Positioned between robust LEGO-style systems made for easy reuse and refined architectural models that are fragile but permanent, this modeling kit is both a design tool for professionals and rendering mechanism to convey space and materiality to clients.

Using 1:48 scale, the modular pieces that come with ARCKIT are compatible with conventional imperial measurements (easy inch-to-foot conversions) but also close to 1:50 for metric purposes and compatible with scale trees, furniture and figures already sold to architectural professionals. Different textures can be overlaid on surfaces to create realistic material effects, simulating wood panels, tile floors, stone walls and more.

Easy to attach then disassemble, the pieces strike a balance between process and product, letting users reshape them as a design evolves. The physical blocks also have SketchUp-compatible digital analogs, allowing designers to shift back and forth between 3D modeling software and physical construction.

Anyone who has spent time on an architectural model knows that so much effort goes into measuring, cutting, gluing and waiting – the idea here is to reduce that frustration but also free up designers from feeling too committed to a lovingly-crafted physical model, reducing incentive to iterate. At the same time, this system is also accessible to non-professionals, both kids and adults, already being compared by many to physical toys (like LEGO) and digital games (like Minecraft).

“ARCKIT is a freeform model making system that allows you to physically explore designs and bring your architectural projects to life. The system uses interconnecting components that are completely modular and based on modern panelled building techniques, making it possible to create a diverse range of scaled structures that can be quickly assembled and endlessly modified.”

Facing down the difficult challenge of creating an ever-changing urban gaming environment, this digital designer went with a cheap alternative that is aesthetically compelling and could have impacts beyond cyberspace.

The game, Project Sprawl, is something of a cross between the Grand Theft Auto series and classic roll-playing games, but most critically: its metropolitan context needs to be dynamic and full of surprises, evolving over time like a real city.

Low on funds and looking for cheaper and easier world-building solution than stock skylines or fully-custom options could provide, Cedric Kerr “decided to develop software that could auto-generate complex cities, from street maps to skyscraper architecture, for his characters to inhabit.”

As these animated illustrations show, there are rules to the way the generative algorithm constructs buildings – starting with a simple baseline, windows and doors, cantilevers and split facades morph and evolve in mesmerizing ways.

From Wired, “The solution to Kerr’s urban planning problem came in the form of Unity, a game engine often used to design game worlds from the size of a room to entire solar systems. The result was a set of building blocks that could be pulled and stretched in any direction with facades that would update in real time. Kerr could quickly sketch an outline of a foundation and in seconds have a unique building automatically populated with windows, doors, and other architectural details.”

The result of this project is a kind of architectural vocabulary that could be useful for deconstructing architecture, creating simulations or generating backdrops for conceptual projects. From Kerr: “the idea is that each building is decomposed into a set of rules forming a grammar that describes each stage of the process. These rules are hierarchical so a building is made up of facades, facades are made up of floors, floors are made up of tiles, tiles contain windows and so on.”

Using a handheld stylus and tablet set combined with an existing augmented reality headset, this invention allows users to sketch in three dimensions and see the results of their work unfold in realtime.

Created by a group of students from the Royal College of Art, the interface is made to be as intuitive as a sketchpad or 2D drawing tablet – anyone should be able to pick it up and simply start doodling. It can be connected to various visualization devices, including the virtual reality simulator Oculcus Rift.

Per Dezeen, “As the user draws above the clear acrylic sketchpad, radio signals are used to track the movements of the stylus from coordinates on the pad. These are sent to an Arduino board – an open source prototyping device containing a micro controller – which is contained in a black panel that forms one edge of the pad.”

A combination of gestures and buttons allows users to tilt their drawings to work on them from various angles and shift the planes being worked on as well. Critically, though, the basic tool set is familiar in its function and thus user-friendly – a pad and pen, essentially, with expanded functionality.

A great deal of physical modeling and prototyping went into the design of the device including physical stands that allowed Gravity’s creators to simulate the kinds of conditions they sought to replicate in digital space. In turn, the three-dimensional drawings created via the device can be input into 3D printers, completing the circuit.