Illustrations: The Latest Architecture and News

ArchDaily is thrilled to unveil its brand-new online shop: ArchDaily gallery, a platform designed to celebrate the captivating work of architectural photographers and illustrators while connecting them with our vibrant community. In this inaugural stage, we proudly feature 11 renowned artists, including Roland Halbe, Nico Saieh, and Sander Patelski.

Stairs in architecture are oftentimes a design focal point- the heavyhandedness in creating something that moves us from one level to the next, up and down repeatedly, something so simple and familiar with a twist is what makes the experience of traversing a stair so unique. Our obsession with stairs and the level of illusion that they create in architecture perhaps stems from the way that they’re able to twist the optics and perceptions of space. We understand that they transport us in one direction or another, but can stairs ever be circular? Is it possible to go up and down for eternity? 

With an increasing amount of architectural visualizations being published on social media, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Adding this to how the famous algorithm works, we end up always being exposed to social media publications that are, in many ways, similar to each other. But for us as architects, designers, and students, social media is not only a platform for networking and sharing our works. It also serves as a source of inspiration. If the algorithm isn’t helping us to discover new and different ideas, then it’s up to us to go out of our way and look for them.

Setting the Table is an illustrated reflection by architects Florencia Köncke and Paula Olea Fonti. In the following paragraphs, the authors develop a first approach to the study of the table as "the centre of our notion of domesticity"(1). In the relationship between space, objects and people and as a social catalyst for gathering and exchange.

Renders are representations that can convey the three-dimensional aspect of a design through two-dimensional media, i.e., an image, providing a preview of how the project will look in the future. However, unlike what people often imagine, rendering is not always a realistic visualization of architecture.

Since it is a tool for visual communication, renderings can have different styles depending not only on the project itself but also on the specific targeted audience and, above all, on the identity of the architect or architectural firm responsible for the design.

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All too often, architects and designers spend hours searching for textures and materials to represent their visions. This struggle takes many forms: from scrolling through Google, Pinterest, and databases in search of the perfect texture, to manually creating one over the course of several hours, or even days. In either case, the result is frequently painful, and rarely perfect. A database organized, reliable, free and easy to use is not always a simple thing to find.

Architextures began in 2014 as a library of high-quality image files, with textures submitted by users or created by the platform itself. Over time, the platform’s creator Ryan Canning noticed that, in his professional work as an architect, the array of static image files available online did not meet the specific textures he was looking for in his design projects. Frustrated with the endless process of searching, editing and overlaying textures in Photoshop, Ryan reinvented Architextures in 2019 as an interactive tool where designers like himself could create specified, high-quality textures in seconds. And importantly, being free to use for personal and educational use, with professional accounts available for a small fee to support the tool’s development.

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Armenian graphic designer and illustrator Nvard Yerkanian has created a new series exploring modernist architecture in Armenia. The illustration series aims to reveal the beauty and value of modernism to the public through the power of colors that accentuate the simple yet fantastic forms of these monuments. The series is an ode to the architectural heritage that has been lost and undervalued.

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Videos

Frederico Babina is an Italian architect and graphic designer who creates artwork that focuses on the abstract replications of famous imagery and buildings. Through a strong focus on geometry and form his work represents a sense of innocence, inexperience and spontaneity throughout.

Juries, assessments, 15 minutes of hell... no matter what you call it, a critique is always agonizing. Regardless of how confident you are with your proposal and how much thought and effort you have put into every detail, at least one of the jury members will make sure to find something to complain about.

To prepare you for upcoming juries, artist Chanel Dehond has illustrated 12 steps to having a successful critique (or surviving one, at least).

Everyone is blameworthy for at least one bad habit / behavior at his/her workplace: talking on the phone too loudly, stealing someone else's mug, walking around the office with a very odorous lunch...

After a little reunion with her friends who work in the architecture field, illustrator Chanel Dehond couldn't help but notice a few "crimes" that almost all architects are guilty of.

Take a look at Dehond's illustrations of the petty crimes done by architects and designers.

Videos

Italian artist Federico Babina has published the latest in his impressive portfolio of architectural illustrations. “Planimal” seeks to convey the close link between architecture and the natural world, translating animals into architectural plans. Through his set of drawings, Babina reimagines the architectural spaces as “narrative subjects that host us and lead us into a fantastic labyrinth of a dreamlike reality, architectures imagined as allusively zoomorphic sculptures.”

Houses, museums, and churches are conveyed as roaring lions, crawling snakes, and swimming whales, with dynamic spaces formed from cocktails of asymmetries and symmetries, curves and straight lines, solids and voids, sounds and silences, lights and shadows.

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Now that it's time for the Easter Holidays, kids (and young-at-heart adults) will be busy searching for colorful eggs hidden here and there. As for you architecture lovers, illustrator Chanel Dehond took egg hunts to the next level and found a way to make the activity a bit more relatable.

Take a look at Dehond's eggceptional collection of illustrations, inspired by some of your favorite structures from all over the world.

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The clever Italian artist, Federico Babina is at it again, and this time he's taking us around the world in 21 animated illustrations. Hear the ringing of Big Ben, sirens in New York, seagulls of Amsterdam, and Havana drums as you find yourself adding to your travel bucket list. You'll have to watch this animation more than once to catch all of the details Babina captures about an entire city culture in one illustration. Or view each illustration individually below.