Monday, 26 October 2009

Digital Architecture: Passages Through Hinterlands

October 26th, 2009

squarefront

Digital Architecture: Passages Through Hinterlands is a collection of provocative projects from a young generation of digitally enabled designers. This publication oscillates between the analog and the digital, from concept to realisation, mapping processes as it explores the diverse digital paths that lead innovative spaces, poetic narratives and social interactions.

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sixteen* (makers), 55/02 Shelter, Kielder Forest, UK

The book covers a spectrum of London’s leading graduates and young practices, featuring projects from the Architectural Association, Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL), University of Westminster and Royal College of Art, and case studies and interviews with architects including Amanda Levete Architects, Plasma Studio, JDS Architects, sixteen* (makers), Horhizon, marcosandmarjan, Mette Ramsgard Thomsen, Philip Beesley, David Greene, Samantha Hardingham, Usman Haque and Neil Spiller.

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Tarek Shamma, “Circus Lumens”

I’m pleased to announce that “Digital Architecture: Passages Through Hinterlands” is now available. Co-Authored by myself (Ruairi Glynn) and Sara Shafiei it has been a real pleasure to put together a book that is intended to expand the envelope of what we might conside “Digital” Architecture to be.

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Christian Kerrigan, “The 200 Year Continuum”

I would like to thank all of the architects and artists who have contributed their inspiring work and thank our exceptional graphic designer Emily Chicken bringing it all together with such elegance.

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David Greene of Archigram and Samantha Hardingham’s recent L.A.W.U.N.* Project

I am also pleased to announce that one of the young graduates featuring in the book Nick Szczepaniak, has just been awarded the RIBA Silver Medal (The highest award in the UK for student design work) and we are thrilled to be the first publication to be presenting his work. More posts will follow presenting some of the other work featuring in the book and a preview of its contents can be seen here.

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Nick Szczepaniak, “A Defensive Architecture”

Via Interactive architecture



Wednesday, 14 October 2009

Introducing Google Building Maker

Hot on the heels of the SketchUp 7.1 launch a couple of weeks ago, we're pleased to announce the release of the latest addition to our 3D family: Google Building Maker is a super-specialized, online tool for creating buildings specifically for Google Earth.

Building Maker lets you choose a building to model by looking at aerial imagery. After you've told it what you'd like to model, Building Maker loads up several different aerial views of that building taken from different directions. You then align simple 3D shapes – boxes, prisms, pyramids and others – to the different views. Building Maker takes care of all the photo-texturing for you; it uses the aerial photos to "paint" your building when you save it. Models you create with Building Maker are stored in the Google 3D Warehouse, and are automatically considered for inclusion on the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth. If your model looks good (and if there's no better one already in its place), it'll appear in Google Earth (for millions of people) within about a week.

Check out this video to see Building Maker in action:



We're launching with 50 cities that are ready for Building Maker. We'll continue to add cities as fast as we can, but feel free to jump in and give Building Maker a test drive whenever you like. Modeling in a place you're not familiar with is a great way to learn something about it.

So is Building Maker supposed to replace SketchUp? Absolutely not! SketchUp is a general-purpose tool that people use to model everything under the sun. Building Maker, on the other hand, is a specialist. For folks who want to make models and see them in Google Earth, it's simple, efficient and (we hope) downright fun.

Here's something else we think is neat: Anything you create with Building Maker, you can download and open in SketchUp. You can tweak textures, refine geometry – whatever it takes to make your building even better. When you're done, uploading your improved model to the 3D Warehouse further increases its chances of being accepted into Google Earth.

Some more things you should know about Building Maker:
  • Building Maker is an online app, meaning it runs entirely in your web browser (Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, etc.).
  • To get credit for what you contribute, you need to sign into your Google Account.
  • Make sure you have the latest version of Google Earth installed on your computer.
  • If you're on a Mac, you need to download the Google Earth plug-in directly.
Building Maker is free and available in 14 languages. Go to www.google.com/buildingmaker to join the worldwide mapping community. Have fun!

Via Google


Monday, 12 October 2009

Ecotect Analysis Training Packages

As announced at AU 2008 these training packages will help you make the most of your Ecotect Analysis software.

These html based packages contain background information, movies and
step-by-step tutorials to get you started on five main areas of
analysis:


  • Daylighting
  • Shading Device Design
  • Shadows and Reflections
  • Solar Radiation
  • Visual Impact

An Introductory Product Demonstration package is also available.


