Archinect - News

Makoto Yamaguchi completes Tokyo gaming headquarters with slanting walls and video game metaphors

2024-04-17T11:43:00-04:00

Japanese practice Makoto Yamaguchi Design has completed a headquarters for a game production company in Tokyo inspired by video game elements.

Facing the site of an elevated railway where trains pass on average every 1.5 minutes in both directions, the scheme is defined by slanted walls in response to environmental elements such as light, wind, and sound.

Image credit: Koichi Torimura

Across the building, every slanted wall height is optimized according to the requirements of each floor. The third-floor walls, for example, are increased in height to prevent recording studios from being impacted by external noise. Meanwhile, the height of the slanted walls decreases as the scheme rises to open views of the surrounding city.

Image credit: Koichi Torimura

“The slanted walls protect the interior from the external gaze, making it impossible to tell what the building is for from the outside,” Yamaguchi explains. “Not being able to see the purpose is much the sa...

Populous reveals new esports arena design for Saudi Arabia's Qiddiya megaproject

2023-12-26T18:29:00-05:00

Populous has announced its plans for an esports gaming center in the new Qiddiya City entertainment district of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The proposed Qiddiya City Esports Arena is included under the Saudi Vision 2030 umbrella and serves a considerable market of gaming fans within the country that is anticipated to grow to contribute $13 billion to the country’s GDP annually in the same time period.

Populous will leverage a considerable past experience in esports and gaming, including the NBA 2K League Broadcast Arena, Fortress Melbourne, and the new Esports Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The firm says its final product will be unique to them all both in terms of scale and their users’ experience, creating a “fantasy world” with capacity for more than 5,155 players.

Image courtesy Populous

The program is divided into six translucent volumes, each with its own LED-lit entrance. Once inside, the gaming experience will be focused into a central bowl seating arrangement wrapped by two concours...

Populous announces a new esports arena and NFT collection in its hometown

2022-04-29T20:03:00-04:00

Sports arena mainstay Populous is venturing into new territory after its announcement of a new five-part NFT collection in partnership with their hometown esports franchise aptly named the Kansas City Pioneers.

According to the firm, the collection is meant to showcase a prototype future home for fans of the increasingly popular potential future Olympic competition.

Image courtesy Populous

The new project represents the firm’s third official foray into esports following their 100,000 square foot Esports Stadium Arlington and the planned $500 million Toronto hotel and entertainment complex being developed in collaboration with OverActive Media.

Previously on Archinect: Populous and OverActive Media unveil updated plans for performance venue in Toronto

Pioneers co-founder Mark Josey says it will “[provide] access to authentic, personalized experiences, and build connections to a community here and beyond.” The new digital arena can be accessed via the metaverse platform OpenSea and pla...

Archinect Outpost to host launch of The Blindspot Initiative, Jose Sanchez's book of essays on design resistance

2019-01-18T14:22:00-05:00

Join us in celebrating The Blindspot Initiative, the latest book of projects and essays on design resistance and alternative modes of practice edited by Jose Sanchez at Archinect Outpost on Saturday, February 9th, 7-9pm. The evening will begin with a talk by Jose Sanchez and comments by contributors to the book (including Behnaz Farahi, Biayna Bogosian of Somewhere Something and Casey Rehm of Kinch), followed by a Virtual Reality demonstration and book signing.

The book is available for presale here, to be signed by Jose Sanchez at the event.

Gaming the Real World. Photo courtesy of Jose Sanchez of Plethora Project

Published by Evolo, The Blindspot Initiative contains a forward by generative software designer Casey Reas and texts by Jose Sanchez, David Gerber, Jenny Wu, Kate Davies and Mostafa Elsayed.

‘Multi Family House’ (Rendering courtesy of Gilles Retsin Architecture)

The Blindspot Initiative features work from a range of architectural designers, including Satoru Sugihara, Gille...

Epic Games unleashes Unreal with the Academy

2018-08-19T13:52:00-04:00

Epic Games, the creators of the Unreal Engine, the standard for VR and AR exploration, experiment and implementation has unveiled its Academy. Understanding that understanding and exploring their medium is not as easy as picking up a pencil. Unreal is looking to change this by launching its own online academy meant to bring such software and creative unleashing to the masses. The academy will have a collection of tutorials, lectures and sample files tied to architecture, industrial design, game development and visualization to name a few.

Epic Games Academy

With more and more educational institutions embracing the visual and visceral adoration of such projects that comes from such technology and with a growing portion of such institutional leaders and educators unaware of how to use, teach and implement such software, having companies bridge the landscapes between creator and educator may be a sign of things to come — a much needed one.

A tour of experiential magical realism games from the Triennale Game Collection

2016-08-16T13:11:00-04:00

Among the discoveries in the magical realist-flavored experiential series of smartphone games from the Triennale Game Collection is just how compelling this format is for exploring the nuances of architecture, even if that architecture pushes the limits of physics (and is often heavily layered with surreal color and effects).

"The Worm Room" by Katie Rose Pipkin. Image: Triennale Game Collection.

With visual allusions to everything from Pixar to Darren Aronofsky's "The Fountain," the games emphasize the experience (hence, "experiential") over a plot-driven, goal-oriented construct. Nonetheless, each game has its own internal logic and rules, and rewards players with different visual effects and paths the longer they explore each world.

"Neighbor" by by Jake Elliott, Tamas Kemenczy and Ben Babbitt. Image: Triennale Game Collection.

Check out this video, which takes you through a quick tour of the five iOS/Android compatible games:

Console narratives: how games incorporate architectural storytelling

2016-03-16T12:58:00-04:00

Dark Souls and Bloodborne both put the player in decaying worlds and invite them to peel back layers of history. From the ruins of Firelink Shrine and its relationship to the Undead Church above it, to the various connections between Bloodborne’s Central Yharnam, Old Yharnam and Cathedral Ward, Hidetaka Miyazaki and his team of environment designers imply much of the game’s narrative through the clash between one architectural style and another; between one layer of history and the next.

Perhaps you're ready to take a break from diving and dodging through problematic MEP in Rhino to enjoy the scripted unfurling of these (non-deadline driven) complex spatial narratives, some of which are inspired by the work of real-world firms like Herzog & de Meuron.

What's new in architecturally-related game design? This, for starters:

Ruination: City of Dust

2014-10-13T23:38:00-04:00

According to Jane McGonigal, a well-known game designer and researcher, “games build the kind of trust, relationships and social networks so critical to [collective action].” Playing games, people naturally weave a tight social fabric.”