The hibernation haze of winter has finally cleared, which means you're probably waking up right now to all the clutter you've accumulated throughout the season—and you’re not alone. According to Anton Liakhov, an interior designer, organizer, and founder of Roomtery, spring and summer's first rays of sunshine have a direct effect on your psyche. The warm light, paired with blue skies and cool breezes, inspires a fresh start, a full social calendar, and the dire need to clean house. “It's like waking up to discover we're surrounded by items we no longer need,” Liakhov says. “That seasonal nudge gives us permission to let go and begin again for brighter, lighter living.” While things like gift wrapping essentials, cold-weather accessories, seasonal decor, cozy candles, and throw blankets create a snug ambience, they also clutter your space. Spring, he says, triggers an awakening to it all. Related StoriesSo, where do you start? Spring and summer are optimal times to tackle areas like entryways, mudrooms, garages, as well as outdoor storage. If it’s warm enough to open the doors and work outside, “it’s time to sort through patio furniture, gardening equipment, and outdoor toys," says Liakhov. Of course, what you choose to toss is up to your discretion. The best things to declutter at any time of year are the things taking up physical and mental space. Still, if you’re looking for specific items, we asked three professional organziers which things you should part with to keep your house spick and span for the warm-weather months ahead. Holiday Wrapping EssentialsJohner Images//Getty ImagesThe holiday season is still far off in the distance, so use this time as an opportunity to get rid of excess wrapping paper, tissue paper, gift boxes, and bags. "We accumulate more Christmas wrap than we'll ever need," says Liakhov. Save what you will realistically use, and toss or donate the rest. Worn-out OuterwearKypros//Getty ImagesSpeaking of seasonal items to sift through, Shantae Duckworth, founder of Shantaeize Your Space, says spring is the perfect time to re-evaluate the winter coats hanging in your closet. “If you didn’t reach for it this winter, you probably won’t next year either,” Duckworth says. In other words, ditch the bulk. If you're tight on space, consider using vacuum compression bags to flatten your remaining outerwear and store it flat in the attic or basement until temperatures dip again.Spring/Summer Clothes You Don’t WearKinga Krzeminska//Getty ImagesOne of the perks of an early summer clean is streamlining your seasonal closet before the heat really settles in. According to Nick Friedman, cofounder of College HUNKS Hauling Junk & Moving, last year’s untouched spring or summer clothes have no place in your closet or dresser drawers. You can tackle your closet by adhering to Friedman’s golden rule: If you didn’t wear it in the past 12 months, donate it. From there, Friedman recommends curating your wardrobe “like a seasonal menu; keep only what you reach for on display and use vacuum bags or rolling under-the-bed bins to store off-season items.” Unused Beauty ItemsCatherine Falls Commercial//Getty ImagesIn addition to clothing, Friedman says that beauty cabinets also require frequent decluttering, especially ahead of the summer months when you typically favor sunscreen and skincare products over makeup. “If your sunscreen has expired, it’s not doing you any favors,” he points out. Old SPF, makeup, and/or skincare products can go, and unused or unopened items can usually be donated. “Not only does this clear up bathroom clutter,” Friedman adds, “but it also protects your health.”Expired Pantry & Freezer Foodsfcafotodigital//Getty ImagesLiakhov and Duckworth agree: Springtime is the time to clean out your pantry and freezer of any expired items, like aged spices, canned foods, and sauces. You can even take it one step further and recycle any containers that are past their prime, including cracked lids or warped bottoms.Seasonal Sports EquipmentJulius//Getty ImagesWinter sports aficionados, this one’s for you. Liakhov lists snowshoes, sleds, and ski helmets as equipment to evaluate before storing them away for the season. “If it's broken, hasn't been touched in years, or no longer a part of your lifestyle, let it go before it gets another dust coating,” he adds. While you're at it, give your summer gear a once-over so you can replace anything broken or faulty before it all disappears from stores. Follow House Beautiful on Instagram and TikTok.

Nvidia's RTX Remix is a remarkable tool that allows game modders to bring state-of-the-art path traced visuals to classic PC games. We've seen Portal RTX from Nvidia already, along with the development of a full-on remaster of Half-Life 2 - but I was excited to see a community of modders take on 2004's Painkiller, enhanced now to become Painkiller RTX. It's still a work-in-progress project as of version 0.1.6, but what I've seen so far is still highly impressive - and if you have the means, I recommend checking it out. The whole reason RTX Remix works with the original Painkiller is due to its custom rendering technology, known as the PainEngine. This 2004 release from People Can Fly Studios was built around Direct X 8.1, which gave it stellar visuals at the time, including bloom effects – specular lighting with limited bump mapping and full framebuffer distortion effects. Those visuals dazzled top-end GPU owners of the time, but like a great number of PC releases from that era, it had a DX7 fallback which culled the fancier shading effects and could even run on GPUs like the original GeForce. RTX Remix uses the fixed function DX7 path and replaces the core rendering with the path tracer - and that is how I have been playing the game these last few days, taking in the sights and sounds of Painkiller with a new lick of paint. It's an upgrade that has made me appreciate it all the more now in 2025 as it is quite a special game that history has mostly forgotten. To fully enjoy the modders' work on the path-traced upgrade to Painkiller, we highly recommend this video.Watch on YouTube Painkiller is primarily a singleplayer first-person shooter that bucked the trends of the time period. After Half-Life and Halo: Combat Evolved, many first person shooters trended towards a more grounded and storytelling-based design. The classic FPS franchises like Quake or Unreal had gone on to become wholly focused on multiplayer, or else transitioned to the storytelling route - like Doom 3, for example. Painkiller took all of those 'modern' trappings and threw them in the garbage. A narrative only exists in a loose sense with pre-rendered video that bookends the game’s chapters, acting only as a flimsy excuse to send the player to visually distinct levels that have no thematic linking beyond pointing you towards enemies that you should dispatch with a variety of