so is 'z' the only one not solved? dammit. i'm stumped.

Z: Zocalo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zocalo

Zurich? Zanzibar?

Wait, did I miss X?  It looks vaguely like the Sagrada Familia, to me, and also sort of similar to south-east asian temples... did anyone get that one?

I am proud that I got M right away.  Didn't realize it was so tough!  I love that building.  I wouldn't have thought of it as "M" though b/c it doesn't really go by that name.  Ditto J... that should really be for H as it isn't called by its first name but by its second.  

I'm kicking myself on the K and the V.  How could I not get those!!  To be fair though the drawings are a little tricky on those.  I'm pleased to say I got 17.  It's been a rough day so please allow me to indulge in a little pride.  :-)

the only one I got was the one rusty posted.

I don't think we have a solid answer on X or Z.  Z looks like a ski tower or a tower that catches skyway pods, I thought of Zaha for the ski jump or those things in the Alps that I don't like by her.

dont know x, but z is zollverein by OMA. 

Argh I meant W!!  Did anyone get W???  That's the one I said reminded me of the Sagrada Familia...  

Congrats Mr. Galloway! Way to go baby! :)

A clue for W is Los Angeles.

Yep, W is pretty well-known. Awesome on Z, jump. I was stumped, and still don't recognize it.

hey all, W is Watts Tower?:

I can safely say W stands for Watts Towers.

And here is a photograph from my "more" recent visit to best public art in Los Angeles by Simon Rodia (b.1879 – d.1965)

So, today I'm sitting at my desk trying to get some work done while a "maid" is cleaning my house. When we renewed our lease a free 2-hour cleaning was one of the perks. It feels really weird and is making me kinda anxious.

I dream of someone cleaning my house while I work.  Savor it, Philip!

Phillip, I'm not sure if you're familiar with that one 1%'er tumblr where they upload screenshots of relatively wealthy people's status messages.

You'd be surprised at the number of wealthy people who clean before their maids arrive. It's so they the help doesn't judge them.

i cleaned for people before...  night all!

Robert Venturi retiring.  I find this very sad.

hey everyone... so the past week ive been working on implementing some new functionality to our offices old website.  Since its flash, you know the story... no direct linking... no using the forwards and backwards buttons... etc etc...

what i've implemented attaches a URL address to every portion of the website, helping it function (hopefully) just like a standard HTML site.  If anyone has a few minutes to take the site through its paces and report back any bugs or problems you find with the sites functionality, i would really appreciate it. 

here it is...

lletdownl looks good... i like the way the projects section presents/previews each project as a CAD like sketch/line drawing.... that airport in Thailand seems like a great project, did you all do landscape/outdoor design for that, too?

morning all....

you really need to look into getting rid of flash.  steve jobs himself decreed the end.  w3c created html5 to provide all the support you need in website design without flash, javascript is focused on semantic standards so it's easier to learn, libraries like jquery make it even easier, and all major browsers have jumped on board to support this stuff. 

this specifically relates to your website where i roll-over text on the lower right and see a % loaded thing.  it's too slow.  in addition to handling back,  forward, and hyper-linking easier, you can set it up to click on a picture to make it bigger, too, or view only the picture and have the ability to send just the picture as a link.  i like clicking pictures and i don't think you have enough of that.

Nam, 
Thanks for the comments.  The airport in Thailand is one of our bigger recent projects.  We generally use landscape architects for projects of that size.

Curtkram,
I am well aware of html5, and have even built our mobile site with the intention of adding html5 functionality later on when its more broadly codified.  But as of right now, its not a viable format.  The language is still changing, most of its functionality is not supported in older browsers (which a lot of people still use) and even the newer browsers are only selectively supportive.  html5's time is coming, but its not even close to here yet IMO... 5 years at the minimum, maybe more...  bottom line, i wish i could do an html5 site, but its not in the cards in the immediate future.... so i gotta make due with what i have, which is hopefully a more user friendly flash site...

biggest thing for me, is id like to get this new version up live, get back to doing architecture and dreaming up a better website 2.0! haha

i dislike 'Archi-neering'... Architecture is already the cohesion of Architecture and Engineering... I get the point, but it the word combining the two makes me feel skeevy.  (i know this isn't on you..just feels soooooo corporate).

