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I don't stop by often, but when I do, I try to make it count.

Who will young female architects look up to now that we've lost Zaha?

Think about it; in no other major profession is the list of dignitaries and award-winners so dominated by men as it is in architecture.  She's the only sole female Pritzker Prize winner.  There wasn't a female AIA Gold Medal winner until 2014, when Julia Morgan won it posthumously.  Women in medicine, science, engineering, law and other esteemed professions have won awards and are lauded for their work.  We can't even say to women "please come join us, look at the impact all of these women have had..." we couldn't even say that about Zaha without having someone argue that her designs were crap or unbuildable.

I'm a licensed female architect and I don't even really identify as one unless prodded.  The building science community is as male-dominated as its older sibling architecture, but I've never had a fellow building scientist tell me that what I'm bringing to the table is crap.

I loved her designs and her ideas and I don't know what to say about this profession now that she's gone, and it's 2016, and I have no idea why it's still so hard for women.  I just don't get it.

Mar 31, 16 3:46 pm  · 
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archanonymous

Jeanne Gang

Billie Tsien

Elizabeth Diller

Nanako Umemoto

DSB

 

... were only the first four that I thought of. 

 

But I agree, she was a figurehead for women in architecture, as much as she despised that role.

Mar 31, 16 4:14 pm  · 
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archiwutm8

tbh even non architects knew of Zaha unlike the others.

Mar 31, 16 4:54 pm  · 
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Non Sequitur

Arch, my office's senior int-des did not know of her. 

Mar 31, 16 5:02 pm  · 
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First thing, congrats to David Cole's new job. 

Just a note: From what I can tell of Ankrom Moisan is that if I were to apply for a position at an architectural firm, they would be one of the firms that I would consider applying for. I would like to be NCBDC certified before hand.

Mar 31, 16 6:22 pm  · 
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tduds

Congrats on the job David! Ankrom is one of the better mid-size firms in the NW. Have fun in Seattle.

Mar 31, 16 6:41 pm  · 
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b3tadine[sutures]

i think i want to embark on my first build, a motorcycle. i'm partial to cafe style racers; honda 750, are pretty typical, but i always think that hondas are the chevys of the motorcycle world. so what i'm looking for is a ground up resto, one in which parts should be pretty easy to obtain.

thoughts? suggestions?

Mar 31, 16 11:03 pm  · 
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Hey Em K, good of you to stop by.

Apr 1, 16 12:07 am  · 
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midlander

Donna, I was totally caught off guard by how sad the news of ZH's passing would leave me. I honestly felt like crying when I saw it - like something I took for granted but always enjoyed is suddenly missing, not to return.

She already had a few good projects built by the time I started studying architecture, and they were among the few 'icons' of contemporary practice I unambiguously enjoyed from the first moment I saw them. Some architecture is hard to appreciate without studying and preparing - but her better works (Vitra was the first for me) are impossible to ignore and immediately make sense. Some projects have suffered from imperfect execution - but always the clarity of her vision for space stuns me.

I suspect history will remember her as the first important architect of the 21st century - her place is every bit as essential to the art as Corb or Mies were in their time. She was good at what she did 20 years before any one else thought to do it...

---

On Allied Works: the Denver museum led me to appreciate Clyfford Still where before he seemed to me only an obscure figure in one of paintings less vibrant eras. Without being cloying, it manages to evoke the same somber tone as Still's distinctive 'cave wall' paintings. I can't think of any other modern museum so well suited to the collection. Totally a success in my view.

Apr 1, 16 5:36 am  · 
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Yeah, midlander. I heard the news right after I got in my car to drive back to work from a lunch meeting and I seriously had to pull over and check social media and process it, I was in no state to be driving.  I didn't cry but felt like it, and the wind was just knocked out of me.

I saw a tweet this morning about it that resonated: someone said "To all my non-architecture friends, here is what is going on: Michael Jackson just died."

Apr 1, 16 8:42 am  · 
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Non Sequitur

^ that's a great & meaningful tweet.

Apr 1, 16 8:48 am  · 
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Wilma Buttfit

I cried. Feels like losing an aunt or godmother or something, idk. 

Apr 1, 16 10:14 am  · 
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JLC-1

I saw an ad for her building on the skyline today, I wonder if developers will adjust their pricing like gallerists do when an artist passes. It will be hard to come by an original ZH later on.

