale, assistant professor of architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. From October 24-26, Vale will convene Decoys & Depictions: Images of the Digital, a symposium exploring how digital images are constructed; the implications for how architects and artists operate; and the potential effects within social and political realms.

Current Interests (Matthew Au & Mira Henry), “Hedge” (2018). Featured in the Des Lee Gallery exhibition.

“Decoys are objects ...

Landscape architect uses video game development software to rethink digital landscapes

2019-08-23T21:08:00-04:00

The digital world of video games has changed over time thanks to architects and their expertise in spatial design and designing 3D environments. Digital model building are skillsets architects use everyday, so who better to help design these digital worlds? For landscape architect David Fletcher, the opportunity to help create the landscape for the video game "The Witness" was another way his San Francisco-based, Fletcher Studio, to create new digital infrastructures and explore 3-D modeling platforms.

Image still from video game "The Witness" © Jonathan Blow, Thekla Inc.

According to Erin Hudson of Narratively "David Fletcher had to reverse-engineer the past to create an island where its present-day environment would give players enough clues to piece together what happened. It was an infinitely harder task and the reason its developer, Blow, decided to hire architects like Fletcher."

Image still from video game "The Witness" © Jonathan Blow, Thekla Inc.

The game was released in 2016...

World's first digitally planned and built residence debuts in Switzerland

2019-03-05T18:08:00-05:00

In Dübendorf, Switzerland the official opening of the world's first digitally planned and built residence now stands. Coined, the DFAB House, the project was developed by researchers from ETH Zurich in collaboration with industrial partners and the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR). The three-story house sits on top of the Next Evolution in Sustainable Building Technologies (NEST) research institute of Empa and Eawag in Dübendorf. According to ETH Zurich, "The aim of digital technologies is not only to make planning and construction more efficient but also more sustainable. For example, the digitally planned floor slab of the DFAB HOUSE is statically and structurally optimized in such a way that considerable amounts of material can be saved compared to a conventional concrete slab."

DFAB House; Image © Roman Keller

The three-story, 2,153 square foot smart house was developed by eight ETH Zurich professors ...

UNStudio's Ellipsicoon Pavilion is the latest in the Revolution Precrafted series

2018-05-25T15:08:00-04:00

UNStudio's Ellipsicoon was designed by Ben Van Berkel and created as part of the Revolution Precrafted pavilion series, focusing on collectible structures whose wide variety of functions are designed to complement existing spaces.

Ellipsicoon by UNStudio. Image: Revolution Precrafted.

This space offers a tranquil environment for either solitary moments of rest, reading or contemplation, or a cocoon-like theatre for conversation and communication.

Ellipsicoon by UNStudio. Image: Revolution Precrafted.

Designed and developed digitally, then handwoven by highly skilled craftsmen, the continuous sculptural surface of the pavilion is constructed from strands of 100% recyclable high-density polyethylene (HDPE).

Ellipsicoon by UNStudio. Image: Revolution Precrafted.

The curved sides of the structure taper inwards as they rise, enabling the rounded openings to facilitate moments of being simultaneously both inside and outside.

Ellipsicoon by UNStudio. Image: Revolution Precrafted.

Upon crossi...

Coachella lineup created by a neural network generates new designers

2018-01-25T16:09:00-05:00

Move over Bureau Spectacular, Ball Nogues and LOC... robots are coming for your jobs.

Botnik Studios created a hilarious (and somewhat believable) Coachella lineup using their artificial intelligence RNN algorithm to generate a list of band names and installation designers. Located at the bottom of the poster, the new designer list reads:

With large-scale art installations by

Mr. Wall
Belly Legroom
Ed the Bjown
Benus Jackson
Melon Soxprane
Aunt Luke

Personal favorites: "Creepwell, Then Sleepwell", "Boy/Boys", and of course "Aunt Luke". Will a real Aunt Luke please come forward and grace the world with large-scale art installations? Thank you.

Original 176 emoji join MoMA's permanent collection

2016-10-26T20:28:00-04:00

Who would have thought that emoji would be revered within the same museum walls that display the paintings of Van Gogh and Picasso? [MoMA] recently added NTT DoCoMo's original set of 176 emoji to their permanent collection as a gift...In early December, MoMA will debut an installation detailing the evolution of emoji and “will present them in a new light (and no doubt inspire a few selfies)”, says Paul Galloway, MoMA Collection Specialist in the Department of Architecture and Design.

