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.

As hospitals in the United States are about to hit capacity due to the COVID-19 pandemic, startup JUPE HEALTH is creating a series of mobile units to address the lack of beds. The team explains that with a healthcare system on the verge of collapse, the project is designed as rapidly deployed rest and recovery units, as well as mobile ICUs.

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As concern grows regarding the contribution of fossil fuels to global warming, solar energy is an increasingly attractive power source due to its zero emissions and infinite supply. As builders turn to incorporate solar energy systems into their projects, many options are available to harness the power of the sun for commercial and industrial installations. While AEC Daily’s course on “The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly” of rooftop solar photovoltaic systems might not be a 1960s spaghetti western, it will guide you through the wild west of installation processes and options.

AaaM Architects have designed a series of sculptures for the Hong Kong Museum of Art's reopening. Invited by the museum with lead artist and architect Billy Tam. the team set out to create a urban artwork for the reopening of the museum after four years of renovation. “Rediscovering Landscape” is located in Salisbury Garden at the end of Nathan Road, a major business street in the heart of Kowloon Peninsula and marks the entrance art square for HKMOA.

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Humans can survive for 30 days without eating, 3 days without drinking, yet only 3 minutes without breathing. Of course our need for air is also constant, we rely on it at all times indoors and outdoors although can often be less clean than we would hope. Unpleasant odors make us aware of bad air, but many irritants and unhealthy gases are not easily detectable by smell while still affecting our health. Smells are the most obvious signal, as they are consciously perceived by the brain and nervous system, allowing us to make judgements about our environment.

Learn more about where poor indoor air quality comes from, why it's important to address within the built environment, and how to design for good indoor air quality and comfort.

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London-based architecture practice Feilden Fowles has won the international design competition to create the National Railway Museum’s new Central Hall. Beating 75 others to the commission, the team will transform the visitor’s experience and integrate a new exhibition gallery, by 2025, in time for the museum’s 50th anniversary.

Grafton Architects was selected as the winning firm to design the Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation at the University of Arkansas. In collaboration with Modus Studio for the planned campus design research center, the design on the project is scheduled to begin this summer.

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With the aim of creating immersive environmental experiences in interior spaces, the design studio Aqua Creations has developed Manta Ray Light, a lighting installation built with responsive RGB LED technology that mixes the colors red, green, and blue to generate more than 16 million light tones. By presetting its color spectrum, offering a range of brightness settings on a scale of 0.1 to 100%, and even loading images and videos into its internal memory, the system allows its user to add color and movement to expressive spaces, or deliver a feeling of warmth and concentration to intimate and private rooms.

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The year is 1985, you’re packing your briefcase to head to the office, where you’ll sit behind a desk to do some paperwork. Fast forward to 2020, and you’re having a conference call with the entire team from the coffee shop across the street. Relatively, not much has changed; work is still being completed by the end of the day, it’s just with a different scenery.

Employees nowadays are looking for something more than just a job behind a desk. They want to work in a dynamic, inspiring space that adds value to their knowledge and promotes their mental and physical well-being. But this wasn’t the case a century ago. Take a look at how offices evolved throughout the years, and what we can look forward to in the future.

Last year’s granting of the Mies van der Rohe Award to a social housing refurbishment project brought into the spotlight a topic of interest for many European cities: the moral and physical rehabilitation of post-war housing blocks.

Designed by OMA / Chris van Duijn, the Department Store Galleria in Gwanggyo, south of Seoul has just opened. The store’s sixth branch is located at the center of the relatively young and new urban development.

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CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati with Italo Rota in collaboration with an international team of experts developed CURA (Connected Units for Respiratory Ailments), plug-in Intensive-Care Pods for the COVID-19 pandemic. An open-source design for emergency hospitals, the project’s first unit is currently under construction in Milan, Italy.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped urban life, and so too has it left many streets and buildings empty as people practice social distancing. From Times Square to the Place de la Concorde in Paris, photographers are capturing these "empty cities" in a defining moment across the globe. In turn, The New York Times recently published a piece dubbed "The Great Empty", showcasing a new side to urban life in these structures and streets. Now five photographers have been commissioned to photograph Rotterdam during the pandemic.

