Amelia profiles the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture aka ANFA and ponders the lessons from her time spent down in San Diego for ANFA’s annual three-day conference at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Does neuro-architecture truly hold the promise of translational design?

midlander dreams "I have a hard time seeing how this provides more meaningful feedback than occupant surveys...That said...I can't wait until I can wear some headset that makes revit models of whatever I'm thinking!" while Chris Teeter a regular advocate for the use of the "the old EEG headset" was pleased "great piece and like how you link all your news posts into a feature story..Although, much of what is going on now is data gathering, it is considerably more useful than just survey stats".

For a more speculative version of Deans List, Archinect spoke with Hernan Diaz Alonso, upcoming Director at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles.
 

News

"Archinect Sessions" a new weekly podcast hosted by Paul and Amelia, released Episode 2: The Long Road - to discuss licensing and IDP issues at NCARB, the value of mentorship in the profession, and the latest news on the Moriyama RAIC International Prize.

Judith Edelman "a firebrand for women in architecture" - died of a heart attack at 91 on Oct. 4 at her home in Manhattan.

Bustler.net featured a sneak peek of boolean-created "Situation Room" at the Storefront for Art + Architecture. Going doge Fred Scharmen commented, "Very very. Do want" in response to an earlier prompt from Evan Chakroff who then informed us, "I signed up for Marc Fornes' workshop at ACADIA next week. There was no description".

Darkman thought OMA and OLIN Studio’s proposal for the new 11th Street Bridge Park in Washington D.C. a "Overwrought high-line wannabe". toasteroven differed "I really like this - it's a difficult site -  extremely long site next to highway with big changes in grade".

French designer Philippe Starck and Slovenian wooden prefab building company Riko released the second generation of their customizable Prefabricated Accessible Technological Homes (P.A.T.H.) to the global market just this month. Although many commentators were dismissive of the "trendy buzzwords" and quibbled with the affordability, Gregory Walker did the math "$418/sf...frankly, that's pretty good. not for all parts of the country, but…" Will Galloway added some perspective "By japanese standards its the cost of a mid-range wood house (11000 yen/Tsubo). Middle class budget...By comparison this project is not so highly priced really".

Firms/Blogs/Work Updates
Lian Chikako Chang live-blogged Class 2 of her San Francisco NERT Training. She also reported in from the big Missing 32% event today in San Francisco. Part 1, Part 2. 

b3tadine[sutures] was thankful "it seems like this symposium answers more questions, and marks a stark contrast when it comes to gender differences in the profession".

Over at his blog Pon Kumaresh has a post about heliotropism, The Science of Visual Awareness! and "the emotional impact of lighting on the occupants of a space".

On a related note, Philadelphia based The Lighting Practice is proud to share that October 2014 marks 25 years in lighting design for their firm.
 

School/Blogs
The students of Studio 19 (a collaboration between UNITEC and Strachan Group Architects [SGA]) have been working "on the exterior cladding of the house" and last week they got the chance to meet "up at Orakei on site for a traditional Maori blessing of the land" then come back the next day to learn about "setting up string lines".

For those looking for work in Academia - Syracuse University School of Architecture is currently seeking candidates for tenure-track positions at the Assistant Professor rank in Architectural Design for Fall 2015 or The Architecture Department at Cal Poly Pomona will be filling a tenure-track position at the rank of Assistant or Associate Professor to begin Fall 2015.

Dustin Page affiliated with the Knowlton School at The Ohio State University, put up a post re: Peter Eisenman’s recent lecture titled "The Discipline of Architecture".

Discussions/Threads
s=r*(theta) wanted opinions regarding the best way of estimating drafting time. chigurh replied "think about all the sheets you are going to have to create for a drawing set...and estimate how much time it will take you to do the base drawing, annotate, and dimension each sheet...Then add about 25-50% to CYA". gwharton suggested using "task-based planning in a scheduling program to figure it out".

AnnYo needs help finding a Software workflow. After sharing hers, ann explained "for me the thing that bothers me the most is that with all that importing and exporting i end up doing the same thing more than one time". bugsmetoo advised switching "Illustrator should make the flow easier. Especially if you're willing to forgo shadows and make artificial ones simply out of vector shapes. Eliminates CAD and SketchUp with easy file transfer between Illustrator and Photoshop" while at chigurh’s office they "go straight from your model/hand sketch preliminary into a BIM software...depending on what you are doing you will re-do things many times (even if you are in a BIM environment)".

Riccardo Bianchini shared a review/photos of Shigeru Ban’s new Aspen Art Museum. Larchinect offered up their take "my experience is that it's really a very mixed bag with the locals, which is what you'd expect from a world wide destination...i like the building on its own...But, the building really doesn't resolve well with the street and adjacent buildings. One side leaves about ten feet of exposed, painted cmu for the entire heigh of the building. Just a weird detail that glares as a major oversight in my view". EKE sarcastically added "Good luck with that woven wood lattice after a couple of wicked Colorado winters, and some freeze-thaw".

archanonymous defended the project "Ban builds in many cold climates and his buildings have all held up. Japan is just as snowy as Aspen in many places. The facade weave feels like it is plastic or silicone impregnated". Later midlander clarified "just had a presentation by a rep for the supplier...it's not real wood, its an exterior grade phenolic laminate".