Thanks to a licensing agreement between MoMA and NTT DoCoMo, the museum's permanent collection now includes the original 176 emoji that altered digital communication as we know it today. Read more on Bustler.

Digital Demands in Architecture: Kennesaw State remedies digital expansion for students

2016-10-17T09:00:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by Kennesaw State University.

Architecture’s relationship to technology is as old as the primitive hut. Material and construction technologies have shaped design and detailing throughout history. But with the dawn of the information age came a new category of technologies that have shaped architecture in fresh new ways. Initially, these digital programs were treated as an extension of Representation theory. For architects, the debut of AutoCAD and form·Z would prove transformative similarly to the way the plan and section impacted architectural theory and practice during the Renaissance. Prospects of virtual reality in the 1990s had architectural theorists musing on the possible obsolescence of brick and mortar buildings.

By the late 1990s, computer-aided design products like AutoCAD had become a standard tool in architectural offices. In response, the academy speculated on the elimination of the traditional art studio concept with its drafting tables, opt...

Digital Elytrons. Latest Architecture Technology at the V&A Museum.

2016-07-06T04:48:00-04:00

Todays, pavilions are an omnipresent type of building. Unburdened to a certain degree from constraints of conventional architectures, such as program or function, pavilion designs offer architects a reign of technological and formal possibilities. Architects are commissioned for designs, in which speculation, provocation and experimentation is allowed, or even more, it is requested. Currently, visitors of Victoria & Albert Museum, run in the courtyard into an exemplary architecture experiment, posing a radical statement for contemporary digital architecture technology.

The Elytra Filament Pavilion, designed by a team of architects and engineers around Achim Menges from the Universities of Stuttgart and Munich, demonstrates a visionary for a yet to be determined digital future in the building industry. Within the context of the exhibition "Engineering the World: Ove Arup and the Philosophy of Total Design", the museum's courtyard has been turned into a test ground for the latest emerg...

Defy gravity in the works of FLW, Tadao Ando, Louis Kahn in this upcoming video game

2016-06-27T20:44:00-04:00

Frank Lloyd Wright, level designer? That’s what artist William Chyr was thinking, from the moment he crossed the threshold at the Robie House...It was a rare IRL architectural excursion, as Chyr has been immersed in building the digital levels of Manifold Garden, his first-person 3D exploration game in which you defy gravity in order to walk up walls, fall through windows, and launch yourself from one side to the other of an infinite stepwell, [while] solving increasingly difficult puzzles.

Alexandra Lange interviews video game designer William Chyr on his upcoming game, “Manifold Garden”, which is due for a January 2017 release on PlayStation 4. “Chyr has slowly incorporated more architectural references,” Lange writes, ”stretching back through the centuries and including built works by Frank Lloyd Wright and Tadao Ando, and unbuilt works by Louis Kahn, Anne Tyng, and Arata Isozaki.”

You can also watch a 16-minute gameplay demo right below. (Just be careful if you have motion-sickness.)

Refik Anadol's new "data sculpture" unveiled at the SOM-designed 350 Mission in San Francisco

2015-12-07T20:12:00-05:00

The first permanent publicly-viewable artwork by Refik Anadol, a media artist known for his immersive, site-specific light installations, was recently unveiled in San Francisco. Virtual Depictions: San Francisco, a series of "data sculptures" based on a publicly-available dataset, occupies a 40 ft. screen in the lobby of 350 Mission and involved collaborations with the building's architects, Skidmore, Owings and Merill, and developer, Kilroy Realty.

"The ambient qualities of urban ecologies, as we as civilizations create them in specific geographic locations, are coming to the forefront of cultural production," Anadol told Archinect. "With the advent of digital media and environmental consciousness we now are able, more so than any at other point in human history, to access the formal qualities of the ambient environment in terms of the built, social and natural environments."

"Through sensors, databases, and visualization we can collect information on the real-time dynamics of citie...

Apply now for the AA Visiting School Greece: Thessaloniki Revelations workshop

2015-09-01T19:10:00-04:00

The AA Visiting School Greece program is getting ready for their Thessaloniki "Revelations" session, starting October 30 through November 9 at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The collaborative workshop will investigate the urban fabric of the historic city of Thessaloniki through a series of multi-parameter morphological operations and the use of digital fabrication tools.

All architecture and design students and professionals worldwide are invited to sign up. Be sure to apply by October 15.

