For this week'scurated picksof architecture and design competitions listed on Bustler, we are featuring four calls seeking people and organizations who are contributing to forming anequitable, human-centric, resilient, accessible, and beautiful Austin, stand-out residential projects of all scales in Los Angeles, innovative solutions by young architects to challenges impacting UNESCO World Heritage Sites within an urban context, and proposals for a 30-story residential tower in New YorkCity that can be used as subsidized housing in order to combat the city's housing crisis.For the complete directory of newly listed competitions, clickhere.

Casa Gomis, the iconic modernist space completed in 1963 following a design by Antoni Bonet Castellana, has been acquired into the inventory of the of the Spanish Ministry of Culture for $7.5 million.Artnet is reporting on its newfound status, which "provides a much-needed lifeline" against the encroaching expansion of Barcelona Airport. Plans are for it to be converted into a cultural and environmental center. In a press release, Natascha Drabbe, the founder of the Iconic Houses Network, said the move would "inspire governments and heritage organizations around the world to take similar bold and meaningful action."Image: Kent Wang/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)Image: Kent Wang/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)Image: Catalan Art & Architecture Gallery (Josep Bracons)/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)Image: Catalan Art & Architecture Gallery (Josep Bracons)/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

FStorm Tile Element texture can be used in 2 ways:With material Id option the texture should be connected only to Multi Texture (has to be set to Map mapping).

Bandai Namcos Synduality: Echo of Ada received a somewhat muted reaction on Steam at launch, currently sitting at a 43 percent Mixed rating. Nevertheless, the publisher has some new content inbound, with Season 1 starting on February 6th. Check out the announcement trailer below.East Amasia debuts as a new map, though its only accessible to those who have completed the requisite Requests. Since it combines the Northern and Southern Zones, theres some degree of familiarity, but the development team touts greater danger and riches.Among the new items are new Epic weapons, higher-rarity Cradlecoffins, craftable items, and more. There will also be new Requests and gold-coated skins for your Magus. You can also discover Artifacts, which provide more lore surrounding the mystery of the past.Stay tuned for more details en route to Season 1s launch. Synduality: Echo of Ada is available for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. You can check out our review here, where we rated it a six out of ten.

After recent reports that BioWare would be having its development team re-assigned, and some even laid off, Baldurs Gate 3s publishing director at Larian Studios has called EA out through a post on social media platform X. Larians Michael Douse spoke out about the layoffs, saying that the way the lay-offs were carried out was bad. Douse also calls out the decision as a short-term cost-saving measure at the expensive of not solving a long-term problem.To make it absolutely clear, what I hate about the way layoffs are carried out is that they are done *before* decision makers know what do do with a studio, and not as a result of figuring out a direction, posted Douse on X. This is consistently true. It is a short term cost-saving measure at a huge human expense that doesnt solve a long term problem. (A lack of a viable strategic direction defined at an executive level). You can probably figure it out if you trust your developers instead of firing them. On a positive note, Im seeing a slight shift in this direction. In the low-stakes arena of remasters and remakes, but they are the foundation of something bigger.Douse also called out EA for being a publisher worth $30 billion, but still being unable to support BioWare with an economic foundation. Douse posted about how lay offs like this affect institutional knowledge that is often lost when developers that have lost their jobs leave the industry.It is possible not to layoff large parts of your development teams between or after projects, he posted. Critically, retaining that institutional knowledge is key for the next. Its often used as an excuse to trim fat and to an extent I understand that under financial pressure, but doesnt that just highlight how needless the aggressive efficiency of giant corporations is? Id understand it if they were pumping out hit after hit perhaps you could argue its working but clearly the aggressive streamlining (layoffs) arent. Its *nothing but cost cutting* in the most brutal sense. Its *always* people lower down the food chain that suffer, when its *clearly* strategy higher up the food chain thats causing the problem. On a pirate ship, theyd toss the captain overboard. Video games companies should be run like pirate ships.Earlier this week, BioWare general manager Gary McKay revealed that the studio was going through a bit of a restructuring in order for its developers to better work on the next project: Mass Effect 5. According to McKay, a core team at BioWare is working on the next Mass Effect, including Mike Gamble, Preston Watamaniuk, Derek Watts, and Parrish Ley, among others.Dragon Age: The Veilguard seemed to not perform as well as EA would have liked, and as a result, BioWare has been seeing some trouble since the game launched. Earlier this month, the games director, Corrine Busche, had left the company to work on a new CRPG.For more details about Dragon Age: The Veilguard, check out our review.To make it absolutely clear, what I hate about the way layoffs are carried out is that they are done *before* decision makers know what do do with a studio, and not as a result of figuring out a direction. This is consistently true. It is a short term cost saving measure at a Very AFK (@Cromwelp) January 31, 2025It is possible not to layoff large parts of your development teams between or after projects. Critically, retaining that institutional knowledge is key for the next. Its often used as an excuse to trim fat and to an extent I understand that under financial pressure, but Very AFK (@Cromwelp) January 30, 2025