weapons. The basic gameplay sounds familiar if you ever played Doom Eternal or Doom 2016. It is simple on paper, but thanks to the enemy and level variety and the brilliant weaponry, it does not get tiring. The game enhanced its traditional FPS gameplay with an extensive use of Havok physics – where a great deal of the game’s environmental objects could be broken up into tiny pieces with rigid body movement on all the little fragments, or environmental objects could be manipulated with ragdoll or rope physics. Sometimes it is there for purely visual entertainment but other times it has a gameplay purpose with destructible objects often containing valuable resources or being useful as a physics weapon against the game's enemies. So, what's the score with Painkiller RTX? Well, the original's baked lighting featured hardly any moving lights and no real-time perspective-correct shadows - so all of that is added as part and parcel of the path-traced visuals. The RTX renderer also takes advantage of ray-traced fog volumes, showing shadows in the fog in the areas where light is obscured. Another aspect you might notice is that the game’s various pickups have been now made to be light-emissive. In the original game, emissives textures are used to keep things full bright even in darkness, but they themselves emit no light. Since the path tracer fully supports emissive lighting from any arbitrary surface, they all now cast light, making them stand out even more in the environment. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. The original game extensively used physics objects, which tended to lead to a clash in lighting and shading for any moving objects, which were incongruous then with the static baked lighting. Turn on the path tracer and these moving objects are grounded into the environment with shadows of their own, while receiving and casting light themselves. Boss battles are transformed as those enemies are also fully grounded in the surrounding environments, perfectly integrated into the path-traced visuals - and even if the titanic enemies are off-screen, their shadows are not. The main difference in many scenes is just down to the new lighting - it's more physicalised now as dynamic objects are properly integrated, no longer floating or glowing strangely. One reason for this is due to lighting resolution. The original lighting was limited by trying to fit in 256MB of VRAM, competing for space with the game’s high resolution textures. Painkiller RTX's lighting and shadowing is achieved at a per-pixel level in the path tracer, which by necessity means that you tend to see more nuance, along with more bounce lighting as it is no longer erased away by bilinear filtering on chunky light map textures. Alongside more dynamism and detail, there are a few new effects too. Lit fog is heavily used now in many levels - perhaps at its best in the asylum level where the moonlight and rain are now illuminated, giving the level more ambience than it had before. There is also some occasional usage of glass lighting effects like the stain glass windows in the game now filtering light through them properly, colouring the light on the ground in the pattern of the individual mosaic patterns found on their surface. Half-Life 2 RTX - built on RTX Remix - recently received a demo release. It's the flagship project for the technology, but modders have delivered path traced versions of many modern games.Watch on YouTube New textures and materials interact with the path tracer in ways that transform the game. For some objects, I believe the modders used Quixel megascan assets to give the materials parallax along with a high resolution that is artistically similar to the original game. A stoney ground in the graveyard now actually looks stoney, thanks to a different texture: a rocky material with craggy bits and crevices that obscure light and cast micro shadows, for example. Ceramic tiles on the floor now show varying levels of depth and cracks that pick up a very dull level of reflectivity from the moon-lit sky. Some textures are also updated by running them through generative tools which interpret dark areas of the baked textures as recesses and lighter areas as raised edges and assigns them a heightmap. This automated process works quite well for textures whose baked features are easily interpreted, but for textures that had a lot of noise added into them to simulate detail, the automated process can be less successful. That is the main issue I would say with the RTX version so far: some of these automated textures have a few too many bumps in them, making them appear unnatural. But that is just the heightmap data as the added in material values to give the textures sheen tend to look universally impressive. The original game barely has any reflectivity, and now a number of select surfaces show reflections in full effect, like the marble floors at the end of the game's second level. For the most part though, the remix of textures from this mod is subtle, with many textures still being as diffuse as found in the original game: rocky and dirty areas in particular look much the same as before, just with more accurately rendered shadows and bounce lighting - but without the plasticy sheen you might typically find in a seventh generation game. Whether maxed on an RTX 5090 or running on optimised settings on an RTX 4060, the current work-in-progress version of Painkiller RTX can certainly challenge hardware. | Image credit: Digital Foundry Make no mistake though: path tracing doesn't come cheap and to play this game at decent frame-rates, you either need to invest in high performance hardware or else accept some compromises to settings. Being a user mod that's still in development, I imagine this could improve in later versions but at the moment, Painkiller RTX maxed out is very heavy - even heavier than Portal RTX. So if you want to play it on a lower-end GPU, I recommend my optimised settings for Portal RTX, which basically amounts to turning down the amount of possible light bounces to save on performance and skimping a bit in other areas. Even with that, an RTX 4060 was really struggling to run the game well. With frame generation on and DLSS set to 1080p balanced with the transformer model, 80fps to 90fps was the best I could achieve in the general combat zones, with the heaviest stages dipping into the 70s - and even into the 60s with frame generation. The mod is still work-in-progress, but even now, Painkiller RTX is still a lot of fun and it can look stunning if your hardware is up to it. But even if you can't run it, I do hope this piece and its accompanying video pique your interest in checking out Painkiller in some form. Even without the path-traced upgrade, this is a classic first-person shooter that's often overlooked and more than holds its own against some of the period's better known games.