The workshop will challenge participants to rethink the way Thessaloniki's city environment has affected its population based on shifting needs, as well as to visualize these urban shifts in a hyper-specific contextualized construction model. Students' design proposals will focus largely on innovative urban interventions informed by the existing city conditions of Thessaloniki.

During the design research phase, students will work in teams as they explore digital fabrication methods thro...

This studio illustrates Minecraft's architectural capabilities to create imaginary worlds

2015-08-17T16:34:00-04:00

The BlockWorks studio proves, yet again, that architects can use Minecraft as a design tool to produce rather magical results with impressive detail. The team of architects, designers, and animators envision mystical cubic worlds in response to what they refer to as "Briefs", which include commissions from YouTube personalities, gaming networks, museums, and film studios as well as original submissions to actual Minecraft design competitions.

Although the designs are largely fictional, BlockWorks draws inspiration from real-world buildings from throughout history and even structural details by today's starchitects. As expected, the team's growing portfolio is pretty spectacular, and surely retains one's attention for a good amount of time.

You can check out more of BlockWorks' projects in greater detail on their website. Also, sneak a peek at some their project trailers below or on their YouTube channel.

All images via. H/T Kotaku Australia

Syracuse University student and faculty work: a review of Trans(inter)ference

2015-07-23T19:11:00-04:00

What is iconic in architecture? It's a debate that will never be settled precisely because the definition of "icon" is perennially changing to reflect the culture from which it derives. An icon, after all, is not necessarily a classic, and this inherent tension is partly what fuels Trans(inter)ference, an installation designed by Maya Alam in collaboration with Daniele Profeta and three Syracuse University students: Emily Greer, Waralee Kaewkoon and Thomas Byung H. Kim.

Made up from repurposed VHS tape strung over a frame system that has a rectangular series of partitions and a curved awning-like flourish, the work seems to never quite come into focus due to the fluttering of the tape. This constant subtle motion means that there is no one "right" way to perceive it: each observer's experience is free from a predetermined context. In this sense, Trans(inter)ference achieves its stated goal of being "an in-between object that weaves subject, object, and context into one."

Mounted in ...

Winners of the MORPHING book giveaway

2015-03-20T21:19:00-04:00

In Archinect's latest book giveaway, we received over 100 responses for MORPHING: A Guide to Mathematical Transformations for Architects and Designers. Authored by Design Topology Lab founder Joseph Choma, Morphing is a pedagogical guide that can help architects, designers, students, and enthusiasts to understand in greater depth the trigonometric transformations and functions behind the digital design tools they use.

The three lucky winners are:

Brian, Columbus
Chris, New York
Nicholas, Vancouver

Congrats! And a great big thank you to everyone who participated.

Joseph Choma shared more details about Morphing, which you can read here.

VIDEO: Luftwerk's INsite performance at the Farnsworth House

2014-12-02T14:24:00-05:00

INsite by Chicago-based Luftwerk put Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House in the public eye yet again this past October in Plano, Illinois. Spectators got to see the Miesian landmark transformed into a structure of light and sound through site-specific digital video projections directed by Liviu Pasare and original music compositions by Owen Clayton Condon.

Check out the performance in the video below.

Previously: INsite by Luftwerk turns Mies' Farnsworth House inside-out with light and sound

ACADIA Conference 2014: Architectural Auto Show

2014-10-29T14:32:00-04:00

Acadia 2014 was presented this year at the USC School of Architecture in Los Angles from October 23-25. The term "Design Agency" was the cornerstone term of discourse through out the conference. It would be considered from different angles, including but not limited to: materiality, fabrication, and programming. The conference also considered the impact of external influencers, such as games and art, that have shaped our industry through their usage and invention of tools – the same tools that made ACADIA possible. Keynote speakers such as Will Wright (Creator of The Sims, SimCity and Spore), Casey Reas (Co-Creator of Processing and Artist) and Zaha Hadid (Zaha Hadid Architects) provided touchstones throughout the conference's weekend.

[Zaha Hadid's keynote]

The cross-pollination of Architecture with other disciplines has allowed for ACADIA to broaden its scope since its inception in the early 1980s, making the conference more inclusive. The ability to call upon a wide array of spea...

Vying for Attention: Reporting from ACADIA Conference, Day 3

2014-10-28T20:42:00-04:00

Day one at Acadia 2014 found us in the 2D world. Day Two in reality. Day Three was to be somewhere in-between those. It found us dealing with Temporal and Data Agency. Temporal dealing with time and Data with evaluation. A mixing of the two worlds was at play. We weren’t here nor there. Somewhere in a digital version of Alice and Wonderland. Interaction, movement and perception were mixing seamlessly. Our understanding of reality has been expanded through the digital. Our viewing of the world and our society has been exploited. Subsequently, our social understanding of its impact and influence is coming to fruition, and an area of focus emerges.

