Sean Smith published the first in a series of articles in which "three architects (two designers and one licensed architect) discuss their transition from student to professional, their changed perceptions of the career and the challenges and joys of their current work".

 The interview with Elizabeth Christoforetti looks back at her time with DEGW, her time at Harvard's Graduate School of Design and her work at Utile, where she tackles everything from "front-end design work" to "entrepreneurially-oriented master planning".

After reading this interview and others like it, Chris Teeter is convinced studio education "of the architect should not be the dominant method for training an architect...somehow salary means working like studio and the only reason we work so long when we start is we learned very little on how to be an architect and know even less on how to offer additional non traditional input on projects that get sourced out to construction managers, lawyers, specialists, etc...... Looking forward to the next articles".

Plus, in the third edition of Prototyping series Amelia Taylor-Hochberg explores Parametrica [Digi Fab School]’s 'Architecture in Digital Fashion' workshop. PencilPusher complained "this article delves more into the realm of general design-y design stuff...The current state of architectural education is already farce enough, lets just muddy the water some more with, oh, say a few classes in meat butchery or 21 century literature and music as it applies to the hipster.  The end goal of this class is fashion, not architecture".

News
Orhan Ayyüce encouraged readers to view, Aerial and panoramic views and reflect on the devastation in Gaza, following recent Israeli attacks. He also urged "Architecture for Humanity to directly involve and bring this crisis into their working platform, producing ideas of reconstruction".

jla-x had the right idea, proposing to take things a step further, "In this case especially, the decentralization of resource production cn be extremely helpful to the people for obvious reasons, but also act the greatest form of peaceful rebellion. ...Decentralization of resources will break the dependency that is being used to subjugate the people.  Of course first there needs to be an end to the bombings...I personally think it would be doable to transform gaza into an almost ‘self sufficient’ city with low tech systems such as aquaponics, rain water harvesting, composting, etc etc...Maybe I'm being too positive?"  

Even though Bjarke Ingels Group substantially revised its initial design for the Kimball Art Center Expansion project, it was still deemed out of character for the historic district. boy in a well didn’t get it, "hard to fathom how big let this out the door. is there a plan? a section? something that clues us in to how they thought this was a winner? signed, curious in park city".

Bianca Bosker asked Why haven't China's cities learned from America's mistakes? - Evan Chakroff argued "The headline is somewhat misleading, given that the article's text explicitly states that China's government planners and private developers *have* been learning from their mistakes, and are making earnest efforts to reverse the troubling trends that lead to environmental degradation, alienating suburban landscapes, dissolution of community, etc. It's thus somewhat disappointing that positive developments are downplayed in favor of schadenfreude clickbait".

Over at Urban Omnibus Melanie Crean wrote about her Hunts Point | Memories of the Future a location-based cinema project viewed on mobile phones. Olaf Design Ninja_ responded with a personal story "Had this job up there once with a good 10 block walk from the subway...I made the walk quite often no problem. The security consultant drove to a site meeting once, he had a 9 mm on the stack of papers in his briefcase".


Firms/Blogs/Work Updates
Gregory Walker offered up some "random reading that you may want to labor through this holiday".

"Personal Work" by Megan McGlynn and Collapse Construction in Los Angeles, CA by Formation Association in collaboration with Los Angeles artists, Edgar Arceneaux and Nery Gabriel Lemus are just two of the projects to be found in the post Ten Top Images on Archinect's "Art-chitecture" Pinterest Board.

School/Blogs
Maria Ornelas a fifth year Architecture student at Cal Poly Pomona, started a blog Arquitecta. She hopes to share her "thoughts, criticisms, research, and everything that helps" get to the final version of her Senior Project.

Nicole Doan also enrolled at Cal Poly Pomona, provided a preview of change the "upcoming school year brings" to the architecture department at Cal Poly Pomona. The big news? This winter the school will be getting a FabLab for building 89A and there will be a shift to faculty/students collaborative curation for the department's lecture series.
 

Discussions/Threads
muddywaters is planning a relocation to the Austin, Texas and as an established architect in the NE is looking for assistance getting a handle on Typical Southwest Construction Details. BulgarBlogger suggests an issue with the thread title, "southwest is a very broad category... detailing in CA will be different than TX". As an example go do it noted "Thermal breaks are still important where I build. Albuquerque. And thermal efficiency".

When it comes to "local planning and design discourse" Larchinect has trouble "biting my tongue" Yet, aware this could backfire Larchinect wants to know, for those published writers  "Has it benefitted or hindered your practice?" To citizen, its obvious "Having a list of publications on your CV may not help in this or that career step, but it certainly won't hurt". quizzical added "the concept of ‘leadership’ comes to mind. Taking a strong position in public...You have to ask yourself which sort of professional you want to be".

robbmc thinks the the great recession "is over". Then again this is based on robbmc’s experience in the Dallas market. Steven Ward basically agrees though "good sign things have changed: offering a job to someone and having them choose another job offer instead. that scenario was rare last year". mightyaa’s experience is perhaps counterintuitive "I raked it in during the recession by shifting into a niche...Now I'm dying". DeTwan believes the problem now is "there are ladders to nowhere...In all honest, I don't even see small firms lasting the next recession".