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Welcome to Super Nintendo World, the closest thing you can get to diving head-first inside a video game and experiencing the likely effects of swallowing one of Mario’s magic mushrooms.
For Universal, it represents the first expansion beyond film- and TV-themed rides, and a step up in designing a total environment – with the opening timed to capitalise on the release of an animated Super Mario Bros movie this spring.
— The Guardian
The park expansion officially opens on February 17th. Visitors will find attractions like the overpriced Toadstool Cafe, a “sedate crawl” signature race experience (sans shortcuts), cuter small details, and Bowser’s Castle, which apparently includes a self-help library and bomb-making... View full entry
Following last week’s look at an opening for a Senior Associate of Design for the Obama Presidential Center, we are using our Job Highlights series this week to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for an Unreal Engine Rendering Artist at PHNTM. The position, situated in Los Angeles, calls for... View full entry
MoMA’s acquisition of games is the responsibility of the Architecture and Design Department, which is focused on objects that are celebrated for their function. Paul Galloway, who has served as the point person for the museum’s video game acquisition efforts, says these multimedia objects are a natural fit for the most omnivorous section of the museum. — arstechnica
Installation view © 2022 The Museum of Modern Art. Photo: Emile Askey The show is open now and runs until July of next year in MoMA's first-floor gallery. Galloway and his co-organizers Paola Antonelli, Anna Burckhardt, and Amanda Forment say their department collects along four central... View full entry
Assassin’s Creed Unity is a 2014 video game set in Paris in 1789 that includes a surprisingly detailed digital model of the cathedral [...] The video game version of the cathedral wasn’t detailed enough for that kind of forensic research, but the makers of the game did find a way to put their version of Notre-Dame back to work. Today, Ubisoft is releasing Save Notre-Dame on Fire, a virtual reality game set inside the cathedral on the day of the fire. — Fast Company
"We’re using real elements from the architecture to create something that’s interesting for the player. We have all the immensity of the real Notre-Dame," shares Ubisoft's SVP Deborah Papiernik with Fast Company. The game was released in unison with a new movie directed by Enemy at... View full entry
Two years into the project, they construct the city in short and mobile sprints. “We circle around different districts,” explained Minefact. “We work one week in Chinatown, then one week in Tribeca, one week on Bowery and then come back to Chinatown. We always work on multiple districts at the same time to keep things interesting.” — Curbed
The crowdsourced design-build was begun by a German user named MineFact who had attempted a similar project the year before for his hometown of Frankfurt using rendering software that incorporated data taken from Google Maps. Incorporating a replacement for the obsolete Mercator projection... View full entry
It’s a subject with broader relevance than one might initially assume: Perhaps 3 billion people around the world play video games; many millions are spending large amounts of their lives exploring the streets of these virtual cities. Game city design also sheds some light on real-life planning — and not just because designers of successful game cities need to think carefully about the scale, interconnection and visual appeal of what they create. — Bloomberg
The expansion of architecture into the metaverse is inevitable, with designers like Kazys Varnelis and others creating virtual worlds with the expressed intent of taking lessons learned from the digital sphere and applying them to the real built environment. Urban planners, as well as architects... View full entry
Universal Studios Japan plans to open its $580 million Nintendo attraction on Feb. 4, finally debuting a long-delayed effort to introduce Mario and other beloved characters to real-world theme park visitors.
Super Nintendo World, built on the existing Universal Studios Japan site, is envisioned as a life-sized replica of Nintendo Co.’s most popular games with rides, shops and walk-through activities.
— Bloomberg
Bloomberg reports that a Mario Kart ride inside a recreation of Bowser's Castle would be one of Super Nintendo World's first attractions. Image courtesy of Nintendo. The ambitious half-billion dollar theme park was originally scheduled to open last summer, but the global coronavirus outbreak... View full entry
Ryan Scavnicky, who you may recognize from his meme-laden Instagram, or from his Extra Extra feature series here on Archinect, has launched his YouTube channel featuring reviews on the architecture of video games. Ryan Scavnicky at work Ryan's comparison of Super Mario's repeating... View full entry
Hudson Yards has received its share of mockery. Be it Archinect's April Fools' day joke, Vessel's Shawarma like appearance or the Luxury Real Estate Dildo Experience, there has been a fair share of criticism and poking fun of the new development. Well now, there is a Hudson... View full entry
The legendary video game company, Atari has just announced a deal it's made with GSD Group, an innovation and strategy agency, and producer Napoleon Smith III, "to acquire the rights to build video game-themed Atari Hotels in the United States, with the first location breaking ground in Pheonix... View full entry
While finding the right employee hires is a key concern for any business, less attention has been paid, until recently, to streamlined training and workforce development initiatives. Yet, with the growing sophistication and proliferation of online training services and mobile apps that can assist... View full entry
Architecture's influence in video game design has reached new heights over the years, providing architects and video game designers the ability to blend digital computation, mesmerizing graphics, and unforgettable worlds gamers can explore and get lost within. Manifold Garden is one such example... View full entry
The digital world of video games has changed over time thanks to architects and their expertise in spatial design and designing 3D environments. Digital model building are skillsets architects use everyday, so who better to help design these digital worlds? For landscape architect David... View full entry
Minecraft has come a long way since its introduction a decade ago. It remains one of the top paid mobile games in Apple's App Store and the Google Play Store, while Minecraft: Education Edition has become a popular way to teach kids things like computer coding, engineering, architecture, urban planning and math. — CNET
The popular sandbox video game, Minecraft, known for enabling players to craft worlds, structures, objects, and pretty much anything one can imagine within its framework, has been due for "a major update since 2017." The "Super Duper Graphics Pack was expected to bring more lighting... View full entry
Faculty in the Department of Architecture have received a cash gift from Epic Games Inc. in support of their work on Virtual Places, a project that is adapting the company's virtual reality (VR) gaming engine, Unreal Engine 4 (UE4), for architectural and urban design. — Cornell University
Three Cornell professors used virtual reality to create and expand on their research project Virtual Places. The study of architecture and video games is a growing focus. Within academia and practice, VR is a tool which helps unpack architectural ideas for learning as well as creating... View full entry
