Archinect - News

Construction teams for Microsoft's new corporate campus outside Seattle use drones to update 100 BIM models in real-time

2019-10-10T17:30:00-04:00

Microsoft's new corporate campus in Redmond, Washington, designed by LMN, NBBJ, WRNS Studio, and ZGF Architects, is being built with a bevy of digital technology tools.

Construction Dive reports that the massive construction project will bring up to 1.3 million square feet of new development to the company's historic corporate office campus. The build-out includes 17 new buildings, each of which will run between 180,000 and 220,000 square feet in size, a Microsoft press release reports. The project includes bringing upgraded accessibility features to the campus while also integrating the development with surrounding landscapes. Berger Partnership will be the lead landscape architect for the development in conjunction with OLIN.

All of this is being brought into being through a data-driven construction process that includes the use of an autonomous drone surveying system that makes weekly passes over the site to create high-accuracy GPS scans of the construction progress.

The surv...

Fairy Tale Architecture: The Butterfly Dream

2018-12-20T12:08:00-05:00

Fairy tales have transfixed readers for thousands of years, and for many reasons; one of the most compelling is the promise of a magical home. How many architects, young and old, have been inspired by a hero or heroine who must imagine new realms and new spaces — new ways of being in this strange world? Houses in fairy tales are never just houses; they always contain secrets and dreams.

"The Butterfly Dream" by Bernheimer Architecture is the third and final installment of this year's Fairy Tale Architecture series, curated by writer Kate Bernheimer and architect Andrew Bernheimer. ⠀

The team imagined the butterfly in Zhuangzi's famous parable as a drone, collecting data which can be abstracted to explore the transformation of things. The drawings of this story consist of data from the flight of the drone. These data were converted into a flight path, and then a flight-space. This space was then extruded into shapes and volumes, illustrating both the act of flying as well as the act of (detached, remote) seeing.

Record heatwave is revealing hidden historic sites across Britain

2018-07-30T15:15:00-04:00

Southern England has been particularly parched, enjoying the driest June on record, but the hot weather has lead to an array of unlikely discoveries across the British Isles. Outlines of ancient and historic sites are being revealed – some of which haven’t been seen in living memory.

"As the grass and crops dry out in the fields, the remains of wood and stone features are being spotted. The effect is caused by soil building up above the foreign material left in the ground over centuries in a way that makes the live material react to the conditions at a different rate to that found within regular soil," The Telegraph explains the phenomenon of 'ghost gardens' which have been appearing across Britain during the country's most extreme heatwave in decades.

The increased prevalence of drone and aerial photography has made it much easier to spot them than during previous heatwaves.

Bogota from the Roofs, Streets and Sky by Camilo Mønón Navas

2018-01-26T13:56:00-05:00

To me, everything looks fascinating from the air. But, for some reason, I never expected Bogotá, Colombia, to look so striking.

Colombian artist, Camilo Mønón Navas has produced a series of images titled, Arial Façades, in which Camilo takes various perspectival photographs and assembles them whimsical and fantastical means while bringing his home city of Bogota to the surface through all its cultural glory.

In Camilo's words. "Those buildings, spaces, or architectural complexes that are part of our city and that show us through a drone the incredible details that our city hides from the air...by exploring from the terrace of my apartment–a 10-story building–the structures of the cities from the zenith views.”

Flyover Moscow with aerial photography of the city's architectural icons

2017-08-23T09:00:00-04:00

In a scene from Dead Poets Society, Robin Williams' character, the English teacher John Keating, famously climbs on top his desk to remind himself, and his students, that "we must look at things in a different way. The world looks very different from up here." Thanks to satellite and drone technology, we can now take Williams' advice quite literally by looking at the world from up above.

Sadovye Kvartaly Residential Complex

Using a remote-controlled drone, the photographer Denis Esakov has done just that by capturing the amazing "fifth facades" of Moscow's architecture. Photographing over seventy buildings throughout Europe's largest metropolis, Esakov flies over the city to reveal previously unseen geometries of the city's greatest architectural icons. The new vantage point exposes intriguing compositions that spark a re-evaluation of the works themselves and a query into the hidden symbolism behind the plans that up until now, have remained the secret of the architects and their c...