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.

What size is this room? What is the view from the meeting room like? What would you see if you looked from the outside in? These are all recognizable examples of questions designers are asked. Is there any better answer than immediately showing the view in question? XUVER provides a user-friendly way to share an online-rendered visualization of your design within a minute. No additional software is required; all you need is a link and a web browser. A voice module also enables you to discuss your design simultaneously.

As cities around the world go on lockdown in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, most individuals have been asked to stay at home, leaving only essential workers - EMTs and other healthcare professionals, grocery workers, bus drivers, deliverymen, and more - continuing to go out to keep the world running. Other families and individuals have found themselves spending most of their time at home, permitted to leave only to buy groceries or exercise for limited periods of time. With many no doubt searching for ways to pass the time in replacement of social interaction, we suggest several ways to brighten up your home while practicing social distancing, both improving the space you’re in and giving possible activities to pass the time.

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Following an exciting week of nominations, ArchDaily’s readers have evaluated over 800 projects and selected 10 finalists of the Building of the Year Award. Over 20,000 architects and enthusiasts participated in the nomination process, choosing projects that exemplify what it means to push architecture forward. These finalists are the buildings that have inspired ArchDaily readers the most.

Big Data refers to data that, due to its quantity and complexity, requires specific applications in order to be processed. New trends in urbanism, data collection, and management, not to mention the development of new platforms and tools, have given rise to a new era in urban analysis, creating new resources to understand, evaluate, and manage the evolution of cities.

American architect, educator, critic, historian, curator and co-founder of The Architect’s Newspaper has passed away after a long battle with cancer in Manhattan at 72 years old.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) have released the Architect’s Guide to Business Continuity, an effort to assist architecture firms with navigating adverse business conditions. The guide provides firm leaders with insights into managing staff, premises, technology, information, supply chains, stakeholders, and reputation. It aims to help firms continue providing services, generating revenue, and reducing the consequences of business interruption.

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Given the sheer magnitude and influence of its recorded history, Italy as we know it is a surprisingly young country. For centuries, the region was divided between powerful (and sometimes warring) city-states, each with their own identity, culture, and, fortunes, and influence. Some are eternally famous. Rome is a cradle of history and heart of religion; cool Milan is a hub of contemporary fashion and design; Florence is synonymous with the Renaissance and all the epoch’s relationship to the arts.

Turin’s history is arguably less romantic. The small city in Savoy, a north-Italian region bordering France, has established an identity as an industrial powerhouse. It is home to FIAT and some of Italy’s finest universities; the streets are dotted with works by Nervi, Botta, and Rossi. But despite the design pedigree, perhaps nothing better illustrates the region’s faceted history better than Castello di Rivoli.

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We are increasingly accustomed to relying on technologies to read and process data referring to the past, in order to interpret the present and predict the future. At the same time, a growing number of studies show that the number and types of variables governing our societies is in constant change. As the natural world reacts to change by experimenting with the evolution of new species that are not necessarily destined to survive, so we should take momentary distances from the deterministic application of data-driven predictions. Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Karl-Heinz Machat propose a number of possible scenarios in which the Eyes of the City are made to blink from time to time, allowing for alternative modes of urbanity to be tried and tested. Half strategy, half tactic, these glitches offer the space in which to measure the agency of the unpredictable at various scales.

For the 2019 Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (UABB), titled "Urban Interactions," (21 December 2019-8 March 2020) ArchDaily is working with the curators of the "Eyes of the City" section to stimulate a discussion on how new technologies might impact architecture and urban life. The contribution below is part of a series of scientific essays selected through the “Eyes of the City” call for papers, launched in preparation of the exhibitions: international scholars were asked to send their reflection in reaction to the statement by the curators Carlo Ratti Associati, Politecnico di Torino and SCUT, which you can read here.

As hospitals around the world are reaching their capacity, the architecture and design community is developing new alternatives to fight COVID-19. In order to build 60 Emergency Quarantine Facilities (EQF), WTA was inspired by their pavilion developed last year, part of the Anthology Festival. A viable quarantine structure, the Boysen Pavilion “embodied speed, scalability and simplicity in its structure”.

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White Arkitekter, in collaboration with Silicon Valley-based ReGen Villages, have joined forces to create fully circular, self-sufficient and resilient communities in Sweden. Inspired by computer games, the project puts in place organic food production, locally produced and stored energy, comprehensive recycling, and climate positive buildings.

Architecture firm ODA has designed a 700,000 square foot, tiered development as a gathering spot for Chengdu. The team was invited to participate in a new master plan for the city in China, and their design includes a diverse program, from four residential towers to a commercial park of retail and green spaces. As ODA states, the plan is an urban experiment in rearranging priorities for the public realm.

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The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused an estimated 900 million people around the world to remain at home. Among them are architects and designers who have been asked to work remotely to prevent the virus from spreading through the workplace. For many architects, this is undoubtedly a new territory. However, for ArchDaily, it is not, and we can assure you that it is possible not only to work from home, but to use this time to greatly enhance your skills, knowledge, and development as an architect.

