Vector Architects has shared details of a newly completed health spa project called the Wulingshan Eye Stone Spring in the northern suburbs of Beijing. The studio relates their vision of the house, which is raised on 10 supporting columns, as an "apparatus of the steaming hot spring, touching lightly upon the natural slope."Photo by Liu GuoweiOvercoming its challenging site affords views of the Yanshan Mountains while abutting a steep rock cliff to the west, opening onto an expansive vista of the alluvial plains to the east and mountain range beyond.Photo by Liu GuoweiPhoto by Liu GuoweiFunctional hot spring spaces are layered vertically in the tower on the west side, separated from the transportation and service programs which are set within the east-facing core and connected by corridor-like bridges on every level.Photo by Liu GuoweiPhoto by Liu GuoweiTheir two programs are then also vertically stacked, which helps to reduce the overall building footprint while creating a ser...

For this week's curated picks of architecture and design competitions listed on Bustler, we are featuring four calls seeking emerging and mid-career practitioners whose work focuses on the public realm, the best projects, products, and ideas from around the world, innovative artistic, inclusive, and sustainable seating solutions, and designs for an installation that will supply clean and reliable electricity and drinking water to Marou, Fiji.For the complete directory of newly listed competitions, click here.

While Kingdom Hearts 4 was announced quite some time ago, franchise director Tetsuya Nomura has started teasing the kind of themes that we can expect from the title. In a post on social media platform X where Square Enix is celebrating the 15th anniversary of Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, the company also had Nomura talk about the idea of crossroads.Apparently, the plan is the release my comment alongside the teaser trailer for BBS from the secret movie in KH2, says Nomura. So, taking my cue from that video, Id like to give you an insight into the crossroads.According to Nomura, the concept of crossroads where people wait for someone else is a major part of the themes of Kingdom Hearts, with the concept appearing several times throughout the franchise. Notable examples include three Keyblade wielders waiting for someone at a crossroads in the celebration video, as well as Sora meeting a character dressed in a black coat and getting an invitation to Castle Oblivion in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories.In this video, three Keyblade wielders clad in armour wait for someone at a crossroads, he says. Meeting someone at a crossroads is actually a recurring motif in Kingdom Hearts.At the beginning of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (CoM), Sora meets someone in a black coat and is invited to Castle Oblivion.Nomura goes on to talk about various characters encountering protagonists at crossroads, and somehow being linked with each other by fate. The concept of crossroads even leads to the Keyblade War, and Kingdom Hearts 3 gets in on the action with the Lost Masters gathering at crossroads. Nomura cites a myth from American folklore of a young man making a deal with the devil to trade his soul for the ability to play the guitar at a crossroads.The first time a crossroads appears in Kingdom Hearts is in CoM, which is about losing something to gain something, says Nomura. And in fact, all subsequent appearances of crossroads have the same significance.Nomura then hints towards a similar Faustian bargain taking place in Kingdom Hearts 3 with the Lost Masters meeting up at crossroads.But wait when the Lost Masters gather at the crossroads in KH3, what is gained and what is lost? Thats a story for another time, Nomura concludes.Despite continuing these themes of crossroads across several Kingdom Hearts games, and potentially even in Kingdom Hearts 4, Nomura has previously stated that the next title will serve as a reset button for the franchise. This is to help new players get into the games without being overwhelmed with more than two decades worth of backstory.Since the original announcement of Kingdom Hearts 4 from all the way back in 2022, Square Enix has been quiet about the title. Rumours, on the other hand, have indicated that the game might be set for release later this year. Neither Nomura nor Square Enix have made any official announcement, however.Among the few details we know about Kingdom Hearts 4 is the fact that it is being developed in Unreal Engine 5. Square Enix has mentioned that this will help the game be several levels higher than its predecessors when it comes to the quality of lighting and detail.pic.twitter.com/KmxbWSPDBh KINGDOM HEARTS (@KINGDOMHEARTS) January 9, 2025

