This post is brought to you by Yulio. AN INTRODUCTION TO VIRTUAL REALITY Though Virtual Reality (VR) is yet to truly break into the mainstream consumer market, it’s an industry growing at breakneck speed.With Deloitte Global predicting a $1bn year for the VR industry this year, and Digi Capital... View full entry
Todays, pavilions are an omnipresent type of building. Unburdened to a certain degree from constraints of conventional architectures, such as program or function, pavilion designs offer architects a reign of technological and formal possibilities. Architects are commissioned for designs, in which... View full entry
On May 7, 2016, Joshua Brown, 40, of Williston, Florida was heading down the highway in his Tesla Model S, using the car’s autopilot mode, when he fatally collided with a tractor trailer. The truck took a left-turn in front of his vehicle, and according to a news release issued by Tesla... View full entry
Top figures from the cultural world applauded the appointment of Justine Simons, 45, by Mayor Sadiq Khan, who handed her responsibility for firms working in film, music, video games, crafts and publishing. She said: “My lifelong belief is that creativity can transform lives and places.
“Culture is part of London’s DNA. It’s a big reason so many of us choose to visit and live here, it generates billions for our economy and gives London its unique character and dynamism.
— standard.co.uk
Read more articles on the topic here: Julia Peyton-Jones discusses her legacy and leaving the Serpentine GalleryBrexit will put even more strain on towns already pressed for housingArchitects react to shocking EU referendum result"The most useless totem pole of mayoral hubris": Oliver Wainwright... View full entry
In ‘A World of Fragile Parts’, La Biennale di Venezia and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) explore the threats facing the preservation of global heritage sites and how the production of copies can aid in the preservation of cultural artifacts.
Ecological uncertainty, violent attacks, and the increasing demands of tourism are just a few of the factors putting global heritage sites and cultural artifacts at risk of destruction and loss.
— #NEWPALMYRA
For the Venice Biennale exhibit "A World of Fragile Parts," the digital archaeology project #NEWPALMYRA made a chrome version of a capital from the recently-destroyed city of Palmyra. Now, anyone can download the 3D model and print it, use it in a model of their own, or simply spin it... View full entry
Sidewalk Labs, a secretive subsidiary of Alphabet, wants to radically overhaul public parking and transportation in American cities, emails and documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.
Its high-tech services, which it calls “new superpowers to extend access and mobility”, could make it easier to drive and park in cities and create hybrid public/private transit options that rely heavily on ride-share services such as Uber.
— the Guardian
"But they might also gut traditional bus services and require cities to invest heavily in Google’s own technologies, experts fear."In related news:Google's Sidewalk Labs contemplates building an entire cityU.S. says computers qualify as drivers in Google's autonomous vehicles; won't even have to... View full entry
Y Combinator, the startup accelerator and investment firm that helped produce Airbnb, Dropbox, and Instacart, is embarking on a creation project arguably more ambitious than any company.
"We want to build cities," wrote Y Combinator partner Adora Cheung and President Sam Altman...the project aims to develop ways to reduce housing expenses by 90 percent and to develop a city code of laws simple enough to fit on 100 pages of text. Eventually the plan is to actually produce a prototype city.
— Bloomberg
"We’re not trying to build a utopia for techies," says Cheung, the project’s director and the former CEO of failed housecleaning startup Homejoy. "This is a city for humans."For more news from Silicon Valley, check out these links:Silicon Valley campuses at risk as sea levels riseSilicon... View full entry
Frank Lloyd Wright, level designer? That’s what artist William Chyr was thinking, from the moment he crossed the threshold at the Robie House...It was a rare IRL architectural excursion, as Chyr has been immersed in building the digital levels of Manifold Garden, his first-person 3D exploration game in which you defy gravity in order to walk up walls, fall through windows, and launch yourself from one side to the other of an infinite stepwell, [while] solving increasingly difficult puzzles. — Curbed
Alexandra Lange interviews video game designer William Chyr on his upcoming game, “Manifold Garden”, which is due for a January 2017 release on PlayStation 4. “Chyr has slowly incorporated more architectural references,” Lange writes, ”stretching back through the centuries and including... View full entry
RIBA President Jane Duncan said:“The RIBA is a global organisation that supports its members, validates schools of architecture and champions the importance of a quality built environment around the world. UK architecture talent is incredibly resilient and we will continue to ensure that our... View full entry
All the progress we have made will now be put on hold and the government’s attention will be diverted while we try and work out how to deal with Brexit. - Rob Naybour, Weston Williamson + Partners
Today marks a historic turning point for the UK and European Union - the UK has voted to quit the EU. What lays ahead no one is really sure; Cameron has already resigned this morning and discussions for a second Scottish referendum have begun. The majority within the architecture industry... View full entry
Columbus, Ohio, has won a $50m prize for its plans to smarten up its transport system. The money is made up of a $40m Smart Cities grant from the Department of Transportation (DOT), a $90m fund put up by private sector partners and a further $10m from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s charity Vulcan, which will be used to finance electric vehicle infrastructure. — globalconstructionreview.com
Columbus managed to beat six rival cities that were shortlisted by the DOT earlier this year:Austin, TexasDenver, ColoradoKansas City, MissouriPittsburgh, PennsylvaniaPortland, OregonSan Francisco, CaliforniaRelated stories in the Archinect news:Imagining the future cyberattack that could bring... View full entry
Copycat attacks sprang up around the world: trains going haywire in Japan; smart thermostats freezing pipes in Minneapolis; Chinese hackers noodling around a water utility in San Francisco. Americans suddenly realized that, although they had spent plenty of time anguishing about how to protect the country’s physical borders, with every device they bought, they had been letting more and more invaders into their cities, their homes, and their lives. — New York Magazine
"They had moved everything they did online, thinking they were moving into the future; they woke up the morning after thinking they’d moved into a war zone instead."This is a great work of speculative fiction that imagines a cyberattack that brings down New York City in the near-future... View full entry
If Mr. Ratti’s projections are correct, and self-driving cars can radically reduce traffic without cannibalizing existing mass transit—the hypotheticals pile up—it is possible that self-driving cars will make many cities livable in a way they aren’t now. Imagine if every U.S. city had a hybrid public-private mass-transit system on par with those in New York City or Washington, D.C., comprised entirely of self-driving vehicles. — wsj.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:Would self-driving cars be useful to people living outside urban cores?The "algorithmic dreams" of driverless cars, and how they might affect real-world urban designHow prepared are American cities for the new reality of self-driving cars? View full entry
The original Tate Modern redevelopment was started in 1995 and since opening in 2000 has become the most popular gallery in the world. It made sense then for Herzog and De Meuron to return and finish the job. Their architectural evolution and legacy is now embedded in the London skyline, as is... View full entry
The government of Russia has announced a desire to build a 70km Hyperloop line on its Pacific Coast to link the port of Zarubino with China’s Jilin province, but wants China to help fund it. The link would be part of Russia’s plan to develop a series of transport corridors between its Primorye region and northeast China...The project’s cost has been estimated at about $500m...the ministry would try to interest China in co-financing the link as part of its Silk Road grand strategy. — Global Construction Review
More on Archinect:'Hyperloop as transportation’s new girlfriend: mysterious, unencumbered, exciting, expensive.'Bjarke Ingels Group + AECOM join forces with HyperloopHyperloop hopefuls turn to 'passive' maglev technologyMIT and TU Delft emerge victorious at Hyperloop competition; Elon Musk drops... View full entry