Apr 1, 16 10:25 am  · 
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archanonymous

beta - I had a 250 enduro that I converted to more of a street bike. Motorcycles are simple and fun to wrench on. Sort of halfway between a bicycle and a car as far as complexity goes. Generally pretty cheap, too. Get a hacksaw, some metal files and a harbor-freight welder and go to town. As long as you don't try to modify the tank or suspension geometry there is very little complex fab work to be done on a moto.

 

donna - maybe its generational, but all I think of with Michael Jackson is "kiddie toucher" not exactly what I would equate zaha with.

I'll be curious to see the reaction when someone like Damien Hearst or Rachel Whiteread passes - I think they had similar recognition among the public and were equally as ground breaking in art.

Apr 1, 16 10:37 am  · 
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Stephanie

ZH was neither an inspiration nor an icon to me - though I understand she was to others. I feel literally nothing. But then again, I felt nothing when MJ or Robin Williams died either. They are humans and humans die. Sometimes in tragic ways. You want to know a real tragedy? 20, 000 elephants killed for ivory every year because some whopping asshole believes its powder will make his wang bigger.

Apr 1, 16 10:42 am  · 
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,,,,

Her work must have had a more profound effect on me than I had thought. I was not a fan of most of her buildings.

I can not explain it, but to me, it was like the day architecture died.

Apr 1, 16 11:28 am  · 
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curtkram

to be fair, zaha was not responsible for those elephant deaths stephanie.  it's ok to be upset when one of the leading voices of our profession dies, and also ok to be upset at a corrupt ivory trade.  two different things that belong in 2 different threads.

Apr 1, 16 11:45 am  · 
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archanonymous, when MJ died it dominated EVERYTHING in the media for days. In the relatively tiny world of architecture, Zaha is dominating EVERYTHING right now. That's what the tweet meant.

The sadness is her energy and the things she would have continued to design are now gone; there will be no more potential delight - and controversy - that we would have gotten from her.

Apr 1, 16 11:56 am  · 
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Wilma Buttfit

I can cry for the elephants too. And the guys who want their wangs to be bigger. All tragic. 

Apr 1, 16 12:09 pm  · 
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LOL re: the wangs, tintt. I'm glad you said it not me.

Does anyone follow Cameron Sinclair on FB or Twitter? He just posted about becoming the new US Secretary of Architecture and Design. I'm thinking it's an April Fool's Day joke but people on his page seem to be taking it seriously...

Apr 1, 16 12:39 pm  · 
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archanonymous

Donna, gotcha. I definitely agree with it from that perspective.

 

Re: Cameron Sinclair.

It would definitely follow the typical government model - someone runs a once-successful organization into the ground and ends up with a high-level posting in federal government. Let's hope not!

Apr 1, 16 12:50 pm  · 
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As I recall, AFH was doing just fine under Cameron. It was the people who came after him who ran it into the ground.

Apr 1, 16 1:02 pm  · 
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Rick OR, Rita Novel, and Duo Dickinson walk into a bar. The whole place turns into a dumpster fire.

Apr 3, 16 10:04 am  · 
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b3tadine[sutures]

I'm sorry, but when the dust settles, I'd rather have students study quondam's contribution to architecture, than Duo's. I may not like Lauf, but what he's assembling will easily be the most interesting thing left by his efforts.

Apr 3, 16 11:57 am  · 
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Ugh I just waded into the dumpster fire. Couldn't help it, now regret it.

Apr 4, 16 3:38 pm  · 
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curtkram

anyone here use spec software?  i've used specsintact, which is a government thing that is nice and simple and can be fixed whenever it breaks.  a guy in my office is now using arcom's masterspec.

there is a lot of information in the word .doc that i can't see.  i can't just save it as a text file or open it in notepad to see what tags are there.  is there a button or anything in masterspec that would give me the option to see what it's doing and edit stuff, or is the point to cripple the end-user by making everything hidden and proprietary?

Apr 4, 16 4:55 pm  · 
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SneakyPete

You need the word add-on, which adds a toolbar for showing and hiding editor's notes.

Apr 4, 16 5:06 pm  · 
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curtkram

i don't think it's just editor notes

he made his own spec section by copying an old one.  the easy fix is, of course, to make a new spec section the right way.  however, the way he did it left the old section number and name in the table of contents.  i can turn it into a .txt file and see where it has the old information in it, but all the formatting stuff is jibberish.  if i try to save the text back to a .doc after editing the part i want, the jibberish stays jibberish so it can't open.

compared to sepcsintact, all that stuff is just xml tags, so everything is just kind of there and simple and readable.