Pros Excellent cooling performanceBrilliantly designed front fan bracketsBeautiful lighting effects in tested Ambience Pro RGB versionElaborate, web-accessible software controls for lighting, fans Cons Only minimal dust filtrationHigh price for our Ambience Pro test model Fractal Design Meshify 3 Specs 120mm or 140mm Fan Positions 6 120mm to 200mm Fans Included 3 Dimensions (HWD) 20.1 by 9.1 by 17.2 inches Fan Controller Included? Front Panel Ports HD Audio Front Panel Ports USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A (2) Front Panel Ports USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C Included Fan Lighting Color Addressable RGB Internal 2.5-Inch Bays 6 Internal 3.5-Inch Bays 2 Internal Chassis Lighting Color None Maximum CPU Cooler Height 173 Maximum GPU Length 349 Motherboard Form Factors Supported ATX Motherboard Form Factors Supported MicroATX Motherboard Form Factors Supported Mini-ITX PCI Expansion Slot Positions 7 Power Supply Form Factor Supported ATX Power Supply Maximum Length 180 Power Supply Mounting Location Bottom Side Window(s)? Yes (Tempered Glass) Weight 20.2 All Specs Fractal Design boosts its latest Meshify PC case with a trio of 140mm ARGB fans behind its now-iconic “crumpled mesh” front face. Starting at a mid-market $139.99 for its base model, the Meshify 3 also comes in upgraded versions with nifty extras that creep up the price. These include items like ARGB fan trim, ARGB side panel lighting, an ARGB strip surrounding the face panel, and even an ARGB controller that connects to the web. Taken together, all that can bump the price as high as the $219.99 MSRP for the deluxe, spectacular Ambience Pro RGB version of the case we tested. Whatever the feature mix you opt for, the case’s robust cooling performance shines. At the high end of the range, though, factor in the case’s biggest shortfall—its lack of inlet-air dust filtration—given what competitors deliver in $200-plus cases. Our current ATX tower favorite, the NZXT H7 Flow, isn't much better equipped with filters and isn't as striking as the Ambience Pro case in all its lit glory, but it costs much less.Design: A Crumpled ClassicPC-case feature trends have changed a bit in the eight years that Fractal Design has been putting its signature crumpled-mesh faces on classic mid-tower cases. (The aesthetic crumpling is easier to see in photos of the shinier black finish, such as the Meshify 2 we reviewed in 2021.) This latest version adds an air deflector at the front of the power supply shroud to force a bit more airflow past your hot graphics card. This Ambience Pro RGB variant’s feature set, as noted, has a USB-based ARGB controller, as well as lighting around the front face, along the bottom of the left side panel’s window, and on the three fans. Buyers willing to forgo most of the lit-up bling can get the basic “RGB” version with just the fan lighting for $159.99, and those willing to give up even that helping of ARGB can get the base “TG” version for $139.99. Our sample was in white; all three models are also available in black, and buyers who yearn for further simplification will find an additional “Solid” variant sold exclusively in black, with a painted steel panel on the left side in place of the window.Fractal Design has merged the headphone and microphone jacks of previous versions into a single four-pole connector on the Meshify 3. This connector functions as a normal headphone jack when one is plugged in; the extra pole serves the monaural microphone of a combined headset plug. Fractal also ditched the reset button of previous cases, but kept the twin USB 3 Type-A and a single Type-C port. And, this time around, the lighted power-on indicator ring that surrounds the power button is ARGB.(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)Though the mesh that covers the face and top panel could potentially filter out some inbound dust, the only part of the Meshify 3 that’s explicitly designed as a dust trap is under the power supply’s air inlet. Sliding out from the case’s side, it’s partially disguised as a portion of the rear case foot.(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)The Meshify 3’s back panel features a pattern of vent slots spaced to allow a fan to be screwed directly into the slots. Also back here are surface-mounted PCI Express expansion-card slots with replaceable covers, a plastic screw-tab cover with a built-in push tab at the bottom to ease its removal, and a removable power supply bracket that’s secured with two large knurled screws. Power supply insertion is through the case’s rear panel; the design lacks the space to slide in the power supply from the side.(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)Both side panels are secured at the top with snaps, and Fractal Design added a pair of tabs to make that task a little easier. Those tabs also have screw holes, enabling you to further secure your side panels against accidental removal.A nylon pull tab at the center of the top panel’s back edge serves a similar function. To release that panel and lift it off, you must first slide it back a quarter inch or so.(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)The front ARGB fans have 140mm frames, but there’s too little space behind them to mount a 420mm-format radiator vertically. That’s because radiator end caps tend to extend the total size by around 40mm (give or take 6mm).(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)On the other hand, those really motivated to place a radiator behind the front panel’s fans will find that a 360mm-format unit will work, but only by removing the 140mm fans and flipping the fan-mount brackets over. (They are visible in the image below.) Fractal Design’s brilliance shines through with these very basic sheet-metal brackets that flip to support either 120mm or 140mm fans without hindering airflow.(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)The top panel is fully removable to ease radiator installation and removal, but it does not benefit from the front panel’s design wizardry. While its straight-edged brackets will cover a portion of the fan’s blades when fans are mounted directly on them, its 330mm-plus of length is sufficient to support every 280mm-format radiator we can think of.Also, notice the removable cable shroud running up and down the case near the front. It is adjustable to fit motherboards up to 10.9 inches deep. That is less than the 13-inch max depth of Extended ATX, but it’s still sufficient to fit the slightly oversized enthusiast-class motherboard models that sometimes still get called EATX.(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)The lower front fan’s air deflector is removable and sits far enough above the case’s floor to be used in conjunction with a pair of 2.5-inch drive bays hidden beneath it. (We don’t even want to think about how we’d manage the cables in that configuration, however.)We removed the cable shroud for a clearer shot of this area. Keen observers might note the mounting slot for its lower edge at the top of the photo.(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)Two drive trays, three push-in cable clips, and the ARGB controller are all found behind the motherboard tray. The card bracket’s removable covers and the removable power supply bracket are shown in the image below detached and in front of the case, and the photo also shows the gap beneath the removable front fan duct into which some builders may want to install a pair of 2.5-inch drives.Recommended by Our Editors(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)More drive storage is visible here on the back of the motherboard tray. Configured from the factory to hold two 3.5-inch drives, these brackets on the back of the motherboard tray can be repositioned to hold four 2.5-inch drives instead.(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)Held in place by a hook-and-loop Velcro-style strap, the included ARGB controller has USB and PWM input on the top, proprietary combination connectors on the side, and an old-fashioned SATA power connector on its bottom to power it up.(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)Note that Fractal designed special outer shells on the proprietary ARGB/PWM combo connectors. This design is to prevent them from being mistakenly connected to anything USB Type-C, from which they appear to borrow their form. As with several others, this photo again shows the 10mm gap between the bottom panel’s 2.5-inch drive mounts and the underside of the front fan’s air guide.