Brutalism, one of the most polarising architectural styles, with its bold concrete forms and oversized design, returned to the spotlight with The Brutalist – a newly released film exploring the intertwined fate of a Brutalist architect and his buildings.

The film’s revival of interest in Brutalism highlights the circular nature of unique architectural trends. While some admire Brutalism for its raw, imposing honesty, others see it as an eyesore that clashes with the modern architectural landscape – an ongoing debate since Brutalism first emerged.

Given ever-changing architectural trends, we should not be so hasty to demolish these buildings based on contemporary aesthetic judgement, as they may come back into favour in a decade. Cultural moments, like this film, can shift public perception with the representation of the artform, allowing the public to once again understand and see the beauty in Brutalism – before it’s lost to the wrecking ball.

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Why preservation over demolition?

Cultural legacy and historical impact: Preserving buildings with a rich history brings incredible cultural value reflecting the culture and lived experiences at their time of construction. Brutalism emerged in the UK during the 1950s as part of post-war reconstruction. With Britain left in ruins and limited funds for rebuilding, architecture prioritised functionality and cost-effectiveness, shaping the stark aesthetic of the movement.

Inexpensive modular elements, concrete and reinforced steel were used for institutional and residential buildings that needed to be rebuilt quickly to return the UK to a liveable state. As historical symbols of the country’s resilience in a post-war era, these buildings should not be so readily dismissed over debates on aesthetics as they are cultural icons embodying Britain’s resilience and commitment to social progress, accessibility and equality. Rather than simply demolishing these physical manifestations of the British spirit, efforts should be directed toward preservation through thoughtful repurposing, ensuring their integration within the modern architectural landscape.

Environmental impact: The preservation and adaptive reuse of Brutalist buildings, however, presents considerable challenges. In many instances, building codes and regulations inhibit retrofitting efforts to such a degree that demolition is the only solution. Where renovation is possible, listed Brutalist structures pose a distinct set of challenges, with the buildings presenting a level of energy performance well below modern energy efficiency standards and the required modifications to make them both efficient and usable running afoul of conservation guidelines.

Looking beyond challenging operational efficiency, the preservation of Brutalist buildings does have a compelling carbon argument. The clinking of lime to produce the cement in concrete is a massive source of carbon emissions, which is why architects and designers often prefer more environmentally friendly materials. Brutalist buildings, due to their impressive mass and extensive use of concrete are vastly carbon-intensive. However, since the carbon has already been emitted during construction in the 50s, preserving these buildings rather than demolishing them prevents additional emissions from new construction.

Preserving Brutalist buildings conserves resources by extending the lifespan of structures where the bulk of carbon emissions have already occurred. This makes adaptive reuse not only the right choice historically and culturally, but also the more environmentally responsible option.

Contemporary meets traditional

Contemporary architects are already leading the repurposing charge by reimagining Brutalist principles and blending them with modern, sustainable materials while retaining core stylistic elements. Raw concrete used in existing Brutalist structures is being combined with materials like wood and glass to soften its boldness, creating a more artistic interplay of textures and materials. This softening of Brutalism’s rough edges has enabled it to integrate more seamlessly into the surrounding landscapes.

Moreover, unlike many other historical buildings, Brutalist structures are highly adaptable for modern use. Their mass and robust design not only provides acoustic isolation, a desirable trait in the context of residential reuse, but it also makes slab penetrations for the running of pipes, ducts and other systems through walls and floors, much easier. When repurposing contemporary buildings with a lightweight structure every penetration must be carefully considered, which fortunately isn’t the case with the overbuilt brutalist structures.

Changing perceptions

Repurposing any building isn’t cheap, and before investing in an adaptive reuse project, it’s essential that the public, including the potential future residents, understand both the vision for the final result and the motive behind repurposing over demolition. Otherwise, in 10 years, we could find ourselves facing the same debate over aesthetics and potential demolition.

3D visualisation technology enables designers to produce accurate digital representations of existing structures, while incorporating proposed design modifications, new features, and materials, creating an accurate reflection of what the project will actually look like, once completed. This greatly facilitates the presentation of the design to the public, allowing for stakeholder feedback to be gathered and integrated early in the process – avoiding costly delays, and even more importantly, potential commercial failure.

