In the latest Contours feature Guy Horton, asked What Should Architecture Occupy? He concluded that, "occupying is a state of mind more than anything. It’s a stance, an orientation, an outlook, a perspective. Where do you stand right now?”
EllaStelter responds “Architects certainly aren't part of the 1%, but we do generally serve their interests.  From what I see, architecture is a profession that is rather resistant to change and challenging the status quo, even when it is in our best interests."

Don’t forget to participate in Archinect’s anonymous #OWS survey

William Hunter, wrote about a group of student’s, from UCL Bartlett Development Planning Unit’s MSc Building and Urban Design in Development (BUDD) course, attempts at Decoding Bangkok’s Pocket-Urbanization. While in Bangkok for three weeks the students worked closely with two local organizations CODI and BMP. William argued that the main reason for this teamup was the fact that "truly participatory design arguably requires additional skill, values, and creativity from the architects beyond those practiced in the conventional practice" Moreover, since the work of both CODI and BMP is focused on the support and delivery of social housing and urban community upgrading projects, they made perfect partners.

News
Boston-based design and digital fabrication firm Radlab, Inc sent us an exceptionally cute example of robo milling: a baby crib with a twist. The project they write was "commissioned with an interest in creating an alternative to the standard crib: solid instead of slatted, low and partially open rather than high and closed off, compelling and integral as opposed to generic and alien.” 

Donna Sink, responded to criticism of the project by some commenters, contended that "This is a lovely piece of furniture as an object.  Whether it's a good crib or not is the clients' call, I think.” To which won and done williams replied  "'western panic culture'? I'm surprised to hear that coming from you, Donna. Parents live in a perpetual state alternating between panic and guilt. It's part of being a parent. I don't need an artsy-fartsy crib contributing to my anxiety."

Architects do a lousy job of selling their ideas to the general public, said Bjarke Ingels, on Thursday morning during his keynote address at Architectural Record’s annual Innovation conference in New York. oneLOSTarchitect couldn’t agree more writing "a lot of architects feel that they need to talk sophisticated, and out of their ass to feel elite, or however they want to stroke their ego. if there was one thing i took from theory class, don't talk theory with clients. talk to them at their level. dead on!"

Google announced it will open acampus in Frank Gehry's Binoculars Building. Which led Orhan Ayyüce to ponder "for all that 'technology' talk, no new building type or program required no matter what the client does with administrative or creative production, google etc.. what does that tell you about integrating architecture to the times of technology? or, is it the old chair-desk-task-cubicle no matter what the technology means?"

Schools/School Blogs
Lian at GSD live-blogged by by Wang Shu from Amateur Architecture Studio on Geometry and Narrative of Natural Form. During the lecture he listed some of the big critical questions he is concerned with: 

How do we face china's "unusual situation of great explosion of new architecture"?
How do we face the "delirious wave of development"?
In this country whom most strongly embracing globalization on this globe, how do we emphasize the respect for and blending into the Chinese traditional culture?
And can we melt down the conflicts of the so called nationalization and localization?

Stephanie at Kunstakademiets Arkitektskole, compiled a list of titled Architecture Student Weaknesses: Things Architecture Students Suck At That They Should Be Experts At. Brian Henry then questioned the tension between studying about architecture in school and learning architecture as a professional "So from my point of view, it seems that there is an understanding that the things that we as students wanted to learn about the profession (and many times from the professionals) is important and valuable, but there is no sense of responsibility or ownership from the academics and educators to actually teach us these things. Maybe the better way to say it is there was no sense of ownership for expecting us to learn these things; let's face it, in the end it wasn't about a building itself ... it was about a building that looked good pinned up on the wall."

hsolie at University of Michigan School of Architecture discussed his course "Networks Studio: Crossing Infrastructures" in which his section is investigating the "Big Box.

While Jemeul at The Cooper Union gave us an inside scoop on the range of  indoor discussions, and peaceful and productive events happening at Cooper in light of Cooper’s  serious financial predicament. For more check out Javier Arbona’s BEZOAR Options on the table.

Work Updates/Firm Updates/Blogs
Quilian Riano,  of DSGN AGNC invited us to join #whOWNSpace. A collaboration which him and others started with hopes it will serve as a way for like-minded art, design, architecture, activist, etc... groups to talk about and take action on the open and "public" spaces in our cities.

dnc300 hopes that their blog will forge a shared language for planting and ecology that is free of buzzwords and horticultural jargon. Also Duc Le, at Woodbury University celebrated his 30th birthday with his first post for his school blog, which featured  a short, stop-motion animated piece.

Check out MACA a multidisciplinary office based in Madrid who recently posted images of their medical center in Porreres, Mallorca, Spain.

Amy Leedham posted a pre Holloween guide decoding energy modeling software and had to remind MixmasterFestus that Archinect does have a “Like” function.

Recently while in Houston Alfonso E. Hernandez visited Prof. John Zemanek in his new house in Montrose. He found that the house in general "meets the 3 categories he thinks a sustainable building should have = it is helioresponsive...it is biomorphic...and it isanentropic".

Discussion Threads

Gregory Walker, noted that Zaha Hadid Architects now has an app for that and thinks they may have finally jumped the shark. However, Steven Ward thought  that "in a context where your business is built on maintaining your brand, this probably doesn't seem like a  tough or strange decision at all." and lletdownl agreed arguing that  "it makes perfect sense to me to develop a method of viewing your work targeted specifically to the fastest growing method of browsing.  The fact that its accessible while not online aside, more and more people see our work via ipads, at the expense of standard browsers...i think its pretty smart honestly".

le-vine is getting ready to work on his university architecture dissertation and wants our opinion on whether "architecture can be used as an argument for change and create an ideology powerful enough to affect politics and help towards solving governing issues, especially in Communist countries"?

urbanists says yes and posted that while "this isn't what you meant, but for what it's worth China (and I've heard Orange Co. CA) use urban planning and design standards that limit opportunities for political protests (public squares are discouraged or are punctured with large planters, the carriageway of streets is made unaccessible by street furniture/foliate that physically separates it form the too-narrow sidewalk, etc, etc" Janosh suggested that le-vine track down a lecture by Laura Crescimano at Berkeley entitled Fast Loud and Out of Control. He recently attended at the After Effects symposium at OSU. Apparently the lecture “dealt with the role of architecture in civil disobedience” and offered up  "the only compelling argument that I've heard that architecture can effect positive political change".

cian@taka.ie is looking for "good documentation on Mendes da Rochas own house (in Butanta area of Sao Paulo".

Finally, emergency exit wound started a thread dedicated to Quondam's Fifteenth Anniversary. He went on to ask (presumably triggered by the need to select one as an option when starting the thread "Oh, and what do you suppose the difference is between Culture and Random Tangents? Could it possibly be that one is actually inferior to the other? Now that I think about it though, culture today is nothing but random tangents".