House for Lisa and Bert / Alpina ArchitectsSave this picture!Courtesy of Alpina ArchitectsHouses•Ixelles, Belgium Architects: Alpina Architects Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2024 More SpecsLess Specs Save this picture! Text description provided by the architects. From Racines, you can look down on Vipiteno from above. Here, architecture blends seamlessly into a striking Alpine landscape; the built environment engages in a measured dialogue with the mountains, respecting centuries-old building traditions rooted in a smart economy of resources and an innate ability to adapt, even through the harshest winters. Within this context stands an old farmhouse, the subject of our intervention, soon to become the home of Lisa and Bert.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!Existing Conditions - The project revolves around the renovation of a traditional farmhouse, perched within a landscape where the balance of solid and void, built and natural, defines the very quality of living. This is a typical Alpine farmhouse, characterised by solid stone walls and a double-pitched timber roof. Its internal layout reflects the typological organisation of rural Alpine dwellings: the ground floor is primarily residential, while the attic space has traditionally served as storage and utility space. The floor plan follows a tripartite layout, structured around a central circulation core. One distinctive feature of farmhouses in this valley is the hayloft, which is directly integrated into the main residential volume. Now obsolete in its original function, it offers significant potential for new uses. The challenge of the project is to intervene without disrupting the existing balance—to preserve the essence of the farmhouse, its history, while allowing it to embrace new life.Save this picture!Vision and Functional Programme - Lisa and Bert, a young couple, envision a home that is both deeply rooted in tradition and open to new ways of living. They dream of a space that enhances their connection to the landscape, allowing for seamless transitions between indoors and outdoors—a home that balances intimate spaces with large openings towards the Alpine surroundings. The programme calls for the division of the building into two distinct residential units: a holiday apartment on the lower floor and the main residence spanning the ground floor and attic. A key design choice is the inversion of conventional living arrangements—placing the main living area in the attic to take advantage of the height and natural light, creating open, panoramic spaces.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!Design Approach - The project is based on a reinterpretation of the traditional farmhouse typology, maintaining its primary structural elements while reorganising the interior with a fresh spatial logic. The renovation of the existing building is conceived as an act of continuity—a transformation that renews without erasing, reinterpreting form and function through a contemporary lens while preserving the constructive memory of the place. The ground floor houses the bedrooms, conceived as sheltered, intimate spaces, while the attic is dedicated to the living area, unfolding as a fluid, open space closely connected to the surrounding landscape. The intervention on the hayloft creates a new threshold between the home and the outdoors, providing covered parking and a generous entrance area. A light timber staircase leads up to the upper level, where the kitchen and living room merge into a single, light-filled space, crowned by a rhythmic sequence of exposed beams that amplify the spatial perception. Opposing loggias and fully glazed gables frame breathtaking views of the mountain landscape. Strategically placed skylights ensure carefully calibrated zenithal lighting, strengthening the home's connection to the sky. A Leseerker (a reading bow-window) on the first floor serves as a cosy retreat, offering a suspended view over the valley. New balconies, designed with slender steel cable railings, extend along the east and west façades, creating sheltered outdoor spaces that open directly onto the Alpine scenery. A sequence of vertical wooden slats, arranged in a dynamic rhythm, generates a play of solid and void, filtering views while ensuring privacy and protection.Save this picture!Materiality - The project embraces a sustainable and site-sensitive approach, selecting local materials and construction techniques that align with tradition. The existing structure is preserved and reinforced, with plastered walls treated in soft, natural pigments that harmonise with the surrounding landscape. The attic extension is clad in larch, a material that evolves over time, acquiring a silver-grey patina that reflects the continuous dialogue between architecture and nature. The balconies, also in larch, reference the Alpine vernacular. This material selection is not merely aesthetic—it expresses a deliberate intent to create an architecture that becomes part of the landscape, where every detail contributes to a larger narrative of memory, historical layering, and dialogue with the territory.Save this picture! Project gallerySee allShow less About this officeAlpina ArchitectsOffice••• MaterialWoodMaterials and TagsPublished on May 23, 2025Cite: "House for Lisa and Bert / Alpina Architects" 23 May 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1030372/haus-fur-lisa-und-bert-alpina-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

From the very first day Disneyland opened its gates in 1955, attractions based on movies were among the park’s biggest draws. Rides like the Mad Tea Party and Peter Pan’s Flight dazzled visitors, immersing them in worlds they had only previously experienced staring up at a big screen in a darkened theater.Both of those rides continue to operate at Disneyland, and at Walt Disney World and other Disney parks around the globe. In the decades since, they’ve been joined by dozens of other movie-based attractions, not only at Disney’s parks but also at Universal’s — a company built on a 100+-year-old foundation of cinema.With their striking visuals and iconic characters, movies make the ideal foundation for theme park attractions. Maybe that’s why so many of the best rides ever created take inspiration from movies. Like the 25 attractions listed below. A couple date back 70 years; others are brand new, like the ones recently installed at Universal’s Epic Universe park. Each of my picks also includes a video of the ride for the vicarious thrill seekers out there. (You know who you are.)Alfred Hitchcock: The Art of Making MoviesThese days, Universal’s theme parks are almost exclusively devoted to rides and environments that let guests feel like they have stepped inside their favorite movies and shows. That’s a stark contrast to their parks’ initial concept as a place where tourists learned the secrets of film and TV production, with a couple bigger rides thrown in for extra oomph. One of the best examples of old-school Universal was Alfred Hitchcock: The Art of Making Movies. After a 3D highlight package of Hitchcock films, guests were ushered into a soundstage where a “director” and his “crew” explained how Hitchcock shot Psycho’s shower scene. Then guests could wander an interactive area, and participate in demonstrations of the practical movie magic behind movies like Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, and Saboteur. It was like a cross between a thrill ride and a museum — and for a budding cinephile, it was a paradise. It closed in 2003 to make room for [deep sigh] Shrek 4-D.Alice in WonderlandAlthough the appropriately psychedelic Alice in Wonderland ride has existed in one form another for well over 50 years, it’s still surprisingly immersive. The current version of the attraction (which was opened in 2014) speed runs through almost the film’s entire plot in about three minutes, and features an effective blend of animatronics and screens, and climaxes in a leisurely descent down the outside of the show building, with picturesque views of the Matternhorn and Fantasyland. As old school “kids rides,” go, this is about as good as it gets.Avatar: Flight of PassageThe centerpiece of Animal Kingdom’s land based on James Cameron’s Avatar, Flight of Passage takes the central premise of its inspiration — human beings using technology to step into the bodies of the giant blue-skinned aliens — and actually gives the riders the sensation of riding on a banshee through the skies of Pandora. (In order to complete the illusion, your seat “breathes” like a living creature.) The technology works surprisingly well, and the 10K ride footage (yes, 10K) looks spectacular.READ MORE: Disney Announces New Theme ParkBack to the Future: The RideThe unforgettable Back to the Future: The Ride let visitors board a detailed copy of the franchise’s DeLorean time machine for an aerial chase through the centuries. (The story of the simulator, which played out in pre-show videos featuring Christopher Lloyd and Thomas F. Wilson, involved Doc recruiting tourists to help him catch Biff after he steals the time machine.) With special effects by 2001: A Space Odyssey legend Douglas Trumbull, BTTF:TR lived up to the old Universal slogan that promised a vacation where you could “ride the movies.” Its closure was inevitable; the “future” of the Back to the Future franchise is set in 2015, i.e. our past. The two American versions of the attraction closed by the late 2000s, although Universal Studios Japan’s version managed to hang on until 2016 — one year after Marty and Doc went back to the future.Dumbo the Flying ElephantIs there any movie ride more iconic than Dumbo? Disney doesn’t seem to think so; Dumbo’s the only ride that they have built at all six of their main “castle” theme parks: Disneyland, the Magic Kingdom, Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, Hong Kong Disneyland, and, in 2016, Shanghai Disneyland. You could call the ride simple; guests board a vehicle that looks like the floating pachyderm, each with a joystick that allows the rider to shift their Dumbo up and down. You could also call it elemental; it taps into little children’s desire to fly, and it empowers them to take control of their experience. As long as Disney continues to operate theme parks, Dumbo will keep on flying.Guardians of the Galaxy — Mission: Breakout!Disneyland purists were skeptical when the company announced they were going to re-theme the California Adventure version of the beloved Twilight Zone Tower of Terror attraction into a ride based on the popular Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. But when the ride opened, most had to admit: It was pretty darn fun, and possibly better than the Tower of Terror (at least in California. which had a simpler and less impressive ride system than the original Twilight Zone ride in Florida). Instead of a haunted hotel’s elevator, guests now board “gantry lifts” that bounce up and down an elevator shaft, stopping at different floors to view the Guardians in battle with an alien monster while one of six songs from the eclectic soundtrack plays. It’s possibly the most effective re-use of an existing ride system in Disney history, and thanks to the different songs (and synchronized visuals and drops) it holds up very well on multiple visits, which probably explains why it remains one of the most popular attractions at California Adventure many years after it first opened.Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike AdventureMovie rides often emphasize theming over adrenaline, but Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure at Universal’s Islands of Adventure nails both. There are beautiful animatronic monsters, including unicorns, centaurs, and Hagrid’s beloved dog Fluffy, all integrated into a roller coaster that races around the outskirts of the original Wizarding World of Harry Potter. (The ride reaches its top speed of 50 miles per hour in a matter of seconds via one of its seven different launches.) The fact that riders are carried along on their own motorcycle or sidecar not only enhances the immersive quality, it increases the thrill. There’s nothing quite like blasting backwards at 50 miles per hour on a bike seat to get your blood pumping.Harry Potter and the Battle at the MinistryEpic Universe’s Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry levels up the concepts of earlier Universal dark rides like Spider-Man or Transformers. Guests board large seated elevators that appear to fly up, down, and around the Ministry of Magic from the Harry Potter films, where they help the franchise’s core trio of heroes as they fight the evil Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton). The attraction boasts some of Universal’s most seamless illusions ever, and its entrance — which transports you via “floo” from 1920s Paris to 1990s London to emerge into the Ministry of Magic’s grand hall — is a jaw-dropping spectacle. That reveal is a bigger “wow” than a lot of entire rides at other amusement parks.Harry Potter and the Forbidden JourneyThe first of Universal’s ever-expanding Wizarding World attractions, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey was like no other ride when it first opened at Islands of Adventure in 2010. Housed inside an impressive creations of the Hogwarts castle (with a carefully themed queue filled with Easter eggs and character cameos), Forbidden Journey lets riders board “enchanted benches” for a trip around, through, and under the magical school with Harry Potter and his friends. Some of the large-scale animatronics are starting to show their age; the seamless blend of screens, sets, and an advanced KUKA arm vehicle have been surpassed by other attractions in the last decade. Still, that central conceit of letting you feel like you are flying on your own Nimbus 2000 always works like magic.Hogwarts ExpressUniversal’s second Wizarding World was a financial inevitability after the first one proved so successful. Making the second area Diagon Alley — and then connecting the two lands via a functional Hogwarts Express train — was a masterstroke. Each of the respective areas houses its own distinctive station, and guests queue up for a ride on the iconic locomotive, where they sit in individual cabins and glimpse familiar faces from the Harry Potter franchises out their compartment window (actually a high-definition screen). Silhouettes and voices spied in the hallway enhance the immersion, and because the train runs in both directions, there are two totally distinct videos to enjoy.Indiana Jones AdventureRiding through it today, it’s hard to believe Indiana Jones Adventure is 30 years old. The combination of an old-fashioned dark ride with high-tech special effects holds up extremely well. The premise supposedly dumps tourists on a guided jeep tour (led by Indy’s buddy Sallah) into the “Temple of the Forbidden Eye” that (spoiler alert) does not go to plan. (Nothing ever does on a theme park ride.) In practice, it’s all an excuse to let guests experience Indiana Jones’ greatest hits: Rickety suspension bridges, plumes of fire, barrages of darts, thousands of bugs, and, of course, speeding away from an enormous rolling ball. Add in some of that classic John Williams Raiders of the Lost Ark music, and you have all the makings of a great movie ride.Jurassic World VelociCoasterDon’t ask me to explain the story of this one. They built a roller coaster inside the Jurassic World raptor enclosure? What’s next? A genetically engineered dinosaur that’s even stronger, faster, and smarter than a T.rex and can also camouflage itself? (Okay, so maybe the geniuses running Jurassic World would build a roller coaster in the raptor enclosure, objection withdrawn.) Whatever cockamamie story they cooked up to justify the concept, it was worth it; VelociCoaster is not just a great movie ride, it’s a great roller coaster period. With a top speed of 70 miles per hour, it’s also one of the fastest. It features multiple launches, inversions, and intricate dinosaur theming. Universal’s come a long way from that old Jurassic Park River Adventure.KongfrontationKing Kong has been a mainstay in Universal’s various theme parks since the mid-1980s, when a giant Kong animatronic was added to the Studio Tour at Universal Studios Hollywood. That was expanded to a full-blown attraction at Universal Studios Florida called Kongfrontation, where guests evacuated from Manhattan on the Roosevelt Island Tramway after Kong runs amok. Naturally, the evacuation did not go smoothly (like I said, nothing ever goes according to plan on a theme park ride) and Kong grabbed the tram before a last-second getaway. It was a surprisingly intense experience with fun touches — like the fact that the Kong animatronic’s “breath” smelled like bananas. Kong was put out to pasture in 2002 to make way for a roller coaster inspired by The Mummy franchise. The great ape has since found a new home at nearby Islands of Adventure, where an attraction called Skull Island: Reign of Kong opened in 2016.Millennium Falcon: Smugglers RunI know this is a polarizing ride; some visitors don’t care for its video game vibes, or the fact that it contains no Han Solo and only fleeting glimpses of Chewbacca. Personally, after almost a dozen rides, I love it. I love the life-size Falcon replica outside the entrance and the incredibly detailed recreation of the Falcon interior, complete with holochess table. Then the ride itself is a blast; certainly at its most fun when you get to pilot the ship, but also very enjoyable as a gunner or an engineer. (I’ve done them all multiple times.) It’s awesome with a group of friends working together (or razzing each other for failing to get that second coaxium canister) and it’s incredible when you ride with kids, who get to feel like they made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein ExperimentThere are lots of dark rides; Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment is areally dark ride. Years of experience with their Halloween Horror Nights gave Universal the confidence to make a genuinely scary (and darkly witty) attraction, one with monsters and jump scares galore. Guests enter an eerie recreation of Frankenstein Manor, then wind their way through its atmosphere-soaked rooms, past glowing equipment and crates filled with organs and lab rats. They emerge in the laboratory of Victoria Frankenstein, who wants to restore her family’s good name by capturing Dracula. Say it with me this time: Nothing ever goes according to plan on a theme park ride. Frankenstein’s latest experiment goes horribly wrong in the most pulse-quickening ways, and