Technofuturism:

Aftershock #4: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Neuroscientific Architecture Research: Bringing the brain into evidence-based design, one EEG-measured dérive at a time. Reporting from the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture's conference in San Diego, California.

Working out of the Box: Francis Tsai: Tsai was diagnosed with ALS far before the ice bucket challenge, and despite his total-body atrophy, is able to continue drawing as a videogames and comics artist using a special camera that tracks his eye movements and translates them into digital drawing commands.

Martha Stewart in the age of drone photography: Through war, Amazon deliveries and Dronestagram, Martha unilaterally loves her drone.

Neural Cartography: Mapping the Brain's Response to DUMBO in Brooklyn: One of the jet-setters investing in neuroscientific research for architecture and urbanism, the Van Alen Institute teams up with Columbia's GSAPP to create mental maps of DUMBO.

Protesting:

Screen/Print #15: War of Streets & Houses: An autobiographical graphic novel treatment of the 2012 student protests in Montreal.

Saving Buildings with Social Media (Or Not): In the wake of the American Folk Art Museum's demolition earlier in 2014, critic Alexandra Lange considers the protest power of social media, when it comes to architecture.

Chilean artist steals and destroys $500 million worth of student debt papers: Fight the power!

Debating abortion rights and free speech on the sidewalk: City planning and civil rights intersect, in the public places outside of abortion clinics.

The State of Debt and the Price of Architecture: Student debt is out of control, and it's taking an emotional toll on students.

The law:

Tom Kundig loses lawsuit against his Washington valley cabin: The resolution in the lawsuit filed against Kundig in 2013 came in light of land covenants filed to keep the view of the valley's ridgeline clear.

Hearing begins for "modernist" North Carolina home threatened with demolition: A classic and ongoing (as of 12/23/14) case of NIMBYism fueled by historic preservationist values, the controversy spawned @ModernOakwood, a humorous and sympathetic Twitter account that anthropomorphizes the home.

Powers of 10 with Christopher Hawthorne, architecture critic at the LA Times, on Archinect Sessions #10!: This episode marks our inaugural bit with Archinect Session's lawyer-correspondent, Brian Newman, answering questions about unpaid labor in architecture. Spoiler: unpaid labor is not legal.

Wait. You can trademark the layout of a store?: It's called "trade dress" and is a protected form of intellectual property.

Monumental controversy:

Keep Portland Architecture Weird!: Episode 3 of Archinect Sessions out now: Michael Graves' Portland Building is going under the knife: whether that means demolition or renovation has kicked up a sandstorm of debate around the historical value of postmodern architecture.

Proposal for the future of Auschwitz-Birkenau: An LA-based office's controversial idea to surround Birkenau with a wall of tree trunks, too high to see over.

Interviews:

The Deans List: Sarah Whiting of Rice University: Rice's architecture program deserves at least as much attention as its eastern counterparts, and Whiting's future-minded perspective has created valuable and innovative models for architecture education.

Deans List: Mark Wigley of Columbia's GSAPP: Given that Wigley deanship ended shortly after this interview, we had the advantage of catching him in the midst of his own professional reflections on his role at Columbia and the future of the program.

The G-word:

"LA's Grand Central : The Gentrification of the People's Market": Interview with director Dylan Valley: The short documentary film interviews a few of the market's shop-owners, old and new, as they cope with the market's shift in clientele, tenants and urban value.

Tale of Two Cities: NYC approves 'poor door' for luxury high-rise: The building's affordable-housing units were given a separate entrance – logical to some, apartheid to others.

Invented term of the year:

Archinect's Lexicon: "Parametric Slug": I feel this word captures a significant part of 2014's architectural zeitgeist, just like "vape", the Oxford English Dictionary's word of the year, captures another part.

Strange bedfellows:

Town Becomes a Beer Ad, but Residents Don't Feel Like a Party: Bud Light remade the entire town of Crested Butte, Colorado, into "Whatever, U.S.A.", to film it for a beer commercial. The mayor agreed to it partially due to the added desperately needed revenue and jobs in the off-season.

"Constructing Holden Caulfield": Learning to build character through literary architecture: This may be the best way to fight writer's block: make a model instead. A look at a writing course where students make architectural models of literary works.

AIRBNB Pavilion coming to Venice Biennale: Rem's biennale was all about history and fundamentals: the Airbnb pavilion, an unofficial corollary pavilion, is all about regionalism and changing markets in the architectural economy.

Boondoggles:

Temple University Physicist proposes three 1,000-foot walls to tornado-proof Midwest: Yes, this is a real proposal.

Rubber Duckie, you make globalization so much fun: A giant inflatable duck visits Los Angeles harbor, for art.

US student is rescued from giant vagina sculpture in Germany: Pretty straightforward.

Japan's Toilennale is like the Venice Biennale, but for toilets: Also pretty straightforward.