FromSoftwares upcoming network test for Elden Ring: Nightreign starts on February 14th and ends on February 17th. It will be available for three-hour slots daily on Xbox Series X/S and PS5 (sorry, PC players).Participants can register for the test now until January 20th with invites going out on January 30th. Though it didnt confirm the available content, a portion will be available alongside potentially four of the eight announced playable classes. The overall goal of the test is to serve as a preliminary verification test to verify its online systems.Whether there will be subsequent tests for all players remains to be seen. Elden Ring: Nightreign launches this year and is also coming to Xbox One and PS4. Based on the hit open-world action RPG, its a standalone multiplayer experience where one or three players (no duos) must survive for three days and three nights to defeat the Night Lord.Unlike the original game, it wont feature a messaging system. Cross-play also isnt supported. However, enemies from Dark Souls and other FromSoftware series will appear.Nightfarers,the registration to participate in the #ELDENRING #NIGHTREIGN network test will open today at 15:00 CET | 06:00 PT | 23:00 JST.The network test will be held on PS5 & Xbox Series X|S. The full game will also be available on PS4, Xbox One & Steam. ELDEN RING (@ELDENRING) January 10, 2025The network test sessions will be held at the following timings.We look forward to your participation. pic.twitter.com/XX7oioVfdU ELDEN RING (@ELDENRING) January 10, 2025

After recent leaks regarding the Nintendo Switch 2 courtesy of accessory maker Genki, Nintendo has now revealed that any instance of the console being at CES 2025 was not official. In a statement to CNET Japan, Nintendo referred to the hardware as unofficial and not provided to the company by us.The gaming hardware that Genki presented as Nintendo hardware at CES was not provided to the company by us, said the company in its statement. It also mentioned to Sankei Shimbun that the pictures of the Switch 2 that have been making the rounds are unofficial.For context, accessory company Genki was present at CES 2025 to showcase its new line-up of accessories designed for the Nintendo Switch 2. While not many technical details were revealed in this way, some of the companys accessories shed a light on some of the more unknown features of the console, such as the presence of a new C button, and the new magnet-based system for attaching and detaching JoyCons.Along with also giving us a look at the supposed dimensions of the Nintendo Switch 2, Genki also indicated that the console would hit store shelves in April by stating that its own accessories would be launching at around the same time.Some of the accessories shown off by Genki include a charging dock for the new Switch 2 JoyCon controllers, as well as grips to make using the console as a handheld system more ergonomic and comfortable.Leaks about the Nintendo Switch 2 have been happening even outside of Genkis involvement. Recently, for instance, the apparent logo for the upcoming console got leaked. The logo, while similar to one for the original Switch, also sported a big 2 on it to signify that it is a new platform.Other leaks about the Switch 2 have been more revealing, such as the fact that the console will need a charger with a higher level of voltage when compared to its predecessor when docked. This indicates that the Switch 2 is likely packing not only more powerful hardware that needs all the power it can get, but also a beefier battery to last longer in handheld mode.A recent patent filing also gave us some hints about some of the hardware capabilities of the Switch 2. Chief among these was the presence of a Neural Net engine, which will allow the console to make use of its own upscaling technology in the vein of Nvidias DLSS. Essentially, this hardware will allow the Switch 2 to make use of AI to upscale low-resolution images at up to 4K for use on modern TVs.Nintendo itself has been incredibly quiet about the Switch 2, but rumours have indicated that the console might get unveiled during an event in May, with a launch expected in June. Other rumours have put the announcement closer to April.Regardless of when it comes out, however, the Nintendo Switch 2 is expected to be a successful console launch. Circana analyst Mat Piscatella, for instance, expects the console to sell more than 4 million units in a single year in the US alone.

