Amelia Taylor-Hochberg, Editorial Manager for Archinect, reviewed "Shelter" the debut exhibition at the Architecture and Design Museum’s new location in Los Angeles' Arts District. Despite what you might assume 

"Shelter isn’t about designing for the 21st century family, or the millenial, or the homeless, in Los Angeles – it’s about forming new expectations of how housing and the city should interact...housing imagined in Shelter is about merging L.A.’s residential spaces with its civic topography, forming a less privatized residential existence in the city".

The winners of Archinect's Dry Futures competition were selected. In the "Speculative" category "Grassroots Cactivism" by Ali Chen took first place. While "Liquifying Aquifers by Lujac Desautel won first place in the "Pragmatic" category. 

Deane Madsen was impressed "A timely and relevant competition with thoughtful responses. Well done, all around!"
 

News
Dame Zaha Hadid was announced as winner of 2016 Royal Gold Medal. Sir Peter Cook, took the opportunity to expand upon on How lucky we are to have her in London 

"those of us lucky enough to see the Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku in the flesh, can surely never have been in such a dream-like space, with its totality, its enormous internal ramp and dart-like lights seeming to have come from a vocabulary that lies so far beyond the normal architecture that we assess or rationalize...So we are presenting her with this Medal as a British Institution: and as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire"

null pointer was a fan of the decision, writing "Haters just have horrible taste."

Julia Ingalls assembled critical round-ups for both; LACMA's Frank Gehry exhibition and the now opened Broad museum in Los Angeles.

The Architecture Billings Index (ABI) slipped in August, after showing mostly healthy business conditions so far this year. AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker, Hon. AIA, PhD., argued "this should not be a cause for concern throughout the design and construction industry." However, Carrera disagreed with him and Donna Sink "Isn’t just summer (vacation) or just architecture...Wouldn't hit the panic button, but would keep a finger near it."

Firms/Work Updates
Joe Emanuele started a blog Project Costing Systems. In his first post he answered the question Why do Time sheets? He later explained

"I have had too many conversations about over budget projects where, on further investigation there has been work carried out that should have been charged for, or not done!. The starting point is information. Information on the Fee, the scope, and progress. The core of this information is time. If you can't measure it, you cant control it !"

Barry Lehrman recently worked on Recharge City (which) won 3rd place in Dry Futures!!

Jessica A.S. Letaw published three posts exploring the Chicago Architecture Biennial. First, she reacted to it’s existence "This, friends, is a PRETTY BIG DEAL". For her second, she compiled a TED Playlist "of CAB...participants". For the third, she reflected on Iwan Baan’s commission from the Biennial.

MILLIØNS contributed to BUST (which brings together eleven established architects and firms to reconsider the relevance of a seemingly anachronous means of evaluation  for a work of architecture: the façade), an exhibition curated by William O'Brien Jr. at Jai & Jai Gallery, Los Angeles.

School/Blogs

In order to enlighten interested Archinectors, Kevin Clement shared information about how the Advanced Design Studies Program at the University of Tokyo "is structured and what we were up to the past year". Given the "lab" based system he believes it is "probably closer in spirit to the AA than to US schools".

Back in mid-July Nicole Doan, along with 24 other students completed a 48 hours charette, for 25 town blocks featuring 50 ridiculous programs.

Sarah Lorenzen (chair of the Department of Architecture  at Cal Poly Pomona) received the 2015 Educator Award, one of eight presidential honors bestowed during the annual Design Awards organized by AIA|LA.
 

Discussions/Threads
Over at Thread Central - gruen, JeromeS, midlander, Richard W.C. Balkins, Professional Building Designer and others - chatted about the usefulness (or lack thereof) of "fantastic" structural engineers. Also; CLT, glulam and "Wood for higher rise buildings".

HealthcareArchitect is considering Opening (their) own business. 

Carrera advised "I have friends that peeled off from a big practice, but went into healthcare consulting and hit a home run...consider the same or work around the fringes on nursing home facilities, Alzheimer facilities etc. which is still open to smaller practices." Similarly citizen suggested "going after developers of med office buildings."

Finally graphite is looking to "get a handle on who's leading the industry with the most integrated digital practice". Everyday Intern  requested the OP to "offer a definition...Without that, this thread is quickly going to devolve into a listing of firms using digital tools beyond Revit." rob_c went back to "SHoP's big picture idea of master builder". Later graphite came back with the definition "firms...utilizing a R+D methodology in their design process that integrates a high level of digital technologies".

null pointer concluded "It pays off exponentially if you know what you're after...Architecture is full of long drawn out repetitive tasks. If you can automate and embed a bit of intelligence into any of them, you've got yourself a tool that will save you time and therefore add to your bottom line."