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Street Photography Tour of Havana, Cuba with Pratt Institute

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Street Photography Tour of Havana, Cuba - Pratt Institute

Havana has often been referred to as a time machine — a city that transports its visitors to a distant moment and time in history. The capital city’s colorful Spanish colonial-style architecture has made it a go-to destination for photographers, architects, and people seeking life in a bygone era. From classic cars to “its overall sense of architectural, historical and environmental continuity makes it the most impressive historical city center in the Caribbean and one of the most notable in the American continent as a whole,” remarks UNESCO.

Take Control of the Stages of Construction: 4 Ways To Ease the Process

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In the planning and construction of buildings and landscapes, it’s important to recognize the strong correlation between design and construction during the different stages of a project. In fact, these stages can best be viewed as an integrated process where one won’t work without the other.

To fully understand how these stages work together, let’s break it down. Simply put, architecture design is the process of creating the layout of a construction project. It’s usually presented through detailed plans, drawings, and specifications. On the other hand, construction planning is a process of identifying steps and resources required to turn those designs into physical reality.

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Making Real-Time Rendering Less Daunting: Unreal Engine Online Learning

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When you see new software that can speed up your workflow, it’s fun to imagine what you can do with it. But in reality, many of us don’t want to be among the first to try it out, especially if documentation is lacking. No one wants to spend countless hours fighting with mysterious features only to go back to the old workflow because you just need to get things done.

Maybe you’ve been thinking about trying out photoreal real-time rendering for your workflow, but you’re concerned that that on-ramp is too steep. Real-time rendering requires you to import your CAD scene into a game engine, and anytime you import to a new piece of software, there are going to be issues to solve. If you have to figure it out on your own, it’s going to be a long, hard road.

Hartford Architecture Students Win Urban Sustainability Competition Through “Live, Work, Play” Park Design

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Department of Architecture, University of Hartford

A team of five University of Hartford Master of Architecture (MArch) students recently won the Dream Green, Hartford EcoDesign competition sponsored by the Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation and hosted by the City of Hartford Mayor’s Office of Sustainability. The competition requested proposals to improve the city through “pop-up” projects that transform underused city spaces while highlighting green infrastructure and sustainable design.

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Lumion 9: Rendering Living Environments for Real Beauty

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Lumion has always set out to define what rendering should be: fast and stress-free with exceptional results. Now, with the latest version of its 3D rendering software, Lumion 9, it’s easier than ever to show off your 3D models in a living environment, with beautiful, real-life skies, an endless variety of landscapes, and exceptional lighting and materials. Oh, and rendering takes minutes, not hours.

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5 Incredible Indoor-Outdoor Spaces for Fall

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It’s no secret that in many parts of the country, indoor-outdoor living actually gets better when summer turns to fall. The bugs buzz off, the humidity lifts, and the cooler nights beg for the warmth of a fire. Here are five of our favorite indoor-outdoor living spaces for the fall of 2018.

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Common Ruins

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YAC - Young Architects Competitions and Mothe Chandeniers launched “Common Ruins”, a competition of ideas aiming to breath a new life into an astonishing castle in France. A cash prize of € 20,000 will be awarded to winners selected by a well-renowned jury made of, among the others, Anish Kapoor, Rudy Ricciotti, Edoardo Tresoldi, Dagur Eggertsson, Alfonso Femia, Aldo Cibic, Marco Amosso (Lombardini 22), Luca Dolmetta (LD+SR architetti).

Call for Entries: Turkistan Architect Awards

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About the Competition

Turkistan Architect Awards is an international architectural competition for the conceptual development of objects located in the historical city of Kazakhstan — Turkistan, initiated by the Governor of the Turkestan region. The main objective of the competition is to give a new impetus to the development of the Turkestan region: as a touristic hub with the unique architecture. The competition is aimed at creating equal conditions for creative competition between the participants in order to determine the most interesting and progressive solutions, both architectural and engineering, taking into account the use of innovative technologies, materials, design and methods of building structures in the project.

Trends in Real-Time Rendering

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Are architects really turning to real-time rendering for visualization? Epic Games, the creators of Unreal Engine, decided to find out with an independent survey.

The results confirmed what many of us have suspected—real-time rendering is on the rise in architecture, media and entertainment, and manufacturing. But the survey also revealed a few surprising details about real-time rendering and its uses.