leads to appearances (and scares) from all of the classic Universal Monsters. The ride, as well as the surrounding castle and queue, are so detailed. It’s like a vintage horror fan just stepped into a dream come true — or the best nightmare ever.Peter Pan’s FlightMaybe the definitive Disney dark ride, Peter Pan’s Flight is a true classic; some 70 years old at this point, and still magical. (An overhaul in the 1980s probably didn’t hurt in that regard.) Guests board “flying” pirate ships for a trip to Never Land with Peter Pan and the Darlings. Where a lot of the old school Disney dark rides are surprisingly scary (ask anyone who rode the O.G. Snow White ride and they’ll tell you), Peter Pan’s Flight is all about giving young kids (and the young at heart) a taste of what it might feel like to fly high above London in the ride’s famous centerpiece sequence.Radiator Springs RacersThe Cars franchise has never been among Pixar’s most critically acclaimed efforts. The series’ big ride at California Adventure, though, is a true blockbuster, combining state-of-the-art animatronic cars and a thrilling race component, where s pair of vehicles carrying two sets of riders zoom around an impressive recreation of Radiator Springs. It’s not too intense for Cars’ core fanbase, and just exciting enough for everyone to feel like it’s worth the ride’s perpetually long wait times. Plus now we know where the cars from Cars come from; at some unknown point in the future, the animatronic full sized Lightning McQueen and Mater from Radiator Springs Racers will gain sentience and turn against their human masters. It’s only a matter of time.Splash MountainWhatever you think of The Song of the South and its depiction of life in the late 19th century, the ride Disney inexplicably chose to theme to it (in 1989!) was a lot of fun. A log flume enhanced with animatronic cartoon characters and one of Disney’s most famous songs (“Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah”), it combined Disney’s flair for storytelling with family-friendly thrills. The fact Disney never released The Song of the South on home video meant it was only a matter of time before Splash Mountain got tossed into the briar patch itself. The ride lives on in a new form, though; the mountain and flume are now the subject of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World. If you’re desperate to ride Splash Mountain again, you’ll need to take a trip to Japan; it’s still operating at Tokyo Disneyland.Star ToursThanks to constant updates, the original Star Wars ride at Disneyland still holds up well more than 35 (!) years after its first introduction. The original version had a single film that played in a simulator; guests’ pleasure cruise to Endor would go slightly out of control — nothing ever goes to plan on a theme park ride — and then wander into a battle with the Death Star. The current version, which makes zero sense in Star Wars continuity, sends Star Tourists to famous locations from the nine Star Wars movies and various Disney+ shows, and includes cameos from numerous characters. Disney has continually added new segments to the ride, and the modern CGI looks superb. Plus, because each ride contains a random handful from the 20 different possible segments, Star Tours always full of surprises.Star Wars: Rise of the ResistanceThere are several really good Star Wars attractions on this list, but Rise of the Resistance is the best of the bunch — or maybe the best movie-based theme park ride period. It’s long, full of surprises, and contains multiple ride vehicles and sequences. It’s almost a greatest hits of Disney Imagineering; there are screens, advanced animatronics, human performers, “holograms,” movie star cameos, trackless ride vehicles, full-size space ships and AT-AT walkers, and a giant hanger filled with Stormtroopers. It really feels like you’ve wandered into an increasingly perilous Star Wars adventure, and the theming and thrills are off the charts. I’m sure that some day some ride will top Rise of the Resistance. For now, it’s the irresistible #1.Studio Backlot TourFor some 60 years, trams have taken Universal visitors through the studio’s famous backlot. While the ride has evolved with the times, it also maintains a lot of the tram tour’s original flavor, taking guests through Hill Valley from Back to the Future and past the Psycho house from the famous horror franchise. Guides share behind-the-scenes secrets and hacky jokes, and videos that run on screens in the tram as it makes its way from stop to stop provide context and history. For old-school movie lovers, it’s still a thrill to take a trip into Hollywood history, and the ride’s unusual length — almost an hour! — makes it a welcome break from walking all day.Toy Story Mania!Toy Story Mania! took the basic concept from Disney’s existing Buzz Lightyear shooting gallery rides and gave it a computerized facelift befitting the first computer animated feature in history. Instead of aiming at animatronic targets, paired riders compete in a series of digital shooting games. They toss eggs and rings, throw darts, and break plates; each target gets assigned a different score, so strategy becomes very important. The interactivity works seamlessly, and the Toy Story theming is on point. The unique pull-string mechanism on the gun you use can be quite a workout on the forearms, though, so make sure you warm up before you ride.Transformers: The RideHere’s a hot take for you: The Transformers ride at Universal Studios Florida and Hollywood is better than any of the Michael Bay Transformers movies it’s based on. It’s short and sweet, with impressive 3D effects, and it immerses you inside a wild — but, unlike the Bay Transformers films, surprisingly coherent — adventure to protect the Allspark from the evil Decepticons. Up to 12 guests board a ride vehicle (presented as a Transformer named Evac) which then blasts, zooms, and flies through a dark ride that blends animatronic effects with 3D screen technology. My job required me to sit through all those dreadful live-action Transformers movies. If that was the price I paid for this terrific ride, it was worth it.Turtle Talk With CrushFor my money, there may not be a better example of the so-called “Disney magic” than at Turtle Talk With Crush, which first debuted in Epcot’s The Seas pavilion and has since been duplicated in numerous parks around the world. In it, guests get to interact with Crush, the surfer dude turtle from Finding Nemo. And they truly interact; advanced animation/puppetry tech allows an unseen Disney animator to perform the role of Crush as he tells stories, answers questions from the audience, and cracks jokes. The illusion is seamless; I’ve rarely seen my daughter as dazzled as the time she got to ask Crush a question and he gave her a brilliantly silly and very personalized answer. (Note: Magic Kingdom’s similar attraction, Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor, which uses the same technology to create a faux comedy club, is nearly as good as Turtle Talk.)WaterworldLook, I already wrote a whole piece about the magic of the Waterworld stunt show for absolutely no reason other than I genuinely love it. Go read that, go visit Waterworld, and make sure this amazing show is still running until the rest of the polar ice caps melt and dry land is but a myth. It’s incredible.Honorable Mention: Earthquake: The Big One, Frozen Ever After, The Great Movie Ride, King Kong: 360 3-D, Mad Tea Party, Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor, Mr Toad’s Wild Ride, Revenge of the Mummy, Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin, Tron Lightcycle Run.Amazing Theme Park Rides Based on Movies That Were Never Built

  Photography has remained fundamentally horizontal for over a century. Fujifilm’s latest creation shatters this convention with stunning simplicity. The new X half premium compact digital camera transforms how we capture images by embracing vertical orientation as its foundational design principle. This revolutionary approach acknowledges our smartphone-shaped world while delivering an experience distinctly separate from mobile photography. The camera challenges our assumptions about what photography tools should look like and how they should function. Its design speaks to a generation that consumes images vertically but craves tactile experiences beyond touchscreens. Designer: Fujifilm Design Origin & Philosophy The X half emerged from Fujifilm’s experimental design workshops, where creative freedom flourishes without immediate commercial pressure. These sessions allow designers to explore concepts that challenge conventional thinking about cameras. During one particularly productive workshop, a designer named Bueno presented a fully realized mock-up addressing his personal frustration with film photography’s ongoing costs. As noted in Fujifilm’s development history, Bueno loved shooting film but found it financially challenging, which sparked his creative solution. This origin story reveals a fascinating inversion of traditional product development cycles. Bueno’s concept arrived as a complete physical design with no internal components or technical specifications. The engineering team faced the unusual challenge of building technology to fit an established form rather than designing around