Nicholas Korody penned, Shitting Architecture: the dirty practice of waste removal. Therein drawing lessons; from Slavoj Zizek on the toilet and Timothy Morton (of Object-Oriented Ontology [OOO]) on sustainability as the preservation of the status quo, he argues that "Under the weight of the ecological crisis, the world has been flattened. There is no exit".

 In response, Orhan Ayyüce offered up an image of the sublimely absurd, "I am always baffled by big houses that are marketed with +5.5 bathrooms (very common in wealthy neighborhoods) and so on. And of course these host extremely hi end living styles. It is kind of funny to think all these people do all day is shit and shit and shit everywhere in the house".

For the latest edition of Working out of the Box: Archinect featured Francis Tsai, of Francis Tsai Illustration and Concept Design, who received a Master's degree in 1993 from University of Texas in Austin.

Xenaxis "worked with Francis Tsai at Rockstar games and he was one of the people who inspired me to study architecture".

News

The Washington Post Editorial Board published a letter, in support of the Gehry designed Eisenhower memorial which a recent Congressional report labeled "A Five-Star Folly". Steven Ward doesn't understand why Gehry hasn’t cut his losses and walked away by now, "it's just become the fodder for another conservative culture offensive and letting it drag on isn't helping the memorial, gehry's office, dc, or our national cultural discussion...let's stop giving a podium for ad hominem attacks on modernism (and, by extension, anything progressive) in general".

Amale Andraos, principal of New York–based architecture firm WORKac, has been named dean of Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), succeeding Mark Wigley. Donna Sink was pleased "Yay for Amale and WORKac!! This is wonderful news".

Alexander Walter pointed out a recent Kickstarter campaign helped photographers Greg Girard and Ian Lambot fund and complete the new edition of their book, City of Darkness Revisited, about life in Hong Kong's legendary Kowloon Walled City. Fred Scharmen was surprised "how hard is it to bring out a second edition of a book that's already laid out and ready to go, especially one that currently sells for $400 - $900 used?"

Liam Otten noted, starting September 12th visitors to the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will have a chance to attend “Drawing Ambience: Alvin Boyarsky and the Architectural Association,”, the first public museum exhibition of drawings from Boyarsky’s private collection. The collection was amassed during his tenure as chairman of the Architectural Association (AA) in London from 1971 until his death in 1990.

Firms/Blogs/Work Updates

Recently, Zoya Puri worked on "Exploring navigation and way-finding in the urban villages of Delhi as a means of addressing larger issues of social exclusion, infrastructure and safety in such communities, supported by RISD's GS Grant and the Maharam STEAM Fellowship", while Xueting Wei worked on an "Ecological Future".

For those looking for work the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum hiring an Exhibition Designer. Or try your hand as the Public Programs Manager for NYC’s Urban Green Council, the local affiliate of the U.S. Green Building Council.

Edgewater Residence in Los Angeles, CA by Formation Association and Breath Box in La Grande Motte, France by NAS Architecture (Partner: Johan Laure), are just two of the projects found in the post Ten Top Images on Archinect's "Architect Sure!" Pinterest Board.

School/Blogs

Martina Dolejsova who is starting two years in the Curatorial, Critical, and Conceptual Practices Program at the GSAPP, wrote about Apartment Hunting and Thinking of Olmsted.

Discussions/Threads

MrMayberry wanted to chat about the Next wave of big names in architecture... Non Sequitur admitted "I recognize none of these names”. AS jw468 pointed out though “At least three on this list are already big names. Sou Fujimoto, Smiljan Radic, and Bolle Tham & Martin Videgård...I cannot comment on the rest".

Janosh took a more critical position "although this might be important for the editors of Azure, I would like to think that the next important thing won't be the reinvention of a single family home, an installation, a private gallery, or made by someone related by marriage to Carlos Slim…". Plus, SIAMESE DREAM complained "Your list is hardly a GLOBAL...No Australian or SE Asia based firm....?"

JonathanLivingston was fed up - F*#*K Competitions. Carrera believed he was being too harsh "I had a 40 year career as an owner and looking back I wish I would have taken time to do competitions. I didn’t do a single one but I wish I had”. For those looking to boost their portfolio archanonymous had a suggestion "instead of responding to someone's shitty call-for-entry...just pick a site and program that interests you and make some speculative paper architecture".

Finally, BulgarBlogger argued Inspirational Images are bullshit! chigurh quipped "pinterest + houzz = the future of avant garde architectural design" and robbmc laid blame "Complete disassociation results in post modernism...I understand your point and have seen this before,  picking design elements out of context and mixing them up is a terrible method of design".    

Quondam however loves "(doing) art/architecture of bad analogies, misplaced logic, incorrectly applied language, and the act of copy pasting! It's not exactly risky, but it surely eliminates mediocrity".