Regarding the website... Is there a way to get rid of the percentage number?  I wouldn't notice that something was loading if that just went away...maybe if I had a slower connection it'd be worth having, but given that my connection is ok it counts from 85-100% or so..and is more visually distracting than anything else.  The slides go a bit quick too...and some images load faster than others which seems odd given they're all the same size..no?

Are the bounding boxes for text due to it being flash? or is that an aesthetic choice?  The words feel trapped to me.  I guess there are white boxes around everything... it's probably a preference...i would get rid of them for a modernish site.  That and give the text some breathing room.

Is there a way to make the 'executives' open without first closing 'principals' and vice versa..is double clicking really necessary?  Especially when the word you have to click on moves...i know it's minor but it seems a bit tedious.

Also..no color?

Anyway overall it looks nice and pretty clean...i do think it could use with some of the things above to make it feel a bit less dated. 

ps.  i wish i knew how to make a website as well as you do...ah to be able to program.  hopefully the above is not too critical.

Hey Lars, 
thanks, these are good comments... particularly the comments regarding the preloading %'s and the text boxes... ill play around with that and see if it is an improvement...  Letting the text breathe a bit is a good call, i can be overly rigorous with graphic devices... "theres white boxes around everything" is the perfect example.

didn't know the bangkok airport was by murphy/jahn.  been there many times for work.  is pretty good building. 

the site looks like its a legacy from earlier years (which i guess it is)  and suits the older projects.  the newer stuff looks a bit out of place...purely practically, i am too impatient to scroll through the projects even though you have selected just a few, and find the flashiness of it all is awkward and annoying (loading icon etc, as above).  i also prefer html and a more straightforward user interface where the work is all visible at once and i don't have to think about navigation.

if you really want to stick with flash, foster and partners is the only conservative practice archi-site where it doesn't seem to be a buzz-kill for me. 

but you know it's jahn, so maybe website is not a problem anyway?

will do you fly to bangkok for work alot? is that the (was it) UN climate research work or Frontofficetokyo design projects?

also like your use of word "conservative" in that post...

yeah i am running a climate change adaptation project with the UN that is based in Bangkok, so i am lucky to get to go every once in a while.  Would be cool to do work for frontoffice there, but not so lucky yet

Yeah, i am not intent on sticking with flash.  It just so happens its what i built years back, and id rather not do a rebuild just yet.  Foster's website is terribly bland... id like to do better than that honestly...  Thanks for the comments though Will.  Interesting to hear a positive review of the Bangkok airport.  Normally all i read about is how terrible it is... how its hot in there, how its over crowded already, how the runways are already cracking, etc etc...

yeah there are some issues, but well you know it is better than what was there before...and i like that i can see outside right away as soon as i get off the plain.

it is overcrowded.  such is life in asia though.  nothing to do with the architecture.  i also love the new train line that takes me straight to the centre of bangkok.  taking a taxi is also kind of fun as a cultural act kinda thing, but that train line is sooo convenient. 

with archi-sites bland is ok.  as long as the archtiecture ain't bland that is...

ah yeah understood... Supposedly the airport was designed for a max capacity of 45 million people a year (or around that number), but averaged around 53 million people last year... Seems like poor planning on the states part rather than ours... though i have no skin in the game, that project was before my time by many years...

anyway, thanks for the comments everyone... keep them coming if you're so inclined... 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/arts/design/walter-pichler-architect-and-reclusive-artist-dies-at-75.html?adxnnl=1&hpw=&adxnnlx=1343592014-5k+u5vvcdyc9vN7oMFARAQ

Here is a weird statistic. If TC was a book with average 300-400 words per page, it would be min. 8000 pages. Who would read it.., is not part of the calcs. Think of it as a catalog..
I am proposing we retire it after it reaches 50,000 posts. 

if we retire TC, do we need to wait 5 years before we can nominate it for the hall of fame? can we retire it's jersey?

