While opting for still images seems to be the most utilized means of presenting a project, some architects choose to invite viewers into the architecture itself, allowing them to experience the building and its surroundings immersively. Since 2006, architecture filmography studio Spirit of Space has engaged viewers with over 200 short films of projects built by world-renowned architects such as Peter Zumthor, Steven Holl, Daniel Libeskind, and Jeanne Gang. The studio’s multidisciplinary team has combined visuals with customized soundtracks, elevating the journey and turning it into a multi-sensory experience.
Visualization: The Latest Architecture and News
"Film is the Next Best Thing for Architecture": Interview with Spirit of Space
https://www.archdaily.com/938199/film-is-the-next-best-thing-for-architecture-interview-with-spirit-of-spaceDima Stouhi
A Virtual Tour of AI & Architecture at the Pavillon de l'Arsenal in Paris
The AI & Architecture at the Pavillon de l'Arsenal in Paris, France was scheduled to be open for the past couple of months, showcasing work by Stanislas Chaillou on generative design and machine learning. However, due to the global pandemic, people were able to virtually explore the ideas through a series of interviews and a virtual tours. The work explored current scales of experimentation: plans, elevations, structures and perspectives in which AI could already make a contribution, whether real or speculative.
https://www.archdaily.com/934191/ai-and-architecture-coming-to-the-pavillon-de-larsenal-in-parisEric Baldwin
Real-Time Rendering for All of Us
By now, you’ve likely heard about real-time rendering for architectural visualization and how it’s changing the way designs are presented. With real-time rendering, you can edit your design and see the changes updated instantly, at full quality, and you can produce animations and panoramas in minutes instead of days. Real-time rendering also opens the door to immersive experiences like 360° videos and virtual reality.
https://www.archdaily.com/924798/real-time-rendering-for-all-of-usRene Submissions
Twinmotion Joins Unreal Engine Suite to Help Visualization Professionals Better Communicate Their Designs
American video game and software development company Epic Games today welcomes Twinmotion as the latest offering to help visualization professionals in the architecture, construction, urban planning, and landscaping industries better communicate their designs. Powered by Unreal Engine 4, Twinmotion delivers real-time, final-quality rendering through a simple and intuitive interface, with the ability to quickly produce a variety of presentation options including images, panoramas, videos, and virtual reality content.
https://www.archdaily.com/916893/twinmotion-joins-unreal-engine-suite-to-help-visualization-professionals-better-communicate-their-designsMaria Erman
Integration: The Latest Architectural Visualization Trend of 2019
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As more and more visualization professionals adopt real-time rendering for presentation and collaboration, we’re seeing yet another trend in this emerging field: the integration of various technologies to serve a wide variety of workflows.
Every firm has different needs for compatibility with their chosen CAD programs. No one wants to learn a new process from scratch when they've already spent countless months setting up a design-to-presentation process that works for them.
https://www.archdaily.com/913407/integration-the-latest-architectural-visualization-trend-of-2019Sponsored Post
Matt Daniels Maps World Populations as Mountains
Engineer Matt Daniels has created a new interactive map to visualize the world's populations. Called 'Human Terrain', the project includes extruded block-by-block population data for cities across the world to give viewers fine-grain insight into population distribution. Daniels used data from the Global Human Settlement Layer and processed it using Google Earth Engine to create a mountainous digital landscape.
https://www.archdaily.com/908832/matt-daniels-maps-world-populations-as-mountainsEric Baldwin
Coral Cities: The World's Most Liveable Cities Visualized
Craig Taylor, Data Visualization Design Manager at ITO World, has created a series of beautiful visualizations showing commutes in the world's most liveable cities. Using color in the form of growing coral, the project depicts city infrastructure through rendered street networks. The visualizations show how far you can travel by car in 30 minutes from a city center. Dubbed Coral Cities, the project has extended to include 40 major cities across the world.
https://www.archdaily.com/908260/coral-cities-the-worlds-most-liveable-cities-visualizedEric Baldwin
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.
https://www.archdaily.com/903847/trends-in-real-time-renderingRene Submissions
Immerse Yourself in These Unbelievable Modernist Visualizations
Cape Town native Alexis Christodoulou is a winemaker by day but also dabbles in the art of 3D visualization. His Instagram (@teaaalexis) is a striking composition of intricate spaces rich with color, light, and materiality. Crafted entirely from scratch, each of Christodoulou's digital worlds appears to be influenced by many of the modernist masters. In a recent interview with Curbed, Christodoulou lists Aldo Rossi, David Chipperfield and Le Corbusier among his inspirations.
Much has been said about the new "Instagram aesthetic." Put that together with the emerging role of Instagram and other social media platforms in the design process, and the result is a new type of digital art form. Christodoulou's page is the creative collection of a year-long personal challenge to regularly create and publish images of his own fantasy worlds, which has resulted in a community of nearly 20K followers.
