Google stats

Label / Tag Cloud for this Blog

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Renzo Piano Building Workshop Official Site - The New York Times Building, New York City (NY), USA

Renzo Piano Building Workshop Official Site - The New York Times Building, New York City (NY), USA

One of the hundreds of references to this innovative 'sustainable' building.

Green and Gleaming Towers | BusinessWeek

Green and Gleaming Towers | BusinessWeek

What's a Katrina Cottage? By Witold Rybczynski

What's a Katrina Cottage? By Witold Rybczynski


"How architects build brands". 'The golden Age of the Skyscraper" Articles byWitold Rybczynski

How architects build brands. By Witold Rybczynski: "How architects market themselves."



Check out also Slate's Slide Show related to Witold's article 'The golden Age of the Skyscraper"

Make for interesting reading.

optics.org

optics.org: "Light transmitting concrete is set to go on sale later this year."

Found this today. Date is 11 March 2004, and I don't see evidence for the widespread sale of this stuff yet - but who knows? I wonder what the optical properties are and how one might therefore model them?

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

BBSC 303 Digital Craft Lecture 7 - 2 May 2006

We watched an 18 minute 1995 video James Burke
. He described the problems of communication between Architecture and Building Science computer programs. He also described the beginning of what has become a programme of 10 years in length developing the Building Information Model (BIM). The pros and cons of the idea and what exactly the concept might lead to were the major themes of this presentation.

David Harrison then presented his paper that he presented in early April to the CAADRIA conference in Kumamoto in Japan. He described his research project and thus the background to Reasonate. He also showed how to use a number of the enhanced features of Reasonate, including a first introduction to how to use the new 'Web Page' feature to make and publish the web pages that will be a core part of the hand in of Assignment 1 and Assignment 2.

Saturday, April 29, 2006

Planet PDF - Review: Adobe Acrobat 3D

Planet PDF - Review: Adobe Acrobat 3D: "With Acrobat 3D, its newest addition to the Acrobat family, Adobe pushed the envelope of PDF capabilities. Adobe Acrobat 3D expands next-generation PDF workflow into the 3D worlds of Manufacturing and AEC (architecture, engineering and construction)."

Now this looks like a logical and exciting extensions to the Right Hemisphere 3D pdf expoert options we already have ...


Tags:Lighting

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Google SketchUp (free) SUD

Google SketchUp (free) SUD: "The person who says it can't be done shouldn't interrupt the person who is doing it."


Sunday, April 23, 2006

Daylighting for the 21st Century

Daylighting for the 21st Century

Two years ago, but not yet out-of-date. An article in 'Architectural Lighting' on the issues in daylighting. James points out that unlike Victoria, there are many schools in the USA who "... have faculty with genuine daylighting expertise; and even fewer have artificial skies, helidons, and other systems for scale modeling and measuring daylighting performance. There is a tenuous acceptance of computer analysis and an unfortunate scale-modeling-versus-computer-modeling controversy brewing." The work that is being done by the IEA is a step towards improving this situation.

3D Collaboration Spaces: What Future Ahead? - Online Collaboration and Web Conferencing Breaking News - Kolabora.com

3D Collaboration Spaces: What Future Ahead? - Online Collaboration and Web Conferencing Breaking News - Kolabora.com

"3D immersive virtual reality spaces in which people can meet, talk, present, and exchange documents and files have been around for over two years now." - Now, what about applications where architects, interior designers and buuilding scientists collaborate on modelling reality which is creative and challenging, not merely a decoration of the net environment?

Maturing Visualization Tools Make Ideas Look Real - Construction Industry, News Articles, Business Conditions

Maturing Visualization Tools Make Ideas Look Real - Construction Industry, News Articles, Business Conditions

Learn a little bit about what 4D might mean to people involved in construction...

