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This article was originally published on Autodesk's Redshift publication as "A Video Game Is Overtaking Post-Occupancy Evaluation in Architecture."

Evaluating the user performance of a particular building design is obviously a good way for clients and architects to gauge whether their design was successful—or could have been better.

There’s even an entire academic discipline called post-occupancy evaluation (POE) devoted to this concept, and Arup is tapping into it with a network of 22 industry partners using the Building Use Studies (BUS) methodology. Too few designers tap into POE, but with gamified simulations done before projects are built, that could change.

Mankind has a strange relationship with the darker elements of its history. While some argue that we must consign our greatest mistakes to the past in order to move forward, others believe that ignoring, or refusing to acknowledge, our transgressions dishonors those who suffered – and leaves us vulnerable to repeating them. This ongoing debate has found its latest incarnation in western Austria, where the national government has announced its intention to demolish a seemingly unremarkable yellow house in the riverside town of Braunau am Inn – a house which, despite its unassuming façade, has gained infamy as the birthplace of Adolf Hitler.

Architecture is often the backdrop, rather than the subject, of the scary. For example, The Shining owes much to the Overlook Hotel, “haunted” is often followed by “house,” and Victorian architecture has come to be associated with the creepy. In a less supernatural manner however, architectural elements themselves have proven over history to be scary in their own right. With the clarity that only retrospect can offer, it’s easy to look back on the following macabre materials, bleak utilities, and terrifying technologies in horror... but perhaps what is most scary is to consider which aspects of architecture we might blindly accept today that will also become glaringly frightening with time.

In this stunning photo shoot Fernando Guerra, of Últimas Reportagens, captures the Therme Vals, one of the most iconic works of the 2009 Pritzker Prize-winner Peter Zumthor.

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The Bruder Klaus Field Chapel by Peter Zumthor, completed in 2007, is known for its beautiful respect for the materials which were used to construct the sensuous space. The interior of the chapel is a black cavity left behind by 112 tree trunks burnt out of the cast concrete walls. Twenty-four layers of concrete were poured into a frame surrounding the trunks, stacked in a curved conical form, forming a stark contrast to the comparatively smooth angular façade. After removing the frame, many small holes were left behind in the walls, creating an effect reminiscent of the night sky. The chapel’s "beautiful silence" and undeniable connection to its surrounding landscape make it an evocative and popular destination for many.

In this photo series, architecture photographer Aldo Amoretti captures the dramatic relationship between the Bruder Klaus Field Chapel and its natural environment. Despite its concrete surface and straight edges, the chapel doesn’t stand out as brutal. Instead, the images depict a visual manifestation of Zumthor’s words: architecture with "composure, self-evidence, durability, presence, and integrity, and with warmth and sensuousness as well."

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Near Pondicherry in Southern Indian is Auroville, an experimental township devoted to the teachings of mystic philosopher Sri Aurobindo. The 20 square kilometer site was founded in 1968 by Aurobindo’s spiritual collaborator, Mirra Alfassa. Otherwise known as “The Mother,” she saw Auroville as a place “where men of all countries would be at home”.

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This article was originally published by Archipreneur as "5 of the Most Innovative Architecture Firms."

The AEC industry is notoriously slow to adopt new technologies. Cumbersome organizational structures and high financial stakes make it difficult for AEC professionals to experiment. Due to the limited role of architects in the project development process, innovative design solutions and experimentation with new manufacturing techniques are still confined to academic circles and research institutions.

However, some architecture firms are utilizing their high profiles, international success and the influx of talented, young designers to establish in-house research divisions and incubators that support the development of new ideas in the AEC industry. The following five companies are consistent in pushing the envelope and helping architecture adopt some of the latest technologies:

In August of this year the White Tower, one of Yekaterinburg’s signature Constructivist-era buildings, opened its doors to the public for the first time. Polina Ivanova, Director of the Podelniki Architecture Group gave Strelka Magazine insight into how the practice got its hands on the tower, and launched it as the city's latest cultural venue.

This article was originally published in Redshift and is republished here with permission.

In 2001, the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan in central Afghanistan using dynamite, anti-aircraft guns, and artillery. After weeks of incremental destruction, nothing of the statues remained.

That sad turn of events was the impetus for the founding of CyArk, a nonprofit that uses technology to ensure sites of rich cultural heritage remain available to future generations. Since 2003, they have used laser scanning, photography, photogrammetry, and 3D capture to record nearly 200 sites around the globe.

This article was originally published by Archipreneur as "Reasons Why Architects Can Make Great Developers (or not?)."

Today, a majority of architects work solely on the design end of the development process. It is common knowledge that the net value of architectural services in a projects’ total value amounts to a very small percentage (it’s usually in single digits), which puts architects near the bottom of the financial structure in the AEC industry.

