In this essay British architect and academic Dr. Timothy Brittain-Catlin presents the work of Space Popular, an emerging practice exploring the meaning of and methods behind deploying virtual reality techniques in the architectural design process.

Architectural practice, especially in the UK, is moving fast into a realm where history plays as much a part as medium. But the ways in which architects work have been transformed entirely from those of the past, generating a fundamental conflict: how in practice does design through virtual reality use history? In the earliest days of fly-throughs we all realised that we could show our work to clients in a way that even the least plan-literate could understand. We could develop details three-dimensionally and from different angles, even representing different times of day. But what next? How do we engage historical knowledge and experience of buildings?

Videos

The Minnesota Experimental City (MXC)—a utopian plan for the city of the future that was decades ahead of its time, and yet is surprisingly little-known—was the brainchild of the urban planner and technocrat Athelstan Spilhaus. Spilhaus was a man who saw science as the solution to the problems of the world, and became a public figure presenting his ideas of utopia in everyday life through his comic strip "Our New Age." During the mid-1960s, he conceived an ambitious plan to condense his ideas into a prototype for future cities that would be both noiseless and fumeless, accommodating America's growing population and their by-products.

A new documentary, The Experimental City, explores the development, and ultimately, failure of the MXC's vision for future settlements. Using retro film clips, it takes us back in time to a period where Spilhaus' predictions of computers that can fit into your home and remote banking appeared more of a fantasy than reality. The film is directed by Chad Freidrichs (known also for his 2011 film The Pruitt-Igoe Myth) and was premiered at the Chicago Film Festival, in conjunction with the Chicago Architecture Biennial. Several further screenings will be taking place across the country, including at DOC NYC on November 16th.

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The Southbank Undercroft, which lies beneath the Queen Elizabeth Hall along the River Thames in London, has been the subject of much debate in recent years following a proposed closure and redevelopment in 2013. Long Live Southbank, an organization born out of this threat of expulsion, gave the diverse community who call the space home a voice. After 17 months of campaigning, they were successful in ensuring the Undercroft was legally protected and fully recognized as an asset of community value. Since then, the group of activists has begun another groundbreaking journey.

In partnership with Southbank Centre, Long Live Southbank recently launched a new crowdfunding campaign to restore the legendary Undercroft. The restoration project will cost £790,000 and is set to open in 2018, improving Londoners’ access to free creative spaces in the heart of the City. These types of space are becoming increasingly rare and the restoration effort reflects a desire to celebrate the authentic cultural sites that make London the vibrant landscape it is.

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In addition to their videos, #donotsettle’s Wahyu Pratomo and Kris Provoost tell extended stories about the buildings they visit through an exclusive column on ArchDaily: #donotsettle Extra. In this installment, the duo brings you to the newest design by OMA, Rijnstraat 8 in The Hague, The Netherlands. Saskia Simon and Kees van Casteren from OMA explained the architecture of Rijnstraat 8 to #donotsettle while touring the building.

This project, which houses a variety of Dutch government agencies, is an example of a spatial alteration that occurred as result of political and organizational changes. However, given the existing structure by architect Jan Hoogstad, OMA has transformed the architectural experience of the building from within.

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This article was originally published by Common Edge as "Enduring Principles of Art That Also Apply to Architecture."

It is safe to say that architects, academics, critics and even the public have been arguing about the merits of architectural style for centuries. Even during the course of my own career, the more general style categories of contemporary-vs-traditional have continued in an unabated battle. For better or worse, contemporary has generally won out as the default position for most schools and publications, probably because of the sheer visual entertainment value it offers, and the lucrative merits of its two stepchildren, branding and advertising.

I’d like to propose another position: that certain enduring principles of art, rather than any temporary style—and, remember, they are all temporary—should be our real architectural goal. This presumption means you must be agnostic when it comes to style and put aside any notion of an ideological stance regarding the right or wrong of your architectural preferences. There are those, of course, who say that to imagine that “my art” is better than yours, or even that I can define real art in the first place, is a fool’s errand.

I think otherwise.

Amazon’s open call for bids for its new headquarters, HQ2, closed last month, but in the months leading up to the final decision in 2018, analysts will continue to flood the internet with detailed studies evaluating who they believe should be the winner. In other words, the mirror-mirror-on-the-wall game for cities is just starting to warm up.

Earlier, ArchDaily reported on the data-driven approach adopted by Moody’s Analytics which projected Austin, TX as the winner. But another study by IT education company Thinkful now points towards Washington DC as the city most likely to make the cut. So what makes Washington DC the fairest of them all? Read on to see how data science techniques helped analysts at Thinkful with this prediction, what kind of approach they adopted, and how it differed from that of Moody’s Analytics.