predetermined components. Senior leadership immediately recognized the concept’s potential, supporting this rare bottom-up development process that preserved the designer’s original vision. The concept brilliantly translates half-frame film photography into digital form. Traditional half-frame cameras, popular for their economy and distinctive aesthetic, captured two vertical images on a single 35mm film frame. This digital interpretation maintains that vertical orientation while eliminating film costs entirely. Fujifilm went further by incorporating intentional constraints that shape the photographic experience. Physical Design & Ergonomics The camera lacks image stabilization and captures JPEGs exclusively without RAW capability. These aren’t technical limitations but deliberate design decisions that encourage a specific relationship with photography. Users focus on composition and timing rather than post-processing possibilities or technical perfection. The design philosophy prioritizes the act of seeing over technical manipulation, encouraging photographers to develop their eye rather than their editing skills. The X half weighs a mere 240 grams (8.5 ounces), lighter than many smartphones despite its purposeful construction. Its compact dimensions (105.8mm x 64.3mm x 30.0mm) make it genuinely pocketable, fitting comfortably in standard jeans pockets without the awkward bulge larger cameras create. Fujifilm selected a fixed 10.8mm F2.8 prime lens, equivalent to 32mm in traditional 35mm format. This focal length provides the perfect balance between environmental context and subject isolation. According to the product specifications, this specific field of view mirrors that of the beloved Fujifilm QuickSnap disposable cameras, creating an immediately familiar perspective that feels natural for everyday photography. The most innovative physical element is undoubtedly the Frame Advance Lever. This mechanical component serves genuine functions beyond nostalgic decoration. Users physically advance the digital frame, combining two vertical images into diptychs or merging short video clips with still photographs. The tactile resistance of the lever makes each frame advance a deliberate act, reinforcing intentionality in image-making. Interface & User Experience Fujifilm reimagined the camera interface from first principles rather than adapting existing designs. The 2.4-inch touch screen provides intuitive control without overwhelming complexity. Traditional button arrays have been replaced with gesture controls that feel natural to digital natives while maintaining connections to analog processes. The interface allows users to adjust the dividing line between frames. According to the technical documentation, photographers can select narrow, regular, or bold styles reminiscent of Instax prints, and even change the color between black and white. Switching between color and monochrome modes happens through simple, intuitive controls that don’t interrupt the photographic process. The true interface innovation appears when connecting to smartphones. The camera simulates a film development process when transferring images. Users select which “roll” to import, initiating a development sequence that builds anticipation. The digital contact sheet displays edge codes that reference specific film simulations, such as “RTR” for retro filter. This thoughtful replication of analog workflows transforms routine file transfer into a meaningful experience that enhances the photographer’s connection to their images. The menu system abandons conventional hierarchical organization for a more intuitive approach. Instead of burying options within nested submenus, the interface presents contextually relevant controls based on shooting mode and camera orientation. This adaptive interface reduces the cognitive load on photographers, allowing them to focus on image-making rather than menu navigation. The system learns from user behavior, prioritizing frequently used settings for faster access. Visual feedback appears through subtle animations that reference analog processes. When adjusting exposure compensation, a virtual needle moves across a scale reminiscent of light meters from manual cameras. These visual metaphors create intuitive understanding without requiring technical knowledge, making the camera accessible to photographers at all experience levels. Image Quality & Creative Features The X half’s output demonstrates its design philosophy most clearly. Fujifilm incorporated 13 Film Simulation modes based on their 90-year color science heritage. Each simulation offers unique characteristics that influence how photographers approach different subjects and lighting conditions. The system goes further by incorporating three new creative filters inspired by film photography: Light Leak, which creates a slightly exposed look; Halation, a halo effect that appears around light sources; and Expired Film, which mimics the grainy look of older analog film. These elements come from an internal database of authentic film artifacts, applied without preview to reintroduce the element of surprise that made film photography exciting. This unpredictability represents a deliberate design choice that restores the anticipation often missing from digital photography. Optional date stamping mimics the iconic corner-markings found on 1990s film cameras, enhancing the nostalgic experience for users familiar with physical prints. The camera’s grain behavior connects to its advanced image processing engine, replicating organic and irregular patterns characteristic of traditional film. The vertical orientation influences composition in profound ways. By default, photographers naturally frame subjects differently when working in portrait format. This constraint encourages fresh perspectives on familiar subjects, breaking habitual compositional patterns that develop with horizontal framing. Color science receives special attention through custom calibration for vertical subjects. The color rendering has been optimized for skin tones, architecture, and vertical landscapes, with subtle adjustments to saturation and contrast that complement vertically framed subjects. Environmental Considerations Fujifilm designed the X half with environmental impact in mind. The camera’s simplified internal architecture reduces component count compared to similar-sized digital cameras, minimizing resource consumption during manufacturing while extending potential service life through mechanical simplicity. The fixed lens eliminates the environmental impact of multiple lens production and transportation, reducing materials usage and packaging waste associated with interchangeable lens systems. Most significantly, the X half’s design philosophy encourages users to value fewer, more meaningful images. This approach reduces the environmental impact of data storage and transfer while fostering a more sustainable relationship with photography itself. By emphasizing quality over quantity, the camera encourages a more mindful approach to image creation and consumption. My Thoughts for Now At $849.99 USD, the X half targets photography enthusiasts seeking something beyond conventional cameras. Fujifilm clearly understands this camera serves a specific market segment rather than competing directly with multi-purpose devices. The price reflects both unique design and premium materials while offering value beyond technical specifications. The camera’s pocketable size encourages daily carry, resulting in more frequent use than larger systems that often remain at home. This regular engagement creates more photographic opportunities, enhancing practical value. The fixed lens and simplified controls eliminate ongoing accessory costs while encouraging mastery of a single focal length. The X half represents a significant departure from conventional camera design by challenging horizontal orientation as the default. Its most profound impact lies in embracing constraints as creative catalysts. Early testing revealed that while professional photographers initially expressed frustration, those willing to adapt discovered these limitations fostered creativity rather than restricting it. “X half is special because it rekindles our love for the compact camera and blends it with the modern sensibilities that make it easy to make a part of our everyday lives,” explains Victor Ha, vice president of Electronic Imaging and Optical Devices Divisions at Fujifilm North America Corporation. The camera arrives as design trends increasingly embrace digital interpretations of analog experiences. From skeuomorphic interfaces to vinyl record resurgence, consumers seek tangible, imperfect experiences within our digital world. What makes the X half truly innovative lies in its intentional subtractions from photography. By removing RAW capture options, limiting post-processing flexibility, and challenging horizontal orientation, Fujifilm creates something paradoxically nostalgic yet forward-looking. The FUJIFILM X half compact digital camera will be available in late June 2025 at a Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price of $849.99 USD and $998.99 CAD.The post Fujifilm Reimagines Photography with X half Premium Compact Digital Camera first appeared on Yanko Design.

Vaginal health shouldn’t be something to hide.

