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"Embodied Carbon Declared" Platform Exposes CO2 Emissions in Sweden's Construction Industry

ACAN Sweden, in collaboration with Differ Agency, has launched "Embodied Carbon Declared," an online platform that actively reveals CO2 emissions data from new construction projects across Sweden. The platform categorizes and presents emissions data in four key areas: Projects, Municipalities, Developers, and Building Types. It provides detailed measurements both in total and per square meter, offering an advanced level of transparency in the construction industry.

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AI and the Human Vector in Architecture: Embracing Emotional Engagement and Empathy

This article is the tenth in a series focusing on the Architecture of the Metaverse. ArchDaily has collaborated with John Marx, AIA, the founding design principal and Chief Artistic Officer of Form4 Architecture, to bring you monthly articles that seek to define the Metaverse, convey the potential of this new realm as well as understand its constraints. In this feature, architect John Marx questions the limits and capabilities of AI in architecture and in creating buildings that resonate deeply with people and communities.

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AI, Data, and Predicting Urbanism: Interview with Peter Hirshberg and Anna Fedorova

This article is the ninth in a series focusing on the Architecture of the Metaverse. ArchDaily has collaborated with John Marx, AIA, the founding design principal and Chief Artistic Officer of Form4 Architecture, to bring you monthly articles that seek to define the Metaverse, convey the potential of this new realm as well as understand its constraints. In this feature, architect John Marx interviews Peter Hirshberg, chairman, and Anna Fedorova, principal at the Maker City Project.

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Social Spaciousness: MVRDV Reimagines the Future of Co-Living

MVRDV has just released a new design study exploring how co-living can help shape the future of housing. Created in collaboration with developer HUB and sustainable investor Bridges Fund Management, the study introduces a comprehensive study exploring diverse typologies, aiming to revolutionize communal living and vibrant neighborhoods. It addresses modern housing needs, including flexibility, sustainability, and community, while tackling climate crisis and affordability issues. The endeavor offers tailored solutions for various co-living projects, catering to many demographics and lifestyles.

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Foster + Partners Designs VARID: A VR/AR Toolkit for Inclusive Design

Foster + Partners Applied Research + Development team has created VARID (Virtual and Augmented Reality for Inclusive Design). Designed in collaboration with City, University of London (City) and UCL’s PEARL Lab, VARID is a design toolkit that uses virtual and augmented reality technologies. Its objective is to support academics, designers, and architects in better understanding how people with vision impairments perceive their environment.

Prompting Creativity: The Role of AI in Visualization and Design Tools for Architects

Nowadays, architectural work is closely linked to technology and the advances that emerge in this field. In that sense, various aspects of artificial intelligence have been widely discussed. The reality is that, rather than plunging into a competition of capabilities between Architects vs AI, —with nuances that could evoke some aspects of the ideology of 19th-century English Luddites— advances in this field can be seen as tools to optimize processes and open new perspectives within the profession.

In this context, architecture often spans various stages, from early phases where data decisively shapes built environments to later ones where generative design tools for spaces play a fundamental role in spatial configuration. In this process, visualization plays the crucial role of graphically understanding the expression of what is being designed. Thus, iterating on the visualization and evaluating each of the results is vital not only to express ideas but also to use those visualizations to interpret aesthetic elements.

Generative Space Design: Exploring 8 Transformative Tools in Architecture

In architecture, drawing is a technical and artistic expression that involves creating visual representations using various analog instruments. While drawing remains relevant and current in practice today, efforts have been made to carry out architectural tasks and studies more efficiently. The drafting machine, a significant development in this regard, enabled precise strokes using fewer instruments. However, the emergence of computational tools, such as computer-aided drafting (CAD), has revolutionized the workflow by leveraging the advantages offered by computers. Architects can now play a more direct and creative role in the design process, reducing their reliance on time-consuming drawing and repetitive tasks. Moreover, workflow enhancements have fostered more effective collaboration among different stakeholders in the architectural process.

The Second Studio Podcast: Is BIM Ruining the Architecture Industry?

The Second Studio (formerly The Midnight Charette) is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by Architects David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features different creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions.

A variety of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes are interviews, while others are tips for fellow designers, reviews of buildings and other projects, or casual explorations of everyday life and design. The Second Studio is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.