Secondly, to authentically experience the raw scale of a brutalist building and resulting emotional impact of Brutalism, one must visit the building in person, though this is not always possible. Interactive renders offer a solution, allowing both designers and the public to virtually experience being towered over by the building’s mass. On an entirely different scale, the intricate patterns of board-formed concrete is a subtle yet significant feature of Brutalist buildings, that can only be appreciated either through direct experience or with high quality renders that capture the dynamic nuances of lighting and materials, accurately conveying the beauty and emotion of Brutalism to stakeholders.

The visual impression of Brutalist buildings is incredibly strong. This is key to their appeal, but it can be difficult to visualise the buildings taking on a new life, much less as a welcoming apartment building or office. A highquality visualisation can allow people to see a new reality, allowing them to experience, virtually, the beauty and emotion of brutalism, hopefully shifting public perception in the process.

The future of Brutalism

The future of Brutalist buildings is unclear, but it is evident that demolition, without considering alternatives, would be a waste. A waste of resources, of cultural history, and of beautiful buildings that contribute an emotional element to the urban landscape they inhabit. Reimagining and embracing Brutalism is not only about preserving the past but also about recognising its relevance in the present and the cultural values these structures embody. In our current culture where architecture strives for sustainable design solutions, we must look at what we already have and repurpose it to meet modern needs, establishing an important thread tying the old and the new.

The distaste for Brutalism shows the beauty of these designs was never clearly communicated. By making these repurposed designs accessible through emotive, immersive visualisations, the door to public appreciation is opened – before large budgets are spent on redevelopment. At Chaos we strive to democratise the design process, making it accessible to all stakeholders by simplifying complex styles and revealing their inner, timeless beauty.

About the author

Roderick Bates is head of corporate development at Chaos, a specialist in design and visualisation technology.

The post Reviving Brutalism: preserving the legacy of concrete giants appeared first on AEC Magazine.

The metaverse is set to go main stream, with the potential to be a $200 billion market by 2024, according to an estimate by analysts at Bloomberg.

Achieving this level of success will require the metaverse to become a destination that people want and need to visit. Architects, more than any other profession, understand what is required to create compelling environments, placing the profession in a unique position to take a lead in bringing definition to the metaverse.

Currently, the ultimate metaverse vision of a single, universal and immersive virtual world — facilitated by the use of virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) headsets — exists only as a hypothetical.

While some components and technologies are available today, it certainly isn’t universal, existing on a limited number of disconnected platforms like Roblox, Decentraland, Fortnite and Mona. For the metaverse to live up to the hype, it needs to become far more interconnected, enabling the type of collaboration and immersion previously only possible in the built environment.

Architects could lead the way

Long-time experts in creating the built environment, architects and designers are well ahead of the game and poised to take the lead in the metaverse’s creation.

The modern architectural design process requires teams well-versed in design technologies including BIM, 3D rendering and virtual reality to create immersive virtual spaces that showcase projects before they are actually built.

In addition to that creative process, there’s also a requirement for the design and delivery of a building to be highly collaborative, capable of engaging a wide range of stakeholders and consultants, while also operating within strict constraints when it comes to building codes, financial costs and physics. If one were to look for a cohort prepped and ready to take on the challenge of designing the metaverse, they would be hard pressed to find a better group than architects.

As metaverse development advances, architects have the opportunity to capitalise on their expertise honed in the delivery of building in the physical world to lead the way in designing and delivering metaverse architecture governed by a new, and in some ways liberating, set of constraints.

For example, instead of considering circulation requirements and climatically driven water management strategies, architects can design spaces where occupants can teleport to, from and within a building. The pesky rules of physics, including water penetration risk, no longer apply.

Perhaps even more importantly, architects understand the ethical implications that come with designing environments for people. To quote from the American Institute of Architects, they have a longstanding professional obligation to “design for human dignity and the health, safety and welfare of the public.” From architects’ experience using visual communication tools during the design process, and from studying the way buildings interact with their occupants, architects can bring to the metaverse a much needed ethical awareness of how it might affect users, for both good and bad. With their ethical standards, architects can be a key voice for ensuring the metaverse is a constructive environment, rather than a new medium for manipulation.

While the metaverse may be in its ascendency there is clearly room for architects to assert themselves and help the metaverse realise its potential and move from trend to established technology.