This article contains spoilers for Arcane season 2. Netflix and Riot Games created one of the most acclaimed video game adaptations of all time with the original animated series Arcane, set in the world of League of Legends. After premiering in 2021, the series returned for its climactic second season in 2024, concluding the fiery saga of sisters Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) and Jinx (Ella Purnell) and the fate of the fantasy city of Piltover and its undercity Zaun. The first season dialed up this sibling rivalry to explosive proportions, as Jinx’s reckless antics threatened the fragile peace in place. The second season only ups the complicated family dynamics between its main characters, expanding the scope and depth of familial strife while escalating the consequences and actions as roles are subverted and reversed throughout the story. Whereas Jinx was branded a terrorist in the first season, the second season sees the unpredictable, explosive figure being regarded by Piltover’s populace as a freedom fighter against its totalitarian rule. Meanwhile, Vi grows increasingly erratic and volatile in her own life in the wake of tyranny’s rise, making the two sisters’ inevitable reunion all the more awkward. For showrunner Christian Linke, this narrative inversion proved to be “really fun to think about.” “It’s a really complex moment, when Jinx can say ‘Maybe you’re the baddie,’” Linke says. “So much of the show is about seeing the world through the lens of the other side. I think that is the quintessential moment for them, when they have to question how they see their sibling, at which point, they have a very loaded perspective of each other.” This reconciliation in the face of a common enemy leads to the sisters reuniting with their long-lost father Vander (JB Blanc), now resurrected as the feral werewolf-like monster Warwick. Leaning into the inherent horror offered by prominently featuring such a bloodthirsty creature, Warwick’s inclusion also underscored Arcane’s tendency to go to the extremes, in regards to tone and visceral action. More than just presenting another adversary, Vander’s transformation into Warwick also gave the show the opportunity to highlight more of Vander’s backstory as he reunites with his adopted daughters in the mines he worked in as a human. “He went back to this familiar place from his past and he didn’t know why because it got twisted for him,” writer Amanda Overton observes. “That mining room is the first time that [Vi and Jinx]  got to see their father figures as brothers. It just reframed everything for the family dynamics for them.” The season also features a surprise interlude with Ekko (Reed Shannon) traveling to a parallel reality where he acquires a time-reversal device crucial to the series’ final battle. More than just giving Ekko this game-changing item, the episode’s lighter tones and depictions of familiar faces gave Arcane the chance to explore elements that the creative team felt were more romantic and more fun in certain aspects. Overton reflected that more than making Ekko the one to turn the tide in the climax, it restored his faith in Zaun’s potential as well as Powder, the innocent person who Jinx used to be. “In his own world, he lost that faith,” Overton says. “He lost that vision. He had a vision of Zaun that was very similar to that and he lost his faith in it. He needed to see that it was possible in order to fight for that again and also to believe in Jinx again – Powder again.” This complexity and conflict between familial figures isn’t isolated to Vi and Jinx, but also between Jayce Talis (Kevin Alejandro) and Viktor (Harry Lloyd), who see each other as brothers. Though Viktor recognized the destructive potential of Hextech, the technology he and Jayce created, Jayce not only didn’t follow through on Viktor’s wish for him to destroy it, but used the unstable tech to resurrect Viktor. This turned Viktor into a figure poised to use his connection to Hextech to inadvertently destroy Zaun and Piltover, placing him in direct conflict with Jayce over the fate of the city. “A lot of season one was about creating the dream technology that could change the world,” Linke says. “When it gets turned into weapons and they lose control, that’s when Jayce and Viktor react very differently. They’re also a little bit shocked by the other’s reaction to that. We always knew that there would be a different conclusion when they’re confronted with this reality that humans will use this technology for their own motives and for their selfish goals” Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! “That was also the fabric of season two, the things that you can’t see and that you can’t control,” Overton adds. “That’s why Viktor, when he goes down to the Undercity, he does his part to make that his little utopian commune. He’s trying to make what the topside has down here and try to compress that gap. It’s beautiful and wonderful, but even that goes awry for him. They always intended the right things, had great intentions, and could not see the consequences of those actions.” A beautiful narrative expansion of the world of League of Legends, Arcane ends on a high and hopeful note, amidst all the conflict and loss to get there. And from its vibrantly animated cities to its memorable and nuanced characters, the Netflix original series has once again set the bar for what video game adaptations can and should be. Available to stream on Netflix, Arcane lives up to the hype as one of the most engrossing and heartfelt animated series around. Both seasons of Arcane are available to stream on Netflix now.

China has launched 12 satellites, which experts describe as the world’s first operational space-based computing network, applying edge computing principles to orbital operations in a development that could reshape how enterprises manage global data. The satellites, launched by Guoxing Aerospace of China, are equipped with AI systems, advanced inter-satellite communication capabilities, and onboard computing power. The network, formally named the “Three-Body Computing Constellation” but also referred to as the “Star Computing Constellation 021” mission, represents China’s push to create computing infrastructure beyond Earth that could transform data processing while potentially reducing environmental impacts, Guoxing Aerospace said in a statement. The constellation is a project by China to build a network of 2,800 satellites to empower real-time in-orbit computing and data processing. “China’s orbital AI constellation is more than a technological feat—it’s a proof of concept for distributed processing, autonomy at the edge, and context-driven compute as core tenets of modern architecture,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst and CEO at Greyhound Research. “What makes this constellation distinctive is not just its scale, but its shift in control logic: inference and orchestration happen in orbit, across a high-speed inter-satellite mesh, without needing constant cloud fallback.” Edge computing in space For enterprise decision-makers, the constellation represents perhaps the most ambitious application yet of edge computing principles — processing data directly where it’s generated rather than sending everything to centralized facilities. This orbital implementation showcases how these principles can address even the most extreme bandwidth constraints. “China’s Three-Body Computing Constellation marks a radical evolution in edge computing — demonstrating a ‘hyper-edge’ model: autonomous, localized processing under extreme latency and bandwidth constraints,” explained Deepti Sekhri, practice director at Everest Group. “This leap forces enterprise edge strategies to move beyond basic edge nodes toward resilient, AI-infused micro-infrastructures. We can expect the biggest impact in industries like manufacturing, defense, and logistics, where decisions must happen instantly and locally.” Traditional satellites face a significant data transmission bottleneck, with a significant amount of data loss during transmission to Earth due to bandwidth constraints. This parallels challenges many enterprises encounter in remote operations with bandwidth-intensive applications. “We are now entering a post-centralisation era — where compute is pulled toward the edge not by ideology, but by necessity,” noted Gogia. “Whether it’s orbital satellites, smart grids, or in-field robotics, AI workloads are becoming heavier, more inference-driven, and intolerant to network-induced drag. Centralised clouds won’t disappear — but for many classes of applications, they will no longer be the first stop.” “As we enter an AI-native era shaped by data-heavy, latency-sensitive, and bandwidth-limited environments, distributed architectures are increasingly becoming relevant,” added Sekhri. “The appeal of processing data closer to where it’s generated is gaining ground fast, and space-based compute reinforces this directional shift.” Technical specifications showcase distributed potential As per Guoxing Aerospace, each of the 12 satellites contains specialized computing hardware capable of handling up to 744 trillion operations per second. With 12 satellites working together, the array delivers a combined computing power of 5 peta operations per second (POPS) — equivalent to 5 quadrillion calculations per second. To put this in perspective, when fully implemented, the constellation could reach 1,000 POPS of processing capacity—potentially surpassing Earth’s most powerful systems, according to the Chinese government. The El Capitan supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, ranked as the world’s most powerful last year, achieves approximately 1.72 POPS! To function as a unified processing network, the constellation employs laser communication technology, achieving data transfer speeds up to 100 gigabits per second, comparable to some of the fastest terrestrial fiber optic networks, the statement added. The constellation also incorporates 30 terabytes of on-board storage and runs an AI model with 8 billion parameters, demonstrating how sophisticated artificial intelligence applications can be deployed at the network edge. For context, this means the system can run relatively sophisticated artificial intelligence applications similar to some large language models, though smaller than the most advanced AI systems used on Earth today. Environmental and economic advantages The space-based distributed approach also addresses growing environmental concerns about data centers — a priority for enterprises with sustainability targets. The International Energy Agency projects that global data centers could consume more than 945 terawatt hours of electricity annually by 2030—roughly equivalent to Japan’s entire electricity usage. “The economics of enterprise compute are undergoing a structural inversion — and China’s Three-Body Computing Constellation makes that undeniable,” observed Gogia. “As AI workloads are increasingly executed at the point of collection — in orbit or on Earth — the cost of centralisation becomes a liability.” By processing data closer to collection points, organizations can potentially reduce the energy footprint associated with moving massive datasets across global networks. Water consumption presents another environmental challenge for traditional computing facilities that distributed approaches can help address, as major technology companies use billions of liters of water annually to cool their data centers. Implications for global operations For multinational enterprises, the constellation demonstrates how distributed processing systems might eventually support truly global operations. Chinese officials have positioned this initiative as establishing globally accessible, mobile, and low-carbon space-based infrastructure. “This development presents not just an engineering milestone, but a geopolitical one — casting data governance into uncharted territory,” warned Gogia. “Orbital compute is redefining the boundaries of data sovereignty. The Three-Body system decentralises not only AI processing but also geopolitical accountability — placing inference and decision-making infrastructure into orbits that may not fall cleanly under existing legal regimes.” “However, as compute infrastructure stretches beyond sovereign borders, enterprises face a growing ambiguity around governance and jurisdiction,” cautioned Sekhri. “Enterprises will need to evolve their risk frameworks and operational policies to address a new class of sovereignty and control challenges.” It is expected that similar networks will likely be deployed by multiple nations in the coming years, potentially creating new infrastructure that enterprises could leverage for global operations, particularly in remote areas where traditional connectivity remains challenging. “Perhaps the more pressing question isn’t how far edge computing can go — but who ultimately orchestrates it,” Sekhri pointed out. “As the compute fabric fragments across clouds, geographies, and orbits, control may shift from centralized platforms to a more federated, contested, and geopolitically charged landscape. That’s a future worth preparing for.”

