Featured Image Takeaway Design Strategy:

Use digital media as a tool to experiment with new forms, as well as their assembly. Then, see them from various perspectives as they morph through space. Be careful not to limit your design’s potential because of the digital tools you use. If there is a particular innovative design idea that you have — find a way to do it.

To Apply This Strategy, Ask Yourself:

Over recent years, digital media for architectural design has given way to a multitude of different 3D room design tools. As such, tools like 3D Studio Max, Rhino, Revit and now Twinmotion2 have entered the design field giving architects a new sort of “pen” with which to virtually “inK” their designs, not only to benefit their own design process — but to more quickly produce 3D room design still visualizations and walk-throughs to communicate those pivotal design decisions which they make to their clients.

3D Room Design Using Twinmotion2
Image: Creative Tools | Flickr

With this I ask, in what ways do digital media tools for architectural design bring value to the details within your projects — such as by making tangible that which is not yet realized? Also, what and why do you choose to model certain aspects of your design, and what do you do with that information to make your design even better?

As you begin to answer the above questions, I encourage you to read the following top seven ways in which 3D room design can help you make the details of your architectural design sing. Read more

New interactive tools are surfacing to help architects do their job better. One such tool is a multi touch 3-D architectural application which can be used as both an interactive table device and a larger scale screen projection. While I can see such devices being helpful to architects for brainstorming, project reviews, coordination meetings, and client presentations, we really should ask — is this just another “cool” device? Or, does it really help architects like you to do your job better?

Before we go on to talk further about the application technology, I think it best to show you a glimpse of what such multi-touch devices can do:

As you can see, 3-D visualizations are developing past solely working with still renderings or even scripted and locked in place animations — which today mostly run as “replays” of camera movements that serve to walk someone through a space along a predesignated path. But what makes these new multi touch virtual reality environments even more helpful is that they give architects the ability to Read more

Image: Tor Lindstrand | Flickr
The use of different game engines to explore interfaces between gaming and the production of space.
--- by Tor LIndstrand (Production of Architecture)

I think it is interesting for you as an architect to take a look at another dimension of something you use everyday — the computer. More specifically, think of how you typically work to design your own visualizations of a building design for the future.

Perhaps you start with real world challenges and work backwards from them to come up with your masterpiece. But what if, instead, you could just have a “design playground” of sorts, in which to hone your design skills and let your problem solving skills sharpen — without the constant constraints from your typical “real-world” way of working. What if you could engage in an “architectural gaming environment”?

In an interesting talk given by Jane McGonigal, entitled Gaming Can Make a Better World, she shares the idea that so many people are gaming today, and so many more will be gaming in the future, that it only stands to our benefit to capitalize upon this tremendous resource which is building exponentially right now. In the video below, you will hear how she describes the unique qualities that gamers have (like the ability to get up and try again when attempts don’t work, coupled with their “tight-knit social fabric” which can give them a collective edge).

In the video, McGonigal states that gamers actually are a resource with untapped potential to solve some of the world’s biggest problems. And since gamers have certain innate qualities that are developed and honed over so much time spent gaming, they develop certain characteristics or qualities that make them an invaluable resource to help with Read more

Image: lumaxart | Flickr

New technologies and tools are surfacing faster and faster these days, and one that has major impact and momentum is BIM, a digital media tool which allows architects to create a virtual building information model.

Such BIM design technologies are contributing to what some say will lead to major paradigm shifts for architecture firms — namely in the way architects engage in their own design process as well as the ability to foster greater collaboration between clients, contractors and consultants.

BIM design tools will allow for great detail in virtual building models, where an architectural design will will come together in more meaningful and cross-collaborative ways — beyond anything typical AutoCAD models have been able to do thus-far.

Such BIM visualization tools allow for much more, like the ability to model a building with everything from partitions, to plumbing and HVAC systems. Furthermore, BIM design will also allow architectural team members to study light and energy before the building is ever built. And yet, it does still more.

