Designer Colin Cantwell, who was responsible for the design of the Death Star and several iconic ships in the Star Wars saga, has passed away at the age of 90. The news was confirmed by the designer’s partner, Sierra Dall, and reported first by the Hollywood Reporter. Born in San Francisco in... View full entry
Barcelona has become the latest city to begin construction on a digital twin of itself. Currently in a test phase, the data-driven replica of the city is expected to be operational by 2027, at which point it will be used as an urban planning tool to shape the city’s future development. The... View full entry
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. ... View full entry
Earlier this week, we covered comments by columnist Kunle Barker in the UK’s Architects’ Journal, who warned against the trend of offsetting emissions to achieve a “zero carbon” built environment. “Offsetting is not sustainable,” Barker wrote. “In fact, it's not even close to being... View full entry
Google has announced the opening of its new Bay View campus in Mountain View, California, with the neighboring Charleston East project in its final phase of construction. Together, they form the latest additions to Google's headquarters. Photo: Iwan Baan, courtesy of Google The web giant... View full entry
The MIT Media Lab has shared insights into their pioneering project to build habitats in outer space. Named TESSERAE, the project seeks to create a highly-engineered tile which can be used as a building block for self-assembling, adaptive, reconfigurable structures. Artist's render of TESSERAE... View full entry
Google launched a new mode for Maps on Wednesday, designed to give users a more real-life look at the places they’re going before they even go. The new Immersive View is sort of a Street View in the sky: you can look over a location from above to get a sense of the neighborhood and then drop to street level to see the specific spots you might want to hit up. — The Verge
The feature was revealed at Google’s I/O 2022 Keynote address in which CEO Sundar Pichai also introduced a new flood forecasting feature and expanded capabilities of the 15-year-old Maps project made possible through advancements in AI technology. Pichai says the company now has 1.6 billion... View full entry
The country of El Salvador has picked an architect for his attention-grabbing bid to lure cryptocurrency investment to the small Central American nation. FR-EE founder Fernando Romero is now in charge of the country’s Bitcoin City development and plans to add a new Pacific airport, according to... View full entry
eVolo Magazine has revealed the 2022 winners of their annual Skyscraper Competition. Chosen from a pool of 427 projects, the three winners and twenty honorable mentions offer visionary ideas for the future of vertical architecture, shaped by novel approaches to technology, materials, function, and... View full entry
China is using artificial intelligence to effectively turn a dam project on the Tibetan Plateau into the world’s largest 3D printer, according to scientists involved in the project.
The 180 metre (590 feet) high Yangqu hydropower plant will be built slice by slice – using unmanned excavators, trucks, bulldozers, pavers and rollers, all controlled by AI – in the same additive manufacturing process used in 3D printing.
— The South China Morning Post
The Yangqu dam project is set to finish in two years and is being overseen by Tsinghua University’s Liu Tianyun, who recently argued that developments in 3D printing have made the technology “identical to nature.” Its purported future annual output of nearly 5 billion kilowatt hours of... View full entry
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... View full entry
3D printed home specialist Alquist 3D has announced plans to build what it calls the largest 3D printed home building project in the world. The initiative is dubbed Project Virginia and will see the development of 200 homes across the state. Alquist will kick off the project with a demonstration... View full entry
Further details have been revealed for the design of OCEANIX Busan, described as the “world’s first sustainable floating city.” Designed by lead architects BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) and SAMOO (Samsung), the project will be constructed in the South Korean city of Busan by advanced maritime... View full entry
Rugged Robotics, a Houston-based developer of construction technology, raised $9.4 million in Series A funding. Similar to Dusty Robotics, Rugged offers a robot to automate construction layout. Rugged’s Mark I marks architectural and engineering designs directly onto concrete floors so workers know where to build. The robot is available for commercial use, which the company delivers via layout as a service (a derivative of Robots as a Service). — The Robot Report
The funding round was led by BOLD Capital Partners and Brick & Mortar Ventures, along with Riot Ventures, Morpheus, Embark, Consigli Construction Company, and Suffolk Technologies. This latest capitalization round brings the company’s full funding to around $12 million. Rugged Robotics... View full entry
A team of students and faculty at Virginia Tech has completed an innovative observation tower in rural Virginia. The design and delivery of the project saw the development and certification of a new custom timber product, off-site prefabrication, and the discovery of the ruins of a historic... View full entry