Casa Sofia | © Zaickz Moz Casa Sofia, a recent project by AMASA Estudio, addresses the layered complexities of architectural intervention within Mexico City’s Colonia Roma, a neighborhood celebrated for its early 20th-century character but increasingly shaped by speculative pressures and fragmented land use. Just six blocks from Parque México, the house occupies a site caught between cultural significance and economic inertia. Originally built in the 1940s, the building underwent a series of unsympathetic interventions over the decades, most notably its conversion into office space. By the time AMASA Estudio began its work, the house had stood empty for over a decade. Casa Sofia Technical Information Architects1-7: AMASA Estudio Location: Colonia Roma, Mexico City, Mexico Area: 215 m2 | 2,315 Sq. Ft. Completion Year: 2024 Photographs: © Zaickz Moz, © Gerardo Reyes Bustamante The integration of contemporary elements can return life and functionality to the historic constructions of the area. – AMASA Estudio Architects Casa Sofia Photographs © Zaickz Moz © Zaickz Moz © Zaickz Moz © Zaickz Moz © Zaickz Moz © Zaickz Moz © Zaickz Moz © Zaickz Moz © Zaickz Moz © Zaickz Moz © Gerardo Reyes Bustamante © Zaickz Moz © Zaickz Moz Contextual Framework: Urban Fabric, Zoning, and Speculative Vacancy The architects were tasked with renovating and negotiating the tensions between preservation and contemporary inhabitation. Zoning restrictions in the area often preclude new development, inadvertently incentivizing abandonment and deterioration. Within this context, AMASA’s approach reclaims architectural value by demonstrating how adaptive reuse, when carefully considered, can simultaneously address housing shortages and preserve urban identity. Rather than erasing the building’s history, the project adopts a regenerative approach, rethinking the building’s typology and embedding flexibility into the spatial program. In doing so, Casa Sofia becomes a case study of how small-scale interventions can challenge speculative dormancy and reintroduce vibrancy to historic neighborhoods. Architectural Strategy: Inversion, Layering, and Programmatic Flexibility The architectural response centers on spatial inversion and vertical stratification. While the original commission envisioned a straightforward single-family restoration, AMASA Estudio identified the need for a more complex program to ensure viability and relevance. The result is a tripartite configuration: a ground-floor apartment, a flexible garage/commercial unit, and a redefined primary residence beginning on the first floor. This inversion of the conventional domestic hierarchy, placing private spaces on the middle floor and public functions at the top, is more than a pragmatic solution. It reflects a critical rethinking of domestic routines in dense urban contexts. The reallocation of living functions enables three degrees of occupancy: short-term rental, residential use, and commercial potential, each with independent access. At ground level, the vestibule becomes a threshold of coexistence. To the left is a compact yet complete one-bedroom apartment; to the right is a hybrid space adaptable as a garage or storefront; and ahead is the entrance to the main dwelling. The logic of flexibility is woven into every decision, resisting fixed-use zoning and instead proposing an architecture open to evolving modes of urban living. On the second floor, the public realm unfolds in an open-plan configuration that deliberately contrasts the spatial enclosure below. A continuous space integrates living, kitchen, and dining functions, culminating in a terrace that extends the domestic interior outward. This gesture, a horizontal void defined by operable walls, foregrounds the importance of architectural porosity in temperate climates. Light, Circulation, and Spatial Atmosphere Natural light is not merely admitted but orchestrated. A circular skylight punctures the ceiling above the staircase, casting vertical illumination along the building’s spine and subtly guiding the eye upward. It introduces a moment of tectonic tension, where the logic of light meets the logic of circulation. This vertical axis becomes the fulcrum of the spatial experience. The spiral staircase, painted in a distinct green hue, is not hidden but celebrated as an expressive sculptural form. It mediates the transition from compression to expansion, from the seclusion of bedrooms to the openness of the social level. Light enters primarily from above and laterally through folding window panels that open completely to the terrace. The absence of interior partitions on the upper floor allows light to wash uninterrupted across surfaces, emphasizing material textures and the gradient between inside and outside. In contrast, the lower levels, shaded and defined, offer a more intimate atmosphere, underscoring the designers’ sensitivity to light as both a spatial and emotional element. Casa Sofia Restoration Ethos Rather than defaulting to nostalgic restoration, the architects embrace a contemporary material palette rooted in coherence and restraint. The project does not attempt to replicate the past but defines a new architectural narrative grounded in contrast and continuity. The use of a singular green tone for all metalwork, staircases, doors, railings, and furniture introduces a unifying chromatic identity. This bold yet controlled gesture resonates against the subdued gray plaster walls, creating a dynamic interplay between reflection and shadow. The palette is neither flashy nor muted; it is precise, allowing light to animate its surfaces without overwhelming the space. Importantly, the intervention avoids decorative mimicry. Structural upgrades, new spatial logic, and minimalist detailing coexist with the building’s historical shell. This architectural restraint makes the original form legible while enabling new uses to emerge organically. AMASA Estudio’s broader practice often grapples with similar conditions: the friction between permanence and transformation, especially in urban areas burdened by regulatory inertia and socio-economic flux. Casa Sofia embodies this approach, presenting architecture not as a static form but as a series of spatial and material negotiations between past and present, regulation and imagination, economy, and poetics. Casa Sofia Plans Ground Floor | © AMASA Estudio First Floor | © AMASA Estudio Second Floor | © AMASA Estudio Section | © AMASA Estudio Isometric View | © AMASA Estudio Casa Sofia Image Gallery About AMASA Estudio Credits and Additional Notes Lead Architects: Andrea López, Agustín Pereyra Design Team: Cesar Huerta, Gerardo Reyes Client: ECOBIART Inmobiliaria Construction: Erik Cortés Ortega Structural Engineering: Juan Felipe Heredia Installations Engineering: Germán Muñoz Lighting Design: Andrea López, Agustín Pereyra

Courtyard House without Second Floor | © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio In the dense urban fabric of Tokyo’s low-rise residential zones, the idea of a courtyard house often arrives burdened with contradictions. While courtyards promise tranquility, daylight, and spatial openness, they simultaneously risk exposure in neighborhoods where proximity to adjacent buildings is a constant reality. In Courtyard House without Second Floor, Takuro Yamamoto Architects responds to this tension not by enclosing the courtyard at ground level, as is typical in urban Japan, but by lifting it skyward and, in doing so, rethinking the basic assumptions of residential typology. Courtyard House without Second Floor Technical Information Architects1-11: Takuro Yamamoto Architects Location: Tokyo, Japan Area: 84.81 m2 | 912.87 Sq. Ft. Completion Year: 2023 Photographs: © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio By having a courtyard on the third floor where one does not need to worry about neighbors’ houses, and by making the living room that faces the courtyard the main living space, it is possible to propose a lifestyle of living with the sky. – Takuro Yamamoto Architects Courtyard House without Second Floor Photographs © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio Rethinking the Urban Courtyard Typology In the dense urban fabric of Tokyo’s low-rise residential zones, the idea of a courtyard house often arrives burdened with contradictions. While courtyards promise tranquility, daylight, and spatial openness, they simultaneously risk exposure in neighborhoods where proximity