Scientists Drill 1.7 Miles Into Antarctic Ice, Revealing 1.2 Million Years of Climate HistoryResearchers say a collected sample is the longest continuous record of Earths past climate from an ice core An international team of scientists spent four summers working in average temperatures of -25.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Scoto PNRA / IPEVScientists have drilled 1.7 miles deep into Antarctica, pulling up an ice core sample that dates back at least 1.2 million years.They expect the sample to offer new insights into the evolution of Earths climate and atmosphere throughout history.A team of 16 scientists and support staffers spent four summers drilling through Antarctic ice until they finally reached bedrock. To accomplish their goal, they endured average temperatures of -25.6 degrees Fahrenheit at a site known as Little Dome C, located near Concordia Research Station.They removed the ice core in pieces, which they will load onto an icebreaker ship called the Laura Bassi for transport to Europe, according to a statement. On the vessel, the ice cores will be kept at -58 degrees Fahrenheit in specialized cold containers, reports CBC News.The pieces can be reassembled once they reach their final destination. At 1.7 miles long in total, the ice core is longer than eight Eiffel Towers stacked on top of each other.Ice core cleaning-cuttingWatch on Previously, the same group had extracted an ice core from Antarctica dating back 800,000 years through an initiative called the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA). But they wanted to reach ice that was even older, so they launched the Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice project, which was funded by the European Commission.The oldest ice ever extracted from Antarctica was gathered in 2017 and dates back 2.7 million years. However, that sample was collected closer to the surface, thanks to natural processes that push up layers of older blue ice. The new ice core represents the longest continuous record of Earths past climate from an ice core.Scientists say ice core samples are useful tools for investigating how the planets climate has changed over time. When snowflakes fall in the polar regions, they capture chemicals and particles from the air, according to the National Science Foundation. When they land, the snowflakes compress into layers of ice, which build up year after yearsimilar to the rings of a tree.The chemicals and particles are frozen into the layers, along with air bubbles.Sometimes you see ash layers coming from volcanic eruptions, says Carlo Barbante, a glaciologist who coordinated the Beyond EPICA project and serves as the director of the Polar Science Institute at Italys National Research Council, to BBC News Georgina Rannard. You see the tiny bubbles inside, some bubbles of air that our ancestors breathed a million years ago. The ice cores were collected in sections, which will be shipped to Europe. Westhoff PNRA / IPEVWhen scientists extract ice cores, the youngest ice is at the top, and the oldest ice is at the bottom. These frozen columns effectively allow researchers to look back in time.[Ice cores] are really the closest you can get to going back in the time machine and being able to measure what the atmosphere was like in the past, says John Higgins, a geoscientist with the National Science Foundations Center for Oldest Ice Research and Exploration (COLDEX), to CBC News.With the latest Antarctic ice core, scientists hope to learn how levels of greenhouse gases have changed over millennia. Scientists say that understanding Earths climate history can help them make more accurate predictions about what might happen with the climate in the future.From the 800,000-year-old ice core, for example, they gleaned that greenhouse gas concentrations have never been as high as they are in the modern era.Today we are seeing carbon dioxide levels that are 50 percent above the highest levels weve had over the last 800,000 years, Barbante tells the Associated Press Paolo Santalucia.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Antarctica, Chemistry, Climate Change, Glaciers, History, New Research, Snow

