Archinect’s newest ShowCase features the new Herta and Paul Amir Building at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art by Preston Scott Cohen, Inc., with photographs by Amit Geron. All the commenters thought the building was a beauty. However, they had a number of questions or suggestions regarding the buildings formal exuberance. For instance collage thinks that while the "The interiors are wonderful! The facets on the exterior would benefit from being abit smaller...". For his part eric chavkin questions "Is all of the interior dynamics necessarily?...This is an active engaging work of architecture. I wonder how, or if, the museum artworks would be effected  by the architecture?"

Sherin Wing, wants to talk about Gender and Design Leadership. Drawing on an Economist study she suggests a major reason for the dearth of women in corporate leadership, is because of motherhood. Sherin then argues that the best way to change this fact is through policy. She writes, "Obviously it isn’t going to change overnight. But addressing the major factor of motherhood, one thing, as suggested in the Economist article is to extend both maternity and paternity leave. Another is to provide better childcare once women return to work. Childcare that is more flexible like in Western Europe so that the hours match the working hours of parents. Additionally it would be helpful to institute flexible working hours for parents."

In response feelandtriple felt "This is a good start to this much needed conversation. Unfortunately, it only addresses corporate firms...Flextime and working from home can be a good model for smaller firms, but other benefits are out of the question...Articles like this have been repeated over the years, but attitudes are not changing.", but although elinor agrees that the issues are important she was "dismayed (a bit angry, frankly), to see them addressed so superficially."

News
The NYT's looked at the Bloomberg administration’s contest to create a school of applied sciences in the NY area and how the various schools are all offering plans which are designed to high environmental standards. o d b posts that it would be nice "to hear some of the architectural and urban design merits of the schemes, or at least descriptions of them, and not just a checklist of all the sustainable features of the scheme.” However, jeffry_136 reminds him "didn't you get the memo?  sustainability IS architectural merit enough!  geez, I thought everybody had heard..."

Personally, I thought Julie Iovine offered a strong critique along similar lines, in her article for the Architects Newspaper wherein she pointed out "Interestingly, with all the rhetoric about sustainability flying, neither Cornell nor Stanford seem to have seriously considered re-using the Goldwater Hospital buildings."

BlueSteel is curious whether the recent announcement that TDIC has temporarily dropped plans to award a major construction contract for the Saadiyat Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi, has anything to do with "why Gehry's office had it's latest round of layoffs last Friday."

Phaidon photographer Bryan Kelly for Phaidon recorded the three hours of public opening at TWA Terminal building which recently opened temporarily after the extensive renovations by Beyer Binder Belle Architects. Derek Kaplan believes that "for all their effort on sexy compositions of surfaces and edges, zaha, unstudio, coophimmelblau, preston scott cohen, et al have yet to touch this..."

Schools/School Blogs
BW GUSTAFSON, discussed the work of the technology course he is taking with
Lluis Ortega, who is new to UIC. The course is designed around examining one pre-digital project/building and one contemporary response dealing with a same set of issues or techniques. Followed by developing a project combining the two approaches. He shares an image from David Mulder's and Anh Pham's pavilion/installation which was a response to Greg Lynn's Blob Wall and Aalvar Alto's brick facade variations. Then goes on to say "I think this approach to production by first looking back to a historical precedence, then looking at contemporary responses to the issue, then finally positioning our design or arguments within that genealogy, is typical of the working order around UIC."

Farid Rakun, documents the trial and error process of figuring out how to connect the 4' x 8' frame of his Pop-Up Store challenge together. He also has this to say about Cranbrook Academy of Art: "Cranbrook is about building—not the noun, but the verb; not the object, but the action. Even if you're into Arduino, Processing, Kinect, and openFrameworks, you still need to build upon your ideas. It is believed to be the path to reality. Whose reality? Mostly yours, of course."