CADwire.net - Articles > Avoiding Mistakes, Saving Money: The Case for Virtual Design and Construction

CADwire.net - Articles > Avoiding Mistakes, Saving Money: The Case for Virtual Design and Construction

A corporate AIA view of the things that can be done with true 3D models - 'virtual' or ebuildings.

Ellen’s Knowledge blog » Blog Archive » The Fish Story, or reduction of the nonessential

Ellen’s Knowledge blog » Blog Archive » The Fish Story, or reduction of the nonessential

Ellen Finkelstein has some really interesting things to say about effective communication. Here is a link of great use in the upcoming weeks as we get onto designing our own web pages - writing web pages that communicate well


Modern building rises in heart of ancient Rome - Yahoo! News

Modern building rises in heart of ancient Rome - Yahoo! News

"ROME (Reuters) - After years of controversy, Rome on Friday unveiled the first modern building to rise in its ancient centre since dictator Benito Mussolini ruled Italy more than half a century ago.

Renowned U.S. architect Richard Meier was on hand for the inauguration of the Ara Pacis museum, a steel, glass and marble structure that has fired Roman passions with one critic comparing it to a giant petrol station."



An article of interest for two reasons - another building for the list of buildings for future Digital Craft classes - and a description of the new buildings under construction or planned for Rome.

ArchitectureWeek - Tools - Digital Physical Mashup - 2006.0419

ArchitectureWeek - Tools - Digital Physical Mashup - 2006.0419

A digital design studio - not unlike the second year project we have been running at Victoria for the past 10 years or so -

Aura :: 601 Capitol Mall, Sacramento, California, United States :: Glass Steel and Stone

Aura :: 601 Capitol Mall, Sacramento, California, United States :: Glass Steel and Stone

Check this out for a lesson in how a very simple block can be dressed up with a 3D 'skin' that alters our perception of the blockiness... A far cry for Daniel Libeskind from the V&A spiral or the Denver art meseum addition...

New Orleans woman runs for mayor of Disneyland | The Register

New Orleans woman runs for mayor of Disneyland | The Register
Is this waht Baudrillard was writing about - the virtual becomes the reality in some sense? The article raises an interesting possibility that the 'restoration' of New Orleans will become a gentrification / ersatz 'safe' and 'cleaned up' version of what used to be there... And then is it any longer New Orleans?

Friday, April 14, 2006

Illuminated Tiles facilitate emergency egress., Steuler Fliesen GmbH

Check out this story at the Thomasnet 'Industrial Newsroom". A European company has developed a ceramic tile with embedded LED lighting. Now all you have to do is develop a use for them! They suggest there are 'endless opportunities for luxurious design...' I presume luxurious is the usual code word for expensive. Still, wonder where I can get the IES format file for including them in a render?

Illuminated Tiles facilitate emergency egress., Steuler Fliesen GmbH

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

BBSC 303 Digital Craft Lecture 6 April 4 2006

Merete talked today about the light flow meter that will be an integral part of the rendering assignment. She explained its origins in lighting history and theory and described the purposes of its components. The background papers for this talk are available on the School of Architecture intranet ("the R drive" ). Of particular note was the requirement that each student place an array of light flow meters (using the 3DS Viz array command) after merging the meter into their model. The meter comprises a flat white sphere, a shiny black sphere and a flat white plate with a peg or shadow casting gnomon on each side. Merete described the three aspects of light distribution that each part of the meter is intended to describe.

My talk was about the craft skills involved in using the Light Studio interface to Radiance. I showed:

  • the light studio material generator, including a small demonstration of the material script editor
  • the light studio render interface, including switching on and off ambient and geometry files for efficient rendering
  • high dynamic range images of the type you are required to produce, and how you might use these .pic format images to explore the view that the eye rather than the camera 'sees'
The following links are extremely useful and revealing of the potential of HDR images.

Friday, March 31, 2006

Peak copper?
Salon: Tech & Business: "Forget about oil. Copper is getting pretty pricey, too."



Just to add to your digital worries - if you are a worrier.

News View

My del.icio.us most recent bookmarks