Niall Patrick Walsh wrote the final (of 26 features) chapter of Archinect In-Depth: Artificial Intelligence.

Therein “New contributions on the topic from Autodesk's Mike Haley and Superusers author Randy Deutsch are joined by earlier reflections from throughout the series by Richard Saul Wurman, Carlo Ratti, Bjarke Ingels, and Molly Wright Steenson." One key takeaway: “AI will not replace architects, but architects who use AI will replace those who do not."

For those who’d missed any of the series, Will Galloway felt it a "Great summary" and wondered "If we do go all in to the AI future our role as creatives may be simply to feed the new infrastructure of information…How does the economics of that world even work? Will we be the tool users or the material that tools are made from?"

News

After seeing their new carbon analysis tool reallynotmyname opined "I don't know why Autodesk is obsessed with automating pre-design and conceptual tasks. This particular tool seems to emanate from an echo chamber of Autodesk's development team and a handful of giant firms that can spend the time to chase embodied carbon. They need to make AI assisted solutions for the tedious production stuff that employees don't want to do."

"Bunker Hill will soon have the largest concentration of buildings designed by Frank Gehry in the world" a fact which leads Liberalitarian to suggest "Gehry is a California treasure". On the other hand, sameolddoctor believes that "Based on what he did across from the concert hall, he should retire".

Josh Niland shared a few details and updates regarding the $750 million new David Geffen Galleries designed by Atelier Peter Zumthor. Even though reallynotmyname was not impressed with what they’ve seen to date, they did agree with Orhan Ayyüce "that improved visibility of the Goff building does appear to be a positive outcome of the Zumthor project."

The consensus seemed to be that Chris Pratt and Katherine Schwarzenegger chose poorly. As roland.genick explained "To replace a Craig Elwood with a…Ken Ungar is laughable.  I am not surprised that the two of them don’t know any better…what surprises me is that they are not smart enough to hire somebody that can advise them to do the right thing."

Eric Owen Moss’ first residential design in Los Angeles, hit the market for a listed price of $10.95 million. To Donna Sink "This is a really beautiful building" though she later clarified "the interior is beautiful. The exterior is cool but ungainly, as is all of EOM's work, IMO."

Meanwhile in economic news, The AIA/Deltek’s latest Architecture Billings Index showed a "continued decrease in economic activity while posting an improvement over March’s previously reported total of 43.6. With the latest Dodge Momentum Index also showing "an increase of 6.1% for April to a new score of 173.9. For the month, commercial planning improved by 12.6%, while institutional planning dropped by 6.3%."

R.I.P. Gaetano Pesce at 84. Plus Archinect remembered the life and legacy of Ball State University architecture professor Janice Shimizu, who passed away at the age of 54. b3tadine[sutures], haruki and others mourned the loss with Eric Lawler offering this eulogy "She was an amazing professor and mentor at Ball State. Now that I've lived in LA and followed her footsteps to a degree, I deeply admire how authentic, inspired, supportive, and incredibly warm she was…I feel truly privileged to have been in the architecture building while she was there."

Blogs/Firms/Work Updates

Mitch McEwen published a "reading of spatial violence through the croissant" which learns from a "seemingly entirely formalist and playful drawing sequence" by Enric Miralles.

Adrian Volz reminded folks that the 2023 Architectural Issue of "Archiprint is available for purchase at William Stout Architectural Books, McNally Jackson and Printed Matter!"

The folks at Studio MUKA were "honored…that…Redwood Estate…has been featured in Elle Decor."

Looking for work?

Scott Edwards Architecture in Portland, OR has (at last count) 6 openings and Pfeffer Torode Architecture is hiring for a Residential Architectural Designer with 5-7 Years of experience.

Or for something outside the USA, Max von Werz Architects (a Mexico City-based architecture practice) is in need of a Senior Architect. Applicants should be "skilled designers with a minimum of 5 years of experience".

Schools

WUSTL has announced the appointment of Aki Ishida as the next director of the Sam Fox School College of Architecture and Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design.

Looking for work in higher-ed? 

The School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P) at Morgan State University is looking for the next Chairperson of their Department of Architecture who will also serve as program director for the undergraduate program in Architecture and Environmental Design. 

Note to applicants, it is preferred you have "a Ph.D. in architecture or related field and/or professional licensure".

Or maybe you are interested in something in higher-ed but not academia? In which case Stanford University is hiring a Senior Associate Director of Architecture and Design for their Residential & Dining Enterprises (the largest auxiliary organization at Stanford University).

Discussion/Threads

bowling_ball had some questions about "in-house counsel…starting to wonder if it might be worth it (not that we can afford it yet)"? Later adding "This is where it started for us - having our insurer review some of our contracts, and they alerted us to some very important info that had gone, to that point, more or less completely unaddressed." natematt chimed in "We have 5 lawyers right now. Mostly for contract review, paperwork, and handling legal issues that come up". Others mentioned an outside lawyer perhaps on some "type of retainer" as making more sense depending on size of practice.

BulgarBlogger wanted to talk UpCodes. Specifically, they "can understand the benefits of using Upcodes, but am not comfortable with trusting anything but the source for code information. Thoughts?"

Based on the advice of a 45 years of experience "code expert", Chad Miller would never use them. Garrett Reynolds (UpCodes cofounder) even jumped in. For their part Wood Guy has tried a few times but just can’t get past "Upcodes' interface…I prefer the ICC site." Yet proto finds "its interface to be way easier than the ICC one. I think ICC has responded with pay access premium service that offers more interconnecting linking & usefulness, but I've not tried to go back yet as my state codes seem to be better covered with upcodes".

Eventually the discussion went sideways, so Donna Sink weighed in "Wow….Garrett, thank you for coming on and attempting to explain your position and the position of UpCodes. An unsolicited piece of advice for everyone is to generally ignore the wall-of-text posts from others. It seems the like and dislike buttons aren't working right now but there are several comments up there that are brief and informative which is lovely. Thank you for contributing, folks."

Finally, back in March smaarch shared some lovely memories of their "dear friend and former partner, Frank". As they are at "the age where every time I turn around I lose someone else". The thread hit "close to home" for some, with folks appreciating the reminder "on the importance of relationships in our lives".

Additionally

Check out this 1977 review by Ada Louise Huxtable of "Women in American Architecture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective", an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. 

Her conclusion? While it makes "a good read; the story of women in American architecture is so fascinating and frustrating…What emerges is a first‐rate history and a most unsettling picture of women's limited architectural achievements. All those bloody houses!...The record as a whole is pathetic, provocative, and distressing."