Tools such as Google Earth, robotic arms, smart phones and countless others have forced us into a purgatory of realms all vying for our attention. We live in a three-dimensional world, we build three-dimensional objects, we think in three-dimensions, yet all our tools until recently have dealt in the 2D. How many times have we sat in front of...

Architecture in Flux: Reporting from ACADIA Conference, Day 1

2014-10-24T18:54:00-04:00

Proof of concept, experiments, process, a shot in the dark. The Acadia Conference of 2014 started off sounding more like a science conference than a forum for cutting edge architectural exploration. Topics such as walls, threshold, corner, access, and sketching were far from the main topics of exploration; instead something else had taken hold.

Reality, our movements, our ideas, they were formulated and described with symbols, numbers and variables more at home in a calculus class. It presents a new lens to see architecture through, a way to view it from a place where the designer did not feel the burden of immediate complete authorship; but inviting them into a system that already had its own qualities, ones to question and react to, a modern day mathematical rorschach. Architecture has been in flux, moving with extreme haste in multiple directions, from formal discovery, mathematical testing, materials exploration and so forth.

Acadia 2014 is our chance to engage into one of the bra...

The boolean-created “Situation Room” at the Storefront for Art + Architecture

2014-10-15T19:44:00-04:00

Immersed in a neon bubblegum pink shell, walking through the Situation Room gives viewers a fascinating perspective of the digital and physical environments. Designed by MARC FORNES / THEVERYMANY in collaboration with sound artist Jana Winderen, the installation was created by 20 spheres of various sizes fused by boolean operations. Storefront for Art and Architecture NYC commissioned the project for the WorldWide Storefront initiative launch.

Here's a sneak peek of the installation:

Festivities ensue at the Beaux Arts Ball 2014: Craft in New York

2014-09-25T17:35:00-04:00

The Architectural League of New York hosted another successful Beaux Arts Ball this year at Weylin B. Seymour's in Williamsburg, New York this past Saturday night. In spirit of the ball's 2014 theme "Craft", eight architects and designers collaborated with Nuit Blanche New York in creating digital art projections inspired by the gorgeous interior motifs and details of the historic Weylin B. Seymour's building.

Digitally carved onto the arches of the venue's central domed hall, the installation helped create a festive environment as hundreds of well-dressed guests enjoyed drinks and desserts, and danced the night away with music by pazel. It was a fancy occasion indeed.

Want more insight to the Weylin B. Seymour's building? Check out the ArchLeague's feature on the building's restoration.

Check out photos from the ball and the Benefactors Dinner below.

"Hacking" Rem Koolhaas' 2014 Venice Biennale with Project Source Code

2014-09-24T15:33:00-04:00

Hacking an architecture exhibition through augmented reality? Yes, there's an app for that. "Project Source Code" is a digital guerrilla-style exhibition created by architect/artist/researcher Güvenç Özel that lets mobile-device users "hack" key works in Rem Koolhaas' "Elements of Architecture" exhibit currently at the 2014 Venice Biennale. Blending digital and physical space, the project is deemed to be the first to use augmented reality on a live exhibition and also the first time that raw 3D architectural models are treated as exhibition pieces.

Ozel's selection includes 6 pioneering works he directly acquired (with prior approval) from contemporary architects and designers known for their use of digital design techniques. This includes Asymptote Architecture, Greg Lynn FORM, Neil M. Denari Architects, and Oosterhuis_Lénárd.

Ozel fully explains his project in the info he provided below:

PROJECT SOURCE CODE

"In the field of computer science, SOURCE CODE refers to a set of instructions...

AA Athens Visiting School 2014 challenges the static built environment with “Kinetic Haze”

2014-09-12T21:03:00-04:00

Students and professionals had another opportunity to take part in the third cycle of the AA Athens Visiting School program, "Cipher City: Revolutions". Taking place at the National Technical University of Athens this past spring, participants focused on addressing the roles of change, adaptation and interaction through scripting and digital fabricating techniques at large scale models.

The program set out to challenge the motionless built environment in the collaborative creation of a kinetic pathway prototype called Kinetic Haze. Participants applied the basic design elements from their own proposals in creating the project in less than five days.

