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.

Brooks + Scarpa and Plant Prefab have developed a new toolkit to address housing shortages. Scalable as an infill solution, the Nest toolkit can be configured in multiple ways using site types and typical lot sizes, or a combination of them. The toolkit was made to address LA’s shortage of supportive housing for the homeless and provide flexibility to meet the needs of a particular site, neighborhood, and bed count.

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The use of light and shadow in architecture can have several nuances. The traditional Japanese culture stands out for working with spaces of dim light, kind of dull. On the other hand, modern architecture and minimalism work along with illuminating spaces through the use of white spaces and reflection of light as a recurring resource.

Even so, black, dark spaces and minimalism also converse in the same language that provides new possibilities for lighting design and use of new materials. We now present you a selection of the best contemporary interior spaces that use black as the protagonist element, generating introspective but dramatic environments at the same time.

Designed by BIG, in collaboration with Allied and Westbank, KING Toronto portrays architecture’s ability to create a community and meet the challenges faced by society nowadays. Located in Canada’s King Street West neighborhood, the project is a direct response to the context.

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The Baha’i Temple of South America in Santiago, Chile, designed by Hariri Pontarini Architects of Toronto was selected as the winner of the 2019 RAIC International Prize, by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC).

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Vietnam has a rich history of traditional architecture. From Rong houses and Trinh Tuong residences to the stilt longhouses of the Ede people, the country has a depth of vernacular construction methods and styles. Today, architects are reinterpreting past building techniques to create neo-traditional homes grounded in contemporary life.

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Located in a prime location in the city of Taipei, the invaluable large open space at the Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB) is historically significant as it used to be home to the Industrial Research Institute of the Taiwanese Governor-General’s Office and also the Air Force Command Headquarters under the Ministry of National Defense. Since the Ministry of Culture took over its operations in 2018, C-LAB has become a place for art and cultural experimentation, with various participatory events and actions initiated and reflections and imaginations for contemporary urban space and lifestyle projected.

A wave of service providers and clinics is using catchy branding and interior design to attract patients frustrated with old-guard medical facilities. But is further commodification of health care the answer?

A few years ago I signed up for Oscar health insurance. Cofounded in 2012 by Joshua Kushner and headquartered in New York City, it was the health-care plan most of my similarly freelance friends used. Plus, if you lived in Brooklyn, as I did at the time, you could easily visit its Oscar Center, a primary-care space in a warehouse loft that also boasted the offices of literary magazines. I went in for a checkup, feeling slightly nervous as with any doctor appointment, but was surprised when I opened the door onto a spacious, minimalist, wood-floored, primary-colored office installed with glass walls and snake plants. There was even a yoga room adorned with the decal “Let the Healing Begin.”

Selected from forty national and international applicants, Zaha Hadid Architects and Cox Architecture won the international design competition for the new Western Sydney Airport (WSA).

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Commisionned by Grupo Karim's, and designed by Stefano Boeri Architetti, the first Smart Forest City in Mexico will focus on innovation and environmental quality. The city balances green and built spaces, and is completely food and energy self-sufficient.

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Founded in 1995 by architects Kazuyo Sejima (born 29 October 1956) and Ryue Nishizawa (born 7 February 1966), SANAA is world-renowned for its white, light buildings grounded in the architects’ Japanese cultural origins. Despite the white exteriors, their architecture is far from modernist; the constant incorporation of ambiguity and doubt in SANAA’s buildings is refreshing and playful, taking the reflective properties of glass and brightness of white to a new level.

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The annual DesignIntelligence architecture school ranking for 2020 classified the establishments according to the “most admired” rather than the “best”, for the second year in a row. The subjective classification is based on the responses of hiring professionals.  

Bjarke Ingels Group has been working on the Mars Science City project after the United Arab Emirates announced the initiative in 2017. The $140 Million USD (AED 500 million) research city aims to serve as a “viable and realistic model” for the simulation of human occupation of the martian landscape. The project is designed with a team of Emirati scientists, engineers and designers from the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center.

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Since 2017, the Cyprus School of Architecture (CYSOA) holds a series of architectural competitions of installations and design implementations on the public beach of Geroskipou, Greece.

2018’s winning proposal by Russian firm KATARSIS Architects presented a beach cinema project titled Sky Cinema, a translucent structure that serves as both a canopy and screen.

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Every year, France uses 66,600 tons of plant protection pesticides for its agriculture and produces 4.5 million tons of plastics, of which only 22% are recycled. Almost 48,000 deaths are attributed to fine particle pollution and automobile activity, and the planet is still expected to endure. In such grave situations, urban developments have become subject to new ecological criteria that focus on finding biodiverse solutions for both public and private sectors.

In compliance with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Agenda 2030 that aims to find eco-responsible urban solutions, Studio NAB created Car Parks 2.0, an ecological parking space that rethinks commercial parking areas and transforms it into a more sustainable and humane place.

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What happens when the sensor-imbued city acquires the ability to see – almost as if it had eyes? Ahead of the 2019 Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (UABB), titled "Urban Interactions," ArchDaily is working with the curators of the "Eyes of the City" section at the Biennial to stimulate a discussion on how new technologies – and Artificial Intelligence in particular – might impact architecture and urban life. Here you can read the “Eyes of the City” curatorial statement by Carlo Ratti, the Politecnico di Torino and SCUT.

Ever since the Lumière brothers trained their camera on La Place des Cordeliers in Lyon in 1895, cinema has shaped our collective urban imagination. For 125 years, film has relentlessly recorded the deaths and lives of not just great American cities but of all great – and not so great – cities the world over. Film-makers have observed, expressed, characterized, interpreted and portrayed hundreds of thousands of city streets. By charting the cities’ evolution across the 20th century to present days, films are the quintessential Eyes on and of the City.

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Flying Panels - How Concrete Panels Changed the World is a new ArkDes exhibition designed by Note Design Studio and curated by Pedro Ignacio Alonso and Hugo Palmarola - authors of the Monolith Controversies exhibition, the winner of the Silver Lion award at the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2014.

It brings together a series models and material as posters, paintings, films, toys, cartoons and opera sets are gathered to reflect on how concrete panels influenced culture for the construction of a new society.

Design practice ONOFFICE environmental architecture was awarded first prize in the competition to restore Germanina Estate in Western Cyprus. The competition aimed to rehabilitate the estate and incorporate a listed 19th century agricultural complex into the contemporary urban life of Gerospikou.

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Tokat Sulusaray Thermal Facilities designed by the Istanbul-based office Studio Vertebra commemorates the region’s historical background and enhances the touristic aspect. In harmony with the natural and archeological landscape, the project aims to regenerate the city.

Designed by MCA - Mario Cucinella Architects, engineered and built by WASP, TECLA is a prototype of an on-site 3D printed habitat, launched near Bologna, Italy. The innovative model creates future housing solutions and re-questions the idea of living in the city. It provides a shelter for everyone, through a sustainable, low-cost and efficient method.

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Nike has announced that the latest building in its World Headquarters (WHQ) campus expansion will be named after LeBron James. The new building is designed by Olson Kundig and will be home to Nike’s Beaverton-based Advanced Innovation team. The project will include a state-of-the-art Sport Research Lab and explore the future of sports science.