Archinect - News

Refik Anadol creates ‘world first’ AI model trained on data from nature instead of humans

2024-01-15T11:35:00-05:00

Refik Anadol Studio has announced the creation of the “world’s first open-source generative AI model dedicated to nature.” Titled 'Large Nature Model,' the model is trained “solely on nature’s inherent intelligence” as opposed to the conventional approach to AI large language model training, which consists of human-generated data such as art and text.

To train the model, Anadol’s studio used open-access information from institutions including the Smithsonian Institution and London’s Natural History Museum alongside various other universities, museums, foundations, government entities, and libraries. The studio is also visiting 16 rainforest locations around the world, deploying data collection technologies such as LiDAR, photogrammetry, and the capturing of ambisonic audio and high-resolution visuals of diverse ecosystems to further train the model.

“Our vision for the Large Nature Model goes beyond being a repository or a creative research initiative,” said Refik Anadol about the m...

Pulitzer Prize-winning architect Alison Killing to join Financial Times visual investigations unit

2023-10-16T18:41:00-04:00

Alison Killing, the British-born and Netherlands-based designer who in 2021 was named the first-ever architect to win the Pulitzer Prize, has been tapped to lead a new visual investigations unit supported by the Financial Times. The paper announced the appointment on Thursday.

Killing will work under the title Senior Investigations Reporter and expand on a body of work that includes the Putlizer-winning investigation for The New York Times into Muslim detention camps operating in China’s Xinjiang province. The published reporting led the country to withdraw from this year’s Venice Biennale while shedding light on the difficulties journalists and human rights advocates face in performing open-source research in authoritarian regimes across the world.

Killing was educated in the UK and later immigrated to the Netherlands to found her practice Killing Architects in 2010. The financial downturn of the time caused her to venture into curation and researching vacant buildings. She would ...

Refik Anadol previews new AI data sculpture installation for Las Vegas Sphere

2023-08-31T17:54:00-04:00

A new AI Data Sculpture installation from Refik Anadol has been unveiled ahead of its public premiere tomorrow, September 1st, at the newly-complete Sphere entertainment venue in Las Vegas.

The sculpture utilizes the structure’s Exosphere, a digital canvas covering that can be programmed to display content thanks to its world-leading array of 1.2 million different LED ‘pucks’ which are spaced 8 inches apart to form an almost 580,000-square-foot display.

Anadol says: “It’s so exciting to be given such an architectural and engineering marvel as a canvas. This opportunity aligns perfectly with our studio’s long-term mission of embedding media arts into architecture to create living architectural pieces that are in constant interaction with their environments.”

Rendering courtesy Refik Anadol Studio

The latest in his Machine Hallucinations series will offer viewers a meditative and elaborate multisensory experience based on accumulated local atmospheric data that are consolidated and th...

Segregation by Design: Using visual data and spatial analysis to highlight the racist legacy of urban renewal

2022-08-29T15:12:00-04:00

What started as a self-funded project from New York-based architect Adam Paul Susaneck is gaining attention over its unique ability to paint a picture of the effects of racial segregation in the 180 American cities included in the controversial Federal Highway Act of 1956.

Inspired by Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law, Susaneck launched his Segregation by Design project in early 2021 to "reveal the extent to which the American city was methodically hollowed out based on race."

Susaneck is in league with others who have been calling on the Biden Administration to dismantle the legacy of race-based discrimination laden in America’s aging highway network and says the trifold goal of the project is to: 1. Create an "Atlas of Urban Renewal" in book form; 2. Create digital materials for local groups opposing ongoing freeway expansion; and 3. Continue to grow the followership of Segregation by Design’s social media channels (which to date number some 132,000).

Related on Archinect: St....

A new tool provides wildfire risk data to American homeowners in the face of climate change

2022-05-18T20:15:00-04:00

Wildfires are becoming an increasing threat to American homeowners with the acceleration of climate change, and now a new tool from the nonprofit First Street Foundation will allow them to access probability-based data about the potential risk their property may face over the next 30 years.

By incorporating open-source tax information, satellite imaging, and advanced computer modeling, the Foundation was able to produce a Fire Factor metric and interactive map that details both the intensity of future burns and their ability to move across varying topographies. An individual structure’s score is thus determined by its available defensible space, roof and construction type, and proximity to fuels like trees, shrubs, and wild grasses.