(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)As for the controller box itself, here’s a shot of the connectors that we couldn’t see in the ARGB controller’s previous photos, including the SATA power inlet.(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)Of the two output cables we did see, one is for the case's chain of fans, and the other is for this version of the case’s “Ambience Pro” lighting. Four telescoping contact pins allow the front panel’s portion to separate easily from the rest of that latter cable without an awkward tether.(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)Building With the Fractal Design Meshify 3: Perfect Parts PacksFractal's accessory kits are hard to top in terms of neatness and clear labeling. Start with the screws: The Meshify 3 includes 24 M3 mounting screws, nine #6-32 screws to attach the motherboard to case standoffs, four #6-32 screws with hex/Phillips combo heads for power supply installation, and eight #6-32 shoulder screws for mounting 3.5-inch drives on damping grommets. (Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)You also get eight damping grommets, four cable ties, and an extra motherboard standoff. (But no extra screw for it! Such is life.) Our case being the Ambience Pro RGB version, it also includes a breakout cable that goes from the case’s proprietary ARGB/PWM connector to a standard ARGB strip and a standard PWM fan, along with an extension cable for the proprietary connector.Connecting the case to our motherboard are a power-button lead, an HD Audio header cable for the headset combo jack, a 19-pin USB 3.x for the Type-A ports, and a Gen 2x2 Type-E internal cable for the single Type-C external port. The case’s RGB controller also connects to one our motherboard’s USB 2.0 breakout headers and one of its PWM fan headers.(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)The white version of the Meshify 3 includes chrome hardware, but since our standard Asus ATX test motherboard is black, I flexed my design chops and used black screws to attach it. I can also divulge that I initially forgot to reinstall the cable shroud, which required me later in the build to remove the graphics card, install the shroud, and reinstall the card. Oops!(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)The RGB controller uses a web interface to select its various lighting and fan modes, rather than forcing users to install software, and it stores those settings on the controller rather than leaving components in the OS. You can dictate a "startup" lighting effect separately from the regular run of lighting that the case cycles through. Using it allowed us to switch from the case’s soft blue default to something a little more, shall we say, festive.(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)The light controller’s “Sunset” mode looked like a softer variation of our CPU cooler’s Rainbow mode in this test. Nice.(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)Testing the Fractal Design Meshify 3: Cool It, ManToday’s build leverages the ATX hardware from our most recent case evaluation platform, including its full-sized Cooler Master GX III Gold 850W power supply and mid-size Corsair iCue H100i RGB Pro XT CPU cooler.Apparently, that little scoop that pushes air upward from the lower of the three front fans does have some positive effect on overall case temperature. Our CPU, motherboard (voltage-regulator), and GPU numbers all show slightly lower temperatures than its five most closely-matched recently reviewed rivals. (These include the Corsair Frame 4000D, the SilverStone Fara 514X, and the MSI Velox 300R.)And just in case you thought that Fractal Design might have gotten its high score by overspeeding its fans a bit…it didn’t. Fan noise is tied for second place in this test group, behind the Super Flower Zillion Direct.The biggest nit we can pick is that some of the Meshify 3’s airflow enhancement might be due to its lack of flow-restricting dust filters.

Ambience is part of the red-hot market that uses AI to draft clinical notes in real time as doctors consensually record their visits with patients

MM33 Apartment / bunoSave this picture!Apartments, Apartment Interiors•Khet Khlong Toei, Thailand Architects: buno Area Area of this architecture project Area:  54 m² Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2023 Photographs Photographs:Napat PattrayanondMore SpecsLess Specs Save this picture! Text description provided by the architects. MM33 Apartment rethinks a typical domestic milieu, a commercialized urban housing unit where room sizes are predominantly determined more by the logic of sales and marketing data rather than the dynamics of life. To create more space for flexible usages and for a sense of spaciousness, the rigid sense of room making is challenged, and the assumed standard dimensions are discarded for more meticulously compact scales.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!The new design turns a one-bedroom apartment into an open-plan space, in which "rooms" are pushed against the boundaries to make space for an airy, unobstructed "court." These rooms—the sleeping, lounging, dressing, and bathroom areas—are reduced to their optimum sizes; although small, they fit just right, for these dimensions are carefully specified accordingly to the user's scale and requirements.  The court space is functionally for cooking and dining. But it also acts as a borrowed visual space for the rooms besides. So, the space perceived is bigger.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!The extension of space is possible due to the use of operable walls that gently divide the court from the others while allowing for a sense of connection, instead of fixed and opaque partitioning. The curtains permit flexibility of use and make a spacious feeling possible while not rejecting privacy where needed. In the absence of walls as room makers/dividers, the functional fixtures play a crucial role in space planning and the aesthetics of the whole. They become architectural elements. These pieces of furniture are conceptualized as individual prefab units, equipped with essential functions for small-scale urban living, potentially applicable to various other sites, while adjustable to specific conditions.Save this picture!Save this picture!The essence of materiality is fully exposed. The floor is light beige linoleum. The fixture units are constructed of structural clear-coated plywood, exposing their layered edges. The distinct coloring aims to break the box-like volume into planes, and allow more flexibility and freedom by making object selection not too restricted, as opposed to having a monotonous ambience.Save this picture! Project gallerySee allShow less Project locationAddress:Ari, Bangkok, ThailandLocation to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.About this officebunoOffice••• Published on May 25, 2025Cite: "MM33 Apartment / buno" 25 May 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1030326/mm33-apartment-buno&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save世界上最受欢迎的建筑网站现已推出你的母语版本!想浏览ArchDaily中国吗?是否 You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream

Game Asset Developer BUKKBEEK has released a large, low-poly stylized VFX pack designed to meet a variety of needs. This Godot-native collection for version 4 and above requires no plug-ins and features organized folders along with ready-to-use scenes.Here's what it includes:Fire & Smoke:Fire x3 (small, big, magic)Smoke x3 (small, big, poison)FireballsFlamethrowerCombat:Muzzle Flash x3 (texture, smoke, sparks)Bullets x2 (single, burst)Explosion x3 (small, big, electric)Impact x8 (dust, sci-fi, sword)Energy & Electricity:Energy Beams x3 (laser, plasma, electric)Electric Sparks x2Lightning/Lightning BallMagic & Stylized:SparklesFireworksSci-fi PortalStylized ShaderHologram ShaderNature & Ambience:Vegetation Shader & Grass (with day-night cycle)Falling LeavesRainDustFirefliesGodraysBirdsWater:Water Shader & Effects x2 (ripples, long ripples)Ground Effects x10:Pickup, Loot, Heal, Arrows, Power Up, etc.Decals:Blood Splash x2Bullet Holes x3Slime x2Cracks x3Footprints x2 (blood, mud)Handprints x2 (blood, dust)Tire SkidClaw MarkYou can use this pack in commercial and non-commercial projects. However, resale or redistribution, whether original or modified, is strictly prohibited.In addition, BUKKBEEK has included a free icon expansion pack designed to complement impact and loot drop effects or serve as UI icons. You can also submit your own icon ideas for the developer to consider adding to the pack.Purchase Godot Visual Effects Pack here and join our 80 Level Talent platform and our new Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.