to adjacent buildings is a constant reality. In Courtyard House without Second Floor, Takuro Yamamoto Architects responds to this tension not by enclosing the courtyard at ground level, as is typical in urban Japan, but by lifting it skyward and, in doing so, rethinking the basic assumptions of residential typology. Commissioned by a couple seeking privacy and serenity within a compact urban site, the house proposes a bold inversion of conventional planning. Rather than layering private and public functions vertically, the architects chose to eliminate the second floor entirely, allowing the first and third floors to operate in deliberate dialogue. The result is a residence that privileges visual and environmental connection with the sky while subtly redefining the relationship between floor height, program, and spatial character. Design Intent and Spatial Strategy: Living with the Sky At the core of the project lies a radical conceptual maneuver: displacing the courtyard from the ground to the third floor. This decision emerges from a critique of the traditional urban courtyard model. In this Tokyo neighborhood, where surrounding buildings are often taller and closely spaced, a ground-level courtyard would likely be overlooked, compromising its function as a private outdoor room. High surrounding walls could restore privacy but at the cost of daylight and spatial openness. By relocating the courtyard upward, above the line of sight of nearby houses, the architects enable a new kind of domestic experience centered on openness, air, and sky. The third floor becomes the primary living domain, composed of a light-filled living room that opens directly onto the rooftop courtyard. The courtyard, in turn, becomes not just a spatial device but a living boundary between interior and exterior, structured absence and atmospheric presence. This elevated void also informs the project’s volumetric logic. Since the clients required only a modest floor area, the architects chose to dispense with the intermediate second floor, enabling a clearer division of functions. Communal and spatially expansive activities are raised above, while intimate, enclosed functions occupy the ground level. This unusual strategy reorients how verticality is deployed not as a stacking of programs but as a spatial gradient calibrated to privacy, light, and openness. Materiality, Light, and Spatial Atmosphere Constructed using a rigid wooden frame structure, the house maintains a calm and tactile material palette, allowing spatial relationships and natural light to define its atmosphere. The first floor, often overlooked in vertically stratified dwellings, benefits from a double-height volume due to the absence of the second floor. This inversion creates unexpected generosity in typically constrained spaces, such as the two workrooms facing each other across a slender internal courtyard planted with a Japanese dogwood tree. Light becomes the central agent of spatial modulation. Tall windows on the first-floor drawing in daylight, softening the compactness of the lower level and offering fluctuating lighting conditions throughout the day. Meanwhile, the upper courtyard receives unobstructed sunlight, casting dynamic shadows and amplifying the architectural strategy of turning upward for openness. The spatial sequence thus becomes non-linear, entering into lower, quiet rooms whose expanded vertical dimensions lend them dignity before ascending to a third-floor realm that opens horizontally to the sky. Rather than a classical hierarchy of levels, the house presents a compositional field of contrasts between enclosure and exposure, compression and release, and ground and air. Courtyard House Urban Context Tokyo’s residential neighborhoods are defined not only by density but also by a highly codified regulatory environment. Within the constraints of a Type 1 restricted low-rise residential zone, the architects worked with a site area of 169.78 m², achieving a floor area ratio of 77.87% and a building coverage of just under 50%. These constraints typically lead to compact, stacked dwellings. Yet the Courtyard House without Second Floor resists this default model, proposing a typological deviation that extracts architectural generosity from regulatory discipline instead. Courtyard House without Second Floor Plans Floor Plan | © Takuro Yamamoto Architects Section | © Takuro Yamamoto Architects Elevation | © Takuro Yamamoto Architects Courtyard House without Second Floor Image Gallery About Takuro Yamamoto Architects Credits and Additional Notes Design Team: Takuro Yamamoto, Tomoko Yanagi Structural Design: NCN Corporation / Yuusuke Okamoto Construction: REMOL DESIGN / Hiroyuki Watanabe, Syuhei Watanabe Furniture: Tanaka Kogei / Toshiya Tanaka, Takeshi Minamizawa Structure: Wooden rigid frame Site Area: 169.78 m² Total Floor Area: 132.21 m² 1st Floor Area: 74.09 m² 3rd Floor Area: 58.12 m² Lot Percentage: 49.95% Floor Space Ratio: 77.87%

On an unremarkable Monday last February, Andrej Karpathy fired off a tweet that gave the internet its new favorite buzz-phrase: vibe coding.Within hours, people watched tools like Bolt, v0, and Lovable conjure apps from mock-ups never designed or developed.The internet cheered—speed looks spectacular in demo reels—but more senior groups were quietly wincing as AI began to add technical debt to large codebases at previously impossible rates.Why demo-first AI fails mature teamsHere’s how senior designers, developers, and marketers feel the pain.Designers: Prefab design systems ≠ your design systemToday’s one-click generators choose their own colors, border-radii, and fonts. The instant they collide with a house style they don’t recognize, they hard-code new hex values that overwrite your brand tokens, throw off the grid, and leave designers sending screenshots of mismatched styles to the bug tracker.When you draw a picture, you spend your time carefully crafting the shapes and lines. Great design comes from consistency of intention.Today’s AI designers give you a page full of chicken scratches, an eraser, and a “good luck.”Developers: One-shot codegen ≠ production code.A “fully-working” React page arrives as a single 1,200-line component—no tests, no accessibility tags, no separation of concerns. The diff looks like a CVS receipt.The dev who merges it now basically owns a tarball that will resist every future refactor. Code feels like inheriting a junior’s side project, but the junior in this case is an LLM that never sleeps and can’t be taught.Clean, maintainable code is measured by how many lines you can still cut. Without context of your existing codebase or a lot of fine-tuning, AI’s tendency is to be too verbose.Marketers: Fake data ≠ live experiments.Marketing can now crank out a landing page in fifteen minutes, but every testimonial, price, and CTA is still lorem ipsum.Wiring the page to the CMS—and to analytics—means rewriting half the markup by hand. Every 10x sprint lands on an engineering backlog.You can generate pages, sure, but you’re gonna have to wait on the revenue.What’s left for us?Call it all the 80/20 hangover: AI generates the first 80% of the job in 20% of the time… then teams grind through the next 80% of the time patching the final 20% of the work.It’s the perfect inversion of healthy collaboration. Humans drown in drudgery and plead with the machine to handle the craft. But here’s the thing: The lesson isn’t that AI is snake oil; it’s that big team problems aren’t solved by fast AI alone.Sure, “Make me a meal-planning app” is a fun toy, but as we’ve seen, speed without fidelity just moves the bottleneck downstream.What we need is to respect the craft already living in your components, tokens, data, and tests. We need AI for grown-ups.The two-sided contract of AI for grown-upsHere’s the proposal: what if we started building AI with competent teams in mind?For that kind of tooling, two mindset shifts need to happen, both from the builders of AI software and the professionals that use it.Builders need to…Respect the stack. Every pixel, prop, token, schema, and test that already lives in a repo becomes the rails, not a suggestion. Professionals should be able to easily predict what AI outputs will look like. Stay in their lane. Instead of inventing Yet-Another-Canvas, the tooling embeds itself in the software the best teams already use: Figma, IDEs, headless CMSes, etc. Professionals work hard to choose their tools, and AI alone is not a compelling