Julia Ingalls continued her Material Witness. In #5 she analyzed "Wings of Desire", "Billy Elliot" and "In the Mood for Love", for lessons about Cultural Gerrymandering. Olaf Design Ninja_ is appreciative "See Julia Ingalis quote above...there is more beer in the fridge...Enjoying this Feature!"

Plus, Nicholas Korody launched a column which "will serve to highlight architectures in the Anthropocene that choose the latter. Moreover, it will explore ways in which the Anthropocene thesis changes notions of architecture".

News

Agence France-Presse spoke with Masato Abe, founder of the Save Nakagin Capsule Tower Project. Alexander Walter pointed out "You can even spend a night in a capsule thanks to Airbnb....here or here".

Ziauddin Sardar bemoaned The Destruction of Mecca. EKE confirmed "I visited the kingdom in 2000, and spent time in Riyadh, Jeddah and Mecca.  Yes, they are being robbed of their history, and they are doing it to themselves. ..erasing so much of the local vernacular".

Tyler Hopf hipped us to the fact that Alejandro Zaera-Polo has stepped down from the deanship of Princeton University's School of Architecture. HotelSphinx isn’t surprised "He was a bad pick for the job in the first place (anyone who's taken a class with him knows what a hot mess of an educator he is) but I'm anxiously awaiting the inevitable Archinect gossip to follow…"

Oliver Wainwright reviewed  ‘Cathedrals of Culture’, by Wim Wenders and a team of directors. Darkman was on the fence "I'll have to see it for myself. Architecture docs aren't exactly riveting dramas, and it's an impossible medium to capture for wide audiences. Should be interesting at least".
 

Firms/Blogs/Work Updates
Evan Chakroff visited Colonnade Park under I-5 - Capitol Hill/Eastlake, Seattle and took some photos. Referencing drawings/models for OMA's Agadir Hotel and Convention Center Quondam noted "how similar I-5 Colonnade Park is to the socle of OMA's Agadir Hotel and Convention Center” and posed the question "So, is I-5 Colonnade Park also a modern interpretation of Islamic space?".

Lian Chikako Chang used the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) affiliated blog to start a conversation about Where are the women? Measuring progress on gender in architecture. To get things started she had some data graphics based on "publicly available (but not necessarily commonly known) statistics". jla-x opined "Basically, if you want a more equitable and diverse profession make it more accessible.  As of now this profession is designed for the privileged...Sensitivity training won't do shit".

For his part Willard Williams agreed it is a problem but argues "It is a little concerning that the lack of African Americans or Blacks who are within the profession.  It is far more startling to me".

Pon Kumaresh an engineer, started Light - As we See it! Reading the first post Mark Cruz

"really enjoyed your perspective and insight.  I teach lighting design principals in studios, on occasion and will use some of this as a reference next time”. Coincidentally while reading the post he also experienced “A truly poignant moment for me".
 

School/Blogs
This fall, Maria Ornelas is taking the "very last design studio before I enter the Senior Project quarter” and her studies to-date led her to raise “the following question: Should a campus keep its identity by building the same style buildings all over?"

The students from Studio 19 (a collaboration between UNITEC and Strachan Group Architects [SGA]) got to present their "project to not only the board of directors and kaumatua representatives, but to the entire group of kaumatua who attend these tribal meetings". 

They also started making "formwork of a pre cast concrete slab" Olaf Design Ninja_ complained "It might make a lot more sense if you actually made your posts as a genuine blog and not a tweet every time you do something, this way we know what the hell you are doing comprehensively. What kind of boards you using for the form work there?"

Discussions/Threads
Inspired by In black and white and color a post on Saarinen's Miller House, Donna Sink attempted a "very, very serious” answer to the question If architects wear black, why is so much Modern architecture white?" haruki wasn’t sure "Isn't the architect wearing black mostly a regional thing these days?" Trying to steer discussion back to the original post she wrote "I wondered if this conversation would go in the direction of architects doing cold logical structure, interior designers doing the fluffy stuff that humanizes a place, and landscape architects doing the growies. No one is interested in taking that on?" 

3tk replied "@Donna, after switching over to the landscape side of things, I have added a significant amount of brown/blue/green to my wardrobe (and back in my engineering days had a lot of khakis and conservative patterned shirts)".

archmart started a thread titled IDP Hours Abroad. OM.. didn’t get the confusion "It's exactly the same as getting your IDP hours approved in the US” BenC sought a clarification “Anyone know if ExAC in Canada has a similar stipulation?" archmart ended up speaking with NCARB and found out "getting IDP hours under a foreign licensed Architect is possible under the O experience setting" but had yet another question "Does anybody know if you can do EPC activities under a foreign licensed Architect?"

Olaf Design Ninja_ was impressed by ‘Sticks and Stones’ and all that Matter ie: architect David Chipperfield’s transformation of Neue Nationalgalerie. FRaC thought it "quite a beautiful installation.  I love mies and chipperfield". tammuz  then made a point about "two primordial issues being echoed here - forest and caves" and Carrera shared a story about learning "that it’s those voids & open spaces - play on light - that is the architecture not necessarily the mass (sometimes)".

Additionally
El Tecolote newspaper published Examining SF’s housing crisis, which analyzed plans for the BART plaza at 16th and Mission streets. h/t ProjectCambio