Maryse Bastié Middle School Reconstruction / Tectoniques ArchitectsSave this picture!© Maxime Verret•Dole, France Architects: Tectoniques Architects Area Area of this architecture project Area:  8248 m² Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2025 Photographs Photographs:Maxime Verret More SpecsLess Specs Save this picture! Text description provided by the architects. Built in 1974 by Jouven and Phelouzat (who also designed the neighboring hospital), the existing college is located on the south-western outskirts of the city center, in a suburban fabric that combines facilities, business parks, multi-family housing, and single-family dwellings. It is made up of several buildings arranged in an orthogonal system with no relationship to their surroundings. This functionalist architecture, poorly maintained, is now in a state of disrepair. The fragmentation of the buildings and successive additions have rendered the whole complex illegible and dysfunctional. The existing college is symptomatic of an ordinary heritage dating back to the 1970s, which has largely fallen into disrepute. Its transformation is now a necessity to meet contemporary environmental challenges. This implies taking a fresh look at it, as a heritage to be taken care of, an available resource rather than a clean slate. In addition to bringing the building up to standard and renovating its heating system, the project aims to clarify the formal and programmatic layout of the entire site in order to relieve congestion at the 550-student school, while increasing its capacity to 600. The project strategy must also take into account the need for a construction site on an occupied site, and therefore for phasing.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!Tectonique's approach is to make the right diagnosis without preconceptions. It's a question of working with, repairing, and revealing the qualities of what's already there, in this case, the rationality of the constructive system that enables the structure's adaptability. The new image is thus a result, not an assumption. The intervention seeks to relieve the complexity inherited from the existing situation, in order to offer optimal operation over the long term. This is achieved through the simplicity and straightforwardness of the architectural and constructive features. First, the multiple additions are eliminated. The extension then extends the existing building using the same system, to the east to add a teaching block and half-board facilities, and to the west to reconnect the SEGPA section, which was previously isolated. The volume is also raised by one floor to create additional classrooms. This reconfiguration establishes a hierarchy between the previously very equivalent buildings, creating a more homogeneous and coherent whole.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!The courtyard has been relocated to the south, on the side facing the town, which is served by a new forecourt with a canopy that doubles as a bicycle storage area. The entrance hall has been repositioned along the axis, at the barycentre of the plan, redefining a clear sequence from the public space. It opens onto a vast atrium with a monumental stepped staircase leading directly to the Culture and Knowledge Centre in its northern extension (in phase 3). This space redefines the centrality of this fragmented complex. It acts as a ball-and-socket joint between the various wings, providing better orientation within the building thanks to its openness to the landscape and its height. The exposed structure reveals the juxtaposition of different construction periods. The existing building is constructed using a "Stribick" prefabrication process, based on concrete floor caissons previously concealed beneath a false ceiling. These caissons are sandblasted. Revealing this structure characterizes the ambience, improves inertia, and makes the building's construction intelligible. The existing framework is envisaged as a generating system for the extension. The new parts reinterpret the coffered floors, using a timber solution of identical proportions. This relationship between the two construction methods blurs the distinction between old and new.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!The project is based on an ambitious environmental approach that favors the use of local resources, whether through the massive use of Jura wood (640 m3) or the valorization of local know-how. Previously rightly described as a "thermal sieve", the building envelope has been considerably improved thanks to external thermal insulation using wood wool. Timber construction, which is largely prefabricated and minimizes nuisance, is also an appropriate response to the problem of a phased construction site on an occupied site. The facades are clad with green standing seam aluminum cassettes, evocative of Jura metal gables and the forest character of the region. The south-facing facade is enhanced by large sunshades suspended from a slender metal structure. These overhangs protect the facades and shelter the exterior longitudinal walkway. The composition of horizontal bands alternates aluminum and wood cladding, interspersed with wide windows. This new envelope unifies the existing and the new.Save this picture! Project gallerySee allShow less Project locationAddress:Dole, FranceLocation to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.About this office MaterialsMaterials and TagsPublished on May 21, 2025Cite: "Maryse Bastié Middle School Reconstruction / Tectoniques Architects" 21 May 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1030329/maryse-bastie-middle-school-reconstruction-tectoniques-architects&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save世界上最受欢迎的建筑网站现已推出你的母语版本!想浏览ArchDaily中国吗?是否 You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream

To design the interiors of this six-story town house in Chelsea, Amy Kolker of Jane Street Projects looked to very specific people and places for inspiration. One was the Maison de Verre in Paris, a steel-and-glass residence that was unthinkably modern at the time of its construction in 1932, and another was Adolf Loos, an Austro Hungarian architect who rejected adornment but embraced luxurious materials, sometimes covering entire rooms in marble or mahogany.As a longtime set designer and visual display expert for couture labels and luxury retailers, Kolker developed an extensive design vocabulary. When a friend approached her about transforming the interiors of white-walled residence spanning nearly 8,000 square feet, Kolker dug deep into her decorative repertoire. “This was my big debut as an interior designer,” she says. “And it was quite a bit of space to work with.” It helped that her friend (and now client), James Haslam, a filmmaker and co-owner of the David Armstrong Archive, was also knowledgeable about the history of design, so the two were able to riff off each other.Near the entrance is a vintage console by J. Wade Beam for Brueton. The vase is Lalique. A peek into the elevator of the six-story home, with millwork by The New Motor and Dedar fabric walls. Haslam cites diverse influences—from the stark surrealism of David Lynch to the poetic maximalism of Lorenzo Mongiardino—when it comes to interiors. “I think it’s about emotion and storytelling, and putting that into a white-box town house was the goal,” he says. “Amy went with me; she really delivered.”From the outset, Kolker knew the home had to have saturated, moody colors and had to evoke an old-world ambience, set sometime between the 1930s and 1970s. On the ground level, she ripped out the existing white ceramic floors and added terra-cotta tiles sealed in black epoxy, creating a dramatic dark canvas. She then painted the steel of the towering industrial windows facing the garden a deep red, echoing the black-and-red palette of the aforementioned Maison de Verre. This section of the home, often used for entertaining, includes a brass-topped bar backed by a band of mirrors and low-slung Vladimir Kagan sectional sofas upholstered in gray velour. Floor-to-ceiling sheer ivory curtains add softness to the space. Behind them, in the garden, is a newly planted thicket of bamboos (a detail inspired by Halston’s house on the Upper East Side, as seen on a magazine spread from 1977). “You get to have this view of greenery when you open the curtains, and also these dappled shadows against the walls,” Kolker says.These shelves, on a mezzanine that overlooks the ground-floor living room and garden, were inspired by the library at the Maison de Verre in Paris. The oval table is by Karl Springer. In this parlor, on the third level, we see two Charlotte Perriand LC5 chairs and two Milo Baughman Parsons chairs on a Leslie Doris Blau carpet inspired by Marion Dorn. “It wanted it to feel eclectic and collected,” Kolker says of the room. Up two levels, past a mezzanine with a library overlooking the double-height windows, is an operatic eat-in kitchen. Its walls are covered in glossy emerald green tiles that go all the way to the ceiling, and the countertops, made of rosso levanto marble, have deep burgundy tones with white veins. The contrast is dazzling. In the center of the space is a Louis XV dining table paired with vintage Thonet chairs upholstered in a green gauffrage velvet and a French Art Deco glass pendant. “It’s an eclectic story of timeless furniture,” Kolker says. “It’s a rich, luxurious kitchen.”On that same level is a parlor used as a media room, with a television hidden behind a sheath of blue curtains, dark navy walls, ceilings to match, and a monolithic floor-to-ceiling marble fireplace flanked by gilded mirrors. This is the room influenced by Loos and his penchant for symmetry and paneling.Haslam, whose family owns the Haslam Sports Group, was so pleased with the results that he asked Kolker to design his home in Miami. “She knows her stuff,” he says. “And I was impressed by her ability to go outside of her own style.” Kolker has since established her interior design studio and taken on new clients—but none quite like her first. “A lot of people want a ‘safe’ home, but James is extremely creative,” she says. “It was an incredible experience.”The exterior of the town house, which spans six stories and is almost 8,000 square feet. Kolker worked with AlphaCraft Construction on the renovations of the home. The style of the main living room at this six-story town house, designed by Amy Kolker of Jane Street Projects, was inspired by the Maison de Verre in Paris, an icon of early modern architecture featuring towering steel-framed glass panes. A four-piece sectional sofa by Vladimir Kagan was paired with a coffee table from Maison Lancel. Kolker and Haslam came across these glossy green tiles at Artistic Tile and knew right away they wanted them for the kitchen walls. “It’s a whole collaboration of elements that just turned it into this masterpiece,” says the designer of the space, furnished with a marble-top Louis XV table, vintage Thonet chairs, and a Persian rug. A corner of the garden-level living room featuring an octagonal marble-top table with a vintage base by Eric Maville. The wheeled side chairs were found at Fat Chance, a design gallery in Los Angeles. The mirror behind this brass-topped bar, which was designed by Office Of Things, reflects the dappled shadows coming in from the garden. A 1930s brass and waxed white paper lamp designed by Niels Rasmussen Thykier sits atop the bar. A parlor used as a media room, with a television hidden behind a sheath of blue curtains, dark navy walls, ceilings to match, and a monolithic floor-to-ceiling marble fireplace flanked by gilded mirrors. This room was influenced by architect and designer Adolf Loos, who had penchant for symmetry and paneling. “The primary bedroom was a dark space, and I loved the idea of doing cut-grid mirrors and letting the light bounce off them,” says Kolker of the mirrored wall above the fireplace in the bedroom’s seating area. The marble coffee table was custom made; the club chairs are vintage pieces from the 1970s. In the primary bedroom, a stainless-steel-and-burl-wood cabinet from Brueton, made in 1978. The rug, depicting a horse, is Tibetan. Paonazzo Arabescato marble covers most of the surfaces in the primary bathroom. The vanity hardware is from Waterwork’s Henry line. Black limestone floor tiles from Paris Ceramics complement the look of the Paonazzo Arabescato walls. One of the guest bedrooms has a vintage French tapestry by André Minaux above the bed. The side tables are from Avery & Dash Collections. A guest bedroom, with a custom burl-wood headboard and linens from Bed Threads. The sconces are vintage, designed by George Nelson and Daniel Lewis for Koch & Lowy. On the rooftop, wrought-iron patio chairs. The landscape design is by When in Bloom.