Infrastructure Ontario has invited three teams to respond to a request for proposals (RFP) to design, build, finance and maintain a new Ontario Science Centre at Ontario Place.On April 18, 2023, the provincial government announced its plans to close the existing Ontario Science Centre, designed by Raymond Moriyama, and to move the institution to a new facility as part of the redeveloped Ontario Place. Construction was expected to begin in 2025, with an opening slated for 2028. The government has since told the provinces Auditor General that the new facility will not open until 2029. Other documents suggest the new facility will not be ready until 2030 to 2034.In June 2024, the government announced the immediate closure of the sciencecentre citing public safety concerns and a high cost of repair, a decision that has come under scrutiny by Canadian Architect and other groups, with over 90,000 people signing a petition initiated by grassroots organization Save Ontarios Science Centre demanding the reopening of the legacy Ontario Science Centre.Some advocates suggest that a newly built science-themed museum could exist at Ontario Place in tandem with the retention and renovation of the existing Ontario Science Centre.The teams selected to respond to an RFP to design, build, finance and maintain the new Ontario Science Centre project at Ontario Place were chosen from the Request for Qualifications stage that was posted publicly in May 2024 and closed in August 2024.The chosen teams include:DiscoverON Partners:Applicant Leads:Fengate Capital Management Ltd and Pomerleau Capital Inc.Design Team:Cumulus Architects Inc and Daoust Lestage Lizotte SteckerConstruction Team:Pomerleau Inc.Facilities Management: Honeywell LimitedFinancial Advisor:National Bank Financial, Inc.EllisDon Infrastructure:Applicant Lead:EllisDon Capital Inc.Design Team:Belvedere Architecture and BDP Quadrangle Architects LimitedConstruction Team:EllisDon CorporationFacilities Management: EllisDon Facilities Services IncFinancial Advisor:EllisDon Capital Inc.Ontario Science Partners:Applicant Leads:John Laing Limited, Sacyr Infrastructure Canada Inc, and Amico Major Projects Inc.Design Team:Hariri Inc & D. Pontarini Inc, Snohetta Architecture, Landscape Architecture P.C.Construction Team:Sacyr Canada Inc, and Amico Design Build Inc.Facilities Management: Johnson Controls Canada L.P.The post Three teams shortlisted for relocated Ontario Science Centre appeared first on Canadian Architect.

Today, were excited to share a comprehensive update on the state of Unreal Engine running on macOS devices. Our goal is to achieve feature parity with Windows and provide a cohesive experience for users across all platforms. Find out how were doing.

