Video> Create a 3-D Model Out of a Series of Photographs
123D Catch preview. (Courtesy Autodesk)
Imagine snapping away at a favorite building, fountain, or desktop tchotchke, then uploading your photos to that super-computer in the sky we call the cloud, and after a just few short minutes being presented with a detailed three-dimensional digital model. That future, it appears, is finally here. Core 77 tipped us off that a new product by Autodesk called 123D Catch performs that basic photo-to-3D-model conversion, and the best part (if you’re running a PC) is that you can try out the beta version for free. We’re on Macs here at The Architect’s Newspaper HQ so we haven’t had a chance to test drive the software ourselves, but if it’s anything like Autodesk’s slick video demonstration (after the jump), we’ll be sending our photo archive cloud-side soon!
Unveiled> Seoul Cloud by MVRDV
Rendering of the Cloud at night. (Courtesy MVRDV)
Seoul’s Yongsan International Business District, a new district designed to lift the city’s architectural appeal as an international business destination, is filled with wild promises: the world’s second tallest tower (‘Dream Tower’) to be completed by 2016, the Libeskind-designed, 28-trillion-won ($22.6-billion) ’Dreamhub’ project, and now MVRDV’s The Cloud.
Help Decide Lego’s Next Architecture Model
Will Habitat 67 be the next Lego Architecture Model? (Bill Dutfield)
Lego is giving architecture fans the chance to vote for the next model in its Architecture Series. Among the expected architectural wonders, like the Coliseum and the Eiffel Tower, more modern choices include Foster and Partners’ 30 St. Mary’s Axe (aka The Gherkin), Moshe Safdie’s Habitat 67, and Santiago Calatrava’s Turning Torso. Current structures in the series—which began in the 60′s but was discontinued until recently— include Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, SOM’s Burj Khalifa, and Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House.
Researchers Develop Robot-Powered Flight Assembled Architecture
A robot placing a brick. (Courtesy Gramazio & Kohler and Raffaello D’Andrea with ETH Zurich)
Finally, one of our classic futurist expectations (something you might see in Futurama) is about to be fulfilled: architecture assembled by a swarm of flying robots. With robots apparently planning a takeover of the construction industry, how long until the iconic yet dangerous “Lunch atop a Skyscraper” (from the 1930s) is a thing of the past?
Mallorca Marvel: LA Architects Wrap Resort In Futuristic Seaweed
The patterned facade will create dappled interior light (LH&E)
Yes, that is a waterfall running down the building (LH&E)Los Angeles firm tec Architecture and Dutch interior designer Marcel Wanders are partnering to create Kameha Bay Portals, a luxury resort and spa in Mallorca, Spain set to open early in 2013. Located on the island’s posh south coast, the building will take shape out of a nondescript 1960′s concrete building, but according to tec Architecture the 55,000 square foot project is more a reinvention than a renovation.
Unveiled> A BIG Glassy Box for Paris, Sort Of
BIG's design for the University of Jussieu in Paris. (Courtesy BIG)
In Bjarke Ingels‘ traditional style, what started as a standard box of a building for Paris’ Université Pierre et Marie Curie has been lifted, bent, and deformed to maximize light, sight lines, and air flow for a cramped urban site. Ingels’ firm BIG and Paris-based OFF recently won won a competition to design the new multidisciplinary research center called Paris PARC to reunite the university’s campus with the surrounding city including Jean Nouvel’s adjacent Institut du Monde Arabe and the nearby Notre Dame Cathedral.
Unveiled> Angkasa Raya Tower in Kuala Lumpur
The Angkasa Raya tower proposed for Kuala Lumpur. (Courtesy Buro OS)
Ole Scheeren, a former partner at Rem Koolhaas’ OMA who broke away to start his own firm (Buro OS) in March 2010, has unveiled his latest project in Kuala Lumpur: an 880-foot-tall mixed-use tower called the Angkasa Raya. Adjacent to Cesar Pelli’s Petronas Twin Towers, once the world’s tallest, Scheeren’s new 65-story project progresses a skyscraper typology of stacked volumes made popular at OMA.
Video> It’s 11:11 on 11/11/11
By our watch here at The Architect’s Newspaper HQ, it’s 11:11:11 a.m. on 11/11/11. We’re pretty excited that the date and time looks a little like a miniature Manhattan skyline! Continuing on our theme of absurdity (previously, architectural models), check out this delightful video put together by the New York-based Koren Ensemble to commemorate this special day. Some say so many 11′s is certainly a lucky event, so be sure to make a wish when the clock strikes 11:11 the second time around.
Pictorial> Models Capture the Surreal and Absurd
Tennis half-pipe. (Courtesy Frank Kunert)
German photographer Frank Kunert is out to challenge your sense of perception and expectation with his meticulously crafted and hilariously absurd miniature scenes. His series “Photographs of Small Worlds” presents glimpses into mundane vignettes gone awry, where doors don’t meet balconies, diving boards lead to giant toilets, or an office is eerily underwater. Each model takes weeks—and sometimes months—to build, and Kunert is a perfectionist who won’t stop until every detail is just right. The end result is well worth the wait.
The World’s Best Tall Building Doesn’t Have to be the Tallest
KfW Westarkade in Frankfurt, Germany. (Spiegelneuronen / Flickr)
The Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) sought out a deep understanding of sustainability and contextualization in selecting the Best Tall Building of 2011. This year’s worldwide winner, while hardly as tall as last year’s winning Burj Khalifa, went to the KfW Westarkade tower in Frankfurt Germany. The 184-foot-tall tower is projected to use half as much energy as a typical European office building and only a third the energy of a standard U.S. building. The 10th-annual awards ceremony took place November 3 at a distinctly horizontal building in Chicago, Mies van der Rohe’s Crown Hall.
The WAF Winner Is
Marlon Blackwell's Saint Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church in Arkansas
The World Architecture Festival is wrapping up its fourth iteration and AN has been there since the beginning as official United States media sponsor. We have seen it grow from a small mostly British bash in Barcelona to a truly international competition and trade show with over 1,400 participants from 68 countries. One of the functions of our participation is that I serve as official judge in one of the event’s 15 short-listed categories for best built project (plus there are ten categories for unrealized projects). This year I served with Michigan University’s architecture dean Monica Ponce de Leon and Barcelona architect Fermin Vazquez as jurors in the Civic and Community group. We were asked to select the best of show in the category with the winner going on to the final round where it is considered by a super jury including Michael Sorkin, Jo Noera, Odile Decq (who sadly was stuck in China) and engineer wizard Tim Macfarlane.
Zombie Apocalypse Now: Voting Ends on Halloween
There's No Need To Run. (Courtesy Zombie Safe House)
It’s going to happen when you least suspect it: the zombie apocalypse will be upon us and your life will be in your own hands against the living dead (that’s assuming hours behind a studio desk hasn’t already transformed you into a zombie yourself). Luckily, as architecture-types, we possess special skills needed to defend ourselves from those out for our brains. A fantastic display of anti-zombie ingenuity is on display at the 2011 Zombie Safe House Competition, like the above proposal to retrofit existing urban buildings against a future zombie invasion (with a green roof, no less), and you can vote for your favorite. (Here’s last year’s winner: a floating dwelling sailing the Mighty Mississippi.) This year’s voting ends this Monday—Halloween—when you’ll likely encounter a few rogue zombies wandering the streets.
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