Anyone want to report back from the March 22nd event, Urbanism Now: Philadelphia2035?

Discussion Threads
Hawkin notes that Zaha Hadid announced plans to make 100 staff redundant. Read more about the story in BD Online.

Instead of just bitching Matt_A posted a link to a recent report/appeal for transparency called Concerning Licensure which he sent to all architect members of each state licensing board, as well as the members of the boards of the AIA, NCARB, NAAB, AIAS, and the ACSA. Have your say here.
News
Anyone want to report back from the March 22nd event, Urbanism Now: Philadelphia2035?

Cherith Cutestory makes a few points regarding Gehry's recently completed Beekman Tower in New York.

Discuss François Roche's recent cancellation of an upcoming exhibition and lecture at Sci-Arc.

From the recently posted list of Competition registration deadlines approaching & new competitions to announce... I want to highlight two in particular that I will be watching. First, is the Van Alen Institute's Life at the Speed of Rail competition and then SOILED's call for submissions dealing with the theme Skinscrapers.

School Blogs
Matthew at University of Illinois Chicago writes that after a mid semester that review wherein crits talked too much about "formal symbolism" he is going to take more personal control of his projects design process. This means I am not giving up on trying to move forward within the paradigms of the studio, but rather my responses to criticism are going to change. For those not keeping up the studio this semester focuses on analyzing and interpreting Eisenman's House VI.

At Columbia University's GSAPP, Anthony recalls a conversation about architecture that he had a while back with a friend and colleague at GSAPP, whilst on the roof of her apartment in Morningside Heights, drinking Shoju. They talked amongst other things about the architectural collective hive mind and Anne is quoted as saying We are all tumbling blindly in some direction but then our individual voices within that is what gives it so much beauty and depth. So I’m interested in this project to articulate that and delineating the individual and the collective.

Lian one of our two Harvard GSD blogers, live blogged a lecture by Junya Ishigami. Junya talked alot about column(s), which are featured prominently (although perhaps in a every minimalist way) in many of his projects. The word was used by my count (at least in her live blog text) ten times....

Daniel at University of Oregon writes about Resilient Urban Morphologies which is a fancy way to refer to the way how an urban area adapts and maintains it's vibrancy through the years.

Stephanie at Kunstacademiets Arkitektskole discusess the challenges of thesis. Specifically, why many professors think If you aren't drawing, you aren't working, which emphasizes the need to express your idea(s) effectively and this leads Stephanie to suggest that the key to succeeding at architecture school, then, is learning to placate the unimaginative with visual aids.

Shannon at University of Manitoba tests for cyanotypes and shares some images of process: Removing lath, Demolishing drywall and De-nailing shiplap.

Discussion Threads
Hawkin notes that Zaha Hadid announced plans to make 100 staff redundant. Read more about the story in BD Online.

Instead of just bitching Matt_A posted a link to a recent report/appeal for transparency called Concerning Licensure which he sent to all architect members of each state licensing board, as well as the members of the boards of the AIA, NCARB, NAAB, AIAS, and the ACSA. Have your say here.

futureinthepast wants to discuss a report entitled Will architects exist in 2025? which is available via the RIBA website. I found this quote from RIBA's site provocative The greatest threat was envisaged for medium sized practices, who were considered likely to threatened by larger practices with an established commercial approach towards clients, and global interdisciplinary consultancies for their ability to quickly complete different scale projects at low cost, leading to a polarisation of practices by size.

Zsnype, wonders how the hell would they make that friggin sphere float? with regards to BIG's recently announced stockholm master plan.

Continuing the discussion TC had last week re: the current plans for the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia to move to a new location on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, emergency exit wound posts some old thoughts by Rita Novel on the Barnes Foundations planned moves.

Additionally
And in a bit of interesting parallelism in an article entitled Eccentricity Gives Way to Uniformity in Museum, found in the Sunday NYT weekend review section, Nicolai Ouroussoff explores how across the country some of the most original and idiosyncratic art institutions have embarked on major expansions which seek to greatly transform their identities. The key graph: Yet even more striking is what these transformations suggest about what we’ve become as a culture. The three museums’ iconoclastic collectors, and the institutions they built, embodied an America that still embraced an ideal of stubborn individualism. That spirit is now mostly gone, a victim of institutional conventions and corporate boards, and by a desire for mainstream acceptance that has displaced a willingness to break rules.