Apr 4, 16 5:44 pm  · 
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Mr_Wiggin

Now Merle Haggard is gone...  Seems like the last generation of (arguably) true musicians is starting to disappear.  RIP Merle!

Apr 6, 16 2:30 pm  · 
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Carrera

^ Echo that. There was the “The Greatest Generation” but he was born of a time of “The Silent Generation” think Merle represented both in spades.

Apr 6, 16 3:57 pm  · 
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JeromeS

Silent Generation are same people referenced by Brokaw in his book from whence the term "greatest generation" came. 

Apr 6, 16 4:27 pm  · 
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archanonymous

Guys, I just helped out with pre-final reviews for 5th year studio capstone projects at a major school of architecture in Chicago (essentially preparing the students for their final - pointing out holes in their presentation, etc) and I am really scared.

 

The work was terrible. Not even critique-able as architecture. Maybe branding or marketing or some sort of amorphous faux UX design, but it wasn't what I would call architecture. I didn't realize how bad academia had gotten. Why aren't we preparing students to design and put together buildings in realistic ways? How do we expect good design (of which some of these ephemeral projects are) to become real if the students never get the tools to execute them? 

 

End Rant.

Apr 6, 16 9:30 pm  · 
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awaiting_deletion

where is duo?

Apr 6, 16 9:34 pm  · 
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curtkram

don't ask 'is this what SOM would do?,' but rather 'what would bjarke do?'

Apr 6, 16 9:37 pm  · 
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Olaf,

Being a practicing architect?

Apr 6, 16 9:40 pm  · 
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awaiting_deletion

like this curt?

Apr 6, 16 11:07 pm  · 
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archanonymous

Meh, i'm cool with BIG because they see the buildings through to completion. I'm not against any particular type of architecture. You want to make some trendy cool buildings, go for it. They are exciting which is more than you can say for most architecture. 

Apr 7, 16 9:32 am  · 
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archanonymous I'm guessing you're talking about IIT since I think it's the only 5-year program in Chicago, right?  No need to answer, I'm just speculating.

It's disappointing to hear that. But was it just the work of one studio that was bad? Maybe overall the students in the program are getting exposure to a wide range of ways to design and this one happened to be a bad semester? i think we've all had wasted semesters in school, especially in a 5-year program, right?

I hope so.

Apr 7, 16 9:53 am  · 
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curtkram, I'm probably too late to be much help at this point, but it sounds like when he made his own spec section he just copied and renamed the file and didn't change the text that the TOC generator is looking for to generate the TOC. Search for the style "SCT" in word and hopefully that will find the text you'll need to edit to match the new title and number. http://www.officearticles.com/word/find_and_replace_styles_in_microsoft_word.htm

If the text is hidden, you might need to enable the feature to display hidden text first. http://wordribbon.tips.net/T008998_Hiding_and_Displaying_Hidden_Text.html

Hope it helps, or that you figured out a solution some other way.

Apr 7, 16 12:26 pm  · 
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Look at this firm's logo. Sperm entering an egg, or is that just me?

Apr 7, 16 2:49 pm  · 
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archanonymous

that or maybe a bird, Donna.

 

I think it was a particularly rough studio, but still - these people are going to be in the profession next year. Other studios are definitely more grounded, but the entire curriculum overhaul thanks to Wiel is questionable. 

Vaguely political, heavy on catchphrases, but lacking in the fundamentals that would allow the students to actually address the enormous problems the school claims to be taking on.

Apr 7, 16 3:13 pm  · 
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JLC-1

more like a bee into a flower, but hey...

Apr 7, 16 3:56 pm  · 
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senjohnblutarsky

It's national beer day.

Just in case any of you needed an excuse. 

Apr 7, 16 4:17 pm  · 
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Wilma Buttfit

Somebody tried to get in my car today when I was stopped at a stop sign, they thought I was their Uber driver! 

Apr 7, 16 6:42 pm  · 
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Carrera

Went to "opening day" today and someone told me that all the hotdog guys were retired architects.

Apr 7, 16 10:42 pm  · 
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awaiting_deletion

tintt - is your car black and were you blairing Billy Ocean?

Apr 8, 16 7:45 am  · 
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Ooooh, Olaf. That's an embarrassing reference!

Apr 8, 16 7:54 am  · 
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awaiting_deletion

but can you guess the song Donna?

Apr 8, 16 8:07 am  · 
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curtkram

tintt, was it the person of your dreams trying to get into your car?
 

Apr 8, 16 9:18 am  · 
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