Introduced by Rudolf Steiner, Waldorf pedagogy draws on the principles of anthroposophical philosophy. One of the theory's foundational characteristics is its holistic approach to the human being: feelings, imagination, spirit, and intellect are considered unique to every individual, and thoughts, feelings, and actions are understood to always be linked.

Thus, the focus of the philosophy is to cultivate individuals who are capable of relating both to themselves and to society (inter and intrapersonal intelligence) - fundamental skills for overcoming the challenges of the 21st century. This kind of learning takes place in schools that follow Steiner's method, introducing families to the school environment and bringing them into the community. Below, we review the operations and implications of this pedagogy. 

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Over 18,600 emerging professionals in the United States are currently studying for or taking the national licensing exam. Now the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) has updated their exam policies to protect the health and safety of test takers amid the COVID-19 pandemic. NCARB aims to continue monitoring the situation to update architects and emerging professionals.

The 20^th century in the design world was a period of new ideology on building form, material explorations, and ultimately, the emergence of the modern architecture movement as we define it in the present day. The expression and experimentation of architects in this era resulted in interior spaces that are now considered to be “classics”, due to their relevance and their long lasting effects that they have on the architectural discourse.

Citizens of Earth is a conceptual proposal by Marc Thorpe Design for the city of Marfa in Texas. Located 20 miles outside of the city on the border of Mexico and the United States, the installation aims to “question the value of international borders within the context of the 21^st century”.

Vincent Callebaut Architectures has imagined The Rainbow Tree, a modular mass timber condominium tower in Cebu City, Philippines. Revealing the cultural and natural Filipino heritage, the project, named after an iconic and colorful tree from the Philippines the Rainbow Eucalyptus, was entirely conceived in a way to reduce the carbon footprint of the building.

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The recent success of Parasite, the award winning film directed by South Korean director Bong Joon Ho, has created a conversation around the emphasis of architecture and interior spaces in movies. This particular film does an excellent job of blurring the boundaries between the two disciplinary fields, to the point where the architecture is not just the background of the set, but it has been placed at the forefront of the storyline, and takes on the leading role in many scenes.

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Hospitals and projects related to healthcare must follow specific guidelines based on the rules and regulations of their country. These standards help us to design complex spaces, such as those located in areas of surgery, hospitalization, diagnostics, laboratories, and including areas and circulations that are clean, dirty, restricted or public, which create a properly functioning building.

There are a few spaces that we, as architects, can develop with great ease and freedom of design: waiting rooms, reception areas, and outdoor spaces. These are spaces where architects can express the character of the hospital. To jump-start you into this process, we have selected 43 projects that show us how creativity and quality of a space go hand-in-hand with functionality. 

If you don't like a specific musical style, the theater bores you, or you're not attracted to works of art, you can almost always avoid them. Architecture, however, is different. A poorly thought-out project will affect the lives of many people consistently and for a long time. With interiors, this effect is even more amplified. Humanity is spending more and more time indoors, which directly impacts our well-being and health. In periods of compulsory retirement, as in the current pandemic of Covid-19, we gain a sense of how important interior spaces are for our well-being and even for the prevention of diseases. Designing an indoor environment is a huge responsibility for a professional. An interior designer must plan, research, coordinate, and manage these projects to obtain an adequately healthy and aesthetically pleasing environment for the people who use the space. But what, in fact, is interior design?

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MVRDV’ s entry, Shenzhen Terraces, has been selected from 27 projects as the winner in a competition to design a 101,300-square-metre mixed-use Shimao ShenKong International Center. The multi-level urban living room is located in Universiade New Town, Longgang District, Shenzhen, China.

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