The commission, valued at up to £46,000 (including VAT), will see the appointed architect work closely with ateb’s internal teams to deliver a 30-unit housing development, supporting the group’s mission to create better living solutions for the people and communities of West Wales. The two-year contract, running from July 2025 to July 2027, will require the architect to oversee all stages of design, from feasibility through to tender, in line with Welsh Government technical scrutiny and local authority planning requirements. The project is part of ateb’s ongoing commitment to respond to local housing need, regenerate communities, and provide a variety of affordable tenures, including social rent, rent to buy, and shared ownership.Advertisement According to the brief: ‘The ateb Group (where ateb means answer or solution In Welsh) is a unique set o companies that collectively has the shared purpose of 'Creating better living solutions for the people and communities of West Wales. ‘ateb currently has around 3,100 homes predominantly in Pembrokeshire, that we rent on either a social or intermediate rental basis.  ateb works closely with its Local Authority and other partners to develop around 150 new homes every year, to meet affordable housing need through a range of tenures such as, for rent, rent to buy or shared ownership.’ Tavernspite is a small village of around 350 inhabitants located 9.7km southeast of Narberth in Pembrokeshire. Ateb, based in nearby Haverfordwest, is a not-for-profit housing association managing around 3,100 homes across the county. The group’s social purpose is supported by its subsidiaries: Mill Bay Homes, which develops homes for sale to reinvest profits into affordable housing, and West Wales Care and Repair, which supports older and vulnerable residents to remain independent in their homes. Bids will be assessed 60 per cent on quality and 40 per cent on price, with a strong emphasis on experience in the housing association sector and collaborative working with internal client teams.Advertisement Applicants must hold professional indemnity insurance of at least £2 million and be prepared to attend in-person evaluation presentations as part of the assessment process. Competition details Project title Provision of Architect Services for Tavernspite Development Client Contract value Tbc First round deadline Midday, 3 July 2025 Restrictions The contract particularly welcomes submissions from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and voluntary, community, and social enterprises (VCSEs) More information https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/031815-2025

There is a new Humble Bundle of interest to game developers, the Big Bang Unreal & Unity (and Godot) Asset Humble Bundle. This massive bundle contains a ton of 3D environments, props, SFX and characters for Unreal, Unity and a few for Godot as well. You can also transfer assets from one game engine to another using the guides we provide below. In addition to this new Humble Bundle there are several other game asset bundles for these game engine by Leartes running over on GumRoad: Space Nova Unreal Bundle (Use code SN70) Star Nova Unreal Bundle (Use Code SN40) Unity Space Nova Bundle (Use Code SN70) Unity Star Nova Bundle (Use Code SN40) Godot Star Nova Bundle (Use Code SN40) The Big Bang Unreal & Unity (and Godot) Asset Humble Bundle is organized into the following tiers: 1$ Tier Military Boat SFX CyberpunkZBrush: Beginner to Advanced Course on Three MiniaturesVFX Smoke (Unreal Engine)Water VFX (Unreal Engine)Object Distribution Tool (Unreal Engine)500+ Fantasy IconsCosmos One Month Free SubscriptionCosmos 50% Discount CodeMedian Tier Ultimate Lighting and Camera Tool ( ULCT ) Feudal Japanese CastleStylized Desert BazaarStylized Medieval HouseStylized Magical Haunted VillageThe Gas StationFantasy Mystic VillageMilitary Barriers PackSUV 02 DriveableSFX WinterVFX Dust (Unreal Engine)Substance 3D Painter: A Complete Guide for BeginnersSFX 3 Police Station (SFX)Modeling TutorialPost Apocalyptic Melee Weapons VOL.2Material Assignment Tool (Unreal Engine)Police Character / NPC (Unreal Engine)1950s Mafia Character / NPC / RiggedCyberpunk Holograms / Neon Set ( Set of 33 Holograms )Cyberpunk Street Lights (Unreal Engine)Driveable / Animated Retro Cyberpunk Hover Car 0220$ Tier Miami Club Megapack Ancient Cathedral EnvironmentThe Grand Egyptian TempleThe Carnival EnvironmentUnderwater Sunken ShipHaunted HouseThe Fantastic HillsThe Ancient Library EnvironmentPirate Tavern EnvironmentChinese Alley EnvironmentUltimate Level Art Tool – ULATThe Rally Point EnvironmentJapanese TempleFeudal Japan WarroomStylized House Along RiverModular Stylized Cyberpunk StreetStylized Ice Dragon VillageStylized Perched ChurchStylized Desert MineStylized Sci-Fi Modern CityRetropunk Saloon Environment (Unreal Engine)Cyberpunk Kyiv Street EnvironmentChurch / Cathedral InteriorGothic Street1950s BusinessmanCyberpunk Billboards / Signs Set / 35 Unique Pieces ( Cyberpunk Billboards )Military Exterior PackClassic Sport Car 01Classic Car 02Classic Car 03SUV 03 DriveableFPS 4K Western Guns – VOL.3FPS 4K Custom Modern Handguns – VOL.4SFX Cyberpunk GunsVFX Explosion (Unreal Engine)Creating an Industrial Concept Art in Blender / PhotoshopCreating Abandoned Church 3D Environment in Unreal Engine 5Unreal Engine 5, Blender – Creating a Classroom EnvironmentSFX 1 Warzone (SFX)SFX 2 Soulslike (SFX)VFX 1 Warzone (VFX)Post Apocalyptic Melee Weapons VOL.1FPS 4K Custom Modern Shotguns – VOL.2FPS 4K Western Guns – VOL.2 (Unreal Engine)Stable EnvironmentIf you are looking at using the Unreal or Unity assets in another game engine, be sure to check out the following conversion guides: You can learn more about the Big Bang Unreal & Unity (and Godot) Asset Humble Bundle in the video below. Using links on this page helps support GFS (and thank you very much if you do!)

The Krusty Burger is a health inspector's nightmare, responsible for spawning the Krusty Burger, the Ribwich, The Clogger, and the Steamed Ham (per Principal Skinner). It comes with seven minifigures, including Krusty the Clown, Sideshow Bob, Homer Simpson, and Officer Lou. You can purchase it for $209.99 on June 4, although LEGO Insiders can order the set via Early Access beginning on June 1. You can sign up for free here.LEGO The Simpsons: Krusty BurgerOut June 1 for LEGO Insiders, and June 4 for everyone else.$209.99 at LEGO StoreTo learn more about the set and its creation, we interviewed its designer. Ann Healy is a 39-year-old Senior Model Designer who's worked with the LEGO Group for the past six years. Here, lightly edited for clarity, are her thoughts on creating LEGO The Simpsons: Krusty Burger, the first new LEGO Simpsons set in nearly a decade. What other LEGO sets have you had a hand in designing over the past six years? Healy: I worked for three years on the LEGO Friends line. A few years ago, I got the opportunity to work on a Disney favorite of mine: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage set from Hocus Pocus. That project took years in the making to come to market, and I’m quite proud of it. More recently, I have been working on the LEGO Icons team. From last year’s products, I designed the McLaren MP4/4 & Ayrton Senna set and the Poinsettia LEGO Botanicals set.What drove the decision to revive the Simpsons brand after such a long hiatus? Healy: We saw that even after a 10-year stretch since a new Simpsons set, there was still a lot of love for The Simpsons amongst LEGO fans. Our market research showed that there is huge brand loyalty for The Simpsons, appealing to people globally. Designing the Krusty Burger in LEGO brick form serves as a natural continuation of our Simpsons line and gives us the opportunity to make new, never-before-seen LEGO minifigures.LEGO designers often build in their free time, working towards builds that they hope will one day become sets.“Coincidentally, the original Simpsons House and Kwik-E-Mart LEGO sets were some of the last sets I purchased before I knew I would be coming to work at The LEGO Group. In my first week working here, I found an early prototype of the Krusty Burger set on a shelf in our office. For context, LEGO designers often build in their free time, working towards builds that they hope will one day become sets. It gave me hope that someday, I might get the chance to work on something like that. Five years later, to my surprise, our Head of Marketing pulled that same prototype off the shelf and said it was time to revisit The Simpsons! I volunteered right away as a lifelong fan of the Simpsons. I couldn’t believe my luck!Describe the process of designing and building this set as best you can. How many times did you have to build the entire model in the course of finalizing it?Healy: I started with refining and updating the old prototype, figuring out the general layout and developing a building-instruction flow. I worked digitally first, then built the model physically. From there, I would go back and forth between digital and physical, seeing if the model would work with real bricks. We have design team check-ins where I showed progress on the model and got suggestions from our Creative Lead and the other model designers. I had several check-ins with the IP partner, where I would show them the latest updates and they could give feedback on the model and mini figures. I also had internal review meetings with our Model Governance and Building Experience teams, where we build the model, review every construction step, evaluate the play experience and test the strength of the model.I did not keep track of every time I rebuilt the model, but I would estimate at least 20 times. The last time I built the Krusty Burger set was when the first production boxes arrived from the factory. I built it one last time for quality assurance!Krusty Burger isn't a fully realized location in the show in the same way that Moe's Tavern is, or the Kwik-E Mart is, or the Simpsons’ house is. Which TV episodes did you use to map out the Krusty Burger and determine how it's set up? Healy: Disney was a great partner in sending us reference images and layouts when available. Also, I watched as many episodes of The Simpsons as possible, so I could translate the TV animation into a real, physical, toy playset. Season 20, Episode 21, “Coming to Homerica,” is the episode we used the most in reference, because it features the Mother Nature Burger that we reference several times in this LEGO set. The “Ribwich” from Season 14, Episode 12, “I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can,” is also featured. Other referenced episodes of note include: Season 6, Episode 15, “Homie the Clown” – Homer performs at a Krusty Burger Season 12, Episode 13, “Day of the Jackanapes” – Bart and Sideshow Bob go to the Krusty Burger. Season 10, Episode 1, Lard of the Dance” – Homer tries to sell grease from the restaurant.Season 7, Episode 15, “Bart the Fink” – Features the IRS Burger takeover.Season 19, Episode 1, “He Loves to Fly and He D'ohs” – Homer hides in the Krusty Zone ball pit. Season 15, Episode 10, “Diatribe of a Mad Housewife” – Shows the Krusty Burger drive thru sign. Season 21, Episode 4, "Treehouse of Horror XX" – Features the Krusty Burger in “Don't Have a Cow, Mankind.”What's your favorite deep cut Easter Egg in the build? Healy: Above the Krusty Burger drive-thru window, there is a kitchen display screen, showing that someone has placed an order for 700 burgers. This is a reference to the Season 5 episode “Boy-Scoutz 'n the Hood,” in which Krusty has unwisely opened a Krusty Burger oil rig in the middle of the sea.What was the most challenging aspect of designing this build? How were you able to overcome it? Healy: The most rewarding challenge of designing this set was building the Krusty Burger Sign with LEGO bricks. The IP partner paid a lot of attention to the proportions of Krusty’s face within the sign, giving us reference material and tips on how to best capture his likeness. We even got hand-drawn doodles of the Krusty the Clown from them! One of my model-designer colleagues used to work as an illustrator and used his skills to capture Krusty’s features in brick-form even more accurately. In addition, it was challenging to get the heavy Krusty Burger sign to stand up and remain stable on a single axle. Our Element Lead on the design project suggested we use a new element she was developing, an axle sleeve, to increase the weight the rod could hold upright. This new element did the trick.The most rewarding challenge of designing this set was building the Krusty Burger Sign with LEGO bricks.