enough reason to switch. Expose control. Codegen happens in daylight—via CLI hooks, readable diffs, and human review gates—so senior engineers can keep the quality bar where it belongs. Professionals are smart enough to handle the machine, so long as it shows them what it’s doing.It’s not up to the professional world to keep perfect pace with the runaway train of AI. It’s the tool builders’ responsibility to stop breaking so much stuff.Professionals need to…Feed the context. Put in the work to document processes, map prototypes to real components, hand over design tokens, and write the first round of tests. Give the model a fighting chance at fidelity. Builders will use this to make AI generations far more deterministic.Stay accountable. A merged PR is still a human name on the line for the most intricate of crafts: UX polish, performance budgets, sparkling copy, etc. Builders don’t have to design all-star AI; they can focus on making it consistent at the grunt-work.Recognize AI limits. Designers, developers, and marketers use AI primarily as the translation layer between deeply skillful fields. Builders don’t need to make AI that replaces teams, but rather AI that fosters communication in the handoffs.It’s not up to the Builders to anticipate every team’s exact use case. Instead, they can trust that professionals will rise to the challenge of adapting AI to their needs. How AI for grown-ups works on a given MondayWell, that’s all great: People focus on people things; AI focuses on AI things. But what does it look like in practice?Let’s take the perspective of our three personas again—designers, developers, and marketers—and see what an ideal world looks like for them.Designers, still in FigmaA designer adjusts the corner radius on the hero card and watches the live hand-off panel flag the exact React prop it will touch.A token audit bot pings him only if the value breaks the design system—no more screenshot spreadsheets.Freed from red-lining, he spends the afternoon nudging micro-interactions and pairing with motion design, really making everything sing.Way more time on polish. No more token-drift bugs filed.Developers, still in the IDEA developer pulls the latest “design-to-code” PR: it’s already split into sensible components, test stubs green-lit, and the diff is small enough to review over coffee.She runs the performance benchmark—numbers hold, thanks to preset budgets the generator never crosses.With boilerplate gone, she dives into accessible keyboard flows and edge-case logic that actually moves the product forward.Review cycles on layout bugs drop by half with AI taking over scaffolding.Marketers, still in the CMSA marketer duplicates last week’s landing page variant, swaps headline copy, and clicks “Stage Experiment.”The AI wires analytics, snapshots the control, and opens a PR tagged for growth-team review—no Jira ticket, no dev backlog delay.They schedule the A/B test in the same dashboard and spend their saved hour crafting social hooks for the launch.Campaign velocity doubles, while engineering time spent on “tiny copy changes” shrinks to near-zero.Same tools, less tedium, deeper ownership. Each role feeds context to the system, stays accountable, and lets the AI do the grunt work—that’s the contract in action.Keep your Cursor, keep your ChatGPT—the glue-layer AI just has to play nice with them while sitting squarely in the team’s shared stack. How we’re building toward AI for grown-upsSo, how close are we to that perfect Monday?At Builder, we find ourselves in a unique position to help, and we’ve been pivoting to meet the demand, especially for large teams.A tiny history lessonBuilder launched in 2019 as a headless CMS plus visual editor whose goal was simple: let developers surface their own JavaScript framework components, and then let non-developers arrange those components without touching code.To pull that off, we built our editor on Mitosis, an open-source layer that describes components once and compiles them to whatever JS framework a team already runs.Because of that early direction, three “grown-up parts” of our product were firmly in place before the generative-AI wave arrived:Fully-featured visual editing: Our Webflow-like editor creates space for designers and marketers to tweak components and pages that compile to any JS framework. Deterministic component mapping: Every Figma frame and its design tokens can round-trip with a real, version-controlled component—not a look-alike snippet. A data source with real content: The CMS holds marketing content, sure, but also all the data engineers need for accurate UI states.So when large language models became practical, we didn’t bolt AI onto a blank slate; we layered it onto an editor, a mapper, and a CMS that were already respecting the stack.That head-start is why our current AI features can focus on removing drudgery instead of reinventing fundamentals.What we’ve made so farOur product works as a bunch of incrementally adoptable layers. No big bang rewrites needed.Visual Editor → Code. Think Bolt or v0, but with Webflow-level tweakability. Prompt the AI to draft a page—or paste any URL for an instant, editable clone—then fine-tune any class, token, or breakpoint by hand. Drop in production-ready components from 21st.dev (or your own repo) and ship designs that respect your CSS, not ours.Figma → Visual Editor (and Code). Install the free Figma Visual Copilot plug-in, draw your frame, and click Export. Copilot converts the frame’s exact Auto-Layout geometry into clean, responsive framework code that can drop straight into the repo or open in Builder’s visual editor for tweaks. Designers still hand over a Figma link; developers run one CLI command to scaffold production-ready code—no guessing, no style drift.Repo → Visual Editor → Repo PR [coming soon]. We’ll be announcing a product shortly that allows anyone to import any GitHub repo to the Visual Editor and make changes that get auto-sent as a PR. Marketers and designers can file engineering tickets with the code already in nice shape.Component Mapping. Tell Builder which Figma button matches which code button once, click “Publish,” and you’re set. From then on, every design export that uses that component drops the real one from your repo into the generated diff—props, tokens, everything—so code reviews focus on ideas, not mismatched styles.Builder Publish: It’s not just a patch for lorem ipsum; it’s your entire headless CMS. Wire any page to real-time content and analytics so marketing can run A/B tests without tapping devs—and get the full schema, versioning, and single-source-of-truth perks that come with a modern CMS, all under the same roof.Where we’re still workingWe’re close, not finished. Next on our list:Less manual context. Auto-detect more tokens and components so mapping feels like autocomplete, not data entry. Deeper control. Let power users crack open every AI draft—props, tests, perf budgets—without leaving the editor. Broader design-system support. Shadcn today, your bespoke kit tomorrow. Mapping should be one click, not a weekend.That “perfect Monday” vision is where we’re headed, and our roadmap will get us there one feature at a time.We’re definitely interested in your feedback: What gaps do you still feel between design, code, and marketing, and where could an “AI for grown-ups” save you the most pain?Drop your thoughts in the comments or tag us on our socials (see footer for links).Turning the 80/20 right-side-upIf Software 2.0 taught us that networks can write code, and the Software 3.0 hype reminds us they can write whole interfaces, then the middle road we’ve walked today—call it Software 2.5—insists that learned programs still deserve linting, budgeting, and daylight.Boring constraints create extraordinary freedom.Speed is intoxicating, but alone it flips the 80/20 rule on its head, leaving humans elbow-deep in cleanup. AI for grown-ups reverses that trade.Tool builders promise rails, not rabbit holes. Professionals promise context and accountability. Every mapped component, every token lock, every human review makes the next generation more predictable—and predictability is what compounds into real velocity.We don’t need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the new world. We’re perfectly capable of walking there at our own pace, spending our hours on craft no model can fake. Introducing Visual Copilot: convert Figma designs to high quality code in a single click.Try Visual CopilotGet a demo