Currently, there is no publicly available data on fire risk similar to the flood damage assessments required by the federal National Flood Insurance Prog...

Forensic Architecture has been named a 2022 Peabody Award winner

2022-03-30T18:30:00-04:00

The activist community can rejoice today on the news that groundbreaking London-based collective Forensic Architecture (FA) has been given an Institutional Peabody Award for its continued public service and contributions to electronic media.

The group was cited for their work documenting the use of Israeli spyware called Pegasus, the ongoing exhibition Cloud Studies, and myriad investigations into police brutality, war crimes, surveillance culture, environmental racism, and the illegal occupation of Palestine.

FA’s use of various forms of data, 3D visualization technology, photogrammetry, lidar, and citizen videos was likewise commended for its innovation and incorporation into what the awards jury deemed “sophisticated architectural techniques.”

The twelve-year-old group founded by Israeli academic Eyal Weizman is coming off of another banner year in which its pursu...

Designing healthier spaces through data: How one firm uses spatial analytics to shape new job opportunities for architects

2022-03-02T09:06:00-05:00

Traditional architecture firms aren't the only viable employers worth exploring as designers and architects continue to navigate the job market. New and exciting job opportunities with unique architecture adjacent practices continue to emerge with businesses seeking the expertise of individuals with architecture backgrounds. Pair this with advances in AR/VR, visualization modeling, and data analytics architects are finding new ways to approach healthcare, housing, and commercial projects.

Take the Cambridge-based spatial analytics company Spatio Metrics for example. Its founders, Sonal Singh and Jim Peraino, have combined their business, wellness, and architecture backgrounds to develop a company that "helps architects and their clients analyze floor plans and bridge the gap between design, data, and human performance."

Image courtesy of Spatio Metrics.

Both MIT graduates, the duo founded their company in 2019 and has gained attention as a startup that uses spatial analytics, visuali...

New map highlights architectural contributions of LA’s Black community

2022-02-03T17:34:00-05:00

The “Black History Is LA History” map includes the Calvary Baptist Church of Pacoima, which was founded in 1955 by civil rights activists Rev. Hillery T. and Rosa L. Broadus, who moved from Arkansas to the San Fernando Valley. The two were involved in the local fair housing movement and helped organize the NAACP’s San Fernando Valley chapter.

The map, launched by Los Angeles Controller Ron Galperin, highlights key infrastructure like the Paul Revere Williams-designed Theme Building at LAX as well as cultural landmarks like Watts Towers Arts Center and the restored Crenshaw Wall.

The focus on sites that are publicly-owned and designated by Los Angeles as Historic-Cultural Monuments means that the list is not entirely exhaustive, according to the Controller’s office. Notably missing are some key flashpoints in the racist history of development schemes within the city such as the disputed Bruce’s Beach in Manhattan Beach. Other absences include almost all of the myriad Williams buildings that have managed to avoid demolition, Norma Merrick Sklarek’s contribution to the beautiful blue Pacific Design Center building in West Hollywood, and several contemporary designs like BASE Architecture’s new Dollarhide Community Center in Crenshaw.

Scientists are using deep learning data to map structure damage from wildfires

2022-01-04T13:00:00-05:00

A new computer program powered by artificial intelligence takes mere minutes to determine whether homes and buildings have been destroyed by wildfires once the smoke has cleared. Developed by scientists at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and Stanford University, DamageMap evaluates the destruction by scrutinizing post-wildfire aerial and satellite images.

The team worked to fix a major flaw in existing modeling systems that required exact lighting and photographic angles in order to produce an accurate survey of structural damage in a specific area. 50,000 images from various fires across California were used as a baseline for the software, which came back with a 92% accuracy rate when tested against another set of 18,000 burn scar images, according to the scientists.

Meanwhile, the rash of recent fires has led many to speculate about a statewide exodus that will continue as a product of future cataclysms which the team says it is hastily preparing for.

“The code works, and we have a lot of data,” co-developer Andrew Fricker told the Santa Cruz Sentinel. “If people were motivated to get this out to the public for the next fire season, it could be done.”

Port cities in Asia most at risk for climate-related flooding according to new data

2021-10-06T17:36:00-04:00

Cities with the worst exposure to coastal flooding in the coming decades are overwhelmingly located in Asia, according to a comprehensive analysis by leading climate scientists, with port cities in India and China particularly vulnerable.