VELUX and EFFEKT Develop Strategic Framework for Designing Healthier and More Sustainable Build Environment

VELUX Group reveals The Build for Life concept aimed at creating sustainable communities and built environment through affordable, socially-oriented designs and new housing models, healthy indoor climates and the use of low-impact materials. Developed together with EFFEKT, MOE engineers and Danish construction company Enemaerke & Petersen A/S, the concept provides architects and city planners with a “compass’ for navigating the sustainability imperatives of the moment while encouraging the design of healthier living places.

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Can a Machine Perform the Work of an Architect? A Chat with Jesper Wallgren, Founder of Finch 3D

There has been a lot of talk about how automation will affect the way we do architecture, and what our role will be when technologies reach our own desks and work tables. In recent years, while we have seen how robotics and advanced technology are gaining ground in construction and manufacturing, new tools are emerging that promise to automate the design process itself. These would allow us to quickly and easily configure living spaces and their dimensions in the initial stages of a project, using simulations and artificial intelligence.

Will this automation be the future of architectural design? We talked with Jesper Wallgren, architect and founder of Finch 3D, to better understand this tool and its possible scope.

Solve Complex Architectural Details With This 'Contour Duplicator Gauge'

Most of the materials that we use in the construction of our projects have shapes and dimensions that seek to facilitate their storage, transfer, and installation, being constituted in its majority by orthogonal modulations. These straight angles don't always fit with the irregularity of our designs, nor do they coincide exactly when encountering more organic materials or other specific elements such as ducts, pillars, or furniture.

This simple tool allows you to copy, duplicate, and measure complex contours so that the materials adapt perfectly to other elements. Its mobile 'teeth' must be pressed against the profile to obtain a mold of its shape, generating templates that will allow cutting and adjusting the original material with precision. Thus, the tool could even be useful for replicating or repairing unique details in restorations or refurbishments.

Digital Scaling Ruler Works as a Perfect Architect’s Tool

Unproductive meetings attempting to work with drawings that have been printed at the wrong scale, not dimensioned, or in a unit of measurement you’re not comfortable with is a frustration we can all relate to. These frustrations are what inspired one designer to create the Smart Scale Ruler, a physical, digitalized ruler that changes to suit your chosen unit of measurement or even work to a scale that doesn’t exist.

This New App Wants to Answer All Your Building Code Questions

Perhaps nothing can kill a project budget or give an owner heartburn quite like costly code fixes during (or in the worst case, after) construction. As architects, we do our best to navigate construction codes during design, but there’s no denying their complexity. Projects have to comply with multiple different codes at both the federal and local levels; different codes sometimes even contradict one another, leading to headaches for the design team.

However, a new website and mobile app hopes to make understanding and complying with building codes easier for architects and designers. “The solution we provide is a search engine tailored for architecture,” explains Scott Reynolds, co-founder of UpCodes. With his background in architecture, Reynolds has partnered with his brother Garrett Reynolds—who has a PhD in machine learning—and through UpCodes, the pair to ease some of that building code-driven frustration.

InstruMMents Releases Portable Scanner to Digitally Capture the 3D Curves of Any Object

Digitally modeling objects from real life has just become easier.

Tech innovation company InstruMMents has unveiled a new functionality to their 01 portable dimension scanner that allows you to capture the 3D curves of any surface. Logging in to the Pro App, users can then track, share and export the curves into key 3D formats, allowing you to quickly recreate any desired object in 3D.

Call For Submissions: [TRANS-] lation

ABOUT :: [TRANS-] is a critically-reviewed academic journal published in print and online, inviting expressions of interest for submitting works of design, writing, or multi-media on the topic of design process and design communication for Vol. No. 2 to be published in May 2016.

TOPIC ::
In the second volume, [TRANS-] will explore the topic of [TRANS-]lation.
In a largely results-based society, how do designers evaluate process? How can a more thorough assessment of the translation that occurs during creative activities make us better communicators and collaborators with end users, consultants, clients, and all others we affect through design?

ELIGIBILITY ::
[TRANS-] accepts submissions from

Google Earth Pro Is Now Free

Google Earth Pro has dropped its $399 yearly subscription and is now freely available to all. Beyond providing imagery, detailed maps, terrain and 3D building models of the world, Google Earth’s pro-version is particularly convenient for project planning and research; unlike its standard tools, Pro allows users to print images at 4800x3200, import and pin thousands of addresses onto the map at once, capture HD videos of what’s on screen, and easily measure distances and areas with polygons, circles and more, rather than with just lines and paths. Download it for free and fill out a quick form to unlock its Pro features.