Compared to the Summer 2020 survey, the latest Archinect community mental health survey results show a moderate recovery since the COVID-19 pandemic, "although 34.1% still rate theirs at 5 or below".

For instance, h0wl works for "a pretty progressive company" and they still "feel burnt out" which makes sense since as gwharton noted "Unmanaged free-floating anxiety seems to be a significantly increasing problem. I'm not sure what to even do about that, since it seems to be a general symptom of modern living."

News

The Chicago Athenaeum and the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies announced a group of Turkish architects and human rights activists as the 2023 European Prize for Architecture laureates. Orhan Ayyüce applauded "Gezi Park activists have no place in prison and harsh terms. Wonderful award to the right people. Gezi Park is modern times' first urbanist revolt and the government uses it to punish valuable intellectuals and urbanists. The Turkish government's paranoia against these people is very unjust and backward."

Yahoo! Finance compiled a list of the highest-paying countries for architects, with Switzerland taking the top spot. Zingaro7777777 had some thoughts on the number for Ireland. Niall Patrick Walsh (also an architect in Ireland) agreed "your 40,000 EUR for architects who've just joined the register sounds right, though in a large firm in Dublin you should expect at least 5,000 EUR more. Director levels also sound right to me."

New College of Florida selected Brooks+Scarpa, STUDIOS Architecture, and Sweet Sparkman Architecture & Interiors as the three finalists in a competition to redesign I.M. Pei’s early-60s dormitory complex for the school.

reallynotmyname was worried "The competition brief is pretty weird in the way that it's contradictory aims aims are to keep the buildings while apparently stripping them of their function as student housing. I fear that the university will dick around with this quarter-baked reuse scheme for a few years and then abandon it for lack of funds.  The DeSantis crowd will then arrange to demolish the complex."

AIA Los Angeles penned an open letter to 2028 Olympics & Paralympics organizers emphasizing "the importance of placemaking and the games’ eventual aftermath". Quasimotor encouraged folks to get involved "This is a golden opportunity for all architects, the AIA, architecture schools like USC, UCLA, SCI-ARC, Woodbury and Cal Sate Pomona, artistes and designers".

Arquitectonica will masterplan and design a new $1 billion mixed-use healthcare development in Miami’s Medical District. The consensus among 'Nectors seems to be "Dear sweet Jesus that is ugly" and they used to do it better...

WHY Architecture is a defendant in a lawsuit over the San Francisco Asian Art Museum expansion project. Donna Sink has "heard stories of WHY’s specifications being thin and relying on reviewing mock-ups of different parts of the building on site, but also any contractor of this type of project should be able to build an envelope that doesn’t leak* even absent a detail for every connection." Which jives with archanonymous’s experience "Swinerton is really awful to work with…They want to work exactly to what is in the drawings with 0 collaboration or deviation, and are either unwilling or unable to engage in the typical RFI/ Mockup/ Site coordination process."

Lorcan O’Herlihy is the 2023 Maybeck Award winner. Kilroy Rogers was pleased 

"Bravo. Here in West Hollywood and environs, we have several fine examples of LOHA works that are always interesting, and in most cases live up to the renderings, a rarity today."

R.I.P. Canada lost two greats in September, Raymond Moriyama at 93 and Claude Cormier at 63. Reflecting on the former, Non Sequitur wrote "such a loss.  I was not aware he was into his 90s...I pass by the Canadian war museum everyday.  Great project."

Blogs/Firms/Work Updates

David C. McFadden started a series "looking at famous buildings in history and what sustainable materials and energy-efficient measures could be used today that were not available when the project was built to qualify the building as platinum LEED Certified. In this case, the 1949 architect Philip Johnson's glass house." Both Volunteer and Orhan Ayyüce had a similar reaction "leave it the hell alone" aka "It is a museum quality architecture and not to be remodeled but preserved as is."

Meanwhile Aedas reminded you that the G20 Summit 2023 was held at the Aedas-designed (123.5 acres) Pragati Maidan convention centre.

Looking for work?

• Denton House Design Studio in Austin/Spicewood is hiring a Senior Architect for "the Thomas Ranch project…a pioneering new 2,200 acre development for a new way of life in the beautifully wild Hill Country of Central Texas."
• While EskewDumezRipple is looking for Healthcare Project Architect to join their New Orleans studio.
• Or if you want to work in the public sector, Maryland State Department of Education has an opening in School Facilities Architect and Research. Where your job will include providing technical assistance, coordinating special capital projects and assisting "with research and development of standards and guidelines for the planning and design of school facilities".

Schools

With Fall public programming in full swing, Katherine Guimapang provided a curated selection of events at partner schools. See Part I and II. 

Of note, on November 8th, The Architectural League of New York and Parsons School of Design’s Healthy Materials Lab convened a group of experts to discuss the broad potential of hemp-based building materials.

Looking for a new job in higher education? The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa has two tenure track positions in both Advanced Studio Design and Construction Management. Note "Review of applications will begin on December 18, 2023, and will continue until the position is filled."

Otherwise want something less academic? Darthmouth is looking for a Digital Fabrication Specialist.

Discussion/Threads

Halloween is now behind us, but in the run up Archinect wanted to hear your scariest (true) stories from everyday dealings within the vast world of architecture. The last (to date) entry is from Broadstreetexpresstrain "My horror story was being laid off and out of work for a year during the Great Recession in 2009."

Non Sequitur has noticed "a new movement to provide feminine hygiene disposals and dispensers in all multi-stall male and single-user washroom facilities currently under lease or owned by the Canadian federal government."

Donna Sink argued "Accessibility and inclusivity in bathroom facilities should absolutely be the norm in all buildings." Things then turned to a future of "adult changing tables…Technically called nursing benches/stations."

curtkram noted "it's in the code now. section 1110.4 of the 2024 IBC. it will not likely be required for a small restaurant." atelier nobody then suggested "the point we're moving toward will be…toilets will have to be designed with real walls and doors instead of partitions…I've already started pushing for this in new work (against a LOT of pushback), but how to achieve inclusivity when retrofitting existing public toilets is a real head-scratcher…" In the end as Chad Miller outlined "Simple - make it so that people with mobility, sight, and hearing issues can still use a building safely with minimal assistance."

Finally, Almosthip shared how they’ve earned the label "the dream crusher in the office"! Namely, by being realistic and upfront about potential barriers or costs to doing an adaptive reuse daycare. Wood Guy was able to relate "They usually get kind of mad at me and leave in a huff, assuming they'll find someone who tells them what they want." Ultimately as Josh Mings pointed out though "better to bring that up before a contract is signed."

Additionally

Over at The Millions, Doug Bruns wrote about visits to his favorite Writers’ Haunts "All this is a way of working round back to Chatwin’s observation that there are writers who dig in and writers who move. I did not find the writers I sought. The men and women who had dug in did not remain, but for the Sage of Concord…The peripatetic writers…perhaps for this very reason, because they did not dig in, they are more ready instruments of the imagination."