“Is this a one-off revival of the Simpsons brand? Or is this the beginning of a longer partnership, where we can expect to see more LEGO Simpsons themed sets in the near future?Healy: I cannot speculate on future products, per the LEGO Group’s and our partners' policies. Nonetheless, as a huge Simpsons fan myself, I am hopeful that fans have a positive response to this set!LEGO The Simpsons: Krusty Burger, Set #10352, retails for $209.99, and it is composed of 1635 pieces. You can purchase it on June 4 for the general public, or starting on June 1 for LEGO Insiders. You can sign up for LEGO Insiders for free here. And stay tuned! We will be building, photographing, and reviewing LEGO Krusty Burger later this month,Kevin Wong is a contributing freelancer for IGN, specializing in LEGO. He's also been published in Complex, Engadget, Gamespot, Kotaku, and more. Follow him on Twitter at @kevinjameswong.

A lot of games have been released for the Playdate since it launched in 2022, as a quick browse of itch.io or the Catalog shop will attest. But still, there’s something unique about the handheld’s seasonal format, which just kicked off its second iteration. When it first launched, the Playdate came with 24 games from notable indie developers that were steadily released on a weekly cadence, making a perfect introduction to the little yellow device and its crank. Now, a few years later, we finally have season 2, and it’s off to a solid start — and it even includes a bizarre mystery.Fulcrum Defender. Image: Subset GamesThe new season runs for the next six weeks and totals a dozen games, two of which will drop each week. The entire collection will run you $39. To start, we have a pair of very different games. Fulcrum Defender, from FTL: Faster Than Light developer Subset Games, is sort of like a modern take on Asteroids. You control a little ship in the middle and fire guns at little squares flying toward you. The twist is that you use the crank to rotate the ship around and aim your shots. There’s also something of a roguelike element, where you steadily unlock random upgrades like new weapons or a larger spread for your bullets. The goal is to last for 10 straight minutes.It’s a pretty challenging game — so far, I’ve only really had success on easy mode — but it’s also surprisingly chill, eliciting that sort of zen state that the best shooters and puzzle games can create. This is helped by its lo-fi soundtrack that pretty much demands you play with headphones on. It’s an absorbing game.Dig! Dig! Dino! Image: Dom2D and FáyerOn the other end of the spectrum is Dig Dig Dino!, developed by Dom2D and Fáyer, who brag that the game “is perfect to play while watching TV! No time pressure, no quick reflexes needed!” It’s a puzzle game where you travel to different dig sites to uncover dinosaur bones, artifacts, and trash. You only have a limited amount of moves per dig, but you can upgrade your capacity over time — while also getting new tools to smash rocks or dig deeper — letting you dig both more and for longer. It’s sort of like a really cute take on Minesweeper, one clearly designed for short play sessions. It’s not exactly difficult, but there’s still something satisfying about uncovering a large dinosaur bone when you’re just about to run out of moves.These two games do a good job of showing the breadth of games possible on the Playdate; one is meant for quick bursts, the other for longer, more focused sessions. But the launch week package is rounded out by something a whole lot weirder. It’s called Blippo Plus and, well, it’s a series of TV channels you can flip between using the crank. Some are nothing but static, while others have giant FMV videos of strange TV shows or commercials. One show, called Tantric Computing, is nothing but closeup shots of someone using a computer mouse. Another, Werf’s Tavern, is some kind of musical talk show. There’s also a messaging tool and some kind of fax service.What’s most interesting about Blippo Plus, though, isn’t just that it’s odd. It’s also a mystery that seems like it will evolve over the course of the season. Playdate maker Panic says that “Playdate season 2 owners should tune in weekly and make sure they are connected to WiFi when season 2 updates at 10 AM PT on Thursdays.” There are lots of other promising games planned for season 2, including the point-and-click adventure Shadowgate PD and whatever the heck Long Puppy and Tiny Turnip are.But an FMV mystery that unfolds over the course of weeks is something that’s pretty unique to this format — and further evidence that the Playdate exists in its own parallel universe.See More:

What worked in The Witcher 3 and what didn't: looking back on a landmark RPG with CD Projekt Red "We learned a lot of lessons down the road." Image credit: CD Projekt Red Feature by Robert Purchese Associate Editor Published on May 31, 2025 Do you remember what you were doing when The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was released? It came out on 19th May 2015. I remember because I was inside CD Projekt Red at the time, trying to capture the moment for you - a moment I'm unlikely to replicate there or anywhere else. I recall sitting in the studio's canteen in the small hours of the morning, after a midnight launch event in a mall in Warsaw, chewing on a piece of cold pizza and wondering out loud what would come next for the studio, because at the time, who could know? One era was ending and another was about to begin. Would it bring the fame and fortune CD Projekt Red desired? Today, more than 60 million sales of The Witcher 3 later, we know the answer is yes. The Witcher 3 became a role-playing classic. It delivered one of the most touchable medieval worlds we've explored, a rough place of craggy rocks and craggier faces, of wonky morales and grim realities, of mud and dirtiness. And monsters, though not all were monstrous to look at. It was a world of grey, of superstition and folklore, and in it stood we, a legendary monster hunter, facing seemingly impossible odds. The Witcher 3 took fantasy seriously. But the decade since the game's release has been turbulent for CD Projekt Red. The studio launched its big new sci-fi series in 2020 with Cyberpunk 2077, and though the game has now sold more than 30 million copies, making it monetarily a success, it had a nightmarish launch. The PS4 version had to be removed from sale. It brought enormous pressure, growing pains and intense scrutiny to the studio, and CD Projekt Red would spend a further three years patching and updating - and eventually releasing an expansion - before public opinion would mostly turn around. Today the studio returns to safer ground, back to The Witcher world with the new game The Witcher 4, and as we look forward to it we should also look back, to the game that catapulted the studio to fame, and see what has been learnt. The Witcher 3 is at version 4.04 today, a number that represents an enormously long period of post-release support.Watch on YouTube It all began with naivety, as perhaps any ambitious project should. It's easy to forget that 14 years ago, when The Witcher 3 was being conceived, CD Projekt Red had never made an open-world game before. The Witcher 1 and The Witcher 2 were linear in their approaches. It's also easy to forget that the people making the game were 14 years younger and less experienced. Back then, this was the studio's chance at recognition, so it aimed high in order to be seen. "The Witcher 3 was supposed to be this game that will end all other games," Marcin Blacha, the lead writer of the game, tells me. Simply make an open-world game that's also a story-driven game and release it on all platforms at the same time. How hard could it be? "When I'm thinking about our state of mind back in those days, the only word that comes to my mind is enthusiastic," Blacha says. "It was fantastic because we were so enthusiastic that we were full of courage. We were trying to experiment with stuff and we were not afraid. We were convinced that when we work with passion and love, it will pay off eventually." Every project has to begin somewhere and for Blacha, the person tasked with imagining the story, The Witcher 3 could only begin with Ciri, the daughter-of-sorts to The Witcher's central monster hunter character Geralt. As Blacha says, "The most important thing about Geralt and the most important thing about the books is the relationship between Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer. I already did two games with no sign of Ciri, no sign of Yennefer, and then we finally had a budget and proper time for pre-production, so for me, it was time to introduce both characters." It's a decision that would have major repercussions for the rest of The Witcher series at CD Projekt Red. Blacha didn't know it then, but Ciri would go on to become the protagonist of The Witcher 4. Had she not been the co-protagonist of The Witcher 3 - for you play as her in several sections during the game - who knows if things would have worked out the same way. It's an understandable progression as it is, though there is still some uncertainty among the audience about Ciri's starring role. But Ciri's inclusion came with complications, because the Ciri we see in the game is not the Ciri described in the books. That Ciri is much closer to the Ciri in the Netflix Witcher TV show, younger and more rebellious in a typical teenager way. She might be an important part of the fiction, then, but that doesn't