Featured Blog Posts (784)

IKEA Begins Using 3D Product Rendering

If you’re a major retailer, what costs less – hiring a photographer, a creative director, and a full staff to create a variety of photos for your website, or hiring a 3D rendering company to digitally create all of the images that you’ll need to highlight your products?

That’s what IKEA recently did, when they transitioned a portion of its product photography from the studio to the digital screen. Instead of…

I have had days of almost endless drafting.  From pencil, assorted pens to that cruel mouse clicker and bright screens.  Of course there's the music that goes with it.  Some people I know can't work with something banging from loudspeakers.  Good thing my boss then, was always there to set up and play something upbeat to get us draftsmen into the groove.  If I was at that Drafting Jockey seat, I always preferred Rock Music more than anything else.  This does not mean that Rock Music always…

Plantagon is a large and impressive dome-shaped urban greenhouse, the namesake of Swedish-American company Plantagon.  Its goal is to dramatically change the way we provide food in…

Your door and window screens receive quite a beating without your prior knowledge. The door gets jolted every time it gets slammed closed. Screens are vulnerable to elements such as wind, rain, snow and sun. On the other hand, they get soiled by dust, dirt and grime and due to birds as well. Apart from these, there are several factors that impact the longevity of the screens such as your pets scratching at them, children forcing on them and so on. Door and window screens are really very…

The concept design behind the Star Performing Arts Center is the desire to blur the boundaries between retail and cultural zones, as well as indoor and outdoor spaces.   Located at Vista Xchange in Singapore,…

Cien House is the seven-storey monolithic live/work space of the architectural husband-and-wife team of Mauricio Pezo and Sofia von Ellrichshausen (Pezo von…

The concept of a “study cascade” is the design strategy of the new Medical and Graduate Education Building at Columbia University’s Medical Center.  A network of social and study spaces are distributed across oversized…

It’s a square!  It’s a triangle!  It’s a moving house!

D*Haus is a firm that has produced a range of architecture and design products based on the discovery that four distinct shapes can create both a square and an equilateral triangle,…

Sity is the dramatic proposal for a mixed-use structure that coils through Shangai’s city center, over a river and across a park.  Designed by the elusive land surveying company Sonik Module, Sity draws its form from the classic Chinese dragon.  The…

The Great British outdoors can be a harsh environment for street furniture. Yet sometimes it seems that councils and other public authorities make the same mistakes time and time again when it comes to furniture design and/or installation. What use is a bench that lists to one side?…

Created by Melbourne-based architectural and urban design practice Lyons, the Biosciences Research Building for the Australian…

There’s no running around naked in this house!

House NA by Sou Fujimoto Architects is a 914 square-foot transparent house.  It is comprised of 21 individual floor plates ranging from 18 to 21 square-feet, which can be used as…

The Zoomlion Exhibition Center is a shape-shifting building designed by California firm amphibianArc.  The exhibition center has a unique double-skin system:  an inner skin…

Mercabarna Flor is Barcelona’s 15,000 square-meter flower market.  The building by Willy Muller Architects is brightened by sections of brightly…

21 Cake is a popular gourmet cake shop in Bejing.  The colorful design for their 450-square-meter office by People’s Architecture Office plays with layering (like a cake!) the primary colors of red, yellow,…

Set to open its doors on November 9^th, the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University was designed by Zaha…

21st Century Oasis is the stunning proposal by Japanese practice Sou Fujimoto Architects in collaboration with Taiwanese firm Fei & Cheng Associates that won first prize last year in the Taiwan…

This unique design by Japanese firm Suppose Design Office is an ultra-modern take on traditional pit-dwelling houses.  The main floor of the House in Saijo is partially underground,…

The imposing Cottbus Library has an amoeba-like footprint and a glazed glass façade that is covered in repetitive white text and images.  The neutral-colored approach is…

This delicate timber structure holds some of Australia’s most powerful microscopes.  The Australian Institute for Innovative Materials (AIIM) Processing and Devices (P&D) Building at the University of Wollongong serves as a bridge connecting…