Tag Archives: Architectural Visualization

Unbuilt Visions and Architectural Narratives of Frank Lloyd Wright in Southwestern Pennsylvania

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Photo Credit: THE NATIONAL BUILDING MUSEUM

Saturday, April 13, marked the grand opening of “Frank Lloyd Wright’s Southwestern Pennsylvania” at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. This collaborative effort between The Westmoreland Museum of American Art and Fallingwater, guided by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, showcases a detailed exploration of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural vision through both his realized and unrealized projects.

Designer: Frank Lloyd Wright

Photo Credit: THE NATIONAL BUILDING MUSEUM

The exhibition, curated by Scott W. Perkins and Jeremiah William McCarthy, who are recognized for their expertise in American art preservation and curation, provides an intricate look at Wright’s proposals from the 1930s through the 1950s, considering their potential impacts across various landscapes. Noteworthy are the animated reconstructions of five projects that were conceived but never executed. These include innovative designs such as the transformation of the Point in 1947, a futuristic self-service garage at Kaufmann’s Department Store in 1949, and the Point View Residences planned in 1952 for the Edgar J. Kaufmann Charitable Trust.

Photo Credit: THE NATIONAL BUILDING MUSEUM

Enhanced by state-of-the-art three-dimensional rendering technologies that parallel those used in contemporary cinema, these animations by Skyline Ink Animators + Illustrators bring Wright’s unrealized ideas to life. The experience is augmented in a dedicated viewing theater, complete with a specially composed musical score by Daniel May and Marty Ashby, which accentuates Wright’s meticulous attention to material detail, textures, and the interplay of light and shadow.

Photo Credit: THE NATIONAL BUILDING MUSEUM

Aileen Fuchs, the president and executive director of the National Building Museum, expressed her enthusiasm for the exhibition, noting its fit with the museum’s dedication to showcasing innovative and inspiring works. The exhibit highlights Wright’s architectural genius and encourages visitors to explore the ‘what might have been’ of his unrealized projects.

Photo Credit: THE NATIONAL BUILDING MUSEUM

The exhibition also underscores Wright’s significant influence in Pittsburgh, a connection initiated by Edgar J. Kaufmann, Sr., who introduced Wright to the city in 1934 and advocated for his involvement in various civic projects. This partnership often aligned with the goals of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, which aimed to tackle urban challenges and enhance the city’s cultural landscape.

Photo Credit: THE NATIONAL BUILDING MUSEUM

“Frank Lloyd Wright’s Southwestern Pennsylvania” will continue to engage visitors until March 17, 2025. It enjoys the support of The Heinz Endowments, The Hillman Exhibition Fund of The Westmoreland Museum of American Art, and donors like Wendy and David Barensfeld. Contributions from The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library at Columbia University further enrich the exhibition.

This display commemorates Wright’s architectural legacy and functions as an educational platform. It merges historical context with contemporary technological displays to invite visitors to appreciate the blend of artistic expression and architectural innovation.

The post Unbuilt Visions and Architectural Narratives of Frank Lloyd Wright in Southwestern Pennsylvania first appeared on Yanko Design.

This tiny timber home is a twist on A-frame cabins defined by bio-philic design

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The Slope House from the 3D visualizer Milad Eshtiyaghi is an untraditional A-frame cabin that employs biophilic design inside and out.

3D visualizer and international architect Milad Eshtiyaghi has long been drawn to escapist hideaways perched on rugged, seaside cliffs and isolated cabins envisioned beneath the Northern Lights. Today, he turns his gaze to tiny cabins. A bit more quaint than treacherous, Eshtiyaghi’s latest 3D visualization finds an angular, timber cabin nestled atop an idyllic hillside somewhere in the rainforests of Brazil.

Designer: Milad Eshtiyaghi

Dubbed the Slope House, the timber cabin maintains a signature triangular frame that’s a thoughtful twist on the conventional A-frame cabin. Defined by two modules, one internal volume hosts the cabin’s bedroom while the other keeps the home’s main living spaces, like the dining area, kitchen, and den. The tiny cabin from Eshtiyaghi is envisioned propped atop a truss system that was specifically chosen to minimize the home’s impact on the preexisting landscape.

