Thomas Mayne's Morphosis Architects, SOM, KPF and Richard Meier & Partners are among nine firms on the all-American shortlist to design Britain’s £275 million new US embassy. BD | previously | related

Oliver Lincoln Lundquist was a truly multi-disciplinary designer. As an architect he worked with Eero Saarinen before starting his own firm Lundquist & Stonehill in New York. He worked directly under industrial design master Raymond Loewy, and also played the role of graphic artist as the designer of the United Nations logo. NYT

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A British museum is looking to spark the creation of an interesting art installation by calling for an artist to live isolated in its tower next summer. The Manchester Museum, opened in the 1880s on the University of Manchester campus, has issued a posting seeking a new resident artist. CBC

BBC's guest editor, Zaha Hadid, invites Peter Cook to discuss the work of Archigram. Check it out

Banks aren't lending. Projects are shelved. And the normally secretive government has had to acknowledge it has one of the highest levels of per-capita debt in the world -- and not enough oil to pay for it. CBS News

This exhibition coming to the Canadian Centre for Architecture looks amazing. It features 99 actions that instigate positive change in contemporary cities around the world including seemingly common activities such as walking, playing, recycling, and gardening. Explore the interactive website and submit your own ideas
here or discuss.

...But even interior architects/designers need to be careful about the weight and connections of interior finishes.

Patrons at a new Boston restaurant were injured when wood panels fell on them.

News
Point and counterpoint? Is sustainability the newest fad or is it really the new degree zero? How about post-occupancy or pre-occupancy weatherization?

Urban cannibalization?

Continued after the jump....

The Dadameter is a tool for the profiling of language at large scale and the historical tracking of artistic and literary movements. It brings about a new alliance between art, science and global finance. Explore

When it is gone, one of the world’s most extreme national makeovers will be complete. NYT

NYTimes looks at how design is affected by an economic downturn.

To reflect on the prehistory of sustainability is not to find ‘precedents’ of practices that give us tips for the present. Rather these reflections aim to mobilize critical perspectives on the shifting definitions of the term and on the practices that are advanced in its name so as to guard against absolutes. Can architects have partnerships with techno-scientific fields without subsuming design to managerialism and anti-intellectual postures? Can ecological problems be debated in architectural circles without resorting to eco-determinism? Can architects embrace an ethical imperative without resorting to moralistic prescriptions or grand meta-narratives?
Volume

Some Christians worry that such activism distracts believers from their mission to literally follow and spread the word of God. Arizona Republic

Alexis Madrigal, tech writer at Wired.com, is generating buzz for a book project that's looking more fascinating by the day on the lost history of American green tech.. This whole idea of wind generators... think it was invented the day before yesterday...?

Is better budgeting one of your resolutions for 2009? If so, and you're in NYC, you may be interested in this lecture on Monday by James Wines, president of SITE.

The LA Times' Greg Goldin reviews the recently released Arts & Architecture, 1945-54: The Complete Reprint

Arts & Architecture, which folded 41 years ago, is the most influential architecture magazine ever published. During the height of its run, from 1945 to 1967, it convinced the world that Los Angeles was at the vanguard of reinventing the single family home. John Entenza, the editor, quietly featured the work of Isamu Noguchi, Henry Moore, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Eero Saarinen, Richard Neutra, George Nelson, Charles Eames, George Nakashima and Bernard Rudofsky.

As so often, the term 'terrorism' has proved a rhetorical smokescreen under cover of which the strong crush the weak
Guardian

Following a €100,000 (£98,000) refit by Berlin-based concept artist Miriam Kilali this shelter which nows features Italian wallpaper, gold trimmings, parquet flooring, red carpeting and crystal chandeliers
has been dubbed the swankiest homeless shelter in the world.
Guardian

One about the building cloning, the other about your dogs. What's next? Cloning blogs? Hmm... Like blogblogblogblog.blogspot.com
(I own it, as of this morning!)

The design team, formed by Jon Montero and Naiara Montero from Barcelona, has recently won the international competition for the renovation of the Tabakalera, a former tobacco factory, now historic cultural center, in Donostia-San Sebastian. Bustler

Jessica, at The City College of New York, shows some love for her school and hopes for a better website.

William, at University of Washington, shows us the fruits of his autumn quarter 08.

Candace, at University of Illinois at Chicago, explores bifurcating surfaces, loves everyone, and explains it with Star Wars.

Quilian, at Harvard University - GSD, blogs about Learning from Lagos, Architecture as Bailout, and Frames and Infill as he watches the snow fall in Boston.

Barry, at University of Minnesota, is trying to find an adjunct teaching opportunity and flirts with Cameron's concept of AFH University.

Jake, at University of Southern California, just can't stop building models - even during his winter break. Sigh, architects!

Happy New School Blogging Year 2009!

Much more recently posted in the School Blogs...

About 140,000 houses will be weatherized with public help this year, a total that President-elect Barack Obama has promised to raise to one million, which would reduce energy consumption and cut energy costs for households and taxpayers, who often absorb those costs for the poor. Weatherizing a million homes annually would also create about 78,000 jobs for a year, according to the federal Energy Department’s weatherization project director, Gil Sperlin.
NYT

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Photojournalist and film-maker John D McHugh reports for the Guardian while embedded with US troops in Afghanistan.
Slideshow, Video and Diary

Elisabeth Rosenthal covers all the usual points; extreme energy efficiency, affordability (at least within Germancy) and some of the factors preventing it's wide-spread adoption in the USA.
NYT

At the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering and Organisation, they have developed a "hotel room of the future".The experimental room has been assembled in a giant laboratory. The idea is to show hotels how new technology can help guests relax.
BBC News

Well it is almost time to ring in the New Year. What will you be doing? Here are some thoughts on what the year ahead holds.
Does this mean no more dams?
Capitalism critiqued, Japanese style?
Old thread discovered Who doesn't like subjective lists?
Suggestions for Kyoto archi-tourism?
Typical Archinect humor..