Back in January, Justine Testado reviewed “HOME(less)” a photo exhibition at USC, co-curated by local designers and Colorblock partners Sofia Borges and Susan Nwankpa. Christopher Perrodin was impressed "This is very thoughtful, playful and ultimately humanizing.  Good job." 

Plus, Julia Ingalls featured Student Works: from “The Heresy of Function, Reprise,” a senior project studio at Cal Poly Pomona run by Frank Clementi (of Rios Clementi Hale Studios). b3tadine[sutures] commented "This is great stuff, full of genuinely lovely ideas, Cooper-esque."

News
Scott Merrill won the 2016 Driehaus Prize. midlander commented "His buildings are most definitely modern in the ordinary sense - he works largely in the vernacular of current US suburban architecture. Which a lot of architects are conditioned to despise. But the best ones are inventive and memorable." Amelia Taylor-Hochberg had the chance to speak with him for Archinect Sessions One-to-One #8.

EKE offered praise "really thoughtful interview.  Great job, Amelia. I especially liked hearing Scott's talk about his belief...Bravo."

The Architecture Billings Index (ABI) concluded 2015 in positive terrain. With a reported December ABI score of 50.9, up from the mark of 49.3 in the previous month. Overall in 2015, it was positive in eight of the twelve months of the year. For those who might have missed it bundy pointed out "Only 30% of the last cycle was the ABI over 50.  Let that sink in."

The Mexico-city based firm Escobedo Solíz Studio, founded in 2011 by Lazbent Pavel Escobedo and Andres Solíz, won MoMA PS1's 2016. Lee Robert admitted to being underwhelmed "Every year...by the winners. The renderings are evocative, but the end result is typically a hot, empty courtyard in the middle of August. Ball Nogues, from a few years ago, was really nice. Since then, not so much. I feel like this competition might be losing it's relevance."

Marc Miller really appreciated Amelia's discussion regarding diversity with Elsie Owusu on Archinect Sessions One-to-One #9, particularly given "how candid it was". More importantly he found "her description of privilege to be (even) more valuable and complicated. Implicit in her description of privileges bestowed upon professionals was the notion that not all people have the same opportunity to effect change".

R.I.P. Paul Pholeros, Sydney architect who wielded "architecture in the service of decency and fairness", dead at 62.

Orhan Ayyüce provided an explanation/primer for the coming Planning War Zone: The Battle for L.A. Beginning with "The keywords, general plan, low-income housing development, hi-end condo development, parking, TOD, gentrification, political bribery, zoning, community control..."
 

Firms/Work Updates
Alec Perkins who has been living/working in Stuttgart, Germany as an architect for almost two years now, resurrected his blog Adventures in Squareland "as a way to document the past, the present, and future of German architecture" as he has seen it here. In one of his first/new posts he enthuses over the ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2014-15 as a great example of Digital Fabrication with Spiders and Carbon Fiber.

Recently Robert Jacobson worked on a "...Smart Citizens Southern Arizona | Southwest Civic Innovation Lab" and Oswaldo Orozco on "...the building of 2000 houses destroyed by Super Storm Sandy in the Far Rockaways NY".

Meanwhile Giovanni Antico worked on an "...Apartment in Buenos Aires".

For those looking for work, New York City Department of Parks & Recreation is looking to hire a Senior Architectural Designer. Or you could go work for the Institute for Human Centered Design (IHCD) as a Senior Architect. If interested you "must have deep content expertise in accessibility (Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, International Building Code) and in the practice of universal/inclusive design."

schmidt hammer lassen architects won an international competition to design a new cultural home for the West Shanghai Workers’ Cultural Palace, a popular destination for the city’s Labour Union workers and local community since the 1950s.

School/Blogs
Will Galloway explained how at Keio University "We run the entire campus, regardless of faculty, on this idea called project-based education." He also shared some of the work students did in a Shigeru Ban studio this winter.

JamieEvelyn a dual Master of Architecture + Master of Arts Design Criticism graduate student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, started a new blog. In the post titled Control: Learning X, Y, Z she looks back on her first incoming graduate studio of the fall semester.

The University of Miami School of Architecture announced it is now live streaming all lectures that are part of the Tecnoglass Lecture Series "Miami & The Tropical World."  The Tecnoglass Lecture Series 2015-16 is a year-long program of lectures, interviews, and symposia focused on a theme that is of particular relevance to SoA.

All lectures can be viewed at http://www.tecnoglasslectures-um.com/

Discussions/Threads
Reflecting on Jacques Pépin’s Life Advice for Young Cooks, archanonymous started a thread to discuss the travails of being a young architect. curtkram argued everyone "completely missed the point of everything pepin said in the article. the point is not to innovate.  the point is to learn." RickB-OR chimed in "Occasionally, you can learn from others without having to work for them. When we hear the tales and learn from the tales of others, we learn things. We have to embrace multiple modes of learning."

D0ub13d D has questions about China. Specifically, "on salary expectations, living tips, thoughts feeling etc…" related to a new position/offer in Beijing. midlander (who currently lives and works in China) advised "I think you'll be ok, probably lower salary than you'd like though. Make sure they do the visa process by the books - a real employment visa - or you may run into trouble eventually. My guess is as the economy slows there will be more checks on that." For his part Evan Chakroff kept it short/simple "buy a respirator and do it." LITS4FormZ also recommended taking the position "China for me opened up opportunities that would have never been there had I stayed in the US. It's still paying dividends today and will for the foreseeable future….China will not stop building", based on their own experience.

Finally makingspace wanted to hear "what people think is Morphosis/Thom Mayne's best building in LA." gwharton responded "Morphosis has done a few good projects, but the better ones are older, from before they got Starchitect Syndrome and lapsed into pure self-indulgence", though pretty much all the other commenters just used the thread as a chance to complain about "soulless", "choppy" and/or "inhumane" architecture.