The glymphatic system moves a clear liquid called cerebrospinal fluid around the brain to flush out toxic proteins accumulated during waking hours. Greg Pappas on UnsplashWhile you sleep, your brain runs some maintenance, including ridding itself of waste. Now, scientists have identified how this rinsing happens in mice brainsand since we have a similar rinsing system, the research could have important implications for human brains, as well. Their study was published in the journal Cell on Wednesday."It's like turning on the dishwasher before you go to bed and waking up with a clean brain," senior author Maiken Nedergaard, a neurologist at the University of Rochester and University of Copenhagen, says in a statement. "We're essentially asking what drives this process and trying to define restorative sleep based on glymphatic clearance."Nedergaard and other colleagues discovered the glymphatic systemresponsible for waste-removal in the brainin 2012. The glymphatic system moves a clear liquid called cerebrospinal fluid around the brain to flush out toxic proteins accumulated during waking hours. A 2013 study suggested that the rinsing takes place particularly during sleep, though more recent research challenged this by hypothesizing that the process is faster during waking hours. Either way, scientists didnt understand how the waste-removal system might be driven during sleepuntil now.The new study reveals that, during a mouses non-rapid eye movement (non-REM) sleep, the brainstem releases waves of norepinephrine (a known hormone similar to adrenaline) about every 50 seconds, which causes blood vessels to tighten. This also creates a pulsing pattern, which generates oscillating blood volume, that, in turn, drives the brain fluid flow that washes away the toxins. Simply put, the norepinephrine triggers a pump-like effect that pushes fluid around the brain to rinse waste buildup.It is the oscillatory constriction-dilations that drive glymphatic flow, Nedergaard explains to Popular Sciences Tom Hawking.We have identified maybe the most important driver of glymphatic flow in non-REM sleep, Nedergaard tells Sciences Mitch Leslie. According to the study, the correlation between the release of norepinephrine and changes in brain blood volume was stronger during the restful non-REM sleep than during the more active REM sleep or waking hours.The team then tested the impact of Zolpidem (a common sleep medication also known as Ambien or Zolpimist) on this system, and found that the norepinephrine waves during sleep decreased by 50 percent and fluid transport into the brain decreased by around 30 percent in zolpidem-treated mice. These results suggest that sleeping aids that impact norepinephrine productionwhich includes most sleeping aidsmight harm the brains waste-removal system.Human sleep architecture is still fairly different than a mouse, but we do have the same brain circuit that was studied here, Laura Lewis, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was not involved in the study, tells New Scientists Grace Wade. Some of these fundamental mechanisms are likely to apply to us as well."More and more people are using sleep medication, and it's really important to know if that's healthy sleep," lead author Natalie Hauglund, a neuroscientist from the University of Copenhagen and the University of Oxford, says in the statement. "If people aren't getting the full benefits of sleep, they should be aware of that so they can make informed decisions."Further research on this topic could shed light on how to help people attain healthy sleep, as well as provide insight into neurological disorders linked to the toxic proteins normally rinsed from the brain.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Biology, Brain, Mice, Neuroscience, New Research, Sleep

Alan Emrich, a game designer on the Master of Orion series, passed away earlier this week, according to members of the ConsimWorld forums.According to his bio on Board Game Geek, Emrich designed both computer and tabletop games. During his time as a developer, he founded the board game company Victory Point Games, co-designed Totaler Krieg! World War II in Europe, and helped start several LA-based game conventions.Emrich's video game credits include include Warlords II, Empire Deluxe, and Castles II. His MobyGames page also credits him as a consultant on the 2016 remake of Master of Orion.Famously, Emrich coined the term "4X" (then "quadruple-X") to describe strategy games built around exploration, expansion, extermination, and exploitation. It was first used in his review for Orion in 1993, which he said contained "the essential four Xs of any good strategic conquest game.""Players must rise from humble beginnings, finding their way around the map while building up the largest, most efficient empire possible," his review reads. "Naturally, the other players will be trying to do the same, therefore their extermination becomes a paramount concern. A classic situation, indeed, and when the various parts are properly designed, other Xs seem to follow."Prior to reviewing Master, Emrich worked with Tom Hughes to help refine the game's design. The pair were credited, and also worked on the finished game's strategy guide. Emrich would later pen guides for Empire Deluxe and Master of Magic, where he re-teamed with Hughes.Members of the wargaming board game community remembered Emrich as "a longtime giant of the gaming world, both tabletop & digital. [...] Alan's influence will be rippling through the hobby gaming world for many years to come, and he is gone too soon," wrote Armchair Dragoons.