As the article entitled “BIM Me Up, Scotty” explains, this kind of Building Information Model can work with applications which allow you, as an architect, to run what is called “clash detection“. This can go a long way toward preventing design problems and conflicts, large and small, very early on in the design process. This works by allowing computer processes to check the model against certain rules like code regulations, accessibility requirements and even structural system issues. Wouldn’t you want to know about such problems early on in your design process, as opposed to finding out about them later on?…when they cost more money and are more difficult to fix.

What Does BIM Design Mean for Your Creative Process?

At present, many architects work with digital media tools like 3D Studio Max, AutoCAD, Revit and Rhino for computer visualizations and modeling. However, BIM has the potential and power to bring a new dimension to your world of architectural design, perhaps helping to further empower your firm.

By being able to model your building in such great detail early on in your design process, you will be able to reduce Read more

Image: Ben Chau | Flickr

Throughout your architectural design process it is often the case that you need different tools at different points in time as you design. While some tools help you to visualize what goes on during your personalized architecture process, others help you to visualize what will go on within your final building design. So, what happens when these two worlds start to merge? Will your design visualizations be as immersive as the actual methods you use to communicate your designs to clients and other team members?

At different phases during your design process you explore different things. You engage in different levels of refinement and you solve an array of problems and questions that all have project-wide consequences and effects. You probably use a combination of both digital media information visualizations and 3D modeling methods. In fact, many architects today are delving into 4D information modeling techniques involving BIM leading-edge tools.

Whatever the case, it is paramount that your digital media design tools help to streamline your own architecture process. And a key to this is to make sure these tools are intuitive and promote creative thinking.

Digital Media Tools that Dig into the Minds of Your Occupants

Design project tools that reduce redundancy, error and cost during your architectural design process can go a long way toward increasing the quality and reducing the cost of your building — while also increasing the actual speed with which you can design. But there are a few things that come to mind when questioning how these tools can evolve, to get even better.

What if your architectural design tool could also help you extract Read more

Image: courtneyBolton | Flickr

When designing, do you begin with a preconceived idea of what your final design will look and feel like? Do you gain inspiration and insight from things that surround you, like nature or someone else’s design? Or do you start a design not knowing what your own creative process will give birth to? In other words ——

As you design do you work toward an “end vision” or do you take on a more “experimental” design approach where you test design outcomes? Do you predominantly do one of these, or both?

These are interesting and important questions to ask yourself, whether you are a seasoned architect or are just beginning your journey as an architectural designer — particularly because as new technologies and design paradigm shifts present themselves, you should want to be well equipped to engage in both at the right times and in the right ways during your design efforts.

New Design Technology Tools Can Enhance Your Design Process

Yes, you can crunch through various design schemes and options at speeds limited by the quickness of your design abilities and your computer technologies, but as an architect it is your responsibility to become the best critic of your own work, especially as new Read more

An amazing new prototype called Siftables, developed at the MIT media Lab, merges the worlds of digital media and physical interfaces. The main idea behind them is to get virtual information into your hands (literally) by using a “block-like” natural interface that transcends beyond our prototypical mouse and keyboards. Siftables are designed to be more in tune with the way we actually navigate through the world.

Each Siftable is about the size of a “cookie” that works and feels like you are, in fact, playing with toy blocks. Each block can sense the others as they are moved around and tilted by their user. Essentially, this allows for a type of collaboration between the Siftables so they can work individually and together within their group’s system.

To see Siftables for yourself, simply watch the following video and imagine how Read more

Image: Norebbo | Dreamstime

We all know that computer technology has done a lot to advance not only the way the design process can work, but also to improve the constructed outcome of that design process.

That’s why I think it’s important to shed some light on what “aural renderings” can do. (1) You, as an architect, can actually listen to a designed space as built to the parameters of your three dimensional CAD model. Here is a detailed description of the process that goes into creating such an aural rendering: Read more

“HOW WILL THAT SOUND?”

Architectural acoustics are an important part of architectural design. Architects should be asking themselves “how will that sound?” throughout the design process. That is why the tool “LISTEN” has potential to positively impact the architectural design process. By allowing architects to analyze and trial listen to environments, built works can be aurally simulated to hear how they would sound in reality.

BUILDING AN AURAL 3D MODEL

The aural simulation project called “LISTEN” is a simulation for the design of aural environments. By using this tool, architects would be able to Read more