Joya Nandurdikar has plenty in her home country to inspire her, especially the objects and forgotten techniques that are centuries old. She believes that design is not only a form of expression, but also a tool for cultural preservation that she utilizes in her own practice. “There’s a vast and diverse landscape of materials, skills, and stories across India, and the possibilities feel endless,” Nandurdikar says. “Reimagining these crafts in a contemporary setting isn’t just creatively fulfilling, it’s a way to reintroduce and reinterpret them for a wider audience.” In 2001, Nandurdikar and Amrita Guha founded New Delhi-based firm Untitled Design, with an emphasis on responsible luxury. With a tailored approach for each project, Nandurdikar encourages a dynamic exchange between her team and artisans to create interiors that blend elements of traditional and modern. Joya Nandurdikar The partners decided to bring the same ethos to the product realm, and so they launched Furgonomics in 2022, a line of furnishings. The duo works with artists to offer bespoke pieces made of marble, wood, and stone inlays. Collaboration is at the heart of Nandurdikar’s creative process, and she finds magic in the scribbles made or laughter shared over a cup of tea. It is in these moments of collective energy that some of Nandurdikar’s most unexpected – and meaningful – ideas come to life. Yet the designer also appreciates the stillness of her personal space, where she can ground and embrace what she calls “quiet joy.” Someday Nandurdikar would like to explore curation. She is especially interested in the dialogue between histories and contemporary issues. “It’s a field that excites me for its potential to expose me to a rich tapestry of thoughts and imaginative minds,” she notes. “The idea of shaping narratives through art, and sparking emotion or reflection in a viewer, feels incredibly powerful to me.” Today, Joya Nandurdikar joins us for Friday Five! 1. Art Installation There’s something deeply compelling about how the traditional narratives and motifs are reimagined through a contemporary sculptural language. This installation is a perfect blend of modern sculpture and Mural art, a painted craft form from Kerala. The materiality is a combination of patinated brass with painted figures. 2. Goddess The idol of a goddess I deeply admire, and that profoundly reflects who I am and what I am capable of. Bestowed with the name of a goddess, I walk in her essence. Her power stirs my soul and is the force behind all I create. She rises, gilded in fire and gold. She is both the prayer and the war cry, the celebration and the conquest. 3. On the Water I wish all my evenings could be like the one spent on a boat, gently sailing through the sacred waters of the Ganga. The soft ripple of the river beneath me and the golden hues of dusk reflecting off its surface feed my soul and calm my mind in ways few things can. 4. 19th-Century Cabinet I fell in love with this fabulous piece of furniture during my visit to the Rijksmuseum. An exquisite creation dating back to 1867 was impeccably designed and crafted for Charles Guillaume Diehl. Its intricate detailing, refined proportions, and sheer elegance capture the essence of 19th-century craftsmanship with timeless allure. 5. Pipe Organ During my visit to a chapel in Milan, I discovered a majestic pipe organ that instantly stirred a sense of nostalgia, reminding me of the harmonium I once learned to play and the piano my daughter now plays. The organ, with its towering presence and resonant depth, has been widely used in classical music from the Renaissance to today.   Works by Joya Nandurdikar and Untitled Design: Photo: Avesh Gaur Anugraha The flooring of Anugraha, a residential project in South Delhi, is adorned by diligent terrazzo detail with a composition of stone and brass, in cast in-situ. Exquisite craftsmanship is celebrated in this detail, where each meticulously placed fragment forms a harmonious blend of textures, colors and materials, creating a bold statement that defines spatial narratives. Photo: Untitled Design Katha Tarana The main 40-foot wall in the lounge of the residence Katha Tarana is enlivened by a wooden marquetry mural from Mysore featuring the storyline of Ashwakatha as an auspicious symbol, fitted in traditional regalia and resembling a jigsaw puzzle. The coffee table by Furgonomics, named Elemental Alchemy, a work of art, is also featured at the centre of the space, celebrating the chiseled curve of the edges, incorporating sandblasted wooden pieces combined with jade, ceramic, & Indian sandblasted sandstone. The two pieces of art resemble jigsaw puzzles, joined together with an artful interplay of elements. Photo: Nivedita Gupta Abha At the heart of the entrance lobby of Abha is a mesmerizing water feature, designed to embody generosity and spiritual abundance. Monumental stone slabs form its foundation, elegantly adorned with brass and silver Khadau, blessed by Guruji. Each element is intricately inscribed with sacred Pali script, its words flowing with timeless wisdom. Photo: Ashish Sahi Urban Hearth The frame is set as a paradox, featuring an origami light installation by Ankon Mitra and a Chilly sculpture by Subodh Kerkar. These two installations create a striking contrast in both color and emotion – one exuding a spicy allure, the other as light as a feather. The installation features Gond art by the nationally acclaimed and award-winning artist Venkat Shyam, presented as part of the Craft Clusters initiative by Furgonomics – a program dedicated to contemporising traditional crafts. Each piece contributes to the ambience with depth and intrigue, inviting exploration and contemplation. Photo: Nivedita Gupta Pravaah Despite the limited natural light, Kashmiri pinjrakari latticework transforms the basement dining room of Pravaah, a residential project in New Delhi, into a jewel-box ambience. The intricate woodwork filters the limited light, casting a warm glow throughout the room. Adorning the dining room is the Kriya Console by Furgonomics, crafted with a striking combination of Dokra technique and monolith materials, representing the delicate process of development and transformation. The tactile quality of the ledge, reminiscent of a wisp of smoke or a gentle breeze, evokes a sense of ethereality, serving as a functional element but also as a sculptural statement.

Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)It's possibly becoming a bit of a hard sell these days, the old roguelike dungeon-crawling adventure, replete with retro/pixel visuals. We know it. However, as busy and as overstuffed with pale imitators to the greats as this genre is, it's still well worth keeping an eye out for the odd gem. And here we have an example of said gem. Into the Restless Ruins is a fantastic thing - put simply, a game that takes a whole bunch of mechanics you might think you're tired of, and weaves them together into something entirely fresh and unique. Edinburgh-based Ant Workshop Studios has melded deckbuilding, dungeon-crawling, dungeon-building, a fiendishly moreish memory game, and delightful, Vampire Survivors-esque, auto-combat to beguiling effect in its Switch debut. The delicately judged balance here, in how each of these mechanics is given an equal share of your time, ensures that, from the first dungeon drop to the very last battle of the campaign, you may find yourself immobilised, such is the addictiveness of the core gameplay loops running in tandem. Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked) Kicking off in a dank catacomb, in a region known as Eorisdale, Into the Restless Ruins sees you take charge of a cloaked protagonist, a Celtic champion, who's on the hunt for the Harvest Maiden. This figure from Scottish folklore, according to the game, can satisfy any heart's greatest desires - in return for a little toil. And so off we pop down some dungeons as we've got a hot tip-off that's where she goes to chill out. This first dungeon gently introduces the flow of the gameplay. Starting a run, you're procedurally-generated a single piece of dungeon, perhaps a crossroads, with a spawn point in the centre. You also have a deck with five cards. Each card has a little part of a dungeon displayed on it, alongside the number of BP (Build Points) you'll need to play it, and a note of any other effects the card may have. An armoury will raise your attack stat, a camp lets you regenerate a little of your torch, whilst faded groves give you a little health regen, and so on through more complex fare. Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked) You start off from your spawn point and use your cards, choosing a piece of dungeon to fit — in a lovely clicky way — to the piece you're currently on. The aim now is to build and expand, using your given turns and BP, to reach several clouded areas spread around you, some of which contain seals. These seals must be found and broken to advance further to a final boss confrontation. All good. Now, once you've done your planning and played your cards, you hold in 'Y' to drop right down into the dungeon (and it's nice how the game just seamlessly zooms right in for this bit) where the auto-combat battling begins. The combat here will come as no surprise to anyone who's survived vampires: it's all about positioning and timing, avoiding explodey rats and mice, weaving through wizard's spells, and knowing when to press or pull back. Once this part starts, you'll likely quickly realise that you've made some mistakes in the planning (especially if you are us). You see, as your dungeons expand, as you reach a seal and break it and are then faced down by a horde of angry beasties, the importance of dungeon design is fully revealed. Accessibility Features GameplayAssistsControlsVisualAudioFull Accessibility Report Data by Family Gaming Database Campsites, first up, need to be placed along routes with some thought to ensure you can keep your torch lit, because they've only gone and put your light supply on a tightly-timed gauge. Tension has entered the chat! You also have a bar dictating your health, which doesn't take much to empty either, so the positioning of those regenerating faded groves is now of critical import. Once you complete a run you'll be taken back to your deck and another gauge is deployed. This purple addition to the fun shows you how cursed you are, you see. It gets added to with each complete run, and so doing well, not dying, and playing clever will help you keep this bar filling up as slowly as possible. Dying and making a mess, on the other hand, will add some hefty chunks, putting you at risk of being overwhelmed before you manage to break all the seals and beat the boss. Phew! The first dungeon's leisurely pace and straightforward layout gives you a chance to get used to spinning and placing parts of your dungeon onto the map, as well as getting to grips with how you'll need to time everything just so to push on to victory. The combat keeps itself varied by providing new weapons and collectibles, too, as well as giving you new options through a vast selection of upgradeable and changeable cards (116 base varieties, we believe). Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked) There are further layers provided through build synergies — certain placement patterns provide surprise boons — and there's also a whole bunch of Cantrips to unlock and use, allowing you to add both positive and negative effects to raise or lower the amount of XP you gain in a run, or "harvest" to use the correct lingo. So, lots of moving parts to consider. You've also got a few characters to meet out in these ruins that you've built around yourself, strange NPCs who'll upgrade your cards, duplicate particular faves, and more besides, whilst imparting some folklore upon you. Upgrading here, it has to be said, is also just really cool and satisfying because, besides the usual numbers-going-up, you get new entrances onto your card pieces. So, for example, a long corridor with three doors that you couldn't use because it wouldn't fit, now gets an extra door for you to work with. It's addictive, puzzley-time stuff that just gets better as it gets harder. Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked) Of course, when a clouded area within any of your dungeons doesn't contain a seal, you've wasted a lot of resources making your way towards it, and this aspect also brings enough tension to your planning time that the building is every bit as enjoyable as the combat. Wandering through dungeons brings the added danger of getting lost, too, as there's no map, so the memory game starts to rear its head as you move onto the later catacombs, which mix things up by spreading the clouds you need to uncover in various directions. This means way more pre-planning is required to avoid coming a cropper to the tight time and health constraints placed on you. Beyond this, you've also got cursed cards that'll be played into your deck once you've been cursed, these add some rough negatives to proceedings if you let them sit in your hand, and so you need to consider when to play them (they cost a BP) in order to do the least amount of damage to your chances and get them out of your deck. These are offset by favour cards you'll get from breaking seals and levelling up, so you could, as an example, play a cursed card that means you can't heal up at groves, but then play a card that gives you +500% damage, so it nullifies the negative somewhat and removes it from your deck. Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked) There are so many wrinkles here that it could have become very tedious and/or messy, so the best thing is how it's all so effortless and easy to learn, even if you don't really do cards as a regular thing. Every aspect is explained well (there's a tutorial in the menus when you need it), and you can take your time in the planning phase. As the catacombs get harder, things progress along perfectly from relaxing and addictive, to tension-filled and even more bloody addictive. The lovely pixel art style, quick shots of Scottish folklore, and solid soundtrack all work to give you exactly the kind of ambience you need to settle in for the long haul. In terms of negatives, well, the story aspects are light, really, so this one isn't gonna be challenging any of the more narratively bombastic examples of the genre to a straight-up auto-fight in the school playground. We guess, too, that the graphical style is one that's been done quite a bit, but honestly, we're picking for the sake of it now. This is some premium-grade roguelike, in the end - a uniquely fresh take that borrows inspirations from all over its chosen genre, and cobbles them together into a wonderful indie game that's very much its own thing. Just be warned that the 'one more run' factor here is high. Conclusion Into The Restless Ruins has taken us totally by surprise. This is a belting addition to the Switch's lineup of roguelikes that manages to make itself fresh and unique in a category full of bland copycats. The melding of deckbuilding, combat, memory challenges, and construction of dungeons makes for a game that draws you right in every time, robbing you of hours as you work your way through its delightful catacombs. A little more narrative oomph may have taken it even further, but you're still looking at a bit of a must-play here. A wonderfully clever melding of mechanicsCombat is fun with good variety in enemies and weaponsPacing is spot on, with dungeons getting more complex as you goEasy to get to grips with but deep as the darkest dungeon, too Story is very lightPixel art style has been done quite a bit before Excellent 9/10