Archinect - News

Now you can experience LA’s erstwhile Bunker Hill neighborhood thanks to a 3D reconstruction from USC

2022-07-15T14:26:00-04:00

Seven decades after it was razed to do away with what the federal government deemed “urban blight,” the University of Southern California’s Ahmanson Lab, working with the Bunker Hill Refrain Collaboratory, has created an interactive 3D reconstruction of Downtown Los Angeles’ Bunker Hill neighborhood. The initiative gives users a sense of what was lost when the area was turned over to developers and slowly remade into what is today an unrecognizable warren of commercial and luxury residential projects consistently fought over by some of the city’s most powerful names.

The 3D tour captures the area as it appeared between the late 1930s and the beginning of the government-led “slum clearance” initiatives that began in the last two years of the 1940s.

A typical Queen Anne style home in the neighborhood ca. 1940. Image courtesy USC.

Mayor Fletcher Bowron was the domineering political figure at that time, overseeing an unprecedented second wave of urban expansion in Los Angeles that inclu...

San Francisco-based studio Gemmiti Model Art celebrates the importance of architectural model making

2021-09-17T18:04:00-04:00

Who doesn't love architecture models? These small-scaled versions of structures are revered treasures of the industry. While 3D modeling software and VR/AR have transformed the idea of the model, it's still safe to say the craft of model making will always play a key role in understanding structures within a space.

The skill and precision behind architecture models continue to be a beloved tool for showcasing a new project. Firms like MAD Architects, for example, continue to stun design professionals and architecture enthusiasts with their mesmerizing models. To learn more about the art of architecture models, we focus on San Francisco-based model-making practice Gemmiti Model Art. Their work and passion for model-making have positioned them as one of the top model-making practices for over 30 years.

California Pacific Model Medical Center at Cathedral Hill. (3/32"=1' scale) Image © Gemmiti Model Art

Founded by Lisa Gemmiti in 1999, Gemmiti Model Art has worked with Apple, NASA, Ado...

Displaying relics of Soviet architecture on your desk has never been easier

2019-01-24T15:59:00-05:00

Authored and published by Zupagrafika, and now featured in our Downtown LA retail store and online at Archinect Outpost, these miniature versions of brutalist structures from former Eastern Bloc countries can now rest easily on your desk or bookshelf.

House of Soviets (Kaliningrad, Russia). Authored and Published by Zupagrafika.

The Brutal East cutouts are authored and published by Zupagrafika, an independent design studio established in 2012 by a Hispano-Polish duo David Navarro and Martyna Sobecka in Poznań, Poland. The studio has a special affinity with Polish Poster School, post-war modernist architecture and paper.

Representing structures from Belgrade, Chisinau, Kaliningrad, Prague, St. Petersburg, Vilnius and Wrocław, these cutouts are faithfully illustrated with the ravages of time and hints of graffiti. The Brutal East kit comes with seven cutouts, each of which requires a ruler, and box cutter and white glue to construct.

Novosmolenskaya Housing Complex (St. Petersburg, ...

9 Fabrication, Rendering, and Graphic Design job opportunities

2018-11-29T11:50:00-05:00

It's important to have a diverse team when it comes to seeing a project come to life. Whether it be fabrication, 3D modeling, renderings, or even graphic design it's these details that help give projects an extra element of possibility. This week we've curated employment opportunities for those seeking to use their digital talents with great firms.

Knotel is seeking an Environmental Graphic Designer in San Francisco
Working within the Launch Department, the Environmental Graphic Designer will be charged with designing unique environmental experiences in our San Francisco spaces. S/he will develop creative and strategic solutions to enhance the brand experience of our physical spaces. The Designer must have a passion for developing exceptional graphic, industrial, and experiential design, both static and dynamic. They must have a strong understanding of how size, scale, color, proportion, materiality, and finish are appropriate for a variety of interior and exterior environmental so...

Morpholio Trace and Shapr3D launch new iOS 12 features to integrate 3D modeling and sketching for architects

2018-09-26T15:59:00-04:00

With Apple's recent release of its latest mobile operating system, iOS 12, we're now seeing new feature releases in a variety of apps. Two players in the world of architectural software, Morpholio Trace and Shapr3D, today announced a joint effort that promises to further bridge the divide between 3D modeling and sketching on the iPad Pro thanks to Apple’s Drag and Drop and the new universal 3D file type USDZ.

Credit: Jim Keen. Image courtesy of Morpholio.

Dubbed "Drag 'n' Fly", the new iOS 12 feature by Morpholio, a company that we've covered previously on Archinect, enables users to integrate live 3D models in Trace sketches, create infinite views, and draw over automatically generated perspective grids. Shapr3D models can now be exported directly to Trace via the new OBJ export, simplifying the switch between drawing and modeling.

