F9 Productions

The best way to keep up on Revit News

2012-05-02T07:19:00.001-07:00

Don't want to be left behind. The best way to keep up on the latest news, developments, tutorials, tip, and tricks can be found at http://www.revitrevit.com/.

F9 Relaunches Website

2010-09-13T10:36:00.000-07:00

Take a look at our new website. www.f9productions.com

Branching Out

2010-08-18T08:38:00.000-07:00

F9 Productions is about to release a new project: The Kid's Art Wall. Visit: www.kidsartwall.com to see the product in full detail.

The start of Guerrilla adds

2010-04-30T09:15:00.000-07:00

more to follow.... exciting stuff

F9 Productions - Highrise Concept

2009-12-30T08:27:00.000-08:00

F9 production new housing sweet

2009-12-26T10:39:00.001-08:00

Contact akg@f9productions.com or lmc@f9productions.com for more information

More is More

2009-07-02T19:27:00.000-07:00

More is finally more, not less, not a bore, it is just simply what it is - more.

More City: more life, more sun, more restaurants, more biking, more playgrounds, more choice, more connections, more play time. Less: traffic, less roads, less cutoffs, less pollution.

Re:vison dallas just concluded a competition in which it supposed: What if everything we knew and believed about design needed to change? What if we need to change along with it?

To meet our 21st century needs big and bold ideas are needed. Nature often uses fire to trigger new seeds to grow. So to must we do with our cities. Trains, rail systems, trolleys, and busses cannot be successful without first a solid walkable/bikeable foundation. Retaking our road will be the fire we need.

The smittal below supposes that architecture, cities, and uban life can not truly change while situated in the same grid of roads that now lock our cities into the concrete jungle that they now are. Its a simple premise certain roads create certain architecture. Highways and bypasses produce strip malls and bigbox stores; centralized one-way create skyscrapers cities that are dead by nine. If we are to create walkable cities that can even pretend to support mass transit or a nationally connected rail we need to change our streets.

A New and innovative “living road” links all the vital aspects of Dallas entertainment and culture into a pedestrian and bike friendly environment, creating a new sense of community and promoting a more active lifestyle.

Stroll along the North line to visit: Kathy Trail, American Airlines Center, and The Arts District.

Bike the West line to: Union Station (Trinity railway express), Old Court house, Reunion Tower, The Trinity River project, and the Great Trinity Forest.

Walk the Upper East line for the: Dallas Farmers Market, the Swiss Avenue historical houses. Elm street and commerce street.

Open Up the Southern line: for new growth and expansion.

Take the Lower East line to visit: Fair Park, and Reunion Arena.

Cities of the future will rely upon a pedestrian connective tissue that interweave the cities’ various vibrant nodes, and links together its diverse amenities into a thriving connected base. The existence of the living road is a catalyst which creates a new thriving community among the empty parking lots, and disconnected neighborhoods. Its sole purpose it to weave together the city in an unbroken path of trails, community gardens, playgrounds and open spaces. Its effect is a denser more sustainable active city full of pedestrian accessible restaurants, bars, parks, museums and the great outdoors. Let’s start to walk our kids to school in the sunrise, play basketball at noon, and ride our bike home from work to catch barbeque in sunset.

Here is some great thoughts from Rem.

2009-05-20T21:16:00.000-07:00

You can see the whole article here, but the best have all ready been picked out for you.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,566655,00.html

SPIEGEL: You complain that modern architecture subjugates itself to the primacy of the iconic, making it arbitrary. On the other hand, you yourself have created a few of the most memorable icons around, especially the building for the Chinese television network CCTV in Beijing.

Koolhaas: I am a critical spirit and an architect at the same time, and I do not feel obligated to constantly validate my own theories in my specific work. There are contradictions, and the possibilities we have at our disposal today provoke such contradictions.

SPIEGEL: A few years ago you were in Lagos, Nigeria's largest city, and you returned with a message of humility: Architects, allow things to take their natural course and adjust to reality!