mean she was especially well liked. "People were thinking that she's annoying," says Blacha, who grew up reading The Witcher books. CD Projekt Red, then, decided to make a Ciri of its own, aging her and making her more "flesh and bone", as Blacha puts it. He fondly recalls a moment in the game's development when reviewing the Ciri sections of the game, and saying aloud to studio director Adam Badowski how much he liked her. "I didn't know that she's going to be the protagonist of the next game," he says, "but I said to Adam Badowski, she's going to be very popular." Once Ciri had been earmarked for inclusion in The Witcher 3, the idea to have her pursued by the phantom-like force of the Wild Hunt - the members of which literally ride horses in the night sky, like Santa Claus' cursed reindeer - came shortly after. CD Projekt Red had introduced the Wild Hunt in The Witcher 2 so it made sense. The outline of the main story was then laid down as a one-page narrative treatment. Then it was expanded to a two-page treatment, a four page treatment, an eight page treatment and so on. At around 10 pages, it already had the White Orchard prologue, almost the entirety of the No Man's Land zone, and a hint of what would happen on Skellige and in Novigrad. When it was around 40 pages long, the quest design team was invited in. CD Projekt Red made their Ciri older than she is in the books. | Image credit: CD Projekt Red The quest design team's job is to turn a story into a game, and this was a newly created department for The Witcher 3, created because the old way of writers designing the quests wasn't working any more. "We were struggling a bit with making sure that every written story that we have prepared is also a story that we can play well," Paweł Sasko says. He joined CD Projekt Red to be a part of that quest design team. The quest design team carves up a narrative treatment, paragraph by paragraph, and expands those into playable questlines for the game. "It's basically something between game design and a movie scenario," Sasko says. There's no dialogue, just a description of what will happen, and even a one-paragraph prompt can balloon into a 20-30 page design. Among the paragraphs Sasko was given to adapt was a storyline in No Man's Land concerning a character known as the Bloody Baron. The Bloody Baron storyline is widely acclaimed and has become synonymous with everything Sasko and CD Projekt Red were trying to do with the game. It's a storyline that probes into mature themes like domestic abuse, fatherhood, and love and loss and grief. More importantly, it presents us with a flawed character and allows us time and space to perhaps change our opinion of them. It gives us layers many other games don't go anywhere near. When Sasko first encountered the storyline, there was only an outline. "It said that Geralt meets the Bloody Baron who asks Geralt to hunt a monster and look for his wife and daughter, and for that, he is going to share information about Ciri and tell Geralt where she went. That was pretty much it." And Sasko already knew a few things about what he wanted to do. He knew he wanted to show No Man's Land as a Slavic region bathed in superstitions and complex religious beliefs, one that had been ravaged by famine and war. He also knew the tone of the area was horror because this had been outlined by Blacha and the leaders of The Witcher 3 team. Says Blacha: "My opinion is that a successful Witcher game is a mix of everything, so you have a horror line, you have a romance, you have adventure, you have exploration. When we started to think about our hubs, we thought about them in terms of a show, so No Man's Land, the hub with the Bloody Baron, was horror; Skellige was supposed to be an adventure; and Novigrad was supposed to be a big city investigation." But there were key missing pieces then from the Bloody Baron sequence we know today. The botchling, for instance - the monstrous baby the quest revolves around. It didn't exist. It was an idea that came from Sasko after he read a Slavic bestiary. "Yes," he says, "the botchling idea came from me." The Bloody Baron. | Image credit: Eurogamer / CD Projekt Red He wanted the botchling to be the conduit through which more mature themes of the story could be approached - something overt to keep you busy while deeper themes sunk in. It's an approach Sasko says he pinched from Witcher author Andrzej Sapkowski, after deconstructing his work. "What he's doing is he's trying to find universal truths about human beings and struggles, but he doesn't tell those stories directly," Sasko says. "So for instance racism: he doesn't talk about that directly but he finds an interesting way how, in his world, he can package that and talk about it. I followed his method and mimicked it." This way the botchling becomes your focus in the quest, as the Baron carries it back to the manor house and you defend him from wraiths, but while you're doing that, you're also talking and learning more about who the Bloody Baron - who Phillip Strenger - is. "I wanted you to feel almost like you're in the shoes of that Bloody Baron," Sasko says. "Peregrination is this path in Christianity you go through when you want to remove your sins, and that's what this is meant to be. He's just trying to do it, and he's going through all of those things to do something good. And I wanted the player to start feeling like, 'Wow, maybe this dude is not so bad.'" It's a quest that leaves a big impression. An email was forwarded to Sasko after the game's release, written by a player who had lost their wife and child as the Baron once had. "And for him," he says, "that moment when Baron was carrying the child was almost like a catharsis, when he was trying so badly to walk that path. And the moment he managed to: he wrote in his letter that he broke down in tears." There's one other very significant moment in The Witcher 3 that Sasko had a large hand in, and it's the Battle of Kaer Morhern, where the 'goodies' - the witchers and the sorceresses, and Ciri - make a stand against the titular menace of the Wild Hunt. Sasko designed this section specifically to emotionally tenderise you, through a series of fast-paced and fraught battles, so that by the time the climactic moment came, you were aptly primed to receive it. The moment being Vesemir's death - the leader of the wolf school of witchers and father figure to Geralt. This, too, was Sasko's idea. "We needed to transition Ciri from being a hunted animal to becoming a hunter," he tells me, and the only event big enough and with enough inherent propulsion was Vesemir's death. Eredin, the leader of the Wild Hunt, breaks Vesemir's neck. | Image credit: Eurogamer / CD Projekt Red But for all of the successful moments in the game there are those that didn't work. To the team that made the game, and to the players, there are things that clearly stand out. Such as Geralt's witcher senses, which allow him to see scent trails and footsteps and clues in the world around him. Geralt's detective mode, in other words. Sasko laughs as he cringes about it now. "We've overdone the witcher senses so much, oh my god," he says. "At the time when we were starting this, we were like, 'We don't have it in the game; we have to use it to make you feel like a witcher.' But then at the end, especially in the expansions, we tried to decrease it so it doesn't feel so overloaded." He'd even turn it down by a further 10 to 20 per cent, he says. There were all of the question marks dotted across the map, luring us to places to find meagre hidden treasure rewards. "I think we all scratch our heads about what we were thinking when trying to build this," Sasko tells me. "I guess it just came from fear - from fear that the player will feel that the world is empty." This was the first time CD Projekt Red had really the player's hand go, remember, and not controlled where in the world you would be. Shallow gameplay is a criticism many people have, especially in the game's repetitive combat, and again, this is something Sasko and the team are well aware of. "We don't feel that the gameplay in Witcher 3 was deep enough," he says. "It was for the times okay, but nowadays when you play it, even though the story still holds really well, you can see that the gameplay is a bit rusty." Also, the cutscenes could have been paced better and had less exposition in them, and the game in general could have dumped fewer concepts on you at once. Cognitive overload, Sasko calls it. "In every second sentence you have a new concept introduced, a new country mentioned, a new politician..." It was too much. More broadly, he would also have liked the open-world to be more closely connected to the game's story, rather than be, mostly, a pretty backdrop. "It's like in the theatre when you have beautiful decorations at the back made of cardboard and paper, and not much happens to them except an actor pulls a rope and it starts to rain or something." he says. It's to do with how the main story influences the world and vice versa, and he thinks the studio can be better at it. Ciri and Geralt look at a coin purse in The Witcher 3. This is, coincidentally, the same tavern you begin the game in, with Vesemir, and the same tavern you meet Master Mirror in. | Image credit: Eurogamer / CD Projekt Red One conversation that surprises me, when looking back on The Witcher 3, is a conversation about popularity, because it's easy to forget now - with the intense scrutiny the studio seems always to be under - that when development began, not many people knew about CD Projekt Red. The combined sales of both Witcher games in 2013 were only 5 million. Poland knew about it - the Witcher fiction originated there and CD Projekt Red is Polish - and Germany knew about it, and some of the rest of Europe knew about it. But in North America, it was relatively unknown. That's a large part of the reason why the Xbox 360 version of The Witcher 2 was made at all, to begin knocking on that door. And The Witcher 3, CD Projekt Red hoped, would kick that door open. "We knew that we wanted to play in the major league," says Michał Platkow-Gilewski, vice president of communications and PR, stealing a quote from Cyberpunk character Jackie. That's why The Witcher 3 was revealed via a Game Informer cover story in early 2013, because that was deemed the way to do things there - the way to win US hearts, Platkow-Gilewski tells me. And it didn't take long for interest to swell. When Platkow-Gilewski joined CD Projekt Red to help launch the Xbox 360 version of The Witcher 2 in 2012, he was handing out flyers at Gamescom with company co-founder Michał Kicinski, just to fill presentations for the game. By the time The Witcher 3 was being shown at Gamescom, a few years later, queues were three to four hours long. People would wait all day to play. "We had to learn how to deal with popularity during the campaign," Platkow-Gilewski says. Those game shows were crucial for spreading the word about The Witcher 3 and seeing first-hand the impact the game was having on