Archinect - News

Interdependent city design video game Block'hood launches Thursday

2016-03-09T20:03:00-05:00

The complexities of designing at the scale of a city could take years to enumerate, but with Block'hood, a game where players design neighborhoods in various modes of complexity with over 80 pre-set blocks, it takes only minutes to start encountering these challenges first hand. Developed and designed by Jose Sanchez and Gentaro Makinoda, Block'hood's players are encouraged to think "ecologically," which is to say, designing an environment that not only sustains itself but can work interdependently with other neighborhood designs. If a design does not have enough resources, it can become victim to decay.

The perpetually evolving game, which has its public launch March 10th, has five modes: "Sandbox," which allows players to build a resources-constrained neighborhood without any particular goal in mind, "Challenge" which limits the number of blocks and resources a player can use to construct a neighborhood, "Education" which focuses on real-world city problems, "Research" which incor...

Architectural illustrators use tricks to ‘manipulate’ our view of buildings

2012-11-12T00:00:00-05:00

Architectural illustrations are “meant to be manipulative,” said Gordon Grice, a prominent Toronto-based illustrator. “We’re like lawyers; every case needs to have its best points brought forward.”

Kickstarter bans renderings

2012-09-21T16:26:00-04:00

Product simulations are prohibited. Projects cannot simulate events to demonstrate what a product might do in the future. Products can only be shown performing actions that they’re able to perform in their current state of development. Product renderings are prohibited. Product images must be photos of the prototype as it currently exists.

Last night, in a blog post titled "Kickstarter Is Not a Store", Kickstarter announced that it will no longer accept renderings of products or projects seeking funding.

What do you think about their decision to enforce realistic proposals by limiting virtual representation?