Amelia Taylor-Hochberg Editorial Manager for Archinect, penned another essay in the "non-conclusive series" AfterShock. Titled Brains and the City, in it she explores a new world of EEG urbanism, GSAPP’s Cloud Lab, brain computer interfaces and human architect-slash-neuroscientist designer(s). 

Chris Teeter is very interested in this line of research. He believes, "I think as a good option for finding a 'legitimacy' to the art and science of architecture, neuroscience, and more specifically phenomenology-neuroscience-architecture is a very exciting path what tons of potential." Thayer-D is "Looking forward to the next installment, conclusive or not".

Plus, #21 of Screen/Print: featured Log 31, "New Ancients"

News
As an offshoot of the Deans List editorial series, Archinect interviewed a few of the newly appointed leaders in architecture education, to survey their plans for the position at the very beginning of their tenure. anonitect defended Donna Sink's earlier comments which "are totally valid and the gender disparity in academic leadership should be a concern to everyone". While Aaron Plewke and Alexander Morley offered up praise for Peter MacKeith and his hire as a great thing for the "Fay Jones School", it was also "A huge loss for Washington University".

Alexander Walter reviewed FiftyThree's beautifully designed iPad pen, aptly called Pencil.

"The outstanding simplicity of the Pencil hardware pleasantly transcends to the Paper software: no menu bars, folder icons or complex navigation elements clutter the view and constantly remind you that this is just a digital environment".

Evan Chakroff liked what he heard "This sounds pretty great - but am I right to assume that the additional features (like palm-ignorance) only work in the Paper app? I'd be curious to see a comparison with Adobe's model (which I assume works only with their apps): http://www.adobe.com/products/ink-and-slide.html"

Robert Behre, provided an update for The Post and Courier, on the fight over Clemson University's proposed architecture center, which has moved on to Charleston County's Court of Common Pleas.

Last week Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza announced, he will donate his architectural archive to public architectural institutions in Portugal (the Fundação Gulbenkian and the Fundação de Serralves) and Canada (Canadian Centre for Architecture).  

Donna Sink felt it had to be said, "Siza's writings had such an influence on me in school and after.  Glad to hear the archive is being given proper respect and care for others to benefit from seeing it all"
 

Firms/Blogs/Work Updates

E House (in Barcelona) by 08023 Architects and OMS Stage (in Winnipeg, Canada) by 5468796 architecture are just two of the projects found in the post Ten Top Images on Archinect's "Concrete" Pinterest Board.

Recently, Kayla Friedman worked on "Submitting (her) PhD dissertation!" at University of Cambridge Centre for Sustainable Development, while Saleh Masoumi "test(ed)".
 

School/Blogs
In the post Dissecting the App Process - Part One, WanderLust a 23 year old international graduate student just starting at YSOA, sets us straight

"If you’ve been lurking around these threads like I have, I don’t blame you for believing that getting into architecture grad school is a piece of cake. Till that first rejection comes along".

Discussions/Threads
jla-x was looking for Bagged concrete examples? Rick+roll offered up a fugly one but Donna Sink pointed to Mark West's work with CAST at UManitoba and Andrew.Circle threw out Hive (Arch), which "Kind of reminds me of the farmers burning the tree trunk teepee formwork at Zumthor's Bruder Klaus, only much slower".

wizardofozz wanted to talk, "how would it change Architecture for you" to not have to work? Amusingly, toasteroven wrote "not worry about money?  I'd spend all of my time creating work for publication and entering in competitions.  After about 10-15 years of this and a few small built projects, I'd hit the lecture circuit - at which point an oligarch will hire me to design a stadium or museum or something which will make me internationally famous and then interns will be paying me to abuse them".

Olaf Design Ninja_ answered the question more sincerely, "Research and tell stories with drawings and renderings. Teach".
 

Finally, Miles Jaffee started a "thread is to discuss the Archinect user interface and ways to improve the experience". One of his suggestions included stickies and he broached "the idea of making posting here an activity that requires dues". For his part Richard Balkins, Assoc. AIA agreed with Miles’s long championed idea of requiring, "10 ‘approved’ posts (requiring admin/moderator approval in this initial level) before they can be elevated to posting threads and posting without requiring moderator approval". quizzical thought it would be more to desirable to "lobby for a more structured user interface that -- on the home page of the forum" rather than on modes of censorship. 

Similarly, GraduatedLicensure laid out an argument against adding additional moderation/restrictions to posting, "Although the Archinect forums are not as free-wheeling (and as awesome) as the used to be in the old days.  (Your name, where u at bro?), they are still amongst the best on the internet today in terms of freedom of speech (i.e., lack of censureship), intelligence and originality of thought. All of the above suggestions would simply diminish Archinect's strengths".