Describing this choice, Eshtiyaghi notes, “One of the main concerns in this project was to preserve the ground context without damaging the green ground and to preserve the ecology of the living context. Therefore, it was decided to separate the building from its ground and build it with a truss structure…In this way, the natural land and the living place of living organisms will not be damaged and plants and living organisms will continue to live under the building and the life of living organisms will flow under the building.”

The Slope House has a bohemian-chic personality, outfitted with stringed lights and plants galore. Eshtiyaghi aimed to integrate a biophilic design style into the cabin’s interior spaces so he envisioned interior garden spaces to fill the bedroom and common spaces. As one of the client’s main interests was gardening, Eshtiyaghi line the home’s floor and ceiling with access to natural spaces.

As Eshtiyaghi describes, “We decided to have natural plants inside the house as a small garden. We also have a larger garden under the main bedroom so that these plants can be seen from inside the building, so we worked the floor of the bedroom with transparent material…we also [equipped] the sloping roof of this room with a skylight.”

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This architectural design joins two A-frame cabins together by a glass sky bridge!

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The Gisoom Cabin is a 3D architectural visualization from designer Soheil Kiani that features two A-frame cabins joined together by a glass sky bridge.

3D visualizer Soheil Kiani is known for his moody, maximalist architectural renderings. His latest 3D design, a lakehouse formed by two symmetrical A-frame cabins that are connected by a glass sky bridge, is envisioned in the foothills of Gisoom forest near the city of Talesh, Iran. Conveniently located near the forest’s beginnings and Gisoom Beach, Kiani’s 3D rendering is designed to immerse guests and residents in the beauty of the natural forest and all that it has to offer.

Defined by north and south-facing facades that are formed entirely from glass, Kiani’s Gisoom Cabin was visualized so that these facades collect the most amount of natural sunlight and are oriented for the best views of the surrounding forest. The glass facades are also complete with an expansive set of eaves that offer some protection on days when the sunlight might be too bright. Following the eaves to the shingled facades, dark brick comprises Kiani’s sloping roofs to bring out a direct contrast to the light wood that makes up the cabin’s eaves and interior spaces.

When conceptualizing his lakehouse, Kiani looked to thermowood, concrete wood textures, and glass to make up the bulk of the cabin’s prospective building material. In order to highlight these building materials and to bring out the wood’s warmer profile for the 3D visualization, Kiani injected his renderings with a soft lighting scheme. This lighting scheme also emphasizes the cabin’s main structural elements, concrete, and steel, two building materials known for sturdiness and durability amidst wild landscapes and unpredictable weather.

Designer: Soheil Kiani

Soheil Kiani used SketchUp, Lumion, and Adobe Lightroom for his 3D renderings.

The building comprises 206m2.

The main materials used in these cabins are thermowood, concrete wood texture, and glass.

The post This architectural design joins two A-frame cabins together by a glass sky bridge! first appeared on Yanko Design.

This 3D architectural design envisions a modernist villa designed for a family of five in the hills of San Sebastián, Spain!

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Rico Villa is a cantilevered, modernist architectural 3D visualization designed for a family of five in the mountains of San Sebastián, Spain.

Known for their modernist structures that flair with midcentury elements, the latest from architectural visual designers, Amirhossein Nourbakhsh and Mohammadreza Norouz envisions a contemporary villa for a family of five in the hills of San Sebastián, Spain. In collaboration with Didformat Studio, the two designers took to the rich natural surroundings of the mountains for inspiration throughout the design process. Towering right above a calm pond, Rico Villa is a bilevel, cantilevered concrete structure with an idyllic, midcentury personality.

