Niall Patrick Walsh explains how multiple fatal fires earlier this year (in the Bronx and Philadelphia) are but the latest examples in an ongoing national failure "to adhere to existing regulations and unsatisfactory explanations from city officials responsible for enforcing" standards and safety in public-housing.

Plus, in response to Russia's invasion of its neighbor, Archinect published some Voices from Ukraine. citizen found

"That post by Janna Kiseleva…both heart-rending and inspiring."

News

San Francisco’s Millennium Tower is now also moving horizontally, while it continues to settle and sink. Although, philippelletier was incredulous that they didn’t "drive piles to the bedrock. It would have added millions of dollars to the cost but look what they are paying now" given his experience in the industry archanonymous "would be surprised if anyone ever seriously debated not having piles to bedrock…It is funny to me how easily some of those early decisions are made with little regard for the implications later".

The team of Morphosis/Kilograph is out and Arquitectonica is now taking lead on the redevelopment of West Hollywood's landmark Viper Room. ‘Nectors took the opportunity to praise the early years of Arquitectonica and lament what they’ve become, with .franzisko1256 speaking for many "It is sad (but not surprising) that the amazing design by Morphosis has been replaced by such a boring run of the mill building. That site really deserved better."

The 2022 Pritzker Architecture Prize went to Diébédo Francis Kéré.

Foster + Partners unveiled renderings for their Transamerica Pyramid Center retrofit. reallynotmyname liked what they saw "This looks good.  The existing lobby has always seemed incongruously small and banal for such a distinctive building."

The LA Times reported that a massive project (with 63 story tower) proposed for DTLA near Angels Landing, received the necessary entitlements from the city. Aram Guiragozian offered some criticism

"This site could have turned into the most important public space that all of DTLA could of offered…It’s one of the most cosmopolitan sites in its purest sense in all of DTLA…it even has a connection to the The Los Angeles river and the basin…another building or a condo is like I said before a missed opportunity."

R.I.P., HOK cofounder Gyo Obata and Christopher Alexander (author of the seminal ‘A Pattern Language’).

Blogs/Firms/Work Updates

GroupGSA talked-up their contribution to a "world-class town precinct featuring 2.5km of foreshore parklands…connecting the public domain to a 270-berth marina, surrounding beaches and coastal wetlands."

Later, PLP Architecture released plans for a new district (with a total floor area of 1.1 million square metres) redevelopment in the prestigious and culturally significant Uchisaiwaicho 1-Chome district of Tokyo.

If you are looking for a new gig there are a number of "Firms with diverse ownership" hiring. Ranging from; Emerick Architects PC "Recognized as one of Oregon’s Healthiest Employers" to Design,Bitches "an award wining, women owned multidisciplinary" studio in Los Angeles or even Machado Silvetti.

Meanwhile, both New Avenue Homes and Studio DuBois say their positions are remote, even "fully remote" but that seems to mean, no commute into an office required. Not, that there isn’t a geographic preference/requirement.

For the former, the "California Bay area". For the later, "It's a plus if the candidate is located in Austin or Central Texas."

School/Blogs

Howard University is making a historic $785 million investmentto revitalize its campus.

In the latest round of hiring news; 

• Gary Hilderbrand was appointed new chair of landscape architecture at Harvard GSD.   

• Effective July 25, 2022 C.L. Bohannon, PhD, ALSA, will become the first Associate Dean for Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (AD JEDI), at The University of Virginia’s School of Architecture.

• RISD professor Amy Kulper will be the next Director of University College London’s The Bartlett School of Architecture.

Discussion/Threads

For their first post ever, Hostim needed to vent "about the ineptitude of my studio instructors who have 0 regard for time…nor do they understand nor do they respect student's mental and physical health". Non Sequitur jumped right in "to your last point, while in school, process work is more important than the final product" and emphasized "A good project with a good design intent will beat any project if it’s only there to appease a studio prof."

For her part, tintt agreed "with the original poster, all-nighters are BS and a show of ridiculousness." Similarly, sillybilly commented "@ OP. Do not listen to the idiots here who think pulling all-nighters is a rite of passage or some filtering process…Some people in here think as long as they're being paid over-time for their all-nighters, then it's all good. It isn't."

On a related note, Everyday Architect Started a thread to discuss SCI-Arc's "How to be in an Office" event and the ensuing #HowNotToBeInAnOffice tweetstorm (?) by The Hustle Architect aka @VitruviusGrind. monosierra summed it all up well, "Gaslighting of the highest order".

Yet Orhan Ayyüce offered some insider perspective,

"I am an ancient graduate and this whole event wouldn't bode very well with my classmates. Barricades would be set up. These kids, however soft-spoken, are, smarter…It is like an SCI-Arc tradition. Every now and then students rise against the situation that bothers them. It is in the school's DNA. Sort of checks and balances…Knowing some of the panelists, they are not necessarily evil people nor are they there to exploit students…This is a good wake-up call from the bottom up."

Finally, cristiansotomayor was curious how/what tools folks use for energy analysis. whistler, Chad Miller  and a couple of other folks answered with some version of, they "sub it out". Though a few (including bowling_ball and Almosthip) just use a fancy "excel spreadsheet". At least for something as basic as "early validation of the thermal resistance of assemblies". Or maybe ComCHECK. Apparently no-one uses "grasshopper".

Additionally

The Winter/Spring 2022 issue of Jewish Currents, featured Linda Kintsler’s deep-dive into an effort to make Kyiv home to the biggest and most impressive Holocaust museum in all of Europe. The piece references, a new to me term, ”Shoahtecture” and closely examines ideas of national memory and differing approaches to memorialization.

More details of the proposal by querkraft architekten and kieran fraser landscape design can be found here.

Coincidentally, Archinect recently shared Iwan Baan’s photos of architect Manuel Herz's recently inaugurated (and visited by Linda Kinstler) synagogue at the Babyn Yar memorial site in Kyiv.