players and press. "Nothing can beat a good show where you meet with people who are there to see their favourite games just slightly before the rest of the world," he says. "They're investing their time, money, effort, and you feel this support, sometimes love, to the IP you're working on, and it boosts energy the way which you can't compare with anything else. These human to human interactions are unique." He says the studio's leader Adam Badowski would refer to these showings as fuel that would propel development for the next year or so, which is why CD Projekt Red always tried to gather as many developers as possible for them, to feel the energy. It was precisely these in-person events that Platkow-Gilewski says CD Projekt Red lacked in the lead up to Cyberpunk's launch, after Covid shut the world down. The company did what it could by pivoting to online events instead - the world-first playtest of Cyberpunk was done online via stream-play software called Parsec; I was a part of it - and talked to fans through trailers, but it was much harder to gauge feedback this way. "It's easy to just go with the flow and way harder to manage expectations," Platkow-Gilewski says, so expectations spiralled. "For me the biggest lesson learned is to always check reality versus expectations, and with Cyberpunk, it was really hard to control and we didn't know how to do it." It makes me wonder what the studio will do now with The Witcher 4, because the game show sector of the industry still hasn't bounced back, and I doubt - having seen the effect Covid has had on shows from the inside of an events company - whether it ever will. "Gamescom is growing," Platkow-Gilewski says somewhat optimistically. "Gamescom is back on track." But I don't know if it really is. Michał Platkow-Gilewski cites this moment as one of his favourite from the Witcher 3 journey. The crew were at the game show PAX in front of a huge live audience and the dialogue audio wouldn't play. Thankfully, they had Doug Cockle, the English language voice actor of Geralt, with them on the panel, so he live improvised the lines. Watch on YouTube Something else I'm surprised to hear from him is mention of The Witcher 3's rocky launch, because 10 years later - and in comparison to Cyberpunk's - that's not how I remember it. But Platkow-Gilewski remembers it differently. "When we released Witcher 3, the reception was not great," he says. "Reviews were amazing but there was, at least in my memories, no common consensus that this is a huge game which will maybe define some, to some extent, the genre." I do remember the strain on some faces around the studio at launch, though. I also remember a tense conversation about the perceived graphics downgrade in the game, where people unfavourably compared footage of Witcher 3 at launch, with footage from a marketing gameplay trailer released years before it. There were also a number of bugs in the game's code and its performance was unoptimised. "We knew things were far from being perfect," Platkow-Gilewski says. But the studio worked hard in the years after launch to patch and update the game - The Witcher 3 is now on version 4.04, which is extraordinary for a single-player game - and they released showcase expansions for it. Some of Marcin Blacha's favourite work is in those expansions, he tells me, especially the horror storylines of Hearts of Stone, many of which he wrote. That expansion's villain, Master Mirror, is also widely regarded as one of the best in the game, disguised as he is as a plain-looking and unassuming person who happens to have incredible and undefinable power. It's not until deep into the expansion you begin to uncover his devilish identity, and it's this subtle way of presenting a villain, and never over explaining his threat, that makes Master Mirror so memorable. He's gathered such a following that some people have concocted elaborate theories about him. Lead character artist Pawel Mielniczuk tells me about one theory whereby someone discovered you can see Master Mirror's face on many other background characters in the game, which you can, and that they believed it was a deliberate tactic used by CD Projekt Red to underline Master Mirror's devilish power. Remember, there was a neat trick with Master Mirror in that you had already met him at the beginning of The Witcher 3 base game, long before the expansion was ever developed, in a tavern in White Orchard. If CD Projekt Red could foreshadow him as far back as that, the theory went, then it could easily put his face on other characters in the game to achieve a similar 'did you see it?' effect. The real villain in the Hearts of Stone expansion, Gaunter O'Dimm. Better known to many as Master Mirror. There's a reason why he has such a plain-looking face... | Image credit: CD Projekt Red The truth is far more mundane. Other characters in the game do have Master Mirror's face, but only because his face is duplicated across the game in order to fill it out. CD Projekt Red didn't know when it made the original Witcher 3 game that this villager would turn into anyone special. There was a tentative plan but it was very tentative, so this villager got a very villager face. "We just got a request for a tertiary unimportant character," says Mileniczuk. "We had like 30-40 faces for the entire game so we just slapped a random face on him." He laughs. And by the time Hearts of Stone development came around, the face - the identity - had stuck. Expansions were an important part of cementing public opinion around The Witcher 3, then, as they were for cementing public opinion around Cyberpunk. They've become something of a golden bullet for the studio, a way to creatively unleash an already trained team and leave a much more positive memory in our heads. Exactly what went wrong with Cyberpunk and how CD Projekt Red set about correcting it is a whole other story Chris Tapsell told recently on the site, so I don't want to delve into specifics here. Suffice to say it was a hard time for the studio and many hard lessons had to be learned. "The pressure was huge," Platkow-Gilewski says, "because from underdogs we went to a company which will, for sure, deliver the best experience in the world." But while much of the rhetoric around Cyberpunk concerns the launch, there's a lot about the game itself that highlights how much progress the studio made, in terms of making open-world role-playing games. One of my favourite examples is how characters in Cyberpunk walk and talk rather than speak to you while rooted to the spot. It might seem like a small thing but it has a transformative and freeing effect on conversations, allowing the game to walk you places while you talk, and stage dialogue in a variety of cool ways. There's a lot to admire about the density of detail in the world, too, and in the greater variety of body shapes and diversity. Plus let's not forget, this is an actual open world rather than a segmented one as The Witcher 3 was. In many ways, the game was a huge step forward for the studio. Cyberpunk wasn't the only very notable thing to happen to the Witcher studio in those 10 years, either. During that time, The Witcher brand changed. Netflix piggybacked the game's popularity and developed a TV series starring Henry Cavill, and with it propelled The Witcher to the wider world. Curiously, CD Projekt Red wasn't invited to help, which was odd given executive producer Tomek Baginski was well known to CD Projekt Red, having directed the intro cinematics for all three Witcher video games. But beyond minor pieces of crossover content, no meaningful collaboration ever occurred. "We had no part in the shows," Pawel Mileniczuk says. "But it's Hollywood: different words. I know how hard it was for Tomek to get in there, to convince them to do the show, and then how limited influence is when the production house sits on something. It's many people, many decision makers, high stakes, big money. Nobody there was thinking about, Hey, let's talk to those dudes from Poland making games. It's a missed opportunity to me but what can I say?" The debut trailer for The Witcher 4.Watch on YouTube Nevertheless, the Netflix show had a surprisingly positive effect on the studio, with sales of The Witcher 3 spiking in 2019 and 2020 when the first season aired. "It was a really amazing year for us sales wise," Platkow-Gilewski says. This not only means more revenue for the studio but also wider understanding; more people are more familiar with The Witcher world now than ever before, which bodes very well for The Witcher 4. Not that it influenced or affected the studio's plans to return to that world, by the way. "We knew already that we wanted to come back to The Witcher," Platkow-Gilewski says. "Some knew that they wanted to tell a Ciri story while we were still working on Witcher 3." But, again, with popularity also comes pressure. "We'll have hopefully millions of people already hooked in from the get-go but with some expectations and visions and dreams which we have to, or may not be able to, fulfil," Platkow-Gilewski adds. You can already sense this pressure in comments threads about the new game. Many people already have their ideas about what a new Witcher game should be. The Witcher 4 might seem like a return to safer ground, then, but the relationship with the audience has changed in the intervening 10 years. "I think people are again with us," Platkow-Gilewski says. "There are some who are way more careful than they used to be; I don't see the hype train. We also learned how to talk about our game, what to show, when to show. But I think people believe again. Not everyone, and maybe it's slightly harder to talk with the whole internet. It's impossible now. It's way more polarised than it used to be. But I believe that we'll have something special for those who love The Witcher." Here we are a decade later, then, looking forward to another Witcher game by CD Projekt Red. But many things have changed. The studio has grown and shuffled people around and the roles of the people I speak to have changed. Marcin Blacha and Pawel Mielniczuk aren't working on The Witcher 4, but on new IP Project Hadar, in addition to their managerial responsibilities, and Pawel Sasko is full-time on Cyberpunk 2. It's only really Michał Platkow-Gilewski who'll do a similar job for The Witcher 4 as on The Witcher 3, although this time with dozens more people to help. But they will all still consult and they're confident in the abilities of The Witcher 4 team. "They really know what they're doing," says Sasko, "they are a very seasoned team." "We learned a lot of lessons down the road," Platkow-Gilewski says, in closing. "I started this interview saying that we had this bliss of ignorance; now we know more, but hopefully we can still be brave. Before, we were launching a rocket and figuring out how to land on the moon. Now, we know the dangers but we are way more experienced, so we'll find a way to navigate through these uncharted territories. We have a map already so hopefully it won't be such a hard trip."