A metaverse architecture

Despite skill alignment, it can be challenging for architects to identify the right metaverse entry points. Here are three tips on defining opportunities and taking the first steps toward metaverse development projects:

Consider areas ripe for metaverse development

There are several key sectors that are prime for early metaverse development. These include commerce spaces that help companies showcase their products; media and entertainment spaces, including concert venues, fashion runways and galleries; and virtual offices for companies to develop and manage the critical collaboration spaces they need for contemporary hybrid work environments.

Firms can prepare to capture new opportunities by ensuring that they have a keen understanding of the metaverse culture and how its space impacts its users

For example, Danish architecture studio BIG recently worked with Vice Media Group, a digital media and broadcasting company, to design a virtual office for Vice employees. Dubbed Viceverse, the project has given the media firm an opportunity to inspire the metaverse community and at the same time redefine journalism.

“It’s not about just getting in there and planting a flag. We wanted to do it in style with aesthetics and ideas when creating, so we teamed up with BIG,” said Morten Grubak, global executive creative director of innovation, Vice Media Group.

Global architecture firm IAXR has also embarked on an exciting metaverse project, creating an office space that enables interior designers and project stakeholders to collaborate virtually. Their metaverse workspace is accessed via VR and acts much like an actual office space with custom workflows that mimic the way they are accustomed to working.

Build a pipeline of opportunities

Architects can begin to identify opportunities for offering metaverse development by targeting both existing and new clients. Firms that don’t yet have a portfolio of metaverse work to share can benefit from building their own presence in the metaverse and offering to develop pro bono metaverse spaces that showcase their talents and capabilities.

For a universe dependent on collaboration, it makes perfect sense for firms to partner with others to explore metaverse opportunities. They can identify firms or architects that they’d like to work with, ideally those with metaverse experience, and reach out using alternative platforms, such as Discord, to expand their reach and capabilities and explore potential clients.

Conscientiously market and educate Selling a new service, including metaverse development, requires strategic marketing efforts. This includes marketing the capability as an additional service option to existing clients, for instance offering to build a metaverse commerce space for showcasing products, and advertising to a broader universe of potential clients.

In helping to define the metaverse, architects also have a responsibility to leverage their communication tactics to educate metaverse users, including the general public, about how they can be conscious consumers. Creating a code of ethics for metaverse projects that can be shared with clients and future users of the metaverse environments can help architects convey this important message.

As the metaverse unfolds, organisations across industries will look to create a stake and turn to architects and designers for guidance and know-how. Firms can prepare to capture these new opportunities by ensuring that they have a keen understanding of the metaverse culture and how its space impacts its users. Their success also depends on having the people, workflows, tech stacks and partnerships to build and manage the spaces as they evolve, and to tackle issues as they emerge, including ensuring proper governance and safe, seamless data transfer between platforms.

Top image: Hasham’s Metaverse: Hisham Laila, Creative Manager

The post How architects can help the Metaverse live up to its hype appeared first on AEC Magazine.

The need to communicate is a constant of the architectural design process with the techniques of communication changing over time.

Replacing or augmenting architectural sketching, digital modelling and design tools have catapulted the design process into a new realm, enabling the many stakeholders in the architectural design process—from the designer of a building to its owner and future occupants—to not only experience a building before it is built, but to have a hand in creating it.

The impact of digital visualisation is substantial. Teams can work together and receive real-time project updates regardless of their geographic location. Tighter collaboration provides them with workflow efficiencies, helping to avoid delays and change orders, and ultimately leading to lower costs, happier clients, and more impactful outcomes.

These technological contributions provide the industry with a glimpse of what’s to come and give its stakeholders a role in creating the change and evolution they’d like to see. This article takes a closer look at the progression of the design process from the perspective of architectural sketching, how technology has fortified its shortcomings, and how design constituents are leveraging and adapting real-time visualisation to create their own unique future of architectural communication.

The rich history of sketching

It’s believed that sketching has existed since Paleolithic times, before the invention of written language. There’s evidence of it being used to convey architectural ideas as far back as the Mesopotamian era, the world’s oldest recorded civilisation. The craft has served, and continues to serve, its purpose, quickly clarifying and displaying an idea.