Get lost in more of the images below.
https://www.archdaily.com/892757/immerse-yourself-in-these-unbelievable-modernist-visualizationsCollin Abdallah
Fatamorgana: Utzon meets Jorn
Utzon Center, Aalborg, recently opened their newest exhibition - FATAMORGANA - about Jørn Utzon’s mythical unbuilt project for Silkeborg Museum intended to house the art and private collection of the Danish expressionist painter; Asger Jorn. The exhibition unfolds the museum, which never was realised. A museum where art meets architecture and Utzon and Jorn worked on the edge of the possible!
https://www.archdaily.com/789985/fatamorgana-utzon-meets-jornRene Submissions
5 Places to Download Free, Ethnically Diverse Render People
The significance of people in architectural rendering is nothing new – the added realism, and addition of narrative elements can make or break whether a render successfully sells its project. With sites like Skalgubbar, architects and architecture students have easier access than ever before to “Render People”: PNG cut-outs of people, ready to be photoshopped into buildings.
In the early years of free, online render-people databases, there was a stark homogeneity to the people represented. As the people providing the crowdsourced images were from predominantly Caucasian, Scandinavian countries, there was a surge of such people appearing in renders in projects across the world. In wake of this, other groups have worked to produce workable databases of diverse, culturally representative render people, giving architects and architecture students the freedom to accurately depict their work in its intended context.
We’ve rounded up 5 different sites that offer free render people of a wide range of ethnicities. See them all after the break.
https://www.archdaily.com/777432/6-websites-for-ethnically-diverse-render-peopleEric Oh
Which Video Games Have the Best Architecture?
With the ability to manipulate every interaction players have in a game, video game designers have boundless opportunity to shape the way players experience space. Because of this, game designers often look to architecture to enhance gameplay and provide inspiration for the appearances of their virtual worlds.
In the video above, Jamin Warren of YouTube show PBS Game/Show calls Halo the “most creative architectural game,” remarking that the brutalist-inspired architecture of the series exerted a strong influence on the way players move through levels and makes the battles in the game more immersive. Warren notes that several members of Halo’s development team had backgrounds in architecture; this observation suggests that the video gaming industry views architectural design as an essential element in its creative endeavors.
Warren makes an interesting point with his remarks on Halo: while people that inhabit virtual buildings cannot experience them physically, video game buildings can still be incredibly innovative and interesting. Which other video games feature innovative architectural approaches? Check out our list of six of the most architectural video games after the break.
https://www.archdaily.com/769250/which-video-games-have-the-best-architecturePatrick Kunkel
Corporate Dystopia: Liam Young Imagines a World in which Tech Companies Own Our Cities
What if the manufacturers of the phones and social networks we cling to became the rulers of tomorrow’s cities? Imagine a world in which every building in your neighborhood is owned by Samsung, entire regions are occupied by the ghosts of our digital selves, and cities spring up in international waters to house outsourced laborers. These are the worlds imagined by self-described speculative architect, Liam Young in his latest series of animations entitled ”New City.” Read on after the break to see all three animations and learn more about what’s next in the series.
https://www.archdaily.com/615649/corporate-dystopia-liam-young-imagines-a-world-in-which-tech-companies-own-our-citiesEvan Rawn
Unreal Visualizations: 3 Pros and 3 Cons of Rendering with a Video Game Engine
In recent years, we've reached a point where visualizations have become all-prevalent in the architectural profession. Whether we like it or not, stylized imagery is seen as a commodity, and ultimately, renderings win competitions and commissions. Architects have become enamored with beautiful renderings because clients understand pictures better than plans, and yet, the tools used to produce these glitzy images are changing faster than our industry can keep up. But with technology constantly evolving, we may face a new wave of visualization techniques, as the same render engines used to produce the tantalizingly realistic visuals in movies and video games are, for the first time, easily within our reach.
The lines across industries are blurring and companies behind the rendering engines for the most popular video games are now marketing their software directly to architects. This year, the original developers of the game Gears of War have made their proprietary rendering software Unreal Engine 4 free to architects, and many other video game render engines are available for less than the cost of those used by architects. Founder Tim Sweeney believes that the world of visualization is changing, telling The Verge "We’re realizing now that Unreal Engine 4 is a common language between all these common fields." Creating a common language between the presently disparate fields of architecture, film, and video games, for example, suggests that the industries themselves may begin to hybridize and learn from one another. For instance, video game developers may look to architects to understand how to construct 3D buildings, while architects may learn from the navigable virtual environment of video games in order to discover new means of representation. Add to this the fact that these software packages are capable of producing lifelike animated walkthroughs and we are left wondering, why is this not an industry standard? Read on after the break for the pros and cons of being an early adopter.
https://www.archdaily.com/607849/unreal-visualizations-3-pros-and-3-cons-of-rendering-with-a-video-game-engineEvan Rawn