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Every item on this page was chosen by an ELLE Decor editor. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy.At the recently reopened Wayfare Tavern in San Francisco, a custom, hand-painted mural hangs above the dining room tables. And across the country, in The Otter, opened in late 2024 in New York’s Manner Hotel, a regal mural spreads out above the restaurant’s banquettes. If you haven't noticed, restaurant murals seem to be making comeback. And for good reason. These one-of-a-kind, site-specific works add something to a space that no replica, or digitally crafted work, ever could. “Hand-painted work carries emotions and warmth that printed graphics simply can’t replicate,” says Mirim Yoo, a visual artist and creative director of Shirukuro restaurant. Opened this spring, Shirokuro caused a splash online with its fully hand-painted interior—not just the walls but the floors, chairs, and tables—that made it look like a 2D illustration. “There’s a human rhythm in every brushstroke,” says Yoo. “That’s something no machine or print could ever mimic.”Courtesy Yeon J YueDetail of a wall, tables, chairs and floor in Shirokuro, hand-painted by Mirim Yoo. ’Murals on restaurant walls are nothing new. For decades, tourists have flocked to spaces famous for them. Like the King Cole bar, in New York, whose mural was painted by Maxfield Parrish in 1906, originally for John Jacob Astor’s hotel The Knickerbocker (and later moved to its current location, the St. Regis, in 1920). Likewise, Bemelmans Bar, inside the Carlyle, opened in 1947, is famous for walls decorated by its namesake, Ludwig Bemelmans, the writer and illustrator of the Madeline books. But works like these were made in or around what some consider a heyday for the mural, when artists were commissioned to decorate the walls of fine dining rooms and other commercial spaces such as banks and building lobbies. For years, the practice was largely dormant as other trends like wallpaper, faux-finishes, or just bare-bones walls (minimalism and its endless hangover) dominated. William Jess LairdA mural by artist Matthew Benedict is painted around the walls of the dining area and bar on the first floor of Izzy’s Steaks and Chops, in San Francisco. In the last few years, however, there’s been a noticeable uptick in large-scale murals in restaurants and bars. In San Francisco, the recently updated Izzy’s Steaks and Chops has one that depicts the owner and other notables, painted by renowned artist Matthew Benedict above its dining room and bar. At Cecchi’s, opened in 2023, in New York, a mural by rising star Jean-Pierre Villafañe inflects the space with Art Deco grandeur.By Yeon J Yue courtesy ShirokuroDetail of a wall in Shirokuro, painted by Mirim Yoo. Though these murals take cues from the ancient tradition of telling stories through large-scale paintings, a new class of mural-makers is going about it in new and innovative ways. For example, the hand-painted wallcovering in the Wayfare Tavern was custom made by De Gournay, with input from the restaurant's designer, Jon de la Cruz of DLCID, who wanted to tap into local history—in particular, old San Francisco, the Barbary Coast, and the California Gold Rush—through the painting’s narrative. Starting with one of their design templates, called Voyage of the Pacific, de la Cruz and team worked with De Gournay to craft a custom scene, which was then painted directly onto gold, gilded paper. “So the installation process was as direct as conventional rolled wallpaper,” de la Cruz tells us. Likewise, for The Otter, Spanish architect-turned-painter, Elvira Solana made what would become the restaurant’s mural on canvas in her studio in Madrid. When it was done, the canvas was rolled, shipped and mounted by a crew inside the restaurant. ELLE Decor A-Lister Hannes Peer’s design for the space was inspired by “1960s French Riviera with Italian Mediterranean modernism,” according to his website, and Solana’s mural draws on the mediterranean-modernist palette through its shapes and colors. View full post on Instagram At Shirokuro, Yoo’s work puts a spin on classical mural-making by covering the entire interior of the space. The original concept for the restaurant was inspired by Take On Me, the ‘80s music video by the band A-ha, and a 2D cafe that owner and founder James Eunsuk Lim visited in Korea. Yoo leaned on these references as she sketched and refined the design in a notebook. “Since the restaurant first opened as a sushi-focused omakase, I incorporated drawings inspired by Japanese culinary culture,” says Yoo, as well as Japanese sumi-e ink paintings. From start to finish, it took Yoo just under three months to complete the painting inside Shirokuro. The result is impressive, but not without the inconsistencies only a human hand could make. And that’s the point. “The hesitation when I was afraid of making a mistake, the slight imperfections, the uneven lines—all of that holds emotion,” says Yoo. “I think guests can truly feel my presence in the space. It creates a more personal, more alive experience.”Artist Erin Lynn Welsh feels similarly. “To me, a mural is not just decoration—it’s an emotional extension of a space,” she says. “A painted wall can be beautiful, but it often serves a more surface-level or aesthetic purpose. A mural, on the other hand, tells a story. It’s site-specific, intentional, and rooted in both the architecture and the cultural context of the environment.” By Alan Tansey, Courtesy Erin Lynn WelshArtist Erin Lynn Welsh at work on the Anagram Nomad Hotel lobby mural. One of Lynn Welsh’s first major murals was made inside the lobby of the Anagram Nomad, in New York. Another is in the Hotel Lucile, in Los Angeles, opening in July. In all of her work, she draws inspiration from the landscape, particularly that of Southern California, and florals, especially arrangements made by Fox Fodder Farm. Ultimately, though, it’s the architecture of a building, and the light inside it, that informs what she’ll paint there. “I approach each mural site-specifically so that the work doesn’t end up feeling like generic wall art. My goal is always to create something unique, truly responsive, and fully integrated into its surroundings.”“Murals are part of the woodwork of a building—there’s no hiding, no taking them down,” she continues. “You have to make the right decisions in real time or embrace the flaws and transform them into something meaningful.”As we careen toward a digital future filled with AI everything, the palpable presence of an artist’s hand—the choices made, and the mural's integration with the constraint's of a space—is only going to become more precious, and desirable. “In our fast-paced, high-tech world—where everything is instantly accessible—there’s something profoundly special about hand-painted murals,” says de la Cruz. “They’re slow, intentional, and completely bespoke.”

