Plasma Studio : Hotel Puerta America, 4th Floor

The Design of the fourth floor of Hotel Puerta America by Plasma Studio

The deisgn is based on creating a series of crystallized space, with fractured and distorted rooms and hallways.





View the blog post by architecture.mnp for further info.

LTL’s Architectural Illustrations

Some of the presentation illustrations by LTL Architects


ENVISIONING HUDSON SQUARE




PARK TOWER




TOURBUS HOTEL

Further info check out the blog post by architecture.mnp

A Real House Designed Like a Toilet

The Toilet-Shaped house is in fact named Haewoojae, which signifies in Korean "a place of sanctuary where one can solve one’s worries". The Toilet-Shaped House has a very unique design, and was built by Sim Jae-duck, the chairman of the organizing committee of the Inaugural General Assembly of the World Toilet Association, and he hopes his toilet house will highlight the global need for better sanitation.

Click here to view a blog post by architecture.mnp and here to view a blog post by freeshome.com

30+ Mind Mapping Tools

We all need to organize our thoughts sometimes, and there seems to be no better way to do it than in a visual fashion. Mashable has got a list of 30+ mind mapping tools to help you do just that. And since some of you are on a budget, they've listed free and paid suggestions for you.

View the list click here.

Online auto-tracing tool (converts bitmaps to vector art)

Stanford University research project on converting bitmap images to vector art, aka "auto tracing" or "automatic vectorization". Similar to Adobe Illustrator's Live Trace and CorelDRAW's PowerTRACE but works better in many cases. Upload image and get a converted result (EPS/SVG) in a few moments.

read more | digg story

Digital House

The Digital House is the culmination of two-and-a-half years of research and development by the architects Bell Travers Willson, made possible by funding from the London Development Agency, with the aim of enhancing traditional house building through the use of digital technology.

Article can be found here

Creating a Stunning Digital Smoke Effect [ Tutorial ]

In this tutorial we are going to show you how to easily create digital abstract smoke using Illustrator and Photoshop. One of the best things about this technique is that it’s very customizable and you can do it pretty quickly.

Another tutorial of creating a smoke effect can be found here.

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Top 100 Architecture Blogs

International Listings have posted a list of the Top 100 Architecture Blogs. They can be viewed here.

Microsoft Virtual Earth offers 3D building capability

Microsoft and Dassault Systemes have released a 3D building application for Virtual Earth.

The application willlet people create 3D objects with textures and colours and share them with one another online. Basically, similar to 3D Warehouse.

The models can also be tagged with real-life addresses or town information so that they can be viewed in Virtual Earth as they would be on a map.

Building Energy Analysis Tool for Sketchup

Greenspace Research have developed an extension on a building energy analysis tool for SketchUp which is currently at its Beta stage.

The tool expands the benefits of using SketchUp for early conceptual design integrating the power of Green Building Studio's energy report system.

The system is based around the Green Building XML schema, referred to as “gbXML”, developed to facilitate the transfer of building information stored in CAD building information models.

Below is a video showing an insight of the plugin being used:

Online Photoshop Express

Below is a video showing a demonstration on the new online based photoshop called photoshop express which will be launched soon. This particular application will fully be a flash-based image editior and will run inside a web browser.

The application focusses at consumers rather than proffesional developers however; it would be a faster and a much efficient way in editing images online especially when you using internet cafes while traveling. Im just not sure about the speed due to the application being all flash-based.

Google Earth's Flight SImulator

Google Earth has a flight simulator feature which can be used by holding Ctrl-Alt-A tobring up the flight simulator and after that, Ctrl-A or a selection from the tools menu activates it. I found the simulator quite slow but interesting to navigate in 3D.

Space Navigator

Space Navigator is a new product by 3Dconnexion which allows you to navigate easily through 3D appications such as Google Earth. It makes it easier to zoom, pan and rotate when viewing 3D imagery as shown below:



Below is a presentation showing how it works:

Architecture professor uses virtual world to teach collaboration

Checkout this article: City Turns New Leaf in Second Life. It shows how Architecture Professors are using second life as a tool to teach students how collaboration can be achieved.

Architectural Visualisation from Neorama

Neorama is a Brazilian and an international provider of Architectural Visualisation solutions. There vision is one of 'a constant search for a sharp and accurate creative vision, allying art and technology to reinforce property features and values'. Below are animations created by Neorama:





They are now moving into second life architectural visualisation as represented by there recent completion of project on Dellano in second life which to me looks a bit like the farnsworth house.

Further info visit Digital Urban blog post.

Microsoft's new search interface called Tafiti

Mocrosoft has just released a new search engine interface called Tafiti. It users microsoft silverlight technology and live search to enable interactive searching. It also enables the viewer to save searched information such as images, rss feeds, etc. Below is a video showing Microsoft's Tafiti in action:

Google Earth Launches Galaxies

A new version of Google Earth has been launched which includes galaxies. You get a 3D view of all the constellations viewable from earth, and you can explore them in 3D. 100 million stars and 200 million galaxies are included. Belowis a video showing the new features of GE v4.2:



Further info visit webware blog post on GE.

Reflexive Architecture

Reflexive architecture is a new direction within the world of virtual architecture whereby the building elements are responsive to the presence of a person.Below is a video showing a gallery of reflexive architecture on Second Life explored by Keystone Bouchard.



Further info visit ARCH blog post on reflexive architecture. For further sources on reflexive architecture click here.

Web 1.0 vs Web 2.0: A Visual Difference

For those who do not understand the difference between web 1.0and web 2.0 below is an image which shows a visual difference between the two rather than finding wordy definitions which do not make too much sense.



Further info visit sizlopedia blog post.

Hyposurface

Hyposurface is a new interactive 3 dimensional moving wall surface which is mainly used to display advertising. It uses a powerful 'information bus' technology to control many thousands of moving objects and allowing high speed movememnt in real time off the screen surface. Below are videos showing the new product in action:





Further info visit Hyposurface website and architecture.mnp blog post.

Embedding Google Mymaps Directly

As my earlier post showed how to embedd Google Maps into your website or blog using other external websites or sources. Google Maps NOW has this feature directly available from today as represented by the image below which shows where it is located:



Further info visit Digital Urban blog post.

Steven Holl's Linked Hybrid Project in Beijing

Steven Holl's Linked Hybrid project in Beijing is quite a good example of a sustainable design. The project consists of several buildings linked together to create a city within a city. Some of its sustanability features include green roof gardens, geo thermal wells to heat and cool the building and a recycled grey water pond.

Below is a presentation in two parts showing the architecture of the design and its green features.





Further info visit architecture.mnp blogspot which shows a great deal of green architecture features of the project.

Holographic Technology

Holographic Technology is a developing technology which displays a projection of an image in mid air. Heliodisplay is a product on the market developed by I02 Technology which displays video images and projects it into free-space or mid air. The video below shows an overview of the product developed.



For further info visit Digital Urban blogpost which shows the recent development of holographic technology in detail and how it can be used to produce digital cities and virtual world interactively.

Dubai Waterfront

Dubai's waterfront is proposed to be the largest waterfront development in the world. The project includes many groups and organizations working collaboratively in order to develop the project by creating various management processes such as feasibility studies. Below is a promotional video showing Dubai Waterfront development and planning.



For further info visit Digital Urban blog post.

Understanding some powerful web 2.0 tools

Some of the web 2.0 tools such as social bookmarking and RSS feeds are difficult to understand. Below are two videos showing what social bookmarking is and what RSS is in plain english.





Fo further info and more videos on web 2.0 tools visit commoncraft or there YouTube videos