An international team of research scientists from the US OECD and UK’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, among others, has found that Asian cities are now disproportionately susceptible to flooding owing to migration patterns and a host of other environmental dangers included in climate change.

Using data projections from the 136 port cities around the world that have populations north of one million people, the report ranked each based on its potential exposure to coastal floods in the 2070s. CNBC has an interactive map of the list’s ten largest Asian urban areas, including Shanghai, Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, and Mumbai, here.

The New York Times goes inside the Empire State Building's post-pandemic finances

2021-09-20T14:46:00-04:00

Most of the Empire State Building is dedicated to office space. With its mix of big and small businesses, the building is perhaps a better barometer of the state of office space in New York and the city’s economy than the towers dominated by global firms.

The building’s tourist and retail income has been essentially shut out for over 18 months because of the pandemic. As a result, tenants are being offered sharp discounts despite increasing signs that the remote work trend is here to stay.

“We’ve found ourselves being able to work in ways that we couldn’t imagine were possible before,” one tenant told the Times. “We just thought for so long we needed an office to be efficient, and that’s not true.”

An expansive $165 million renovation of the Empire State Building Observatory authored by Thinc was completed just before the pandemic. The New York Times has a visualization of the Art Deco landmark’s future here.

Using data visualization to understand the Amazon rainforest fires

2019-08-23T16:00:00-04:00

For the past few weeks, the media has slowly increased its coverage of the devastating fires being intentionally set in the Amazon rainforest. Besides the politically charged issues and highly questionable leadership in Brazil, matters like this can quickly become headline news that leaves people 'social media-aware' but not necessarily informed.

For starters, forest fires in the Amazon are not uncommon and often related to seasonal temperature and weather fluctuations. However, these particular fires are due to intentional land-clearing methods employed by loggers and farmers rallied by the Brazilian president President Jair Bolsonaro and his pro-business agenda. His blatant aggression against indigenous rights, environmental conservation, and concern for sustainable practices has put Brazil and the rest of the world in a difficult position.

Increased deforestation efforts by the Bolsonaro administration have been propelled by a desire for promoting development and agriculture thr...

How do you visualize the effects of climate change? Architect Iwo Borkowicz and artist Alicja Biala use data visualization to inform the public

2019-07-22T13:50:00-04:00

In this hyper-visual world, it's becoming more challenging to keep the general public informed and engaged with pressing issues, specifically issues relating to the environment. The quickly changing landscapes, rising sea levels, and temperature fluctuations should be enough of a warning for others to take notice. However, Alicja Biala and Iwo Borkowicz illustrate these issues using public space, data, and art.

Located beneath MVRDV's Baltyk Tower stands Biala and Borkowicz's 9m-tall installation. At first glance, the colorful structures would capture anyone's attention. The intricate patterns and distinct individualist shapes may satisfy social media thirsty individuals, but the message behind each piece represents something far more important.

(L) Totem showcases how much water is used during food production. (R) Totem illustrates plastic use. Image © Alicja Biala and Iwo Borkowicz/Totemy

Totem Diagram. Image Alicja Biala and Iwo Borkowicz/Totemy

Totemy is a multi-layered set of t...

Is age just a number when it comes to a career in architecture?

2019-05-08T18:27:00-04:00

Architect and urban designer Matthew Frederick states in his book, 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School, "architects are late bloomers. Most architects do not hit their professional stride until around age 50!" Taking Frederick's statement into consideration how does age play into an individual's job decision and transition over time? How does age affect individuals exploring a new career in architecture?

Statistician Nathan Yau uses his professional experience with data and data visualization to create a graphic exploring the correlation between age and 100 common jobs individuals switch to overtime. Ranging from age 15 to 90 each job is listed on its own timeline. Any peaks within the timeline reflect the age where individuals are most likely to make a job switch. With this data, Yau then organizes the graph ranking jobs people are more likely to have when they are young...

How VR may be the bridge firms and educators need to share architecture

2019-02-08T10:37:00-05:00

Thanks to Hugo Gernsback and his influence on science fiction and technology, his 1963 TV Glasses invention was a stepping stone for the evolution of virtual reality. Fast forward 50 years and VR is now an accessible and viable option for almost everyone, especially architects and designers.