The 17 architecture students at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) participating in a design/build studio in which they will design and build an amphitheater in Clifton Forge, VA, conducted a series of interviews, with the community of Clifton Forge at the Clifton Forge School of the Arts in order to better understand what the community wants.

Lauren Bebry says hello with her first post. Lauren is a third year M. Arch student at Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan.  She isin the process of working through her final design studio and formulating her thesis.  She promises to expound more on Rough + Orange and AS-BUILT, the studio and thesis groups that I chose to pursue, as time goes on.

Work Updates/Firm Updates/Blogs
Thomas C Peluso, recently worked on a Roof Deck - Line of Sight Analysis while Claire Wood, is ..currently working on a small design build project for a boathouse!

Nichole Fichera, inspired by a quote from a recent  Harvard Business Review interview with Frank Gehry, wherein Gehry said he "only accept jobs where I work with the decision maker", reflected on how keeping the decision makers close brings your vision closer. She states "He sets it up as a basic project requirement which cannot be compromised--and not compromising on that crucial, structural project team decision leads to both greater freedom on the part of the designer and higher perceived value on the part of the client. It's a classic win-win." Gregory Walker, suggested that what really makes Gehry’s business model innovative is "less about making his buildings 'economically competitive' as an end but that he's done more than most to shift risk management equations. Meaning, the level of precision and transfer-ability of the drawings to the actual production has helped make the building more understandable to the contractors, which removes the kind of hedging they might do otherwise. That's what gets them to a level of (highly relative) 'affordability'."

Discussion Threads
phld21 noted that a wide range of trade organizations are lobbying the US Congressional deficit reduction supercommittee, and wants to know why the AIA isn’t in on the action? Steven Ward, clarified that "the aia does lobby, but usually only for things about which there is a *very* clear consensus among their membership. i bet how to approach deficit reduction is not one of those issues."

Derek Kaplan, started a thread to respond to a comment rusty! made elsewhere. rusty! essentially warned "3D modeling and subsequent rendering process is pretty much an entry level position in architecture. For any young pups reading this, try to distance yourself from doing these professionally as soon as you can" While Derek agrees with rusty! that this is true for an older generation of prinicpals and firms he goes on to argue that "3D fluency benefits every stage of the design process, period.  And, if properly used, offers returns in efficiency for any somewhat complex building.  Unfortunately, 3D modeling becoming more widely incorporated, and thereby getting some of the professional respect it deserves, likely will only come after a lot of turnover at the upper levels.  Until then, Rusty’s advice/warning is sound". won and done williams countered "yes, fundementally architecture is about the creation of three dimensional space, but in terms of the practice of architecture, 3D modelling and rendering is only a piece of it, albeit a very important one." While jmanganelli argued, "it is true that there is a difference between the way a fully functioning architect uses 3d to explore ideas and the way a 3d artist goes about making an incredible, artful architectural visualization.  not only do they serve different purposes, but they each require fundamentally different skills and uses of the tools".

Spackle recently met with a design/build contractor who he convinced to use his rendering skills to produce...well, nice renderings. What should Spackle charge an hour?
Urbanist thinks "The only difference between hiring a firm or an independent contractor should be the profit (the markup a firm charges above and beyond salaries and overhead)." J James R, reminded him not to forget "professional E&O, loss or some variety of insurance like that".

Finally, after some googling feelandtriple is disgusted by the lack of small firms in the US that offer maternity leave and has some questions about how to broach the subject with her own employeer. tinydancer provided her own experience which wasn’t good. She wrote "Unfortunately, this is still a 'gool 'ol boy" profession which is a real shame because the industry does lose a lot of good architects that are women.  I had a baby and before my leave discussed in length what options I would have and they were open to part time work and telecommuting.  When I returned from my maternity leave, they said no to all of it." quizzical commented "Many - but not all - small firms will try to mimic FMLA (to the extent possible) even though they are not required to comply with its requirements. I recommend that you use FMLA as a starting point in your discussions with your employer."