To Universal Monsters fans, the Dark Universe is everything we’ve wanted to see come alive in a horror theme park dedicated to the terrifying and strange. Without the films, there would be no Universal Pictures or the first Universal Studios theme park, for that matter. Epic Universe’s Darkmoor is a monument to the monster legacy at the studio, and it’s befitting of all the creature comforts in store for fans. The moment you enter, Danny Elfman’s score for the land echoes through the nooks and crannies of the cobblestone streets and bounces off the brick buildings. You’ll see little homages to various characters, such as Dr. Jekyll’s Apothecary, which we wish was a real shop. There’s a number of walk around characters that share the lore of the monsters, and you might run into the bandaged form of the Invisible Man, or even the Bride and the Monster. On the attractions, the first monsters of the franchise including the Hunchback of Notre Dame (look up when the bell tolls) and the Phantom of the Opera make their presence felt. The haunting worlds of original films are canon but do get expanded on in intriguing ways. When you meet the Monster you find out he’s just the Bride’s friend, and the experiment from the James Whale movie she was made for lies dead in the queue of Monsters Unchained. To really get the sense of what those stories would have evolved to in the modern day, you actively have to pay attention to all the small details. When you get there, Ygor asks you to volunteer to help Victoria Frankenstein bring glory back to the family name on her quest to control Dracula (yeah, good luck sis). And even the vampire familiars at Das Stakehaus echo the sentiment that there’s no tying that undead man down. Over at the Burning Blade Tavern ,you get more about the villagers’ sentiments about who the real monsters are in Darkmoor: the creations or the humans who seek to overpower them? I wish I’d been able to spend more time in the area to talk to every performer to get as much lore out of them as possible because it’s dense. And we only got a few hours there to gather as much spooky intel as possible and try the food and do the Darkmoor Monster Makeup Experience. I am already itching to go back! To an extent, for the casual theme park fan, it might be a bit much to really wrap their heads around when they ride Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment. You do get to see that Victoria has continued the work of her family name in many ways including making her own version of the monster. But there’s also video clips that play of her and Ygor capturing the Creature From the Black Lagoon and the Wolf Man—there might be more clips but we went through the queue rather quickly. I imagine that she thinks that by making some sort of Monster Squad she’ll live up to her family reputation but might be in over her head. We can’t wait to see how the world continues to grow as more people visit Darkmoor. Check out the gallery below to get a taste of the fun details and Easter eggs! © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo Epic Universe is now open at Universal Studios Orlando. Travel and accommodations were provided for the purposes of this review. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

Whether you’re heading to this year’s Biennale, planning a future visit, or simply daydreaming about Venice, this guide—contributed by Hamilton-based architect Bill Curran—offers insights and ideas for exploring the canal-crossed city. Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go. – Truman Capote Venice is my mystical addiction and I soon will make my 26th trip there, always for about 10 days or more. I keep getting asked why, and asked by other architects to share what to do and what to see. Only Italo Calvino could have reimagined (in ‘Invisible Cities’) such a magical, unique place, a water-born gem forged from 120 islands linked by 400 bridges and beset by a crazy-quilt medieval street and canal pattern. Abstract, dancing light forms dappling off water, the distinct automobile-less quiet. La Serenissima, The Most Serene One. Most buildings along the Grand Canal were warehouses with the family home above on the piano nobile floor above, and servant apartments above that in the attics, in a sea-faring nation state of global traders and merchants like Marco Polo. Uniquely built on a foundation of 1,000-year-old wood pilings, its uneven, wonky buildings have forged a rich place in history, literature and movies: Joseph Brodsky’s Watermark, Hemingway’s Across the River and into the Trees, Don’t Look Now starring Donald Sutherland, Mann’s Death in Venice, The Comfort of Strangers with Christopher Walken, Henry James’ The Wings of the Dove and The Aspern Papers, Kate Hepburn’s ‘Summertime. Yes, yes, Ruskin’s Stones of Venice is an option, as are Merchant of Venice and Casanova. Palazzo Querini Stampalia (Venice): Photo via Wikipedia THE MODERN ARCHITECTURE OF VENICE Much of Venetian life is lived in centuries-old buildings, with a crushing post-war recession leaving it preserved in amber for decades until the mass tourists found it. Now somewhat relieved of at least the cruise ship daytrippers, it is a reasonable place again, except maybe in peak summer. The weight of history, a conservatism for preservation and post-war anti-Americanism led to architectural stagnation. So there are few new, modern buildings, mostly on the edges, and some fine interior interventions, mostly invisible. For modern architecture enthusiasts Venice is a challenge. Carlo Scarpa (Giardini, Venise) – Photo via Wikipedia, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license Here is what modern architects should see: Carlo Scarpa‘s Must-See Works: Go see any of Scarpa’s interventions, demonstrating his mastery of detailing, materials, joinery and his approach to blending with existing fabric. He is Italy’s organicist, their Frank Lloyd Wright, and they even worked together (on the Masieri Foundation). Negozio Olivetti: The tiny former Olivetti typewriter showroom enfronting Piazza San Marco is perhaps the most wonderful of his works. It is open now to visit as a heritage museum. ”God is in the details”; Scarpa carefully considered every detail, material and connection. Le magasin Olivetti de Carlo Scarpa (Venise). Photo via Wikipedia. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license The Fondazione Querini Stampalia is a must see, a renovated palazzo with ground floor exhibit spaces with tidewater allowed to rise up inside in one area you bridge across. The former entrance bridge is a lovely gem of exquisite detailing, rendered obsolete by a meh renovation by Mario Botta. A MUST is to have a coffee or prosecco in Scarpa’s garden and see the craft and detail of its amazing water feature. The original palazzo rooms are a lovely semi-public library inhabited by uni students; sign up as a member on-line for free. Walk up the spiral stair. The entry gate to the UIAV Architecture School in Campo Tolentini  is an unexpected wonder. A brutalist yet crisply detailed sliding concrete and steel gate, a sculpted concrete lychgate, then an ancient doorway placed on the lawn as a basin. Main Gate of the Tolentini building headquarters of Iuav university of Venice designed by Carlo Scarpa. Photo via Wikipedia, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license OTHER MODERN ARCHITECTURE TO SEE: Minimalist Dave Chipperfield expanded an area of suede-like concrete columbariums on the St. Michele cemetery island. Sublime. Extra points if you can find the tomb Scarpa designed nearby. The Ponte della Costituzione (English: Constitution Bridge) is the fourth bridge over the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. It was designed by Santiago Calatrava. (Image via: Wikipedia) Calatrava’s Ponte della Constituzione bridge is an elegant, springing gazelle over the entrance to the Grand Central. But the glass steps are slippery and are being replaced soon, and the City is suing Calatrava, oops. The barrier-free lift pod died soon after opening. It is lovely though.   Le Canal della Giudecca, la Punta della Dogana, la basilique Santa Maria della Salute de Venise et le Canal Grande à Venise (Italie). Photo via Wikipedia Tadao Ando’s Punte Della Dognana museum is large, with sublime, super-minimalist, steel and glass and velvety exposed concrete interventions, while his Palazzo Grassi Museum was more restoration. A little known fact is that Ando used Scarpa’s lovely woven basketweave metal gate design in homage. An important hidden gem is the Teatrino Grassi behind the Museum, a small but fabulous, spatially dramatic theatre that often has events, a must-see! Fondaco dei Tedeschi: At the foot of Rialto Bridge and renovated by Rem Koolhaas, this former German trading post had been transformed into a luxury shopping mall but closed last month, a financial failure. Graced with a stunning atrium and a not well know fabulous rooftop viewing terrace, its future is now uncertain. The atrium bar is by Phillipe Starck and is cool. Try it just in case. Fondaco dei Tedeschi. Photo via Wikipedia Procuratie Vecchie: This iconic 16th storey building is one of Piazza San Marco’s defining buildings, and David Chipperfield’s restoration and renovation of this building, which defines Piazza San Marco, is all about preservation with a few modern, minimalist interventions. It operates as a Biennale exhibit space. Infill housing on former industrial sites on Guidecca Island includes several interesting new developments called the Fregnans, IACP and Junghans sites (look for fine small apartments such as by Cino Zucchi that reinterpret traditional Venetian apartment language). A small site called Campo di Marte includes side-by-sides by Alvaro Siza (disappointing), Aldo Rossi and Carlo Aymonino (ho hum); some day there will be a Rafael Moneo on the empty lot.     