Archinect - News

Peopling Studio allows you to increase the diversity in your renders

2020-08-10T20:24:00-04:00

Peopling Studio offers a 3D library of diverse characters in a variety of scenes to use and customize in your digital renders. The project appears to be voluntarily founded and run, offering free downloads.

Their "disclaimer" describes the motives and inspiration behind the project...

Realism is not neutral. CGI has its own politics. We can see this in digital representations of non-white individuals, which tend to be at best stereotypical and, at worst, caricaturish and overly sexualized. Meanwhile, whiteness tends to be represented as default and neutral as evidenced by the Jack and Jill avatars in Siemens Tecnomatix Jack human modeling software or the original Sketchup scale figure, Bryce. To counter these traditions, PEOPLING STUDIO puts forth black and brown skin tones as the default settings. We also acknowledge the limitations of 3D human models, in particular the distinction between 3D scan data and sculpted meshes. We provide sculpted meshes as these are the least exaggera...

‘In the end, they will destroy democracy' – The Guardian on smart cities

2014-12-29T13:05:00-05:00

The smart city is, to many urban thinkers, just a buzzphrase that has outlived its usefulness: ‘the wrong idea pitched in the wrong way to the wrong people’. So why did that happen – and what’s coming in its place?

Zaha Builds for "The People"

2013-09-23T11:56:00-04:00

For the sake of argument, let's say that Bashar al-Assad is on the phone. He wants her to build him a prison in Damascus. "Well, I wouldn't mind building in Syria," she shrugs. "I'm an Arab and if it helps people, if it's an opera house or a parliament building, something for the masses, I would do it. But if someone asks me to build a prison, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't build a prison, irrespective of where it is, even if it was very luxurious."

She won't build a prison? How many buildings have been designed, and constructed where the intent is one thing, and the ultimate use has been for something quite nefarious?

I don't care who she builds for, ultimately she has to live with those decisions, but she can't be this naive, and expect not to be taken to task, for her blindness.

I am sure there are many Syrians that would see her buildings in Syria, as extensions of the oppression by the Assad regime, and might even find that those small, windowless rooms, quite appropriate for torture.

Our hearts are with the families at Sandy Hook Elementary School

2012-12-14T15:25:00-05:00

I'm sorry for using this platform for a personal, off-topic, message. It's been a while since I have. But, today's tragedy in Connecticut is about as sad as it gets. This isn't an issue of politics or civil rights. This is an issue about humanity, and good vs. evil. I hope that if anything positive comes out of today's event, it's that the gun control debate will end in this country.