Would we start a TC vol. 2? Otherwise, where else could I hang out where it's fun and safe?

the 'design flaw' criticism of zaha's swimming center is hitting a little too close to home for me. because the ticketing folks oversold diving, the architect is at fault?! jerks.

I want to know if she ever worked out an arrangement  With Sir Coe, so she could see and event.  I heard they have kept the flame inside of the stadium so it can not be seen by the average Londoner.  Yikes what is the Olympics becoming?   Ya and they also have this  thing about women wearing bikinis..

retire TC?  where would all the hangers-on and has-beens hang out?

my house.

If it retires, then we start a new thread called "Archinect Water Cooler" and see what happens.

I may have some news tomorrow.  I may not.

I'm not sure if I want to be around when snook shows up wearing a bikini.

and the olympics? I got rid of my TV recently (sold so I could pay for printer ink)... If I want to watch the olympics I'll go down to the bar that I can walk to from my house or office because I don't live in LA where you apparently have to drive eric to breakfast every morning for the past 30 years..  orhan - why doesn't eric own a car and pay for his own breakfast?  is he a deadbeat? anywho- synchronized swimming is a lot more fun with 40 of your best friends who also happen to be drunk at 9am.  that applebees I'm "designing" can wait another hour.

btw - I have a kickstarter project where you can fund my "research" (uh - vacation) on "sustainable architecture" (or, week in amsterdam's redlight district).  top donors get random shit I have laying around house.

Eric and I went to school together and have caused a lot of trouble. We did remain friends since then and share a lot of stories. I don't drive him to breakfast every morning nor he is a deadbeat. But  we do spend time together in the city where we have a lot of common memories, stories, friends and fresh criticism on its buildings and urban spaces new and old. LA is a great city to just drive around and talk about architecture. He is also an art and architecture book dealer with a photographic memory of most pages in those books among other things. When we talk about these things, we laugh a lot, we enjoy each other's humor a lot. He is also a critical expert on architecture and film. We also like to talk to talk to old waitresses in coffee shops we go to, and we talk to people on the streets where we walk the walk. We are good friends and this is just the surface stuff.;.))

hey toasteroven.  when you going holland?  i am taking sustainable archi-trip to holland (and denmark, germany UK) to do background research for reconstruction project in japan.  would be cool if there at same time...

actually if you have any highly recommended places would be glad to hear your opinion.  am planning itinerary now.

will - I thought you should know by now that most of what I post around here is hyperbole - I'm poking fun at someone else's post.

anyway - if you are looking for someone to consult on a giant phallic fountain, I'm your man.

heh!

@ toasteroven, ah that makes more sense.  plead confusion.  phallic expertise in hand on this end, thanks, but good to know. 

on (in?) other hand, any versions of green architecture or planning that works without government incentive and support totally welcome.  we  are working on proposal for one of the cities destroyed by tsunami and trying to use opportunity to get away from bloody nuclear power.  former minster of the environment is on the faculty team, as well as a group of climate scientists, so hopefully we will do better than masturbate. 

trouble is they kinda think architects only know how to jerk off too so i am hoping to find more than dirty sheets and fancy words on this trip.  would be ironic if that is all architects really are capable of doing.  personally i hope we have a bit more on offer.  after dealing with radiation in the drinking water and fallout from the meltdown in fukushima i'm bloody well convinced we should at least be trying.

will, when are you headed to NL? i'll probably be making a research trip to the NAi in rotterdam in january or february...

hmmm, i wonder if i can somehow convince people on kickstarter to fund my phd research?