View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Denton Corker Marshall (@dentoncorkermarshall) AT THE BIENNALE: At the Biennale grounds there is much to see, with the only recent project the Australia Pavilion by Denton Corker, a black granite box hovering along a canal. Famous buildings include the Nordic Pavilion (Sven Ferre), Venezuela Pavilion (Carlo Scarpa), Finland Pavilion (Alvar Aalto), former Ticket Booth (Carlo Scarpa), Giardino dell Sculture (Carlo Scarpa), Bookstore (James Stirling) and there are some fab modern interiors inside the old boat factory buildings. Canada’s Pavilion by the Milan firm BBPR (don’t ask why) from 1956 is awkward, weird and much loathed by artists and curators. Le pavillon des pays nordiques (Giardini, Venise). Photo via Wikipedia, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Just outside the Biennale on the Zattere waterfront is a stirring Monument to the Women Partisans of WWII, laid in the water by Augusto Maurer over a simple stepped-base designed by Scarpa. Venezia – Complesso monastico di San Giorgio Maggiore. Photo via Wikipedia,  licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. BEYOND THE BIENNALE The Vatican Chapels: In 2018 the Vatican decided to participate in the Biennale for the first time for some reason and commissioned ten architects to design chapels that are located in a wooded area on the Venetian island of San Giorgio Maggiore, behind Palladio’s church. The architects include Norman Foster, Eduardo Souto de Moura, and Smiljan Radic, and includes The Asplund Pavilion, like the Woodland Chapel  that inspired it. It is intended as a “place of orientation, encounter, meditation, and salutation.” The 10 chapels each symbolize one of the Ten Commandments, and offer 10 unique interpretations of the original Woodland Chapel; many are open air. These are fab and make you think! Chiese San Giorgio Maggiore was designed by Palladio and is fine. But its bell tower offers magnificent city views and avoids the long lines, crowds and costs of Piazza San Marco’s Campanile. Next to San Giorgio you should tour the Cini Foundation, with an amazing stair by Longhera, the modern Monica Lunga Library (Michele De Lucchi) and a lovely Borges-inspired labyrinth garden. Behind San Giorgio en route to the Chapels is the Museo del Vetro (Glass Museum) and the fabulous Le Stanze della Fotografia (contemporary photography gallery) featuring a Mapplethorpe retrospective this year. (If you’re visiting this year, join me in Piazza San Marco on July 7, 2025, for his ex Patti Smith’s concert.) An unknown MUST DO is a concert in the stunning Auditorium Lo Squero (Cattaruzza Millosevich), with but 200 comfy seats in an adapted boat workshop with a stage wall of glass onto the lagoon and the Venitian cityscape. La Fenice Opera House in Venice, Italy. Image via: Wikipedia La Fenice Opera House: after burning down in 1996, Aldo Rossi supervised the rebuilding, more or less ‘as it was, as it is’, the Italian heritage cop-out. There is no Rossi to see here, but it is a lovely grand hall. Book a concert with private box seats. Venice Marco Polo Airport is definitely Aldo Rossi-inspired in its language, materials and colours. The ‘Gateway Terminal’ boat bus and taxi dock is a true grand gateway (see note about Gehry having designed an unbuilt option below). Venice Marco Polo airport. Photo via Wikipedia HIDDEN GEMS Fondazione Vendova by Renzo Piano features automated displays of huge paintings by a local abstract modernist moving about a wonderful huge open warehouse and around viewers. Bizarre and fascinating. Massimo Scolari was a colleague or Rossi’s and is a brilliant, Rationalist visionary and painter, renown to those of us devotees of the Scarpa/Rossi/Scolari cult in the 1980’s. His ‘Wings’ sculpture is a large scale artwork motif from his drawings now perched on the roof of the UIAV School of Architecture, and from the 1991 Biennale. Do yourself a favour, dear reader, look up his work. Krier, Duany and the New Urbanists took note. He reminds me of the 1920s Italian Futurists. You can tour all the fine old churches you want, but only one matters to me: Santa Maria dei Miracoli, a barrel-vaulted, marble and wood-roofed confection. San Nicolo dei Mendicoli is admittedly pretty fab, and featured in ‘Don’t Look Now’.  And the Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta on Torcello has an amazing mosaic floor, very unusual stone slab window shutters (and is near Locanda Cipriani for a wonderful garden lunch, where Hemingway sat and wrote). For the Scarpiani: There is a courtroom, the Manilo Capitolo, inside the Venice Civic Tribunale building in the Rialto Market that was renovated by Scarpa, and is amazing in its detail, including furniture and furnishings. You have to pass security to get in, and wait until court ends if on. It is worth it! The Aula Mario Baratto is a large classroom in a Palazzo overlooking the Grand Canal designed by Carlo Scarpa with amazing wood details and furniture. The room has stunning frescoes also. You can book a tour through Universite Ca’ Foscari. The view at a bend in the Grand Canal is stunning, and you can see the Fondazione Masieri (Scarpa renovation) building off to the left across the side canal (see Missed Opportunities). Within the Accademia Galleries and Correr Museum are a number of small renovations, stairs and art stands designed by Scarpa. Next to the Chiesa di San Sebastino decorated by Veronese is the Scarpa entrance to a linguistics library for the Universita Ca’ Foscari. Fondation W – Wilmotte & Associés: A French architect who is not shy and presumably rather wealthy runs his own exhibition space focused on architecture; ‘…it is both a laboratory and shop window…’,  so one of those. Worth a look. There is a recent Courthouse that is sleek, long, narrow, black and compelling on the north side of Piazzalle Roma, but I have not yet wandered in.   FOOD AND DRINKS FOR ARCHITECTS Philippe Starck’s lobby bar at the Palazzina Grassi hotel is the only cool, mod bar in town. Wow! Ask the barman to see the secret Krug Room and use the PG bar’s unique selfie washroom. I love this bar: old, new, electic. Also, Starck has a house on Burano, next to the pescheria (sorry, useless ephemera). He wants you to drop by. Restaurant Algiubagiò is the only cool, modern restaurant and it has fab food. It also has a great terrace over the water. Go! Zanze XVI is a nice clean mod interior and Michelin food. Worth it. Ristorante Lineadombra: A lovely, crisp modern interior and crisp modern Venetian food. A great terrace on the water also. Local Venice is a newer, clean, crisp resto with ‘interesting’ prices. Your call. Osteria Alla Bifora, while in a traditional workshop space, is a clean open loft, adorned modernly with a lovely array of industrial and historic relics. It is a lovely bar with charcuterie and a patio on the buzzy campo for students. Great for late night. Cicchetti are Venetian tapas, a standard lunch you must try. All’ Arco near Rialto has excellent nouveau food and 50m away is the lovely old school Do Mori. Osteria Al Squero in Dorsoduro overlooks one of the last working gondola workshops, and 100m away is the great Cantino del Vino già Schiavi. Basegò has creative, nouveau cichetti. Drinks on a patio along the Grand Canal can only be had economically at Taverna al Remer, or in Campo Erberia at Nanzaria, Bancogira, Al Pesador or Osteria Al Cichetteria. Avoid any place around Rialto Bridge except these. El Sbarlefo San Pantalon has a Scarpa vibe and a hip, young crowd. There is a Banksy 50’ away. Ristorante Venissa is a short bridge from Burano to Mazzorbo island, a Michelin-starred delight set in its own vineyard.   Since restaurant design cannot tie you up here, try some fab local joints: Trattoria Anzolo Raffaele : The owner’s wife is from Montreal, which is something. A favorite! Pietra Rossa: A fab, smart place with a hidden garden run by a hip, fun young restauranteur, Andrea. Ask for the Canadian architect discount. Oste Mauro Lorenzon : An entertaining wine and charcuterie bar run by the hip young restauranteur’s larger than life father, and nearby. Mauro is a true iconoclast. Only open evenings and I dare you to hang there late. Anice Stellato: A great family run spot, especially for fish. Excellent food always. La Colonna Ristorante: A nice, neighbourhood joint hidden in a small campo. Il Paradiso Perduto: A very lively joint with good food and, rarely in Venice, music. Buzzy and fun. Busa da Lele: Great neighbourhood joint on Murano in a lovely Campo. Trattoria Da Romano: Best local joint on Burano. Starck hangs here, as did Bourdain.   Cafes: Bacaro aea Pescaria is at the corner by Campo de la Becarie. Tiny, but run by lovely guys who cater to pescaria staff. Stand outside with a prosecco and watch the market street theatre. Extra points if you come by for a late night drink. Bar ai Artisti is my second fav café, in Campo S. Barnaba facing where Kate Hepburn splashed into the canal. Real, fab pastries, great terrace in Campo too. Café at Querini Stampalia: get a free visit to Scarpa’s garden and wander it with a coffee or prosecco. Make sure to see the bookstore also (and the Scarpa exhibition hall adjacent). Carlo Scarpa à la Fondation Querini Stampalia (Venise). Photo via Wikipedia, A lesser known place is the nice café in the Biennale Office next to Hotel Monaco, called Ombra del Leone. The café in the Galleria Internationale d’Arte Moderna Ca’ Pesaro is great with a terrace on the Grand Canal.   Cocktail bars: Retro Venezia: Cool, retro vibe. The owner’s wife dated a Canadian hockey player. You must know him. Il Mercante: A fabulous cocktail bar. Go. Time Social Bar:  Another cool cocktail bar. Vero Vino: A fab wine bar where you can sit along a canal. Many good restaurants nearby! Arts Bar Venice: If you must have a cocktail with a compelling story, and are ok with a $45 pricetag. Claims Scarpa design influence, I say no. But read the cocktail stories, they are smart and are named for artists including Scarpa. Bar Longhi in in the Gritti Hotel is a classic, although cheesey to me. Hemingway liked it. It has a Grand Canal terrace. The Hilton Stucky Hotel is a fabulous former flour factory from when they built plants to look like castles, but now has a bland, soulless Hilton interior like you are in Dayton. But it has a rooftop bar and terrace with amazing sunset views! While traditional, the stunning, ornate lobby, atrium and main stair of the Hotel Danieli are a must-see. Have a drink in the lobby bar by the piano player some evening.   