You can download the training packages from the following location.
After installation these training packages are available via the
Ecotect Help menu:


Ecotect Analysis 2010 Training Packages


Via Blgsim



Sunday, 11 October 2009

Solar Radition Technology Preview Not Compatible with Revit Service Pack 2

The Solar Radiation Technology Preview for Revit is available for download from:

http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/ecotect/

With the recent release of Service Pack 2 for Revit, the combination of the technology preview and the service pack results in:

solarradsp2

Read more at the “It’s alive in the lab blog” …

Via Blgsim



Thursday, 8 October 2009

CASAnova – An Educational Software for Heating and Cooling Energy Demand

The program CASAnova – An educational software for heating and cooling energy demand as well as the temperature behaviour in buildings can be used intuitively in order to understand the relations between building geometry, orientation, thermal insulation, glazing, solar heat gains, heating demand, heating and primary energy as well as overheating in summer.

casanova

The user of CASAnova can adjust and change more than 20 different parameters. All inputs in CASAnova are made with the mouse; to do this scrollbars and listboxes are at the user’s disposal. Calculations take place immediately after the modification of a parameter and results are immediately shown in the diagrams and the tables.

The calculation of heating demand is based on the European norm EN 832. CASAnova uses building shapes of rectangular form for which in a monthly balance transmission and ventilation losses as well as solar and internal gains are calculated. Heating demand is the difference between energy losses and energy gains of the building.

For determining the number of hours which are overheated in the considered building CASAnova uses a single-zone dynamical thermal model. Based on hourly data of the outside temperature and the solar heat gains through windows and walls, CASAnova calculates the useable solar heat gain as well as the transmission and ventilation losses of this zone. Together with the internal gains the balance of energy for an effective thermal mass is determined (i.e. energy losses and gains for the room-air including the heat which is stored up in an active part of the wall). According to the amount and the sign of this balance zone temperatures change with time. Finally, the number of hours is counted for which room-air temperatures exceed a comfort temperature limit given by the user.

For more info and to download the software go to the University of Siegen website ..

Via Blgsim



Thursday, 1 October 2009

Revit and SketchUp Connection for 3ds Max Design 2010

The Connection Extension for Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2010 design visualization software offers a range of new and enhanced connectivity features exclusively to Autodesk Subscription program customers.

Enhanced Interoperability with CAD Packages

Bring solid models from many of your favorite CAD packages into 3ds Max Design 2010 for visual enhancement and export them back when you’re done. A new, high-fidelity SAT data translator makes it easier for designers to move solids-based design data between 3ds Max Design and Autodesk Revit Architecture software, Autodesk Inventor Professional software, or third-party CAD products such as Solidworks, Rhino, and FormZ. The SAT translator offers:

  • Import of geometric boundary representation data for trimmed surfaces, solids models, and assemblies as 3ds Max “bodies” (boundary representations based on NURBS).
  • The ability to retain imported data as the mathematical description of the surface. Users can determine and modify the conversion to polygons at any time.

Extensive Connectivity with Google SketchUp
Develop a concept in Google SketchUp software, and finesse it in 3ds Max Design. The Connection Extension for 3ds Max Design 2010 features a powerful new SKP file translator that enables you to bring SketchUp scenes into 3ds Max Design with a high degree of data preservation. And 3ds Max Design can now read thousands of free SketchUp models from the 3D Warehouse section of the Google website. The SKP translator includes:

  • Support for the double-faced materials workflow available in SketchUp, so arbitrary surface orientations don’t cause models to appear to be missing faces when displayed in 3ds Max Design.
  • Preservation of original pivot and scaling values of objects and instances, so designers don’t have to redo work.
  • Consolidation of material references. Multiple uses of the same SketchUp material are collected and referenced back to a single material, saving designers time if a change is required.

Streamlined Compositing with OpenEXR
Create professional-quality cinematic narratives. A rewritten OpenEXR translator makes it easier to work with compositing applications, enabling you to seamlessly blend CG animation with live action footage. The OpenEXR plug-in includes:

  • Advanced options for transferring extra elements, such as camera information and scripted data, reducing the number of iterations required to achieve a final result.
    The ability to store render elements and G-buffer channels to EXR layers.


Intelligent Workflows

Save time and avoid costly geometry cleanup work with new, more effective workflows for dealing with complex scenes that enable you to:

  • Optimize display and rendering of imported solid and NURBS-based bodies.
  • Fix imported bodies with new repair tools.
  • Map the daylight system in SketchUp to the daylight system in 3ds Max Design, for a faster, more painless visualization workflow.
  • Select a layer from an OpenEXR file to use in a 3ds Max Design material. This functionality is similar to the way Adobe Photoshop software layers are used as textures in a material.

To download log on to your Autodesk subscription centre

Via Blgsim