SPIEGEL: You coined the term "junk space" in Lagos. What does this mean in Europe?

Koolhaas: The expression describes the effect commerce has on architecture, how it affects the beauty, authenticity and acceptance of a building. The irony is that in the West, of all places, an overemphasis of the economic forces us into permanent chaos. In the past, an airport could be proud of the fact that its paths, from the airport entrance to the gates, were short and direct. Nowadays the large numbers of shopping areas have turned airports into labyrinths. In other words, starting at the paradigm of clarity, it has taken us only 20 years to end up in a paradigm of chaos.

SPIEGEL: Can architecture and urban development do anything to counteract the forces you describe -- the omnipotence of commerce, the atomization of society?

Koolhaas: When we were planning the Universal Studios headquarters in Hollywood, a problem we had was that the company's individual components are scattered across a large area -- so we designed the building as a sort of machine, which brings the components together again. And now we have done something similar with the CCTV building. It includes something we call a "Visitors' Loop," a common space where people who would normally work away in disparate offices are likely to run into each other.

SPIEGEL: In doing so, are you taking up a concept, in a modern way, that American architect Louis Sullivan defined with the phrase "form follows function?"

Koolhaas: Some of our buildings fulfill this basic concept completely. Ironically, this functionalist idea is so forgotten, so unknown today that it seems completely new once again. Modernity is ultimately shaped by the idea of enlightenment, of progress. As unsteady as these concepts may seem to us today, it would be absurd to abandon them, because it hasn't been until today that we, as Europeans, are in a position to share them with the world. This, in turn, is what makes up the credibility of European architecture in an age of globalization: That we are able to execute our formulas in a less formulaic way than others, and that we can pay closer attention to the circumstances under which other people live.

Interview conducted by Stephan Burgdorff and Bernhard Zand

Interested

2009-05-11T21:47:00.001-07:00

Coming soon.

THE BIG SWITCH

2009-05-05T08:30:00.000-07:00

Before you invest your energy into making Revit components turbo squid has been a gaining attention and traffic on its new Revit Architectural Market. Across the nation architecture firms have been switching over to Revit and now Turbo squid has launched a market to match the program's popularity.

TurboSquid boast's that the average purchase of $102 saves 27 hours of production time, and with over 190,000 products it’s easy to see why this site is gaining favor. Another reason for its increasing popularity is the cost saving deals offered on the site. Producers such as F9 production have bundled there contents such as Pendant Lights and fans into various sized packs starting as low as $25.00. This saves on time and money.

The Architecture Revit Market allows firm to have the flexibility and frees time to make the smarted and better decisions. Firms not using this asset could spend hours searching other sites for there content then waste more time trying to build their own. Rise above the rest where TurboSquid has already navigated running into the problems of faulty model by offering a “Revit Certified Only” search check. This tool that can be checked located right below the search bar, insures that the model you are picking works in Revit and can do what the author claims.

The quickest way to get there is through this link pasted here, http://www.turbosquid.com/Revit-Market/Search/rfa, or navigate TurboSquid homepage by scrolling down until you see the Revit Architecture Market button on your right hand side at http://www.turbosquid.com.

North of 18

2009-03-28T20:22:00.000-07:00

From the ages of 14 to lets say 20 we complain about the towns we grew up in. From the ages of 20 and above we are convinced we know how to fix them and lavishly bestow this wisdom upon are friends, must abundantly while intoxicated.

But it seems as if The Brookings Institute and MVRDV have come up with better ideas. MVRDV presents their vision for Grand Paris 2030 commissioned by Nicolas Sarkozy entitled “Paris(s) Plus petit.” Along with the usual mumbo-jumbo ego busting redirect of more this, more that, more …. There are some rather good ideas. I’m not against the ramble that is usually associated with motivating people and a city to action, I rather think it is quite useful. As for their good idea, well I rather have them say it.