According to Game Post, one of Bungie's unannounced projects, codenamed 'Gummy Bears,' has changed development hands. The outlet reports the upcoming title is now in the hands of an internal, unnamed PlayStation team that features "around 40" ex-Bungie staff.Last year, Bungie laid off 220 employees following the release of Destiny 2: The Final Shape. It also moved 115 employees over to PlayStation Studios to build out one of its projects said at the time to be in incubation. Prior to Shape's release, Gummy Bears was said to be "in a holding pattern" as Bungie put its focus on that Destiny 2 expansion, and now its extraction shooter Marathon.Gummy Bears has been described by Game Post as a team-based MOBA (the genre made popular by Riot Games' League of Legends and Valve's DOTA 2) which marks Bungie's first foray into that particular genre. It's also reportedly designed with a younger audience in mind, as opposed to older demographics drawn to previous titles like the Destiny and Halo series.Last September, Game Post noted a then-recent patent filing from Bungie concerning "controlling game behavior of defensive objective characters in a virtual environment." The patent noted the mechanic has been used in genres like MOBA and tower defense titles, and the inclusion of "behavior trees" for defensive AI units, would could "may be used to control the actions of the defensive objective character."In the past, a patent filing from Bungie for touchscreen controls on phones and handheld devices was discovered in advance of the reveal for Destiny: Rising, a mobile spinoff of the studio's sci-fi shooter franchise.You can read Game Post's full breakdown on what 'Gummy Bears' is here. Game Developer has reached out to PlayStation for comment, and will update when a response is given.

Justin Carter, Contributing EditorJanuary 10, 20252 Min ReadImage via Piranha Games/Enad Global 7.At a GlanceEnad is restructuring the two studios after failed cost-cutting measures for Toadman and weak sales for MechWarrior 5: Clans.Swedish holding company Enad Global 7 has restructured two of its subsidiaries, Toadman Interactive and Piranha Games. It plans to "wind down" the former studio, and cut 38 employees at the latter, which has developed titles such as MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries and MechWarrior 5: Clans.In its Piranha announcement, Enad CEO Ji Ham revealed Clans sold "below expectations," and stated the layoffs will "ensure [the studio] continues to operate with a sound profitability while being able to ship new content according to plan.""The team at Piranha truly delivered a high-quality game that exceeded both internal as well as external expectations," he continued. "Despite the phenomenal work by the team at Piranha, the game failed to reach new audiences and expand its core audience as anticipated and therefore has not met the necessary sales targets, which has forced us to undertake necessary actions."Separately, level designer Julian Disterheft said this was Piranha's second wave of layoffs since Clans' release last October. In his post, he affirmed that sales for that title "just weren't there to keep the studio at that size. Its a money in, money out situation and the money just wasn't coming in.""Thanks to Piranha for the opportunity," he wrote. "And huge shout out to the players of MechWarrior Online. Love you guys."Toadman was the original name for Enad, which was founded in 2013 as a work-for-hire studio. It rebranded in 2020 and assigned the Toadman name to one of its subsidiaries, which went on to be a support developer for Everquest, Planetside 2, and Warhammer Vermintide.As for Enad, it gradually acquired the likes of Piranha, Daybreak Game Company (DC Universe Online), and Big Blue Bubble (Power Chord).Last September, Toadman laid off around 100 contract and full-time employees after it'd completed support work on Helldivers 2 and Dead Island 2.Shutting down Toadman "did not come lightly," wrote Enad, which said comes after several cost-cutting measures and attempts to make the studio "profitable." By ceasing its operations, Enad hopes this will help "deliver on [our] long-term strategy." 69 employees will be let go, and the remaining 42 will be tasked with wrapping Toadman's remaining work-for-hire projects with Daybreak and Cold Iron Studios.Read more about:LayoffsAbout the AuthorJustin CarterContributing Editor, GameDeveloper.comA Kansas City, MO native, Justin Carter has written for numerous sites including IGN, Polygon, and SyFy Wire. In addition to Game Developer, his writing can be found at io9 over on Gizmodo. Don't ask him about how much gum he's had, because the answer will be more than he's willing to admit.See more from Justin CarterDaily news, dev blogs, and stories from Game Developer straight to your inboxStay UpdatedYou May Also Like