STAYING MODERN Palazzina Grassi is the only modern hotel in Venice, with a really lovely, unique lobby/bar/restaurant all done by Philippe Starck. At least see the fab bar! Johnny Depp’s favourite. Generator Hostel: A hip new-age ‘design-focused’ hostel well worth a look. Not like any hostel I ever patronized, no kegs on the porch. Go visit the lobby for the design. A Euro chain. DD724 is a small boutique hotel by an Italian architect with thoughtful detailing and colours, near the Peggy Guggenheim Museum (the infamous Unfinished Palazzo), and they have a small remote outpost with fabulous apartment called iQS that is lovely. The owner’s brother is the architect. My fave! Avogaria: Not just a 5 room hotel, it is ‘a concept’, which is great, right?  But very cool. An architect is one of the owners. German minimalist architect Matteo Thun’s JW Mariott Venice Resort Hotel and Spa is an expensive convent renovation on its own lagoon island that shows how blandness is yawningly close to minimalism. The Hotel Bauer Palazzo has a really lovely mid-century modern section facing Campo San Moise, but it is shrouded in construction scaffolding for now.   SHOPPING MODERN FOR ARCHITECTS It is hard to find cool modern shopping options, but here is where you can: Libreria Acqua Alta: Used books and a lovely, unexpected, fab, alt experience. You must see and wander this experience! It has cats too. Giovanna Zanella: Shoes that are absolute works of art! At least look in her window. Bancolotto N10: Stunning women’s clothing made in the women’ prison as a job skill training program. Impeccable clothes; save a moll from a life of crime. Designs188: Giorgio Nason makes fabulous glass jewellery around the corner from the Peggy Guggenheim Museum. Davide Penso: Artisan made glass jewellery on Murano. Ferrovetro Murano: Artisan made jewellery, bags, scarfs. (on Murano). Madera: All the cool designer housewares and jewellery. DECLARE: Cool, modern leathergoods in a very sweet modern shop with exquisite metal detailing. A must see! Ottica Urbani: Cool Italian eyewear and sunglasses. Paperowl: Handmade paper, products, classes. Feeling Venice: Cool design and tourist bling can be found only here. No shot glasses.   MISSED OPPORTUNITIES, MEMORIES AND B-SIDES The Masieri Foundation: Look up the tragic story of this project, a lovely, small memorial to a young architect who died in a car accident on his honeymoon en route to visit Fallingwater in 1952. Yep. His widow commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design a small student residence and study centre, but it was stopped by anti-American and anti-Modernism sentiments. (Models and renderings are on-line). This may be Venice’s saddest architectural loss ever. The consolation prize is a very, very lovely Scarpa interior reno. Try to get in, ring the bell (it is used as offices by the university)! (Read Troy M. Ainsworth’s thesis on the Masieri project history). Also cancelled: Lou Kahn’s Palace of Congress set for the Arsenale, Corbusier’s New Venice Hospital which would have been sitting over the Lagoon in Cannaregio near the rail viaduct, Gehry’s Venice Gateway (the airport’s ferry/water taxi dock area). Also lost was Rossi’s temporary Teatro del Mondo, a barged small theatre that tooted around Venice and was featured in a similar installation in 1988 at the R.C. Harris Water Treatment Plant. All available on-line. Teatro del Mondo di Aldo Rossi, Venezia 1980. Photo via Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 Itches to scratch: Exercise your design skills to finish the perennial favorite ‘Unfinished Palazzo’ of the Peggy Guggenheim Museum, design a new Masieri Foundation, design the 11th Vatican Chapel or infill the derelict gasometer site next to Palladio’s Chiese San Francisco della Vigna.   FURTHER AFIELD Within an hour’s drive, you can see the simply amazing Tombe Brion in San Vito Altivole and the tiny, stunning Giptotecha Canova in Possagna (both by Scarpa), the Nardini Grappa Distillery in Bassano del Grappa by Maximillio Fuksas, and a ferry and taxi will get you to Richard Meier’s Jesolo Lido Condos on the beach. A longer drive of two hours into the mountains near Cortina will bring you to Scarpa’s lovely and little known Nostra Signore di Cadora Church. It is sublime! Check out the floor! Zaha Hadid’s stunning Messner Mountain Museum floats above Cortina, accessible by cable car. The recent M-09 Museum on mainland Mestre, a quick 10 minute train ride from Venice, by Sauerbruch + Hutton is a lovely urban museum with dynamic cladding. Castelvecchio Museum. Photo via Wikipedia The Veneto region is home to many cool things, and fab train service gets you quickly to Verona (Scarpa’s Castelvecchio Museum and Banco Populare), Vicenza (Palladio’s Villa Rotonda and Basillicata). There are Palladio villas scattered about the Veneto, and you can daytrip by canal boat from Venice to them. Go stand where Hemingway was wounded in WWI near Fossalta Di Piave (there is a plaque), which led to his famous novel, ‘A Farewell to Arms’. He never got to visit Venice until 1948, then fell in love with the city, leading to ‘Across the River and into the Trees’. He also threatened to burn down FLW’s Masieri Foundation if built (and they both came from Oak Park, Illinois. So not very neighborly).   OTHER GOOD ARCHITECTURAL REFERENCES Venice Modern Architecture Map The only guidebook to Modern Architecture in Venice   These architectural guide folks do tours geared to architects: Architecture Tour Venice – Guiding Architects Venice Architecture City Guide: 15 Historical and Contemporary Attractions to Discover in Italy’s City of Canals | ArchDaily Venice architecture, what to see: buildings by Scarpa, Chipperfield and other great architects The post An Architect’s Guide to Venice and its Modern Architecture    appeared first on Canadian Architect.

Epic Universe is massive. Spanning over 110 acres, the new Florida theme park from Universal Studios, which opens today, has created four different themed lands that captivate the imagination and offer a wide array of thrills for park enthusiasts: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter Ministry of Magic, Super Nintendo World, How to Train Your Dragon Isle of Berk, and Dark Universe. That count jumps to five if you count Celestial Park, the hub of Epic Universe, with several restaurants and two big rides of its own. The park is massive financially as well. Universal spent an estimated $6 to $7 billion to create the theme park. Dr. Sean Snaith, director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Economic Forecasting, estimates it will generate $2 billion for the state of Florida in its first year and create more than 17,500 jobs in year one. Comcast, the parent company of NBCUniversal, saw the division’s theme park revenue drop in the first quarter of 2025 due to the L.A. wildfires. But the company expects to see a big boost from the new Orlando park. A one-day adult ticket runs $139, while children will pay $135 for a single-day pass. (Florida residents do not currently get a discount.) Each of the lands in Epic Universe is painstakingly detailed, creating several different incredibly immersive experiences. But the grandeur of Epic Universe comes at a cost: Crowds.  If you’re planning on going anytime soon, be prepared to wait. Some lines in previews of the park were more than five hours long—and they’re likely to be longer at times in the opening months. If you opt to wait until the lines are shorter (and don’t want to spend an extra $140 for an express pass) or simply are looking for something to do besides shop and eat in your downtime, the park’s developers have included a slew of Easter eggs—little details and hidden secrets that make the experience even more fun. Here are some to keep an eye out for. Super Nintendo World [Photo: Universal Studios] Learn the secret drink at Dark Universe Head to the DR. H. Jekyll Apotheker in Darkmoor (the village within the Dark Universe portal) and listen closely. You’ll hear Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde arguing. Stick around and you’ll learn the name of an off-the-menu drink, which you can order at the Burning Blade Tavern. Find a key piece of Harry Potter lore If you’re willing to shell out $85, you can buy an interactive wand to cast “spells” at certain locations in Universal’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which trigger effects. One of those in Epic Universe’s Ministry of Magic will reward you with a look at the Sorcerer’s Stone, which fans of the books might remember, was in Paris in the time frame of this land (set during the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them period). Look in the area of the Le Gobelet Noir restaurant. The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter – Ministry Of Magic at night [Photo: Universal Studios] Try a ride more than once If the lines aren’t too bad, it’s worth taking a second ride on several of the coasters, not just to get the adrenaline rush once again, but because the dialogue and soundtrack are often different on different tracks. Hiccup’s Wing Gliders, for instance, has different dialogue from the dragon trainer, depending on whether you choose the right or left track. Look for nods to other Universal franchises Stardust Racers is one of the best and most intense rides in Epic Universe. Located in Celestial Park, it’s not tied with any of the themed properties of the portals, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a link to a well-known franchise. On the back of the coaster, sharp-eyed fans will see a flux capacitor, the device that powered Doc Brown’s time machine in Back to the Future.  Maybe that’s what gives the coaster its three incredible bursts of speed through the course of the track. Not a fan of Back to the Future? The Curse of the Werewolf ride has a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to the classic An American Werewolf in London film, with a replica of the iconic red jacket worn by David Naughton in the 1981 film hung in the barn you’ll zip through a time or two.  Hiccup’s Wing Gliders [Photo: Universal Studios] Study the bathroom details Bathrooms usually aren’t a lot of fun, especially at theme parks. But Epic Universe does things a bit differently. For instance, you’ll notice there aren’t a lot of mirrors in the Dark Universe (since Dracula doesn’t cast a reflection). And Super Nintendo World highlights the pipes, since Mario often uses warp pipes to transport through his world.