A new hologram table has its sights set on the ultimate prize: an interactive and immersive experience that can shared from multiple angles by different users, all without clunky headgear.

Developed by Euclideon Holographics and retailing for just shy of $50,000, the table lets up to four people interface simultaneously with augmented reality images. Motion-tracking glasses are the key to the holographic effect — “frequency separation crystal films in the lens and on the table surface filter jumbled light into a stereo image, similarly to how your standard 3D glasses work.”

Behind the scenes, though, the computerized table has to calculate where each set of glasses is located and, accordingly, where to emit light. Right now, the company has a single working prototype but is raising funds to mass-market the devices by early 2018. Architects and planners, for instance, are sure to be interested in new ways to show clients their designs in new three-dimensional ways. Larger models are also in the planning stages, as well as versions designed for gaming and other applications — the company aims to gain traction in arcades around the world.

Among other things, this breakthrough hints at a future much like the ones we’ve seen for decades in science fiction — the more work that can be packed in on the computing side, the less inconvenient the attire and equipment needed by those interacting with the holograms.

Used by architects and engineers, Autocad and other computer-aided design (CAD) programs have a long history as boring and blunt instruments of drafting, but this architectural illustrator has breathed new life into these drawing and rendering tools.

Fabiola Morcillo Núñez is a young Chilean architect who builds imaginary landscapes inspired by exotic architecture and pop art, a sort of modern-day Escher intent on blurring the improbable with impossible.

Many of her scenes play on elements believable at first look, like a deconstructed isometric or axonometric drawing of a house … but on fire, or flooded or featuring an impossible room or staircase.

“Architecture as a discursive tool has helped me a lot in constructing my own form of representation,” she says of her work. She is interested in deconstruction, spatial limitations, layers and multiplicity.

Her pieces borrow from various sources of inspiration in the media and world around her: “I like to take several references, be alert to life itself, be very observant and have a broad sense of understanding of beauty and the tools of creation that are presented throughout the day, for example; the internet, books, movies, the street, travel, personal stories, aesthetic preferences, dreams, philosophy etc.”

Beyond her artistic explorations, Fabiola’s work is an implicit statement about how the tools we use, even the ones with less-rich histories of creative expression, can be turned to new and inspiring purposes.

As part of The Next Rembrandt, a multi-year collaborative project, a team of engineers trained a computer not only to understand the works of this famous Dutch master but also to expand his portfolio. Ultimately, the machine created a portrait that is at once brand new and yet also looks (and feels) like a lost original work of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn.

An incredible combination of both machine learning and 3D printing, the project involved digitally tagging data in scanned versions of the artist’s various known pieces. Resulting patterns were subsequently explored by computers, including: brush strokes, approaches to organic detail and uncanny ability to depict human emotions.

The result is an algorithmic creation that mirrors the style of the master and depicts a Caucasian male in his thirties, with facial hair, black clothes, a white collar and a hat, facing to one side.

Humans input those general parameters, but did not have a say in the look or feel of the final print. A 3D texture was added to the work based on the height and depth of paint applied to Rembrandt’s actual works.

The two-year project was a collaboration between Microsoft, financial firm ING, Delft University of Technology and two Dutch art museums – Mauritshuis and Rembrandthuis. A public exhibition of the portrait is planned and details of the display will be released at a later date.

From the project creators: “It’s been almost four centuries since the world lost the talent of one its most influential classical painters, Rembrandt van Rijn. To bring him back, we distilled the artistic DNA from his work and used it to create The Next Rembrandt. We examined the entire collection of Rembrandt’s work, studying the contents of his paintings pixel by pixel. To get this data, we analyzed a broad range of materials like high resolution 3D scans and digital files, which were upscaled by deep learning algorithms to maximize resolution and quality. This extensive database was then used as the foundation for creating The Next Rembrandt.”

With downtown densification usually comes a lack of light in surrounding spaces, leading one architecture firm to develop the world’s first algorithm-driven strategy to allow a tower to fully shed its shadow. Architects of NBBJ developed this set of adjacent skyscrapers that work in tandem to eliminate shade year-round in the spaces between them, proposing the pair for a prominent site in central London. As the simulation of No Shadow Tower illustrates below, considerations are made for all times of day, reflecting the passage of the sun through the sky from dawn until dusk.

The model inputs are complex, using real sun-tracking data tied to a specific location (though easily changed) but also taking into account everything from basic physics and structural engineering to public spaces and programmatic functions for building users. At the same time, considerations must be made for diffusing any reflected light to avoid creating obnoxious glare or even lighting adjacent spaces, vehicles or objects on fire. Fortunately, it is easier than ever to 3D model as well as implement a complex building shape with custom 3D-printed parts, as architects like Frank Gehry have increasingly demonstrated in recent years.

This proposal was inspired by the rapid growth of skyscrapers in areas like London, where 250 are currently planned or in progress, and New York City, where residents are resisting tall buildings that would cast long shadows over Central Park. Large-scale sunlight reflection can be found in built environments already, such as a mountain town in Norway found frequently or for long periods in shade during cold and dark winter months. Conversely, structures in hot climates could also be shaped to deflect sun from occupied spaces during warm summer months – shade and shadows, sunlight and heat can all be shaped, in short, for different environmental needs and conditions.

In this case, of course, the reflector is itself a building, which of course then casts a shadow of its own – arguably a limitation of the scheme applied in other places (in this instance the second structure’s shadow would fall over water). However, a series of structures could conceivably cancel shadows in sequence, creating multi-block solutions if designed in a coordinated fashion, the shape of each informed by the needs of the previous one in the series. Moreover, this is not just about elimination but control – the ability to redirect sun and shade dynamically through design rather than letting it be a byproduct of accidental shapes. Whether or not this particular pair of structures makes it past the conceptual phase, the idea behind them is powerful and the attitude could be applied more readily by (heat- and) light-sensitive architects down the line.

An interdisciplinary team of architects and material specialists is developing a commercially-viable 3D-printing machine capable of creating complex objects using one of the planet’s most ubiquitous building materials. This interdisciplinary group aims to bridge the gap between what can be modeled via three-dimensional rendering software and what can be manufactured in reality.

(Norman) Foster + Partners are working with Skanska and Loughborough University as well as various industry contractors on this 3D-printing project. Their primary joint goal is reduce the time (from weeks to hours) and thus increase the options available for the on-site deployment of concrete, in turn creating new possibilities for one of planet’s most ubiquitously-used building materials.

Essentially, a computer-controlled robotic arm lays down layers of concrete, each building on the previous according to a programmed sequence. A highly-controlled extrusion of cement-based mortar, precisely positioned according to computer data, and obviates the need for solid material inputs.

Currently, a phase two prototype has already been built (its products demonstrated above) and the team is working on a newer and more-mobile version able to create high-complexity shapes both on and off construction sites.

The results so far are promising: structurally-robust forms that would be difficult if even possible to create via conventional cast-in-place or precast concrete construction techniques.