Credit: Jim Keen. Image courtesy of Morpholio.

Morpholio Co-Founder Mark Collins explains the reason behind...

Artist Joshua Smith builds urban decay miniatures

2017-12-01T13:14:00-05:00

Australia-based artist Joshua Smith expresses his love of decrepit urban spaces by recreating them in 1:20 scale. Building all of his miniatures from scratch, Smith designs every element himself. The artist's work is built on his past experiences as a stencil artist and gallery director. Inspired by street art, graffiti, and old forgotten buildings, Smith is fascinated by the layers and history found within the dirt and grime of city spaces.

Pictured above is a recreation of 23 Temple Street, a building in the Kowloon area of Hong Kong, made by the artist for New York's VOLTA art fair. Smith's process starts with hours of searching on google street view for his next subject. Once his next project is underway, it can take months to finish a piece. The 23 Temple Street miniature took Smith three months of full time work to complete.

Scroll down and check out these mini architectural masterpieces.

'Big Bang Fireworks Company', based on 10 Pell Street in Chinatown NYC, by Joshua Smi...

Help fund this Kickstarter for 3D printed maps of Tokyo

2016-10-11T13:39:00-04:00

The confluence of Google mapping, 3D printing and the desire for inventive home decor has produced a Kickstarter for One Hundred Tokyo, a fully-fledged three dimensional map of Tokyo that is divided into 100 handy pieces. Pick your favorite palm-sized square(s) or collect all 100; it's up to you and your available display space. Nonetheless, these minutely detailed urban segments are cool/notable both for their immediacy and their accuracy; Zenrin, the same urban data providers that work with Google Maps and Microsoft, have "specially equipped vehicles" that compile the metropolitan deets used to produce the models.

What else is going on with 3D printing? So glad you asked:

Brutal paper cut-outs (of real-life buildings)

2016-05-26T19:22:00-04:00

Poland-based studio Zupagrafika has a thing for modernist and Brutalist architecture. And to share that passion, it has created playful illustrated paper cutout models of Brutalist buildings in London; modernist buildings in Warsaw; and a new series, Paris Brut, featuring Brutalist architecture from the 1950s–70s located in the city center and outlying banlieues.

Cheaper than a train set, more visceral than a video game: Zupagrafika's sets of the Les Choux de Creteil, the Cite des 4000, and the Orgues de Flandre (among others) will keep your fingers busy in assembly and your mind deeply engaged in the thorny issues surrounding the relative success and failure of mid-century design.

A round-up of all the latest in fascinating miniatures:

Animated 3D data maps of New York City & beyond

2015-10-01T13:31:00-04:00

Created by graphic engineer Patricio Gonzalez Vivo, the animated map gives a sky-high view of the city's hustle and bustle, capturing cars cruising along streets and lights buzzing on and off in buildings. Vivo, who created the project for open source mapping lab Mapzen, applied mathematical functions to street data to create the animated scene.

Vivo's mapping isn't limited to New York City: you can input a variety of different cities, from Aachen to Zemun, and get a hypnotizing 3D view. Here's a view of downtown Los Angeles:

And a view of London (with the black, mostly data-less swath of the Thames cutting through):

Archiving the built environment in Joakim Dahlqvist's "Piminski" renderings

2014-02-18T14:59:00-05:00

The 3D model renderings of architect, illustrator, and digital artist Joakim Dahlqvist are a tug-o'-war between reality and imagination — a constant tension reflected in the never-ending quest for design innovation. The smartly arranged objects in Dahlqvist's 3D renderings would have one think each piece required thorough, calculated thought every step of the way. They do, to an extent.

But after I had a short phone conversation with Dahlqvist, his creative thought process seems to lean toward an experimental and intuitive side that may not be easily detected in his work.

Always having an interest in collecting things and spotting interesting details in his everyday surroundings, Dahlqvist began piecing together the renderings as a "bureaucratic" exercise. The renderings were also a uniquely productive way for him to archive the items he had collected over the years.

When he was invited to exhibit his work at the WUHO Gallery in L.A., he explained that he took it as an opportunity to c...

Your phone could soon become a 3D scanner

2013-12-06T13:49:00-05:00

Most of us have gotten used to smartphones replacing long-established devices such as cameras and music players. Soon, however, they might be taking over the duties of something that is itself an emerging technology – the 3D scanner. Researchers at ETH Zurich have created an app that allows an ordinary smartphone to capture and display three-dimensional models of real-world objects, for subsequent finessing or even 3D printing.