According to the AIA's 2018 firm survey, The Business of Architecture, it has been recorded that 67 percent of large firms are utilizing VR technology within their practice. With relatively affordable VR options like the Oculus Rift, Google Daydream, and Samsung Gear, almost anyone can purchase the technology to integrate virtual reality into their design process. However, with its apparent accessibility, has VR become a critical factor in successfully communicating architectural ideas to groups like clients and students? Only so much can be seen in drawings and renderings. Architecture must also be felt to be understood, and perhaps leaping into virtual reality is a viable step.

Samsung’s Mobi...

Refik Anadol to cover Walt Disney Concert Hall with vivid data projections

2018-09-13T15:42:00-04:00

One of the most recognizable buildings in Downtown Los Angeles—the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall—will be used as a canvas later this month. To celebrate the start of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s new season, colorful patterns will be projected onto the metallic surface of the wavy concert hall for a little more than a week, courtesy of artist Refik Anadol.

For the LA Philharmonic projection series, called WDCH Dreams, internationally renowned media artist Refik Anadol dug deep in the digital orchestra archives—nearly 45 terabytes of data—and applied Google Arts and Culture's machine intelligence to it, which parsed the files into millions of data points that were then re-categorized and, with the help of deep neural networks, made new connections between LA Phil's "memories." According to Anadol, this process awakes the metaphorical "consciousness" of Walt Disney Concert Hall, and the result is a "radical visualization of the organization’s first century and an exploration of synergies between art and technology, and architecture and institutional memory."

WDCH Dreams, renderings by Refik Anadol Studio

To visualize the result of this process, Anadol will be using 42 large scale projectors, with 50K visual resolution, 8-channel sound, and 1.2M luminance in total, which should create quite a spectacular display on the stainless-steel fac...

Forensic Architecture pieces together the Grenfell Tower fire

2018-03-26T14:33:00-04:00

Over the last few months, the team at Forensic Architecture, housed at London’s Goldsmiths University in Lewisham, has been working to piece together data and footage from the event using a mixture of video and imagery from Youtube, Periscope and other forms of social media, as well as footage from Sky News, which is a partner on the project.

In June of 2017 the Grenfell Tower fire killed 71 in the London public housing block. Criminal investigations are still ongoing with no one yet held accountable. Forensic Architecture has taken on the case in order to piece together how the fire spread within minutes throughout the building.

By creating a public database from various sources of video footage, the agency's approach is an open-ended investigation where anyone with information can participate. Forensic Architecture is creating a 12 hour video sequence mapping footage onto a model of the building. Initially named "Grenfell Media Archive", the team hopes to eventually be able to share it externally as an interactive archive.

Through their new methods of data visualization, Forensic Architecture hopes to fully uncover how this incident happened.

Wallabot peers 4 inches through walls to identify pipes, wires, and other hidden objects

2017-06-01T12:47:00-04:00

The Android-only Wallabot device is apparently designed to help you avoid sawing through a waterline or prematurely snipping an electrical wire by virtue of showing you what lurks beneath your walls before you begin working. The device, which is demonstrated via video below, is paired with your Android and then pressed against the wall, where it renders various objects in a vivid purple, thereby transforming otherwise seemingly boring walls (and other solid objects) into virtual archaeological excavations:

Use the AIA's visualized home design survey results to keep track of emerging trends

2016-01-04T15:28:00-05:00

The AIA recently revamped their AIA Home Design Trends Survey into a visual-friendly format for the 2015 findings, so this could be a handy reference tool for any home designers who want to stay on top of emerging trends that may come to the forefront in 2016. The new visual lets users quickly access charts and figures for each quarter in 2015, which focuses on a different area of home trends including "Neighborhood and Community Design", "Home and Property Design", "Home Features", and "Kitchen and Bath". The survey results also include the same business conditions questions for tracking purposes.

Check out the survey, archives, and more here.

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):

DOE Crowdsourcing Initiative Seeks Buildings-Related Problems to Solve

2015-07-08T13:23:00-04:00

In the first, “Ideation” phase of the initiative, those working in the building efficiency area are invited to submit problem statements describing challenges that need to be overcome in order to promote better engagement with building occupants and to improve the ability to balance energy and occupant comfort objectives in a building. In addition to submitting problem statements, participants are invited to vote and comment on ideas that have already been submitted.