Not only does a sketch communicate a concept, but it’s also seen as a treasured art form, valued for the skill behind the work as well as the permanence of its nature. Just last year, a miniature Leonardo DaVinci sketch sold at auction for more than $12 million, a record amount for the Renaissance artist. While architectural sketches from modern-day contemporaries don’t fetch as high a price, they are well regarded in art collections around the world.

Despite their beauty and longevity, these early drawings require an artistic expertise that belies their visual simplicity, relegating the practice to those skilled in the art, placing a hard limit on the number of images that can be produced. In contemporary design processes, the result is sketching remains a niche process, and some would say a lost art.

Making design more inclusive

Technology shifted the methodology of design from a pre-digital phase being primarily defined by sketching, watercolour paintings, and physical models, to computer-generated renderings.

With the advent of GPU-enabled real-time visualisation, the function of visualisation changed. It was now possible to create a shared understanding and up-to-the-minute updates on a project design in real-time. All design team members, from architects to project managers, principals, consultants, and clients, can share a common visual reference based on the underlying design model. The role of real-time visualisation thus assumed the mantle once held by sketching, but without the skill bottleneck of providing the visual basis for communicating and collaborating during the design process.

Real-time visualisation had the added benefit of speaking to the full diversity of stakeholders on a project in a common visual language, effectively lowering the barrier of participation during design and enabling everyone to contribute as equal participants.

This process of creating a shared understanding of a design, updated to the minute and entirely faithful to the design model, is a technology-enabled twist that replicates the function of sketching. While sketching is a skill held by very few, real-time visualisation is accessible by anyone with the right hardware and software, introducing a far more inclusive process.

While 3D design tools and real-time visualisation are powerful enablers, leading to better communication and ultimately improving end products, there’s room for new advancements. The opportunity is for designs, and perhaps more importantly, the emotional impact of a design, to be shared in ways that go well beyond what is possible with sketching or rendering alone.

Seizing the opportunity

The best way to understand a space is to interact with it. Real-time rendering and virtual reality enable interaction with 3D modelling tools, bringing emotion, opinions, and agency into the equation, and allowing project stakeholders to collaborate throughout the entire lifecycle of a project.

The power of that inclusive experience transforms projects. Through real-time architectural visualisation tools, stakeholders, including a structure’s future occupants and neighbours, can experience a building as it is being designed in a high-quality immersive experience.

They are able to verbalise the opinions, suggesting, for instance, a window for a better view, and collaborating to collectively create what will become a part of their daily lives and their community.

Real-time visualisation provides a type of rapid, informal communication that is so essential for an effective design process. And, it introduces an opportunity for the Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) tools that are becoming standard in the industry, challenging users to create designs and, perhaps more importantly, to share the emotional impact of designs in ways that go beyond what is now possible.

This results in a future where the design process can be truly inclusive, where real-time visualisation means the ideas, opinions, emotions, and feedback of all project stakeholders can be generated and incorporated into a design.

Potential future technology to further push visualisation as the modern equivalent of sketching include:

1) Instead of jumping between sketching and rendering design tools, a singular tool can combine rendering and sketching workflows into one software solution, enabling designers to create visuals that will allow just the right type of communication, without interrupting the design. Designers are already using sketch style visualisations like the one above in order to better communicate the state of the design and to draw their clients’ attention to certain aspects of the design. However, creating such images can be time consuming and hard to replicate, indicating a need for a more streamlined workflow that would allow for highly communicative images to be generated easily and intuitively.

2) Enabled by VR, innovation can allow for collaborative sketching. Rather than just verbalising a contribution, a person can “draw” over a model in VR with other participants simultaneously viewing and participating in the feedback.

3) Leveraging open source tools, the design process can take a mixed media approach, for instance, capturing the texture of a material such as a rock from the real world and applying it to a rendered object to create a more realistic visualisation.

4) Looking further down the innovation pipeline, designers can train an artificial intelligence (AI) engine with samples of their preferred sketching style—essentially imparting their unique language and fingerprint on a project—and a rendering can then be automatically modified to reflect their style. AI-enriched workflows can bring emotion to design renderings, creating evocative experiences for participants in the process.

From sketching through the evolution of digital tools, the architectural industry’s needs have evolved, and innovation continues to find new and better ways of meeting them. The opportunities for advancement are endless, empowering designers to more accurately convey concepts, gather valuable feedback, and strengthen relationships through more immersive, inclusive experiences.

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