If asked to name buildings by German architect and designer Peter Behrens (14 April 1868 – 27 February 1940), few people would be able to answer with anything other than his AEG Turbine Factory in Berlin. His style was not one that lends itself easily to canonization; indeed, even the Turbine Factory itself is difficult to appreciate without an understanding of its historical context. Despite this, Behrens' achievements are not to be underestimated, and his importance to the development of architecture might best be understood by looking at three young architects who worked in his studio around 1910: Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Walter Gropius.

Design, branding and innovation are the most important factors in the success of entrepreneurial strategy, especially in times of change and crisis like the present. Receiving a renowned award is an efficient opportunity to draw attention to the recipient’s work with precise, positive messages. The German Design Awards – the international premium prize of the German Design Council – are entering the call-for-entries stage and offering winners the best-possible opportunity for publicity. They are proof of innovation capability and design expertise and demonstrate that the winners are well positioned and able to differentiate themselves through outstanding design.

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Father of Iraqi architecture Rifat Chadirji has passed away at 93, on April 10 in London, after contracting the novel coronavirus. Born in 1926 in Baghdad, he is responsible for more than 100 buildings across Iraq.

Some of his most iconic works include the Tahrir Square's Freedom Monument, the Tobacco Monopoly Headquarters in 1965, the Central Post Office in Baghdad in 1975 and the Unknown Soldier Monument, one of his most culturally significant intervention designed in 1959, demolished in 1982 and then replaced by a statue of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Adelaide-based practice Intro Architecture has designed a sweeping tower for the Oscar Seppeltsfield hotel in the Barossa Valley of Australia. Rising twelve stories with around 70 rooms, the hotel's shape was derived from the art of barrel-making, particularly the process of the curvature and manipulation of the stave. The tower was formed to seemingly grow from the vineyard, with its "staves" emerging then twisting to create the curving form.

When you live in a small New England town, a cemetery is never far away. If I take an hour’s walk through local streets, I will easily pass by or through two or three. They’ve long been places of solace, peace, tranquility—even ironic hubris.

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Since March 20, the Argentine government has taken drastic measures to protect the public and curb the spread of COVID-19, including mandatory social isolation. Under these measures, residents and anyone visiting the country must remain indoors and abstain from visiting public spaces until the March 31.

Perhaps nowhere are the effects of the quarantine more notable than on the streets. All cultural, recreational, athletic, and religious events have been cancelled. Public areas like plazas and parks are ghost towns. With the streets closed, balconies have become the new platforms for everything from social interactions and celebrations to protests.  

Gathering the best-unbuilt architecture from our readers' submissions, this curated collection features conventional, original and innovative functions. With projects from all over the world, this roundup is a conceptual discovery of different architectural approaches.

Art takes center stage in this week’s article with a different kind of museum for Burning Man, a futuristic art center in Slovakia, a museum dedicated to writing, and the Chinimachin Museum, inspired by the urban fabric of the city of Bayburt in Turkey. Moreover, the editorial showcases integrated houses, a redevelopment of a city block in London and mixed-use projects in Ukraine and Poland. New highlighted functions include a concrete lighthouse in Greece, a retirement complex in the Rocky Mountains of Lebanon, and a thermal hotel and spa in Cappadocia.

As hospitals in the United States are starting to hit capacity due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the American Institute of Architects has released a new design guide from their COVID-19 Task Force. The “Preparedness Assessment Tool” is intended to assist non-healthcare design professionals with identifying alternate sites suitable for patient care. The task force developed the tool using established healthcare design best practices and standards in combination with federal documents issued during the crisis.

New Generations is a European platform that analyses the most innovative emerging practices at the European level, providing a new space for the exchange of knowledge and confrontation, theory, and production. Since 2013, New Generations has involved more than 300 practices in a diverse program of cultural activities, such as festivals, exhibitions, open calls, video-interviews, workshops, and experimental formats.

New Generations has launched a fresh new media platform, offering a unique space where emerging architects can meet, exchange ideas, get inspired, and collaborate. Recent projects, job opportunities, insights, news, and profiles will be published every day. The section ‘profiles’ provides a space to those who would like to join the network of emerging practices, and present themselves to the wide community of studios involved in the cultural agenda developed by New Generations.

ArchDaily and New Generations join forces! From this month, ArchDaily publishes a selection of studio profiles chosen from the platform of New Generations.

Postcards from Quarantine is a series of illustrations by Alvaro Palma y Alvaro Bernis inspired by touristic postcards that analyze the purpose of travelling and the desire to share the experience--a topic that has been brought to the forefront in times of quarantine during the COVID-19 outbreak.

The public art depot for the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, designed by MVRDV is nearing completion in Rotterdam. Scheduled for opening in September 2021, recent images showcase the installation of the first of 75 trees on the roof garden.

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