The beauty of modernist architecture is found in its simplicity. Generally recognized for the incorporation of semi-outdoor spaces, clean framing, and bulbous geometric elements, modernist architecture stands out for acute attention to the home’s details. Outfitting Rico Villa’s exterior with modernist design elements, Nourbakhsh and Mohammadreza incorporated semi-outdoor spaces on all sides of the home. Guests would be able to access Rico Villa from its north and south sides (via garage entrance on one side) and immediately find overhead concrete covering while still outside the villa. To enter the home’s interior, an internal set of staircases and elevators bring guests from one floor to the next.

On the first level, guests can enjoy a semi-outdoor space before entering the first floor’s interior. Cantilevered by design, the first floor’s semi-outdoor space is wedged right the gap between the two floors. Then, when guests are inside, they can escape to one of the many semi-enclosed terraces available onsite. Floor-to-ceiling windows expand the inside of the home and offer unfettered views of the natural surroundings, once more blurring the line between outdoor and indoor spaces. Sunlight also pours in through Rico Villa’s lengthy skylights, brightening the inside of the family home throughout the day.

Designers: Amirhossein Nourbakhsh and Mohammadreza Norouz

Posed beside a still pond, Rico Villa’s modernist edge is softened with its idyllic location.

The post This 3D architectural design envisions a modernist villa designed for a family of five in the hills of San Sebastián, Spain! first appeared on Yanko Design.

These bamboo villas curve into lotus flowers creating a Disney-worthy villa!

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Known for creating 3D visualizations of architectural residences that shake up the thrillseeker in each of us, graphic designer Thilina Liyanage has conceptualized a subdued bamboo retreat for when the adventurer grows tired. Taking inspiration from lotus flowers and magical realism, Liyanage’s Hideout Lotus Bamboo Villa rises above the ground on bamboo pillars to form a raised, single-story home resembling the look of a giant rattan table with an intricate, interwoven bamboo lotus mounted on top.

From an exterior perspective, the Hideout Lotus finds a common outdoor area just below its mounted single-level lotus-inspired living area. Four curved bamboo pillars stack atop one another to create borders around the common area, creating a tiered walking space that contains the villa’s canopied deck. Wooden panels line the deck, complimenting the rest of the bamboo structure, where globular concrete mounds harness the villa’s main support beams.

Three wide bamboo shafts elevate Hideout Lotus’s upper deck, which supports the villa’s main interior living area. In a congruent style with the ground deck, the upper deck fashions wooden panels for its flooring, which merge with the villa’s more intricate bamboo lacework. Like a lotus flower floating in a pond, the main villa casually rests on the upper deck, with its bottom petals artfully draped over the edge. The villa’s windows are stationed behind an overlaid bamboo lattice that enwraps the entire villa, giving it an alluring, if not elusive personality.

Symbolic for rebirth and groundedness, the lotus is lauded for its ability to bloom beautifully despite murky waters. Positioned in a dense, wooded area, Liyanage’s Hideout Lotus Bamboo Villa bursts from the ground below in bamboo roots and chutes to grow into a hideaway that creates space for recharging and getting away from the thrill of it all.

Designer: Thilina Liyanage

The villa’s ground-level deck contains an outdoor common area complete with petal ceiling fans and rattan furniture.

Forming a cluster of villas, each one of Liyanage’s Hideout Lotus Bamboo Villa is connected to one another by strings of lights.

Reminiscent of cloaked fairy tale bungalows, the bamboo lattice that envelops each villa only enhances their enigmatic personalities.

Draped over the upper deck’s edge, the curved bottom petals of each villa are some of the finer details in Liyanage’s tribute to the lotus flower.

Supported by groups of concrete-fortified bamboo support beams, each lotus villa rests on a stabilized, secure foundation.

This cliffside cabin is supported by five suspension cables for a daunting jungle retreat!

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3D visualizer and architectural designer Thilina Liyanage conceptualizes remote, escapist hideouts and villas stationed in rugged rainforests and off the sides of jungle cliffs. Most of Liyanage’s designs stand out for their intricate interweaving of natural materials like what appears to be bamboo and wooden beams to create life-size models of wildlife and other forms of nature. His most recent architectural conceptualization takes a new approach and envisions a cabin perched above steep cliff sides, one that is entirely made from glazed glass facades and metal cladding.

