Creating a model for rendering does have its own set of rules. To get you up and rendering as quickly as possible, here are SketchUp's top five tips for prepping your SketchUp model for rendering.

The Second Studio (formerly The Midnight Charette) is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by Architects David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features different creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions.

A variety of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes are interviews, while others are tips for fellow designers, reviews of buildings and other projects, or casual explorations of everyday life and design. The Second Studio is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.

This week David and Marina discuss the design process. The two discuss researching, using intuition, their six different ways to test if an ‘in-progress design’ is good and how it can be bettered (the different mediums test, the abstraction test, the architectural criteria test, the development test, the conceptual sequence test, and the excitement test), why a consistent step-by-step process is problematic, how the design process if viewed differently by designers and non-designers (clients), and solving designer’s block.

Throughout history, sunshades--light-weight screens typically made of interwoven wooden reeds--have been the go-to method of sun protection and temperature control for dwellings across civilizations, especially those located in tropical and Mediterranean climates. While offering protection from the sun's heat and rays, sunshades also allow air to permeate, making them an effective and economical cooling system for interior spaces. 

Videos

MAD Architects has just unveiled its design for the “Train Station in the Forest.” Under construction and scheduled for completion by July 1st, 2021, the project is located in the center of Jiaxing, in southeast China, in close proximity to Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Suzhou. Covering an area of 35.4 hectares, the intervention consists of rebuilding the historic station while creating a new infrastructural annex underground. It also includes the creation of plazas to the north and south and the rehabilitation of the adjacent People’s Park.

+ 11

ON-A Architecture Studio has designed a proposal to cover the FC Barcelona football stadium with a rooftop park in Spain. Converting the stadium into a 26-hectare park, the project aims to re-nature the stadium's surrounding area. Called Nou Parc, the design features a new topography that would also create a forest for the city of Barcelona.

+ 2

Alberto Campo Baeza has added another recognition to his already impressive repertoire as the 2020 winner of Spain's National Prize in Architecture, an award bestowed by the country's Ministry of Transportation, Mobility, and Urban Planning in recognition of the winner's professional as well as academic contributions to architecture. 

+ 1

SCI-Edge, Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture, offers 5 postgraduate Master of Science degree programs. This year is the fourth class at SCI-Arc Edge and previous graduates are already establishing themselves as innovative voices defining what it means to be an architect in the twenty-first century. The current students have just completed the fall semester, which is the first of the three-semester sequences of the programs. The students coming into the programs represent an astonishingly wide range of backgrounds and research interests. We have asked two of them to describe their research interests and how they are beginning to bridge between their previous education and their new experiences at SCI-Arc Edge.

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

I attended graduate school, in geography, in Tucson, Arizona, United States, in the late 1990s. Tucson draws fame from a number of things, including its Mexican-American heritage, its chimichangas, its sky islands, and its abundant population of saguaro cacti.

Design and the City a podcast by reSITE, on how to make cities more livable and lovable, raising questions and proposing solutions for the city of the future. In the second episode of its second season, PAU's founder and creative director Vishaan Chakrabarti explains the possibility of creating an architecture of belonging, discussing social impact, climate change, infrastructure, and reimagining cities.

+ 22

Architecture firm Urban Agency has designed a landmark tower called Dock Mill to rise along Dublin's waterfront in Ireland. At 14 floors, the project was designed to set a precedent for future projects on a national and global scale. At the same time, the team's vision was made to be reverent of the mill’s past and grow out of this history. Dock Mill draws inspiration from both nature and the surrounding docklands.

Every architect has certainly already had the experience of designing a house throughout his or her career (or at least in university). Yet, developing a residential project with limited space, either due to physical restrictions of the land or a small budget, can be an interesting challenge while attempting to optimize the space, satisfy the architectural brief and provide maximum comfort to the future residents. With this in mind, we have gathered 21 Brazilian houses under 100 square meters along with their floor plans. Check out below:

+ 37

What might be called the Art Fair Industrial Complex has been an ambivalent force on both art markets and art itself in recent years: in one view, fairs offer their attendees chances to see international work they wouldn’t otherwise have access to; in another, the vast mall of it all dulls context into commerce.

ZHA and L&O have unveiled a new design for the Student Residence Development at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, one of the leading research institutions in Asia and around the world. Created after an urgent demand for new residential facilities and halls within the campus, the project is scheduled for completion in 2023.

+ 2

Architecture, engineering, and planning firm HGA has unveiled the design for the John Adams Middle School Performing Arts Center in Santa Monica, California. The project is made to be a dynamic arts environment and incubator for students to explore and develop their artistic voices. As a gateway to the campus, the project will establish a strong visual identity for the school while engaging Santa Monica College and the city.

+ 4

+ 8

Sinaloa is a state located in the northwestern part of Mexico bordered by the states of Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango, Nayarit, and by the Gulf of California to the west. It consists of over 58200 km² of territory and is the agricultural hub of Mexico.

As reported in The Times of India, the board of governors for the Indian Institute of Management, in Ahmedabad, India has canceled the proposal to demolish Louis Kahn’s buildings on campus and replacing them with new structures, after a worldwide pushback from the international architecture community.

Architecture and urban design practice SeARCH has unveiled a design for a new timber housing project on Amsterdam's Haveneiland, IJburg. The team is working with care institution Amstelring, sustainability specialist DGMR and healthcare real estate investor Apollo Zorgvastgoedfonds on the sustainable development. The energy-neutral residential building, entitled Eyckstaete, will be the first timber residential building to offer sustainable housing for the elderly on IJburg.

The city of Laval, Québec’s 3rd largest city, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Senseable City Lab (SCL) have released six preliminary concepts exploring the “park of the future”. Investigating new experiences, the publication entitled “Senseable City Guide to Laval” is part of an on-going work “to develop a human-centered, innovative and resilient downtown area” located in the Carré Laval, a former quarry to be transformed into a mixed-use innovation district.

+ 6

COSA Colboc Sachet architectures has designed a "decarbonated cement and wood" public art school in Poitiers, France. Made for École Européenne Supérieure de l'Image - EESI, the design features a range of spaces for collaboration, making and digital training. The art school features an airy, light-filled interior, as well as a series of outdoor spaces and common areas that open to the district of Couronneries.

+ 1

The A’ Design Award is an international award whose aim is to provide designers, architects, and innovators from all design fields with a competitive platform to showcase their work and products to a global audience. Among the design world's many awards, the A' Design Award stands out for its exceptional scale and breadth, including over 100 award categories and having honored over 12,000 designers with an award over its 11-year lifetime.

+ 10

Dear community,

As we close this crazy 2020, we look back on what happened during the year, from the buildings that left an impact, to the fast changing trends in the profession and in our built environment.

But as we prepare for a challenging 2021 I want to share our reflections on these intense moments, which are not just a consequence of the pandemic, but also of the diverse and much needed social and cultural changes that have been unfolding during the last years. As a young and diverse Internet company, with a conscious and globally distributed team, we have been working during the last years to embrace change, as we think it is one of the attitudes that can prepare us for a world that is changing fast, on the intersection of two of the industries that are shaping society today: Internet and the built environment. To be ready for change is not easy, as we need to constantly challenge ourselves and our egos, and do things in new ways, in new contexts. But as 2020 demanded, we were ready.