Hannah Wood, Archinect’s Features Columnist, dug into the topic of America and the AV: Digital Mobility for Architects. Following conversations with Yale professor Keller Easterling, Carlo Ratti of MIT’s Senseable City Lab and three former, Easterling students. Who are the entrepreneurs behind ‘The switch’.

Plus, Ellen Hancock visited Aecom's London office in Aldgate Tower. BulgarBlogger wondered "When I see a manicured corporate office like this I wonder - where is the design process? Design is never this clean..."

News

The AIA's Architecture Billings Index (ABI) was 51.7 for the month, up from a 49.1 reading the prior month. Though, regional business trends at architecture firms are becoming a bit more unbalanced.

Archinect Sessions, generated some great discussion in November. Ranging from Equity, Secrets and Relevancy of AIA; 1 Year After #NotMyAIA to Architecture — Tools of Capital: Iconic, Boring, and for the Happy Few.

Donna Sink, reflected "One valuable point made, IMO, is that from inside the AIA and from outside the AIA the view is very different, and that's OK...Whether the AIA eventually adopts those views is for us to push for from the inside, as members, and from the outside, as loud voices."

Chemex later chimed in "I don’t look to politics to save us, architects are going to have to change the paradigm. Architects have always been political in a hyper local way."

Reacting to Christopher’s Hawthorne’s piece on our contemporary moment of boring "Room temperature" architecture aka "the New Euclideans", Noah Walker clarified "Hawthorne actually seems very enthusiastic about this current batch of work...I actually had to read the article to learn that as nothing here suggested that."

The inaugural issue of Ed, our new print publication was released The first issue focuses on 'The Architecture of Architecture' — Editor Nicholas Korody, also put out the Call for Submissions for 'Ed' #2 on Disaster! The deadline for submissions is January 16, 2018 at 11:59 pm (PST).

R.I.P. Vincent Scully! Erik Evens along with many others, lamented "Such sad news.  He was a giant."

Stratum House in Gyunggi, South Korea by stpmj and the Architecture Faculty in Tournai, Belgium by Aires Mateus are just two, of the latest Top 10 images from the Archinect Pinterest board Concrete.

Firms/Work Updates

lizab noted that Woodland Elementary School, designed by Cambridge-based HMFH Architects for the Town of Milford, Massachusetts, was awarded the William W. Caudill Citation as the top-ranked K-12 entry in the 2017 American School & University Architectural Portfolio Competition.

Recently, Raya Ani worked on her "3d tessellation with irregular polygons!" design for Sonic*Union recording studios (Nicknamed S* PARK!) on Bryant park, which is under construction!

If you are looking for work, OMA’s Hong Kong office is looking for a Mandarin speaking Junior Architect. Or, BIG is currently looking for a talented, motivated and ambitious Proposals Specialist (a newly established position) to join their Operations and Business Development teams in New York.

Evan Chakroff posted "Some thoughts on architecture in the Anthropocene. Originally posted over at my Medium page."

Therein, he references adaptive re-use and "temporal bracketing", as seen in the Baths of Diocletian / Santa Maria de Angeli e dei Matiri, Diocletian’s Palace, Alejandro Aravena’s/Elemental’s   Quinta Monroy, Ningbo Museum and HdM’s restoration of the Park Avenue Armory. In order to answer the question "How can designers express an attitude towards a continuously-unfolding history in their work?"

School/Blogs

The Los Angeles based, FSA put out the call for both student participants and teaching proposals for the Free School of Architecture, Summer 2018. Applications are due no later than Monday, January 8, 2018.

University of Calgary is looking to hire a new Dean, Faculty of Environmental Design. 

Otherwise, Ball State has two open positions; a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Architecture. Or Design Innovation Fellow whose preferred focus is "emerging design media such as industrial robotics and contemporary fabrication techniques."

alyssafellabaum, a UG3/UG4 undergraduate student at Taubman College, made the case You Know You’re An Architecture Student When… For his part, Rajan Mistry could relate "Fantastic collection! Makes me laugh to think about them all now."

Discussions/Threads

wurdan freo has opinions regarding the recentish trend of a primarily black kitchens. Specifically, "Feels like a black hole or oblivion... kinda the opposite of what i want a home to feel like". Tinbeary There there replied "I have a black countertop in my kitchen and it is easy to keep clean and I like how it looks deep like an abyss." Similarly, Peter Normand pointed out "Black shows dirt and dust and if cleanliness in your kitchen is the goal making it obvious when the cabinets counter or other surfaces are dirty could be helpful. A lot of kitchen dust and dirt tends to be white or light gray."

chrisdecouto shared a story about Unique cottage design. Of a 1965 Robert Burley design and how it inspired a vernacular 1969 take.

Most commentators agreed that the missing shingles needed to be added back, to the later knockoff. Preferably cedar shakes ("moss is great"), as the fiber cement/composite shingles are only halfway to matching "the texture and approachability of wood". Others put forward cor-ten, oxidized copper or even zinc as acceptable (if more expensive) alternatives.

Finally, Marc Miller started an Archinect Sessions wishlist thread. He did include 1 ground rule, "instead of just posting a name or topic share the why as well." randomised suggested "What about a Master/Apprentice session with architects that used to work for a master but started for themselves and see what they took with them and also what not and why and how it feels competing against each other etc. So obviously Rem Koolhaas and Winy Maas, Ole Scheeren, Joshua Price-Ramus, etc."

Additionally

Make sure to check out e-flux, where Peggy Deamer published a piece on "IPD, contract theory, architect as professional—and the ways we come together by law and by choice".

h/t Ann Lui aka @paperarchitect