“The City Calculator is a proposed demo version of a potential software and possible webtool, which quantifies the behavior and performance of a city and makes it comparable to others. It connects qualitative to quantitative parameters. It can be used as a public and planning tool to support sustainable planning. The City Calculator will be conceived in collaboration, by The Why Factory at Delft University of Technology”

http://www.mvrdv.nl/

I do not know what kind of parameters they will place in the system or how they will measure such things, but my idea would be to pursue such categories as Walkability, Usage Mix, Park area per Person (measured in ParkPersons), or maybe Trees per person. The point being the data collected should be presented in easily digestible measurements; measurements that a person could use to compare cities side by side. MVRDV’s ideas will be presented to the public along with ten other proposals April 29^th to Nov 22^nd in Paris. If anyone is there, please inform us on how it goes. www.citechaillot.fr

The other notable idea comes from the Brookings Institute where they proposed joining up planning and transportation as linked subjects interconnected. This sort of understanding is long overdue and should be so tightly knotted into our minds that the two cannot be separated. How can we not see that that roads, interstates, and bridges we build not only change how we live, but change who we are and how we interact?

Some policy solutions such as the Federal Government directing metro/city corporation is a well intentioned idea and a wise course correction for the future, but I think they should be cautioned; for abstraction and hierarchy can lead to blanket solutions and regulations that are not good for individuals and can stifle creative solutions.

Studio Mention of the Day: Studio HT, Bolder Colorado for their ability to pursue big picture ideas without losing site of the little people who will inhabit them.

View there graphic by clicking on the picture in there link:

http://www.studioht.com/work/research/recycling-kiosk/index.html

“Studio H:T recently participated in an American Institute of Architects sponsored design competition centered on the design of a series of recycling kiosks to be installed in downtown Denver. During that exercise, our focus slowly shifted from the individual receptacle to larger questions about the fundamental inefficiencies of the current means of solid waste collection. While exploring the possibility of a city-wide waste collection infrastructure, we hoped to open a new forum for discourse on the future of waste management within the larger context of sustainability..”

2009-03-24T17:46:00.000-07:00

When looking at our built world it seems evident that that which divides us also connects us. The basic logic of our transportation system is to get “stuff” people, kids, goods, and parents, whatever, to wherever they are going. It is only unfortunate enough that such a system that has provided us with so much — now seems to have a strangle hold on us. To cross a neighbor you need to frogger your way across even the mildest 4-lane road. This blog will start to look at solutions that will connect back our cities.

America can not be scared out of suburban living:
Change will only come though two alternatives.

Economic collapse or
Shown a better alternative
This page attempts to solve the latter.

Could we couple: Sustainability with economically viability, Freedom with opportunity, And a new possibility with in an existing city.

PHASE ONE: Stole at your own pace.

Pedestrians are given prominence and cars stops while you walk on. If one of our goals is for a "Carbon-Neutral City" or at least to work towards one, a simple solution would be to focus on making walking/biking more enjoyable.

To rebuild our cities we need to be able to build them on a backbone that can handle them.

In an experiment to reclaim a old abandoned lot in Chicago and restore it to the prairie it once was an essential tool was discovered. After ten years of exhausting attendance to the plot the missing member was found, and this missing ingredient was fire.

"It hatched certain fire-triggered seeds, it eliminated intruding tree saplings, it kept fire-intolerant urban competitor down." Out of Control Kevin Kelly pg. 59

Pedestrian path must compete and even win in some cases against vehicular roads. If a system of coevolution does not accrue cars (and by extension us) like every animal without a check or balance will use up its supply and collapse.

Soon plants were returning that biologist thought were long dead in the area. Drought killed no native species and visiting blue birds made an endorsement on the site. What became obvious to Packard, the caretaker of the lot, was not only was the law of increasing returns taking effect, but the order in which species were added had an effect on the whole system. Lets hope we start to turn our priorities around.