The latest edition of Showcase: features Slate House, located on a site in Laval, a suburb of Montreal. Designed by Affleck de la Riva architects, it stands in sharp contrast to the tract houses that surround it.  

b3tadine[sutures] exclaims "394,000 US$!! This is the budget of homes in America that are 1/10th of this quality. Perhaps it's for two people, who are empty nesters, and entertain for a large extended family. The simplicity of materials and form, is exceedingly elegant".

As part of Archinect’s continuing ACADIA 2014 coverage Amelia Taylor-Hochberg reviews the keynote by creator of SimCity Will Wright's, which she labels "almost a exegesis".
 

News
Mark Minkjan spoke with Rory Hyde re: the ongoing relevancy of the profession and Future Practice. Darkman felt the need to clarify "Most architects I know build schools, hospitals, churches, malls, apartment buildings etc. It's just the media that feeds us the Versaces...and Ivy League universities".

The Wall Street Journal published a profile of Sou Fujimoto. Mr_Wiggin was not pleased "is fairly compelling, minus his indentured servants he keeps in his model sweatshop". Will Galloway suggested some perspective "It might be useful to think of some of his work more like the case study houses of the past mid-century. Experimental and built for people with an eye for something most may not be comfortable with. I live a block from one of his houses and its brilliant, seriously well built and well considered".

Nicholas Korody posted the concept, designed by the Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, for the new home of the National Library in Jerusalem. midlander summed it up "So in the end the selection committee abandoned the competition and directly interviewed the pre-selected international teams, settling on H+dM. Good for them.seems nice. Restrained, elegant and comfortable. Wish Jerusalem was as peaceful as this space looks to be".

Firms/Blogs/Work Updates
Mitch McEwen has relocated to Detroit and although the move put a "temporary halt to this blog" she restarts, by sharing some of the lessons of living in Lafayette Park. Joe Posch had a personal connection "welcome to the greatest apartment you'll ever have (well, in my opinion). If you want a little background on what I like to call ‘the aesthetic mismanagement of Lafayette Towers’ take a look at a blog post I did back after I moved out in 2011...Still, loved my apartment, and that view".

Moriyuki Ochiai posted some photos of Pixy Hall, a mountain shaped multi-purpose space they designed for a kindergarten.

Over at his blog dedicated to Light - As we See it! Pon Kumaresh provided illustrations showing an "evolution of lighting schemes from room based lighting to the contemporary, task based and 'non-visual' aspects of lighting schemes".
 

School/Blogs
Dustin Page wrote about the recent Knowlton School lecture by Preston Scott Cohen, who "took the audience through a theory that he is currently working on which he terms ‘Successive Architecture’..." In short "this is a concept that comes from the stacking of floor plates".

For those looking for work in academia, Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture: is hiring a Tenure-Track Faculty in Computational Design. Or if your interested, apply for the University of Minnesota’s bi-annual Cass Gilbert Design Fellowship.
 

Discussions/Threads
gruen had a question about liability and Condos v apartments,  "what is to prevent an owner from selling an apartment building as condos after the project is complete? Nothing. How do we protect ourselves against the inevitable predatory lawyers"? midlander referenced the 2014 California Supreme Court ruling against SOM in Beacon v. SOM and asked "Have you asked your insurer?", Yet, chigurh believes one can manage this risk and "define the project in the contracts". shuellmi and Non Sequitur offered up two different reactions "best defense is a lack of assets" and "Another reason I am happy to stay away from condo projects" respectively.

Anob is looking for advice on Going out on your own. While Carrera did it "40 years ago and never looked back", mightyaa offered a tale of caution

"at one point, I had to bring in $25k a month in billings or face sending friends to the unemployement line.  Do this enough, and you’ll see why bosses avoid making friends with staff members...So, I intentionally kept the firm around 7 which I find to be a very manageable size...My fantasy is going to work, coming home, collecting a paycheck...".

zandarooz wonders why representation and concept in architecture seems to have switched back to emphasizing "black and white plan oblique, formal/object based explorations" is it perhaps eisenman redux. The first few commentators weren’t understanding/wanted to be combative, so asked for "pics".

After seeing a pic or two Alien 8 responded "Most of those illustrations are pointless. The first one makes sense being represented as an ortho-pro...There's really nothing to be learned from the others". Joseph Koon argued "These modes of representations do not have a human point of view. They are analytical and much easier to critique for their geometry than for their experiential qualities". 

Finally, for those who doubted this was a trend wunder_waffle backed zandarooz up "Look for interviews with kersten geers/david van severen.  And for sure SAN ROCCO magazine. They are reacting against the idea that the diagram can make a building, against excess, against post rationalization.  They seem to be searching for compositional principles and formal archetypes".
 

Additionally
James Bridle was commissioned by Creative Time Reports, to write an essay looking at; the contemporary geography of electromagnetic border zones, zones of exception and non-refoulement.