For the love of flesh and bone, or part to whole relationships, an interactive spatial investigation of anatomy is available for free via the visible body. One is able to hide or ghost different body systems in layers down to highly specific arteries, bones or organs.

Note: The ability exists to use OpenGL vs. DirectX depending on your graphics card.

Pretty amazing.

http://www.visiblebody.com

MS

Here is an image of a screen system I have been developing (rendered with a little 50’s newspaper panache) for a project that I have had the pleasure of helping out on. Pretty straight forward, I think the image speaks for itself, but simply put, the screen tries to achieve depth on a flat façade.

The ultimate goal is to accommodate the multiple scales and gradients of its locale (suburban Moscow) through the use of a panelized screen that can be manipulated to achieve varied effects textually and materially that may respond to program elements of the office behind it. As cost can never be overlooked the screen uses only one panel size, and the effect is achieved simply by spacing the panels differently on vertical struts that run the height of the curtain wall.

The buildings abut end-to-end such that the surface condition can both wrap the corner, and translate across from building to building.

I think all too often we associate “random paneling” with “interesting”, in lieu of actually taking advantage of inherent relationships.

All images copyright NBBJ, LLC 2007

There are a few times when something comes along and kicks you in the ass, and you say, “man, that’s truly amazing.” (See: live child birth, Rocky IV, etc.) Although perhaps, not in the same tier as live child birth, Microsoft Live Labs has been developing an application called Photosynth, which “takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space.” It is more or less a hijacked, 3D version of all those sweet collage panoramas you made from site visits with your 35mm, only now each picture is given a point value in space, and you can move through it as if you were there. If the simultaneity of speed and quality can be maintained (each picture is able to be zoomed in on for progressively higher resolutions), then this is bang-up.

Quite incredible, and I think the potential implications are fairly evident as to what this could mean for the ways photos are used and spaces visualized. As architects, I think also far reaching, not only in terms of the documentation of existing space, but virtual space through renderings.

Czech out the demo here, and the TED talk below…

MS

It was recently announced that Mecanoo architecten has won the design competition for the new National Performing Arts Centre. At 100,000 m2 the National Performing Arts Centre is to become the largest theatre complex in Taiwan. An important source of inspiration for Mecanoo’s building design were the existing banyan trees on location.

Banyans are trees that usually start life as a seedling growing on another tree (or on structures like buildings and bridges), where a fig-eating bird has deposited the seed. The roots descend over the trunk of the host, seeking out the soil below. Once they have rooted into this, the fig roots rapidly thicken and (become wooden). Where the fig roots cross each other they fuse, thus creating a lattice around the host tree trunk. The fig competes with its host for light, water and nutrients, while its roots prevent the host trunk from growing. Eventually the host dies and rots away, leaving the fig self supporting as an ordinary tree, but with a tubular lattice of lignified roots instead of a trunk.

What’s most interesting to me, however, is the way the design is conveyed through the renderings. I think it is fair to say that we have seen a shift in architectural discourse and practice to preferencing the rendering as the most important drawing. While we still rely on orthographics and projections for literally realizing a design, we have come to recognize that as much as modernism was captured in the plan and PoMo in the isometric drawing, we have begun to capture our projects’ essence through rendering. The caveat in this is the degree to which the client becomes attached to specifics within the rendering due to the degree of realism, which is why the Mecanoo drawings presented here are so deft in the was they are deployed. Not only does the pink convey to us vague references about banyan foliage, but also interior experience, and the potentials therein. It does so through a combination of realism and abstraction that leaves room for development, yet a place to return to when honing the project.

MS

Update: Per the previous comments, I found some great animations on YouTube: