From Amazon Go to Walmart’s Alphabot, grocery retail is being significantly disrupted by the fast-evolving technologies of automation and artificial intelligence. Now, startup AutoX is launching an autonomous vehicle delivery service directly to households. While other companies such as Nuro and Marble are designing and operating autonomous vehicles specifically for delivery, AutoX is utilizing preexisting

While the current American government squanders time and opportunity in the pursuit of short-term profit by imposing disruptive tariffs and curtailing sustainability-focused goals, Mexico is powering ahead with a broad effort to generate up to 35 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2024. As a part of that transformative effort—until recent years, Mexico’s energy industry operated as an oil-forward,

Amazon’s march forward into brick-and-mortar retail continues with the opening of a second Amazon Go store on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Marion Street in Downtown Seattle. The store operates on the same high-tech principles as the Amazon Go pilot store that opened in January. With the installed Amazon Go smartphone app, customers swipe

Home2Suites, a subsidiary of Hilton, is currently constructing the brand’s first modular construction hotel. On August 15, executives from Hilton, Southern Hospitality Services, and Ashlar Development began construction of the project adjacent to San Francisco’s Airport North by placing pre-fabricated elements into position. Adrian Kurre, global head of Home2 Suites, states “staying at the forefront

FutureVision is R/GA’s trend-spotting division. FutureVision helps keep you connected with the latest information, making it easy for you to stay informed. Science fiction likes to show us a world where technology is so pervasive, it completely transforms our lives, for better or worse. Star Wars; Minority Report; I, Robot—all of these films feature sophisticated artificially

Navigating vast infrastructure and retail hubs, as well as urban environments, can prove to be a daunting task. Blippar, a London-based technology company, is easing wayfinding in these environments through AR-technology. In 2017, Blippar launched ARCity – AR Navigation, an app that allows users to explore hundreds of cities across the world. The app runs

Chiara Vailati, a doctoral student at ETH Zurich’s Institute for Building Materials, has developed an adaptive shading system that functions without sensors or motors. The shading system is composed of multiple pairs of parallel wooden planks which open and close autonomously. The system can be installed as a type of pergola, or horizontally across a

A research team within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently 3D-printed full-scale concrete walls in an effort to create quick-to-assemble barracks for field housing, according to Engineering News Record. The project, named Automated Construction of Expeditionary Structures (ACES), aims to engineer structurally efficient and safe concrete barracks with precast roofs and 3D printed walls. In their latest tests, they were able

Last week, Office Depot opened its first co-working space, dubbed the Workonomy Hub. The first location of this service is located in the chain’s supply store in Los Gatos, California. The American office supply company owns approximately 1,400 locations servicing just under 30 million customers. According to Propmodo, Office Depot is offering their new co-working

A research team led by Jamin Dillenburger, an assistant professor at ETH Zurich, has recently produced and installed a concrete ceiling shaped by 3D-printed sand formwork. Dubbed the “Smart Slab,” the 1000 square-foot ceiling is significantly lighter and thinner than comparable concrete ceilings. According to ETH Zurich, Dillenburger’s research group “developed a new software to fabricate the formwork elements,

On July 30th, WeWork announced its large-scale renovation of UBS’s Weehawken, New Jersey Lincoln Harbor campus. WeWork’s renovation is largely focused on a 100,000 square-foot common space area. The company’s team of designers and architects relied on qualitative and quantitative data, employee interviews and spatial analytics to create their proposal. Similar to WeWork’s shared office

For the fastidious traveler, research and planning are essential first steps to a relaxing vacation. On June 19th, to provide the curious tourist a glimpse of potential destinations, Marriott Caribbean & Latin American Resorts launched the iOS application “Portal to Paradise.” The iOS app is an augmented reality simulation allowing consumers to explore eight of

On August 6th, Walmart announced the pilot launch of Alphabot, an automation system that will assist employees in filling online grocery orders. The rollout is a result of a two-year collaboration with retailing startup Alert Innovation. Walmart is testing the automated grocery pickup at its supercenter in Salem, New Hampshire. The new warehouse and grocery

To compete with online retailers, brick-and-mortar retailers are turning towards augmented and virtual reality tools to attract consumers. Lowe’s Innovation Labs is experimenting with virtual and augmented reality to boost retail sales. Programs such as Holoroom How-To and Holoroom Test Drive allow users to visualize and experience products prior to purchase. The Innovation Labs are

The management of hotels, from general room keeping to office administration, requires scores of employees coordinated around the clock to service guests needs. Multinational-hospitality company Intercontinental Hotels Group is experimenting with artificial intelligence to streamline customer service across its hotels. In July, the company rolled out the AI hotel rooms for its Sanlitun, Beijing location,

Imverse, a Switzerland-based 3D computer graphics company, is pushing forward with immersive virtual reality experiences with potential architectural applications. Imverse’s Elastic Time, which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, is a mixed reality documentary experience that allows the user to see their own body hologram with unlimited freedom of movement. The volumetric 3D environment provides

Syracuse-based APTUM Architecture has designed and fabricated Thinness, an ultra-light concrete pavilion in collaboration with international concretemanufacturer Cemex Global R&D. Concrete is one of the most ubiquitous construction materials in the world. Its advantages are many: it’s easy to produce, is remarkably strong, and can take on a variety of forms. It does, however, have one rather weighty constraint: it’s

The University of the West of England’s Centre for Fine Print Research (CFPR) is experimenting with a six-axis Mitsubishi Electric MELFA RV-Series to create 3D printed forms that move beyond simple CAD models and slicing algorithms. Unlike conventional 3D printers which deposit material according to rigid algorithms, the six-axis Mitsubishi robotic arm is geared for

In 2018, San Francisco-based software company Monograph launched its project-planning platform, Dashboard for Architects. The objective of the platform is to shift the myriad planning tools used by architects to a singular and cohesive application. The Dashboard for Architects allows firms to manage their practice and projects in a visually straightforward format, with an emphasis

With a quarter million members in 283 buildings across 75 different cities (and another 183 locations in the pipeline), WeWork is on an expansion tear that’s grown to include retail, education, and maybe even full neighborhoods somewhere down the line. With the company’s first ground-up building, Dock 72, nearly complete in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, AN spoke with the designers and researchers who are making

On July 18th, Chattanooga-based architectural fabricator Branch Technology unveiled the world’s largest 3D-printed structure, a bandshell pavilion measuring 20-feet-tall and 42-feet-wide. The pavilion was first announced in Cambridge, Massachusetts during MIT’s 2018 International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures. The structure is located in Nashville’s emerging smart-city neighborhood, OneC1TY. Reported by Architect Magazine, the carbon

Open-plan offices are all the rage. Companies continue to strip away walls, push desks together, and create higher energy environments in the name of fostering face-to-face interaction, but a new article titled “The impact of the ‘open’ workspace on human collaboration” published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences presents findings

On July 19th, GRAPHISOFT’S “By Design” series amassed a series of recognitions from Architectural Record, the Academy of Interactive & Visual Artists (AIVA), and the Summit International Award (SIA). The awards, such as Best Branded Content Series from SIA and Highest Social Media Management from Architectural Record, highlight the series’ strength in both publishing and

Ithaca-based studio HANNAH has installed a series of 3D printed seats across Socrates Sculpture Park in Astoria, Queens, for the summer, extending their architectural experiments in large-scale 3D printing to sectional furniture. RRRolling Stones is the 2018 winner of Folly/Function, an annual competition held by the Architectural League of New York in partnership with the sculpture

  Lyft has gone multimodal and acquired most of bike-share company Motivate, supplementing its car-for-hire business model with ownership of the country’s largest network of docked bicycles. The purchase means that Lyft is now the owner of New York’s Citi Bike program and will continue to maintain Motivate’s existing bike-share programs across eight cities. Lyft’s purchase, coming in at a rumored $250

ACADIA, or the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture, established the ACADIA Awards of Excellence to recognize outstanding individuals and practices that think critically about the impact and possibilities of computer-aided design. This year, the ACADIA Awards recipients, including Mónica Ponce de León and Oyler Wu Collaborative, will present their work at the conference titled Recalibration: On Imprecision and

On Wednesday, SITU Research, an interdisciplinary practice within the Brooklyn-based firm SITU, launched a new collaboration with Amnesty International detailing the systematic destruction of the Rohingya Muslim population and its villages by the Myanmar military. This interactive digital platform weaves together evidence collected from maps, satellite images, testimonies, as well as verified photographs and videos to

Amsterdam-based firm MX3D has completed the full span of its 3-D-printed stainless steel bridge, designed by Joris Laarman Lab, a multidisciplinary team located in the Netherlands. The bridge will cross one of the city’s oldest canals, the Oudezijds Achterburgwal, and is approximately forty feet in length and over twenty feet wide. Often using digital fabrication and

Sketchfab, an online platform for the publication and exchange of 3D models and content, has just launched the Sketchfab store. The store, which has been operating in beta up to this point, will allow the 1.8 million member community to effectively monetize and share their 3D products. Since launching in 2012, the Sketchfab platform has