Shreveport Aquarium experts take care of the new swell shark pup. Screenshot of a Shreveport Aquarium video, edited to include arrowOn January 3, the Shreveport Aquarium in Louisiana welcomed a swell shark pup into the world under mysterious circumstances: It was born in a tank that housed only two sharksand both were female.The two swell sharks have been in a female-only habitat at the Shreveport Aquarium for more than three years. So, how did this birth happen?This situation is incredible and shows the resilience of this species, Greg Barrick, the aquariums curator of live animals, says in a statement. It really proves that life... uh... finds a way, he adds, referencing Jurassic Parks surprisingly similar situation with female dinosaurs.Aquarists have two potential explanations for what process created this shark. One of the two adult females might have carried out a rare form of asexual reproduction called parthenogenesis, or it could be a case of delayed fertilization. The team will be able to tell which one it wasand who the mother iswith a DNA analysis, but they have to wait a few months before they can draw blood from the baby.Though Barrick has been referring to the pupnamed Yoko after the Chumash word for shark, onyokoas a she, he admits they cant determine its sex yet, per CBC Radios Sheena Goodyear.If the shark was born through parthenogenesis, it would join a handful of similar known births. In general, we think parthenogenesis is a last ditch effort for a female to pass on its genes, so when a female is isolated from conspecific males, she is able to undergo parthenogenesis, Kevin Feldheim, a lab manager at Chicagos Field Museum, tells NPRs Rachel Treisman. How parthenogenesis kicks in or what cues the females use to begin the process [of self-fertilization] remains to be discovered. He adds that parthenogenesis has only ever been observed once in the wild. The phenomenon has been recorded more frequently in captive animals.Komodos are famous for it, Colin Stevenson, head of education at Crocodiles of the World, an England zoo, tells the Guardians Karen McVeigh. They can reproduce normally, but every now and again, they pop out a parthenogenetic one. The trick is to work out what kicks it off.As for delayed fertilization, many female sharks are able to store sperm in their oviducal glands, preventing it from reaching an egg until long after the shark has had contact with a male. But exactly how long they can do so remains a mystery.Bob Hueter, a shark scientist at the nonprofit Ocearch who is not associated with the Shreveport Aquarium, tells CBC Radio that shark fertilization is sometimes delayed until certain conditions change, such as the weather, food availability or proximity to breeding grounds. The longest-ever shark sperm storage known to scientists was documented in 2015, and it lasted almost four years.The swell sharks at the Shreveport Aquarium, however, were in female-only tanks even before arriving at the facilityat least as far back as 2014, Barrick tells CBC Radio, so if it is delayed fertilization, it is the first of its kind for that length.While Yoko is currently thriving off-exhibit, per the statement, the aquarists are aware that shark pups born from rare reproductive events usually face health issues.Should Yokos time with us be brief, it will still leave an unforgettable legacy, contributing invaluable insights to the study of shark reproduction and conservation efforts, the aquarium writes in the statement.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Animals, Baby Animals, Fish, Mysteries, Reproduction, Sharks, Weird Animals

Dan Houser's Absurd Ventures is teasing some new projects including an animated series and an action-comedy adventure game.Read More

Retailer Newegg sold out of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs "within minutes""Overwhelming demand" says VP of Product Management News by Rachel Weber Senior Editor Published on Jan. 31, 2025 Online hardware retailer Newegg has reported that it sold out of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs "within minutes" and broke down the surge of customer activity around the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090."The response to the NVIDIA RTX 50 Series has been extraordinary," said Jim Tseng, VP of Product Management in a press release."The overwhelming demand reaffirms the gaming and PC communitys enthusiasm for the very best technology. For our customers who have not yet been able to secure a GPU, were committed to working with NVIDIA and our AIB (Add-In Board) partners to ensure future restocks and continued availability. Getting the latest cards into our customers is our passion, and were proud to also offer a GPU trade-in program that makes it more affordable for customers to upgrade to the latest generation of video cards."Newegg revealed that it took only 20 minutes for the site to sell its entire RTX 50 series inventory, and that, unsurprisingly, traffic to the site saw an 8 to 10X boost. Nine out of the top ten searches on the site were for the GPUs, and made up 18 of the sites 25 most visited pages. While it's good news for Newegg, consumers have been frustrated by the apparent scarcity of the GPUs, and the appearance of units on bidding sites with astronomical mark ups like over $6,000 for the RTX 5090, a 200% increase on the original retail price. In response, a spokesman for NVIDIA with the title Tim@Nvidia posted reassurances on the company's forums. "We expect significant demand for the GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080 and believe stock-outs may happen. NVIDIA & our partners are shipping more stock to retail every day to help get GPUs into the hands of gamers."Manufacturers like MSI had warned that the units could be in short supply, with Chinese New Year being cited as major factor in the production rate.