Here's a glimpse of the project

Find more project photos and details on Bustler.

A glimpse of eVolo's latest book, "Digital & Parametric Architecture"

2014-07-22T18:09:00-04:00

From the creators of the popular Skyscraper Competition, you can now get your hands on a copy of eVolo's latest book, "Digital & Parametric Architecture".

This 312-page book dives into the "architecture of the future" — from the development of the latest digital tools to how they are utilized in a variety of digitally designed and fabricated projects.

"Digital & Parametric Architecture explores the development of the latest digital tools including advance-modeling software and computer aided design in the production of architecture. It is a journey through the most fascinating projects, digitally designed and fabricated, during the second decade of the 21st century. "

"The book highlights the use of these technologies to explore tectonic operations such as sectioning, folding, contouring, and tessellating. A wide variety of projects that range in scale and location offer an insight into the architecture of the future."

You can purchase the book here.

INsite by Luftwerk turns Mies' Farnsworth House inside-out with light and sound

2014-05-15T13:23:00-04:00

Whether you're a diehard Miesian fan or could care less about the modernist architecture canon, we've heard of ol' Farnsworth time and time again since its completion in 1951 in Plano, Illinois. But Chicago-based artists Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero of Luftwerk want the public to see the historic Farnsworth House in a whole new light — literally — with their digital installation project called INsite.

INsite highlights the house's characteristic clean lines through site-specific digital video projections and original music compositions, thus rendering it into a new structure of light, sound, and space. In addition to recent preservation efforts to protect the Farnsworth from more floodwater damage in the future, INsite could help revive public interest in an eye-catching way that is suitable for these tech-friendly times.

Illuminating modern architecture landmarks is nothing new for Gallero and Bachmaier, who have collaborated with video designer and programmer Liviu Pasare and co...

Winners of the "Out of Hand: Materializing the Postdigital" giveaway

2014-01-07T18:08:00-05:00

If you still remember our Out of Hand: Materializing the Postdigital book giveaway last month, we're finally announcing the five winners!

Nick C. - New Orleans, LA
Christopher A. - Chicago, IL
Martin C. - Los Angeles, CA
Mark V. - Brooklyn, NY
Nate O. - Iowa City, IA

Edited by Museum of Arts & Design Curator Ronald T. Labaco, "Out of Hand" has 304 pages showcasing the interdisciplinary digital fabrication works of more than 80 architects, designers, and artists including Ron Arad, Greg Lynn, Zaha Hadid, Maya Lin, and Anish Kapoor.

"Out of Hand" is also the accompanying book for the exhibition currently at the Museum of Arts & Design in New York until July 2014.

For more details on "Out of Hand", click here.

Thanks to everyone who participated!

Spacemaker VR lets designers "walk through" their own 3D creations

2013-11-22T09:56:00-05:00

The Spacemaker VR by Digital Physical is a virtual reality software system that can add some new perspective to the entire design process. The Spacemaker lets designers export their 3D files and test out their creations, even during the design process. The software also includes customizable presentation display and realistic 3D models of world landmarks -- suitable for travel enthusiasts or perhaps a source of inspiration.

Digital Physical recently launched a Kickstarter campaign in hopes for a beta release by the first half of 2014.

Here's more info DP sent us:

"Digital Physical, which includes a number of virtual reality veterans, architects and user experience designers, has set the funding goal at $100,000 USD. The Spacemaker system will include realistic 3d models of world landmarks and buildings, a real-time 3d visualizer, and a simple 3d model creation workflow to enable designers to quickly and easily experience what it's like to walk inside their designs."

"'Its b...

"Box" by Bot & Dolly explores the synthesis of real and digital space through projection-mapping on moving surfaces.

2013-09-24T20:44:00-04:00

The short film documents a live performance, captured entirely in camera. Bot & Dolly produced this work to serve as both an artistic statement and technical demonstration. It is the culmination of multiple technologies, including large scale robotics, projection mapping, and software engineering. We believe this methodology has tremendous potential to radically transform theatrical presentations, and define new genres of expression.

ARki is "Architectural Visualisation in Augmented Reality"

2013-09-04T19:51:00-04:00

Arki is an Augmented Reality platform for real-time visualisation of architectural models. By incorporating AR technology within the architectural design process, ARki is able to visualise 3d models for both design and presentation purposes, helping to create an immersive visualisation technique with multiple layers of interactivity. ARki can be deployed on any ios/ android device which allows the user to explore 3d data with an added level of navigational freedom.