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To boost profits and help sell its large-scale projects, architectural mega-firm HKS is turning to, of all things, video game technology.
The Dallas group, whose clients include Whole Foods Market (WFMI), W Hotels (HOT), JCPenney (JCP), and the Ritz-Carlton, and whose projects in construction total $19.7 billion, announced in October, 2007, that it had licensed Unreal Engine 3, a powerful image processing tool that will help its architects produce detailed interactive environments of future projects.
Made by Raleigh (N.C.)-based Epic Games, Unreal Engine allows developers to cut down the time it takes to create complex graphics and game play.
Over the past decade the technology has been used in the production of best sellers such as Gears of War and Mass Effect, churning out increasingly sophisticated polygonal images of all types, from futuristic space stations to hyper-realistic blood and guts.
Applied to architectural models, it is helping HKS generate additional revenues of $65,000 to $150,000 per project.
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www.bus... (122)
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Senay GOKCEN
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Ceramic Tiles of Italy is now accepting entries for their 15th annual Design Competition.
The competition celebrates outstanding examples of contemporary American design featuring fabulous Italian ceramic tiles.
North American architects and interior designers are invited to submit residential, commercial and institutional projects completed between January 2003 and January 2008.
Entries may be submitted for domestic and international new construction and renovation projects.
Winners in each category will receive a cash prize of $5,000 and a trip to Coverings, which will be held in Orlando, Florida from April 29th- May 2nd, 2008.
Winners will also be treated to a 5-day trip to Cersaie 2008, the world's largest exhibition for ceramic tile and bathroom furnishings, and join a delegation of leading design media journalists.
The organization will once again offer an additional $1,000 to be shared by the winning contractor / distributor team.
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www.til... (376)
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Levent OZLER
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The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art [SMoCA] announces a major design competition and public exhibition, "Flip a Strip."
This innovative project will foster creative, new visions for the renovation of the small-scale strip shopping plazas that line the streets of this metropolitan area-and virtually every suburban zone in the country.
"Flip a Strip" continues SMoCA's commitment to creating a forum for public issues of both local and national importance and to generating ideas that better the quality of civic life.
In oversupply yet vastly underused, such strip plazas (built a generation ago) define the streetscapes of many towns.
Many are dilapidated eyesores.
Yet many are home to small restaurants, sole proprietorships and mom-and-pop businesses that can be wonderfully unique, entrepreneurial concerns, highly responsive to community needs.
Strip malls breed strange and wonderful bedfellows (a yoga studio next to pet grooming next to a mattress store, for example), yet are plagued by interspersed vacant storefronts and the most generic of designs.
Ringed by parking and adjacent to thriving neighborhoods, these strip malls have great potential for adaptive re-use and architectural upgrades.
They are an undervalued and neglected building stock.
This competition will look at options for making strip malls economically viable, aesthetically interesting and communally meaningful.
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Flip a Strip: National Architectural Design Competition at SMoCA
design directory
SMoCA > Art Museums
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Levent OZLER
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In August 2007 The Architecture Foundation sent half a dozen young British architects to showcase their talents stateside at an exhibition, New Practices London in association with the AIA New York Chapter's Center for Architecture.
Now their Big Apple counterparts, all have whom were featured in a previous exhibition curated by the AIA, New Practices New York, are completing this transatlantic exchange with a series of talks in London for The Architecture Foundation.
The aim of the Winter Nights series is to provide a platform for exciting, emerging practices to communicate their ideas, thoughts and ambitions for the future, and present their existing commissions.
Chairing the events will be representatives from four of the young UK practices who worked on the first stage, New Practices New York, including WORK Architecture Company, Architecture in Formation PC, G TECTS LCC / Gordon Kipping Architects and Gage / Clemenceau Architects.
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The Architecture Foundation Winter Nights
design directory
The Architecture Foundation > Architecture Communities
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Levent OZLER
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Breaking new ground in urban lighting, Schreder Lighting USA is pioneering high-quality, performance-based Street Lighting using LEDs for the American specification market.
Schreder Lighting USA, the newest of the 40-member Schreder Group G.I.E. located in 36 countries on four continents, is marketing the Schreder brand in the fields of Public Lighting, Floodlighting, Tunnel/Transit Lighting, Industrial and Urban Lighting.
Schreder Group G.I.E. recently collaborated with Cree, Inc., a leader in solid-state lighting components, to illuminate the popular Riviera waterfront in Split, Croatia that is visited by millions of travelers annually.
Delivering the photometric performance and visual comfort to overcome the challenges of urban applications, Schreder created elegant, custom-designed Streetlights featuring the warm, white glow of Cree XLampXR-E LEDs.
Schreder's appealing walkway luminaire incorporates 180 high-power XR-E LEDs, each producing up to 124 lumens at a remarkable 3,000K and leading the industry in brightness for warm-lighting applications.
Luc Coppers, Engineering Manager for Uitrusting Schreder Belgium, explained, "LEDs provide directional lighting, which requires extreme precision in orientation when used for urban lighting.
This was the challenge that Schreder's designers and engineers solved by creating beautiful and functionally optimized fixtures for the waterfront promenade.
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Schreder Lighting USA To Pioneer LED Street Lighting For Urban Applications in The US
design directory
Schreder > Lighting Design Manufacturers
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Levent OZLER
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