A' Interior Space, Retail and Exhibition Design Award Winners

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A’ Design Award & Competition, the world’s largest and most diffuse international design awards featuring 1,962 Winners from 100 countries in 99 different design disciplines. Among the design world's many awards, the A' Design Award stands out for its exceptional scale and breadth; in 2015, over 1,000 different designs received awards, with all fields of design recognized by the award's 100 different categories. This year's edition is now open for entries; designers can register their submissions here.

There are five different levels of distinction: Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron A’ Design Awards, which are distributed annually in all design disciplines. Designers, companies, and institutions from all countries are invited annually to take part in the open call by nominating their best works, projects, and products for consideration.

Terrazzo Floors Bring History to Life

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Terrazzo flooring, with its mosaic style of pieces of marble or granite set in polished concrete or epoxy resin, is known for its flexibility and remarkable durability. So it’s no wonder the method has been around for centuries.

With proper care during installation and use, it’s also possible for terrazzo floors to last a number of decades. “There are terrazzo floors that were installed in the early 1900s that are still nice looking jobs,” says James Bateman, terrazzo division manager of Terrazzo & Marble Supply Companies. Indeed, the style is known to some as ‘forever floors,’ a nod to its history and longevity.

Mood Changers: Why Lighting is The Most Important Design Feature

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Walk into a room bathed in cozy, inviting light and you’ll feel instantly at ease. Walk into the same room buzzing with harsh fluorescents, and your teeth may start to grind.

Why?

In 2014, a Journal of Consumer Psychology study found that the more intense the lighting, the more affected and intense the participants’ emotions were — both positive and negative.

The study included six experiments that examined the link between emotion and ambient brightness. Feelings of warmth increased when participants were exposed to bright light with hints of reddish hues. A sensation of angst increased when bluer light dominated.

And the brighter the light, the more intense the participants’ emotions became. Both the intensity and the color of the light affected people’s moods. 

The Tools You Need to Easily Meet BIM Mandates

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For bpr architects, BIM Level 2 is becoming business as usual. This medium-sized, employee-owned firm based in the UK focuses on how good design can add value to a client’s vision. Led by Directors Paul Beaty-Pownall and Steve Cowell, the firm specializes in three core sectors: higher education, rail stations, and regeneration.

Open Call: Design a Humanitarian Respite Center - Restoring Human Dignity on the Border

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The Humanitarian Respite shelter in the downtown section of the City of McAllen, Texas was born as a response to families in crisis. Through its services and the work of volunteers, it successfully restores dignity to people in need, particularly Central American immigrants seeking refuge crossing the border from Mexico to the US.

Kid's Factory: Call for Submissions

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Kid's Factory

YAC – Young Architects Competitions – and Urban Up l Unipol launched “Kid’s Factory,” an architectural competition to transform the former pottery of Laveno Mombello into the largest and most innovative campus for children in the world. A cash prize of €20,000 will be awarded to winners selected by a renowned jury comprised of Ben van Berkel (UNstudio), Keiichiro Sako (Sako Architects), Peter Wilson (Bolles+Wilson), Arne Emerson (Morphosis), Emmanuelle Moureaux, Mario Cucinella, Stefano Boeri, among the others.

Call For Submissions: The AJ Specification Awards

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Introducing the new AJ Specification Awards

When great products meet great design...

The Architects’ Journal’s new AJ Specification Awards celebrates successful collaborations between suppliers, manufacturers, and architects.

The awards celebrate how exceptional working relationships between architects and suppliers and manufacturers lead to successful projects, showcasing standout examples of the creative use of products and materials in making great buildings.

Be it to find solutions to particular design challenge, or simply to bring joy to a project, the intelligent integration of products into the design process – from the taps in a bathroom to the finishes on a façade – is an aspect of architecture that the AJ has long championed.

BIM Workstations Go Head-To-Head in REVIT Shootout

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Lanmar Services’ CTO Larry Kleinkemper, AIA, creates 3D laser scans and BIM project files for some of the world’s leading architecture firms and their high-profile projects. Because of these massive data sets, Lanmar demands the best CAD computer workstations available. In this must-see video, Kleinkemper compares two workstations recommended by their respective manufacturers as optimal Autodesk Revit solutions.

A' Design Awards & Competition - Call for Submissions

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The A’ Design Award was "born out of the desire to underline the best designs and well-designed products." It is an international award whose aim is to provide designers, architects, and innovators from all design fields with a platform to showcase their work and products to a global audience. This year's edition is now open for entries; designers can register their submissions here.