Elon Musk's Boring Co. has proposed plans to build a 3.6-mile-long, high-speed, zero-emissions underground public transportation system in Los Angeles. Called Dugout Loop, the tunnel will stretch between the neighborhood of Los Feliz, East Hollywood, or Rampart Village and Dodger Stadium and will complement the city's existing transportation systems. According to a press release, the Dugout Loop is expected to reduce current traffic by providing a fully electric and affordable transportation alternative for the city's baseball fans and concertgoers. The new system, which the company says will be an event-specific transportation offering, is expected to carry between eight to 16 passengers per autonomous electric car at speeds of up to 150 miles per hour, a trip that is expected to take only four minutes, according to the same release. Upon the privately funded system's launch, the transit capacity will be limited to approximately 1,400 passengers per event, with a possibility to increase the ridership to 2,800 per event. [Boring Co.]

Courtesy Carlo Ratti Associati

International design firm Carlo Ratti Associati (CRA), in a collaboration with Australian real estate group Lendlease, has developed a schematic design for the University of Milan’s new science campus. The design proposes the use of robots in assembling the building's parametric brick façade. Located in Milan's Innovation District, the project will extend over a 1.6 million-square-foot lot and is expected to host more than 18,000 students and 2,000 researchers. [CRA]

Courtesy NanaWall Systems

NanaWall Systems has launched a new cloud-based, architectural design tool called 3D Visual Studio. The interactive program makes it possible for architects to visualize and adjust the placement of NanaWall's Single Track Sliding glass walls within their design. Additionally, the proprietary design tool allows architects to explore NanaWall's RemoteStack feature—which allows users to stack and tuck away the panels in a wall cavity or a closet—and to identify ideal locations to store the glass panels when not in use. [Markets Insider]

NVIDIA Holodeck
Courtesy Nvidia NVIDIA Holodeck

Tech company Nvidia has partnered with architecture firms, one of which is CannonDesign, to create a virtual reality experience for multiple users to virtually edit and annotate designs. Called Holodeck, the VR simulation platform also allows architects and designers to import CAD models created in other applications like Autodesk or Solidworks and to navigate the models as if they were real structures. [ARCHITECT]

Online real estate company Trulia, which is owned by Zillow Group, has launched Trulia Neighborhoods, a crowdsourced online platform that aims to provide insight into a neighborhood's local life with information on safety, commute, amenities, and schools. Featuring photographs, drone footage, and resident reviews, the new platform is currently available in more than 300 neighborhoods in the San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, and Austin, Texas, with more cities coming online by the end of this year. [Trulia]

Courtesy Perkins+Will

An honorable mention in our 2018 R+D Awards, the Precautionary List is a free, online database of materials and chemicals often found in building products. The platform, a part of Perkins+Will's ongoing effort to make the construction process more transparent, offers users a description of health and environmental risks associated with 56 ingredients (at the time of publication). The site also lists building products in which each ingredient commonly appears. Users can also search by product type—such as gypsum-based acoustic panels—to find what chemicals it may contain. [ARCHITECT]

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