As most architecture students and practicing architects find out, all-nighters are (ironically) the stuff of nightmares. They're a last resort when the project is due and you have run out times you can say "I’ll do that tomorrow." All-nighters should be avoided at all costs as they can have many negative effects on your mind such as decreased concentration and reduced long-term memory. Even your body can suffer too; pushing yourself to the limit as you fight tiredness and work as much as physically possible will weaken your immune system and can cause circulatory problems from sitting down for 20 or so hours straight.

In a previous article, we have discussed the many ways in which you can avoid pulling an all-nighter so you don’t have to be as sleep deprived. But sometimes things just don't go to plan, and you may feel that working through the night is the only option. Read on for tips and tricks that should make your all-nighter slightly more bearable (if that's at all possible).

Deeply rooted in the phenomenological ideas of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Steven Holl’s architectural philosophy is centered on human experience, materiality, and a thorough engagement with the site or context. But more than his experiments with space and material, he is best known for his mastery over what is perhaps his favorite material, or medium: natural light.

His design for the Visual Arts Building at the University of Iowa, seen here through the lens of photographer Aaron Dougherty, is one of his projects that best explores these concerns. Clad in weathering zinc and stainless steel, the four-story building houses studios, teaching spaces, galleries and faculty offices for all visual arts departments—from Ceramics, Jewelry Design and Sculpture, to Printmaking, Painting, Video Art, and 3D Design.

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This essay by the academic and writer Martin Lampprecht responds directly to an opinion piece penned by Sean Griffiths, a former partner of FAT, entitled "now is not the time to be indulging in postmodern revivalism".

Oh my. Where to begin? My first impulse was just to move on and shake my head in wonder, perhaps, that a well-established designer and architectural thinker would wish to publish an article so dyspeptic. It is, after all, a common pattern: the young pranksters of yesteryear, once their hairlines have started to recede, transform into  schoolmasters as befitting their recently-acquired academic sinecures. It’s all just part of the normal generational cycle that keeps a culture moving forward. Business as usual.

Increasingly close collaboration between architects and engineers has caused an explosion in bridge design over the last few decades, resulting in structures that are both bold yet rational. As a result, cities have exploited bridges as great monuments of design, to foster pride in the residents and promote themselves as a destination for tourists. These ideas have inspired photographer Greig Cranna as he travels the world, capturing the elegance of today's bridge infrastructure.

Cranna has been documenting some of his stunning photography on Instagram, collating it over the past 20 months into a forthcoming book, Sky Architecture—The Transformative Magic of Today's Bridges. In capturing these entrancing structures, the photos show the impact of the bridges as an addition to the landscape and revel in their contemporary silhouettes and designs.

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This article was originally published by Brantley Agency as "Must Have Technology for Architects in 2017."

2017 has been an amazing year in the field of technology for architects. Most excitingly, we’ve seen an exponential growth in our fascination with virtual and augmented reality. Various types of innovative technology for architects are rolled out so regularly, we find our architect clients wondering where to begin.

Which of the many tech developments are merely gimmicks that will disappear as fast as they arrived, and which are here to stay, becoming permanent fixtures within professional practice? We’ve compiled a list of 10 pieces of technology for architects that will differentiate your firm from the competition in the studio and on the construction site.

Architecture, as all architects like to remind everyone, can be a stressful profession. Long days, late nights, indecisive clients, too-decisive clients, permit issues, legal issues, software problems, contractor problems... all combine to generate a high-pressure work environment. So, when architects get a chance to let loose and relieve some of that pressure, they really let loose. Here are a few moves to get you dancing like an architect:

This article was originally published by Aurodesk's Redshift publication as "Norwegian Rail Project Adopts Immersive Design for Public Engagement and Buy-in."

For a disruptive, 10-kilometer-long rail project that won’t even break ground until 2019, public officials and local residents of Moss, just south of Oslo, Norway, have been given an unusually vivid preview that, in the past, only the designers would have seen at this stage.

“We set up a showroom in the city where the public can come to view the project in a theater setting, and the feedback has been quite nice,” says Hans Petter Sjøen, facility management coordinator for Bane NOR, the year-old, state-owned company responsible for developing, operating, and maintaining the Norwegian national railway infrastructure. “Project members also have been receptive. They tell us that they have seen dimensions on the big screen that they did not see in person.”

This interview was initially published in Spanish by City Manager as “Jan Gehl, ciudades para la gente.”

Jah Gehl is recognized as a follower of Jane Jacobs, the “grandmother” of urbanism and humanist planning. He has been a professor at the Danish Real Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and visiting professor in Canada, the United States, New Zealand, Mexico, Australia, Belgium, Germany, Poland, and Norway. In 2000, he created his own consultancy along with Helle Søholt, Gehl Architects, in Denmark, where he completed diverse urban projects from around the world using data and strategic analysis.

The below text comes from an interview with the Danish architect, theorist and world leader in urban development, and promoter, following Jane Jacobs, of the human scale in the design of public spaces.