Stuck between developers, clients, contractors, and subcontractors, architects are usually in a role that implies great responsibility but proportionally low compensation for it. When we add to that the grievance of not having full control of a project, it becomes clear as to why an increasing number of architects either transition to real estate development or transform their design offices into design-builds.

Though still in its infancy, this transition seems indicative of an emancipatory trend that’s taking place, where architects take matters into their own hands and thus claim their rightful position within the industry.

The usefulness (and, at times, unintended hilarity or abhorrence) of Google's autocomplete function is nothing new. The screenshots, listicles and articles dedicated to exposing humanity's curiosity, bias and, alas, stupidity have circulated the interwebs since the "Search Suggestion" feature was launched in 2008. As you type a query, topic or name into the the search bar, you are served search predictions, which the company describes as "related to the terms you’re typing and what other people are searching for."

This article was originally published on TiP, Balmond Studio and is republished here with permission.

When an atrocity occurs how do we unpack the truth, using the learnings of architecture, science and art to seek justice?

Dealing with this complex issue is architect Eyal Weizman, founder of the ground-breaking research group, Forensic Architecture (FA) at Goldsmiths University, of London.

His team of architects, filmmakers, designers, lawyers, scholars and scientists are hired not by the State, but instead work with international prosecution firms, NGO’s, political organisations and the UN, to investigate ‘crime scenes’ – like forensic detectives.

Since 1998, Google has been manipulating their iconic logo to celebrate holidays, anniversaries and the lives of famous artists, pioneers and scientists, creating what they call Google Doodles. Since the very first doodle (used to indicate founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s attendance at Burning Man that year), Google has produced over 2000 fun, colorful drawings to inform their users about the important milestones that fell on that date.

Stories have a way of clinging to places, charging buildings and spaces with an effect only perceptible to those who know what they once staged. Film is the most visual storytelling medium, and their environments often play memorable and vital roles in creating the movie's character and identity. The popularity of film tourism is testament to this phenomena. While the bulk of film tourism stems from blockbuster movies and their exposure and celebrity, the blog Filmap takes a more humble approach in highlighting the stories of everyday places.

For the past three years, the blog has laboriously tracked the locations of hundreds of movie scenes using Google Streetview, pairing stripped-back street views right next to their cinematographic counterparts. The resulting contrast elevates the everyday while also grounding fiction to our very streets, a reminder of the built environment’s role as a vessel of imagination.

A selection of Filmap’s posts are shared below – how many movies can you recognize from their real-life settings alone?

This article was originally published in the Literary Review of Canada as "Tunnel Vision: Why our cities need less Jane Jacobs." It has been partially re-published with permission.

My introduction to Jane Jacobs was completely ordinary. Like many, many architecture students since its publication in 1962, I read The Death and Life of Great American Cities for an introductory course in urbanism. Jacobs was a joy to read, whip-crack smart and caustically funny, and she wrote in impeccable, old-school sentences that convinced you with their unimpeded flow. She explained her ideas in utterly clear and simple language. Planners are “pavement pounding” or “Olympian.” There are “foot people and car people.”

Why were we reading her? I expect it was to encourage us to look harder at the city, and to imbibe some of her spirited advocacy for experience over expertise. It was a captivating message and delivered at the right time. Today it seems as though everybody interested in cities has read at least part of Death and Life and found personal affirmation in it. Michael Kimmelman wrote, “It said what I knew instinctively to be true.” For David Crombie, “she made it clear that the ideas that mattered were the ones which we understood intimately.”

This quality was important, and one of the reasons that Jacobs endures in our culture is the facility with which we can identify with her. She is one of “us,” whoever that is—not an expert, more like an aunt than a professor. Her speciality was the induction of rules from patterns discovered by individual observation, like a 19th-century gentleman scientist. Her work gave seriousness to reactions that might otherwise be dismissed as taste, ignorance or prejudice.

Macros are one of the easiest ways to Automate Revit. They let you get under the hood of your software and put it to work for you. Macros do not require any additional software other than Revit and are a great way for beginners to learn programming.

So what exactly is a macro? A macro is a user-created command that is coded using Revit’s API. Macros are run directly inside of Revit and are saved in the project file. Other applications, like MS Office, provide the ability to record macros directly from your actions on the screen. Unfortunately, Revit does not have this functionality. You must code your Revit macros directly.

Team Rambo, also known as Ramboland, is a project born from the need of Ron Rambo, born with Cerebral Palsy, for a home that can support his disability and increase his quality of life. However, Ramboland doesn’t just stop there. LEED Fellow Max Zahniser, has used his experience with Green Architecture to combine Ron’s social vision with an environmental one that can benefit the entire community. The meeting of these objectives has been defined by the goal “to design a project that will actually increase the vitality of life and life-support systems in every way possible,” using architecture to make a difference.

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