Liyanage’s Cliff Cabin, as he calls it, suspends from the side of a mountain, hovering in midair. In his 3D conceptualization, Liyanage visualizes Cliff Cabin locked in place above four support beams that are bored into the cliffside to create a secure enough foundation for Cliff Cabin to rest atop. In addition to its bottom support, four high-tensile cables are attached to the cabin’s roof and balance the cabin by drawing it back away from the cliff’s edge, evenly distributing the weight of the cabin. Globular spheres lock the cables in place and add an elegant and tidy touch to the cabin as a whole.

Cliff Cabin takes on a primarily triangular shape, with right triangle glass facades sharpening the cabin’s sides and protruding out to their center of convergence. Cliff Cabin is more modern in design compared to Liyanage’s previous architectural visualizations, lending room for the exterior to mainly consist of metal cladding and glass windows. Inside, however, Liyanage’s Cliff Cabin seems to be entirely made up of natural wood elements, creating a cozy ambiance in contrast to the durable and daunting exterior. The cabin’s natural wood accents and metal overhead awnings seem to merge on the cabin’s deck, where a metal roof protects the cabin’s guests from bad weather and wooden panels line the floor below.

Designer: Thilina Liyanage

Suspended above a mountainside with support from high-tensile cables and steel beams, Cliff Cabin is as eye-catching as it is daunting.

Clif Cabin perches from the cliffside like a life-size bird’s nest.

Taking on a triangular shape, Cliff Cabin is more modern by design with glass window skylights and metal roof cladding.

Cliff Cabin’s weight is evenly distributed across the four metal beams that work as the structure’s foundation as well as the four high-tensile suspension cables.

While the exterior of Cliff Cabin is entirely constructed from glass and metal, the cabin’s interior finds warmth in natural wood elements.

This architectural cabin design is nestled between terraced rice paddies for spectacular views

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Terraces of rice paddy fields cascade down mountain slopes so evenly, from a bird’s eye view, it might appear they’ve been machine-cut and curated, but these world wonders come with an ancient history of farming diligence and a respectful tactile approach when working the land. Many terraced rice paddy fields are designed by adhering to the curving gradient of the mountain, carving massive steps into its preexisting contours. Zooming out, the individual plots of rice transform into rows of staggered terraces forming both sinuous and moiré patterns. Noticing the beauty and cultural significance of terraced rice paddy fields, Denis Guchev with Studio Precht imagined what living amidst the farming wonders might look like with his architectural visualization project, Rice Pad.

Resembling the congruency of multiple rice paddy terraces, Rice Pad’s contiguous pitched roofs mimic rows of high mountain summits – the same landscape into which terraces of rice paddies are carved. Rice Pad would likely be ebony-stained to easily slink into the darkness of night come sundown, with either pine or ashwood accents for each roof’s eave and the main centered gable. During the day, sunlight might reflect off the flooded rice paddies, lighting up each home’s dark panels of timber. Then at night, warm, yellow light pours from Rice Pad’s own terraces and windows, becoming a sort of lighthouse between the curving tides of rice paddies. The seven-roofed structure appears as four cantilever main houses, joined by what appears to be an exposed hallway that runs perpendicular to each house. Floor-to-ceiling windows fill the entirety of each house’s front-facing facades, offering expansive views of the rolling terraces of rice paddy fields for miles.

In the year 2020, we’ve seen some pretty impressive eco-friendly architectural designs, like modular cabins, houseboats, and tiny homes, that seamlessly blend into their surrounding natural environment. Some houses are constructed entirely offsite and then transported to a vacated plot of land deep in the forest. Others might utilize steel moorings, like some floating homes in Amsterdam. Devising a plan to bring Rice Pad to the terraced wonders of rice farming safely and harmlessly is another ball game entirely, but if 2020 taught us anything, it’s to expect the unexpected.

Designer: Denis Guchev x Studio Precht