As part of the Thesis Review series Katherine Guimapang connected with Gehry Prize winner and recent M.Arch graduate Sophie Akoury, to discuss her project, 51mi + 25km = 13ft, which explores "the city's infamous LA River and how its physical and historical existence parallels Lebanon's Beirut River."
Plus, Niall Patrick Walsh attended the 2022 World Architecture Festival and found that while
"The pandemic offered the architectural community an insight into what a digital version of WAF could be, and for now, the community remains unconvinced…retrospective reviews or analyses of an event do little to inform the event in real-time, nor do they offer the architectural community-at-large an opportunity to experience the social serendipity or critical acclaim that the physical WAF can so effortlessly execute. A widely-disseminated digital event is evidently not the current solution to this conundrum".
Harvard Business Review shared lessons from Frank Gehry's approach for successfully managing big projects which contrast to "the 91.5% of projects that fail to meet their time or budget targets." While some folks called bullshit given FOG budgets are "pretty high and thus accurate and achievable" Will Galloway countered "Better than pretending a building is going to be cheaper than it is, and then negotiating throughout construction and hope to avoid a train wreck."
ANNA Stay has won the World Hotel Building of the Year 2022 Award at the recent World Architecture Festival (WAF). subodinu and others liked what they saw and justavisual chimed in "This is great, I've stayed in one - was cold in March, but now there's a better insulated version we have our eye on for our property."
Over at Business Insider, Gensler Principal Steven Paynter discussed a new proprietary office conversion metric/tool. 18x32 questioned the details/tech, despite the term algorithm "it looks like almost pure Excel with a Google survey for input and formatted into a dashboard for output. Actual plan test fits (@18:00) look like they are done manually, not integrally through geometery modeling or ML like Hypar.io might do." On a related note, New York City Mayor Eric Adams released an ambitious plan to help convert the city’s unused office spaces into apartment dwellings.
In response reallynotmyname contended that "95 percent of the office to residential projects I've toured are drab collections of boxy little rooms" while monosierra argued "that there are some pretty good conversions - but they are luxury condos in prime locations…There is a very tough sweet spot where architecture, MEP, structure, code, interest rates, zoning and local politics come together to create a successful conversion adding to the stock of mid-market housing. But it is tough."
The Guardian’s Oliver Wainwright talked with Frances Anderton about the history of, and yet stigma against, apartments in Los Angeles. Donatello D'Anconia couldn’t help be a cynic and question "if Frances lives in an apartment herself?" but when her bonafides were authenticated Donatello was "Happy to see it's a non-luxury/older apartment too! Really great early Gehry too!"
R.I.P. Renée Gailhoustet at 93 and Balkrishna Doshi at 95.
Reflecting on some time spent interning as an undergrad for the later, sameolddoctor wrote "he would talk to us…and make sure we were learning something every day. What a great person...attribution to precedent and teachers speaks volumes of his humility."
The Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation received a significant grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for its work on a major audio documentary series called New Angle: Voice – Pioneering Women of American Architecture which will soon debut its second season.
Log 56 is a special issue and serves as the cataLog for ‘Model Behavior’ a group exhibition of models, architectural et al., which was curated by the Anyone Corporation and presented by The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at The Cooper Union, in New York City back in late 2022.
Recently, Esther Sperber unveiled photos "of Lincoln Towers Combination, an apartment renovation in the Upper West Side of Manhattan!"
Looking for a new gig?
In NYC AYON Studio is hiring a Preservation Architect while in Los Angeles, Bestor Architecture a Job Captain.
Or, Strada Architecture LLC, has a need for multiple licensed architects across their Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Chapel Hill studios.
The 2023 Get Lectured series kicked off with an entry featuring The University of Texas at Austin's Spring lineup.
Dr. Henry Tsang, an Assistant Professor in the RAIC Centre for Architecture at Athabasca University has curated a collection of artworks from the AU Art Collection for the exhibition The Vernacular Architecture of Canadian Towns: People and Habitat in Rural and Regional Communities.
Professor and architect Sille Pihlak is the new Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the Estonian Academy of Arts.
For those looking for work in higher education, Temple University is accepting applications for a full-time professor of practice in Architecture with review of applicants beginning on February 27, 2023. Otherwise, for something less academic the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has an opening on their Capital Project Management team. As long as you "possess a License to practice architecture in the State of North Carolina or have the ability to obtain one prior to start date." Note, the deadline to apply is 02/28/2023.
yesno had feelings/questions about "Archinect job listings and salary transparency laws". If the OP really cares, EveryDay Architect suspects they’d "have better luck getting something to change by filing a complaint with whatever agency is tasked with enforcing these laws in their respective jurisdictions." Nevertheless msparchitect seems to speak for many when opining "Legally responsible or not, Archinect should be on the side of it's userbase and not allow postings from…without salary information disclosed." Later Archinect reiterated the facts "job boards are not responsible for enforcing district laws surrounding this issue" yet also acknowledged internal discussions along the lines of a suggestion to require "a salary range regardless of state laws? You're a huge site that EVERYONE uses. Lead by example."
As someone not "crazy about the design side of the architecture profession" lalu wanted some advice "Is working for General Contractors a good idea?...Are all architects in a GC company called project engineers?" bretonbrut "made the jump to working for a GC after 10 years in traditional architectural offices" and has never looked back finding the pay "far superior to architect salaries". kaleksan notes "If you don't actually want to be an architect for a GC, they'll pop you into a wage category that's close to your abilities - project engineer is typically a starting position…depending on your skill you could end up being a PM."
Speaking of GCs, over on Thread Central axonapoplectic was curious if "anyone else experiencing moving target construction costs?...feel like GCs are pricing in multi-year escalation in their GMP…up 25% year over year on some things." Chad Miller confirmed "Prices haven’t been stable for the last three years" though curtkram also pointed out "CBRE had a good guide that says we'll go down to 2%-4% this year."
Finally, Lovearchitect wanted suggestions on postdigital architects, meaning folks working in the vein of "Perry Kulper, Andrew Kovacs, Ryota Matsumoto, Neyran Turan, and LADG, Young Ayala" though as Janosh quipped "All the OP's examples seem better described as Pre-Digital." For their part, graphemic is "familiar with Sam Jacob's use of the term" but also "it seems to have settled into a representational style…It's a group of people doing drawings in a maybe consistent way... really not any more serious than that!"
OM recommended checking out works by: T+E+A+M, MOS, Joseph Perry, Paul Preissner and maybe OMMX.
OG ‘Nector Javier Arbona started a newsletter and in one of the first editions he argues
"The usage of a person's name for memorials, especially since the work of Maya Lin at the Vietnam veterans memorial, has forced upon the dead a kind of ghosted animatronics for the permanence of empire, militarism, and policing. The sovereignty of the state (or its tax-sheltered agents, like non-profits) enact free speech to claim and reproduce a name on a memorial, no matter if it co-opts or distorts the wishes, spirituality, willingness, or ideas of the deceased"
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