Now that the "dust has settled" Niall Patrick Walsh caught up with "three firms in differing parts of the U.S. to hear their reflections on how the profession fared during the pandemic, and where it goes next". Plus, for a broader perspective, he spoke with AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker.

There was a definite theme to the commentary with archinine confused "Why is it so complicated? Money. Pay people a living wage and they will work. Licensed architect with 7-10 years of experience here. The so called unicorn. I do NOT work in an architecture firm". hkcasi agreed "Why are there so few people sitting around in bottom tier positions in offices for 7+ years? Because we can't afford to!"

News

Construction has begun, on the Skanderbeg Building by MVRDV, that will provide functional housing and be one of the world’s largest buildings that double as a sculpture. Orhan Ayyüce shared the opinion of an Albanian American architect he knows "This is incredibly infantilizing, insulting, and dangerous. Forcing dumb nationalism through dumb formal metaphor."

ericd_weber was impressed, but not surprised, by the new 123-room Ace Hotel in Toronto "exquisite work as always from Shim-Sutcliffe!".

Archinect invited prospective, current, and recently licensed candidates to take part in a survey on the topic. A bunch of folks, jumped into the comments with reallynotmyname agreeing with those saying IDP "absolutely should be eliminated". They also supported the idea of "free-thinking state boards” versus the current “NCARB puppet board". Moreover, Edward Singer felt "this focus on licensure is misguided.  I doubt it is responsible for the lack of diversity in the profession. I would look at the demographics of those who enroll and graduate from accredited architecture schools…definitely improvements to be made to the licensure process, but…to address a lack of diversity…focus on academia".

Marina Tabassum was named the 2022 Lisbon Triennale Millennium Lifetime Achievement Award winner. alamdararastu greatly admires "the brickwork and design of the Rouf Mosque. Marina Tabassum has this rare talent of taking simple natural building materials and through the shear force of her design make them beautiful…I feel that Marina Tabassum is a kindred spirit with Francis Kere."

Treehugger published an exchange with an anonymous Twitter account/author of the ARCHITECTURE DEGROWTH MANIFESTO. b3tadine[sutures] countered "There already exists a Marxist approach to this, as cited above, that takes class into account, and doesn't place the burden on workers needing to survive. Degrowth is an axe, when a scalpel is what is necessary." Following which ArchitectureDegrowthManif clarified a few things "In fact, despite its title the manifesto doesn’t really talk at all about degrowth. It’s really more about acts of refusal for architects. I don’t really know if that’s truly degrowth, socialism, or just a reflection of some kind of deep existential burnout."                            

During the last dregs of summer, the architecture community lost; influential GSA chief architect Ed Feiner, Belgian architect, Lucien Kroll and former Venturi, Scott Brown partner, John Rauch.

Blogs/Firms/Work Updates

Back in August, Selim Senin was working on a "Planetarium diagram" while Tianyu Yang was editing their "book about the early history of crime scene drawing and photographic technologies in the 19th Century."

Schools

Folks had a lot to say about the news that Andrés Jaque was appointed Dean of Columbia GSAPP. Some saw it as emblematic of everything wrong with a school too focused on a left-wing, marxist "idea of architecture embedded in social injustice". However, FrankLloydWhy argued "I thought this was an excellent successor, someone who's opened the door to new perspectives on architecture and is beloved by students and faculty alike…I think Andres Jaque brings a different perspective on politics - something a bit more critical on architecture and less preachy, although I may be wrong. Time will tell."

ETH Zurich hired Mariam Kamara, one of twelve new professors making up a now predominantly, female faculty.

ICYMI, USC School of Architecture was the first entree in Archinect’s Fall 2022 Get Lectured series.

Discussion/Threads

Strange Cascades is looking for advice on how to "make the leap to a future role that's more in line with my interests of management, staffing, business development, client relations, space planning, and design strategy; and less direct involvement in ‘box-ticking’ production tasks, as David Graeber would say."

flatroof’s probably wasn’t the answer OP was looking for "This is the fate of 80%+ of all arch grads, really. No one stops drafting you just get PM duties added on with the same impossible deadlines as before since your principals don't know how to open Revit or print to PDF." gibbost believed "Mono's comment...is spot-on for determining who grows out of drafter and into a true PM role." blackdogsketch added "If you move to a PM role, there's absolutely no reason you should still be drafting.  That's not what a PM does and it ineffective use of your time and energy in the firm." From what the OP was saying Stasis thinks they should consider "more of a Design Director or even a Design Principal role where you focus on the earlier part of the project phases.  I think it's a great path, but doing so in a firm only doing SD and DD seems risky to me as you also pointed out."

sleepearlier complained about the cost of membership in both the Ontario Association Of Architects and Architectural Institute of British Columbia. Especially when compared to costs in Australia, UK or US. Non Sequitur responded "you get a lot of services for 1k/year with the OAA. It's not that much money for those who's job actually pays them to use their stamp" while bowling_ball reminded everyone that in terms of the cost of doing business, licensure pales in comparison to "My firm's annual insurance premium? Take that number and multiply it by just over 100."           

Finally, CookieJar has heard "building a hillside house on stilts is marginally less expensive and easier than constructing a standard hillside home with an elaborate foundation" and was curious whether that is true? As you might expect a number of commentators told them to in no simple terms "Hire a fucking architect and structural engineer."

Although proto has "No idea on a delta btwn stepped foundations vs stilts" they didn’t think "it's significant for this level of dreaming" (the OP would love to build "a single story, 1,500 to 2,000 square foot classic MCM Neutra-esque hillside house on stilts"). atelier nobody did offer some "free advice from an LA architect...Building Codes have changed a LOT since all of those beautiful stilt houses were built back in the 40s-60s, which is why you don't see many newer houses built that way. I'm not an expert, but my guess is it's probably not a big cost saving anymore, possibly even more expensive, and maybe just not possible at all…There are structural engineers who specialize in Los Angeles hillside construction - I'd look for one of them for real advice."

Additionally

Over at Cosmonaut, Harry Zehner weighs in on the discourse and politics of the YIMBY-NIMBY divide. To wit;

"A socialist housing movement needs to reject both YIMBYism and NIMBYism and embrace a rhetoric and practice which values working class community control over housing development at any cost…As socialists, we must fight not just for more and better housing (which is often needed!) but for community-controlled, permanently decommodified housing…Our task is, as always, to organize a mass tenant movement."