In Lautner's Concannon Residence, from Dust to Dust, Orhan Ayyüce explored the “nebulous subject” of architectural preservation. He questioned “In short, what is worth of preserving and who preserves the privately owned American House? Would the ultimate decision on preserving and historically monumentalizing of such privately owned and architecturally significant structures remain in the hands of their owners and their dedication and educated contribution to the rest of the city's occupants?”

News
Rowan Moore lamented the lack of nuance and complexity in both the design and historical memory represented by the new RAF Bomber Command memorial in Green Park, London. Architect Liam O'Connor explaining the inspiration and meaning behind his design concluded “As a memorial, the modern classicism of its architecture: half garden pavilion, half mausoleum, is designed to be both a testament to the sacrifice of the men of Bomber Command and a fitting addition to the ceremonial architecture in this special part of Westminster.”

For his part drmatthewhardy disagreed with Mr. Moore, writing “I don't think anyone expects Rowan Moore to approve of anything classical. This is a fabulous war memorial and an impressive and poignant reminder of the crews and their overwhelming sacrifice - 50% of them didn't return - and fits the vocabulary of 'war memorial' with gravity, sensitivity and tact...I dread the thought of a monument that, instead of memorialising the aircrews, sought to express more about the identity of the architect who created it, as we might have expected from many modern architects.”

Zaha Hadid argued that austerity is not an excuse for low-quality housing. Specifically she was quoted as saying “There needs to be investment. We need some sort of quality...All the privileged can travel, see different worlds, not everyone can. I think it is important for people to have an interesting locale nearby.”  in a Q and A session with Guardian deputy editor Kath Viner. HandsumCa$hMoneyYo quipped “that's funny.  Yeah of course the government should invest in quality but incase nobody's noticed the government has been too busy privatizing itself out of existence”  and since argued "'affordable' is another term for cheap architecture. it's never good, and that's why she doesn't do it. no point in competing against rats for scraps of cheese.”

Last week Columbia University Medical Center announced plans for a new, state-of-the-art medical and graduate education building on the CUMC campus in the Washington Heights community of Northern Manhattan. The new building, with a design led by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, in collaboration with Gensler as executive architect, is a 14-story glass tower which reflects how medicine is and will be taught, learned, and practiced in the 21st century. Archinector Given provided the following critique “I'm afraid that the allure of that rendering is in the depth of vision through the glass and seeing the 3d spaces within. I find it hard to believe that is going to carry through to the finished project even with the ‘incredibly clear’ glass that manufacturers make today. Also what is going on with the rest of that building?"

Work/Firms/Blogs
Courtney Creenan, who graduated this spring from University of Buffalo with dual M. Arch / M. Urban Planning degrees recently worked on “Elevator B @ Silo City” as part of the Hive City team.

Barthosa Nkurumeh, recently attended a “Design-Build Camp for Learning-by-Doing on African Architecture”.

The Behind the Archinect curtain blog announced a new feature, one of the most requested features from our users, radius searching! This new search ability can be used in  the following sections: Jobs, Talent Finder, Firms and Schools.

Butz Klug Architecture recently posted images of Hanson Street a project which by re-orientating, from the street to the back, the basement level of this narrow row house in Boston’s South End created a bluestone dining terrace and enhanced the kitchen.

Schools/School Blogs
Ryan Panos, at the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of  British Columbia is beginning to work on his masters thesis and wondered “With the centuries of architectural history, innumerable theories and concepts, literally an entire world of built work to draw on, how can a thesis be developed to break new ground?” ExArch clarified “It's not a matter of breaking new ground. It's a matter of utilizing centuries of built projects to solve new problems."

Justin Wang, at the Department of Architecture at Iowa State University reflected on some newly released images of Steven Holl's second proposed building for the school of Arts at University of Iowa. He contends “These renderings and models are still early, but it looks like Holl's studio has chosen to make a very different building from its neighbor. To me, it seems that some great opportunities to engage the existing structure are ignored, especially in the site planning.”

After eight months, design/buildLAB students  Virginia Tech have finished the Masonic Amphitheatre. Connely Farr, commented “beautiful project and detailing...”

On a recent trip to Switzerland Freda Weng Chu a MArch student from Washington University in St. Louis, currently studying abroad in Barcelona, Spain for 2 months, visited the Zentrum Paul Klee Museum and SANAA’s Rolex Center.

Discussion

lletdownl asked What to see during a quick trip to San Francisco? FRaC answered:

that herzog-n-demueron copper thingy (and don'tcha dare miss the turrell skyspace on the west side sculpture garden area please don't miss it!)
while you're in the park check out the science center bumpy roof opposite the copper thingy.  the japanese garden is sort of okay but maybe not worth the price of admission.
and the park is next door to h8 ash-burry and you're also close to the golden bridge so you can hit that up ('tis always cold walkin' out there ..)
another day you can hit up the museums close to AT&T park and walk on that crazy bridge in the rossi museum.  over there you're close to the financial district and transamerpyramidal building and then go the chinatown and finish at PIER 39 you gotta go there!  ghiradelli square and fisherman's wharf too omg!
or just walk around aimlessly and you might find some good stuff.

While Gregory Walker, recommended the william stout bookstore and suggested “skip the morphosis building - it's not exactly tourist friendly, so you'd mostly get to see the street view.”

Transparence started a thread with the statement Open spaces are becoming lesser in every city. Do major construction projects need to have open spaces as part of their site plans? Steven Ward, proposed “In downtowns, density should be the name of the game, with open spaces planned strategically as part of an urban idea, not a per-site quota. Wouldn't hurt in suburban development for that matter: consolidate those worthless landscape islands into something big enough to be meaningful. Plan whole corridors in relation to neighborhoods instead of just letting the 'strip' metastasize simply because it's got the requisite amount of dead grass for cig butts and cracked headlight lenses to collect in.”

bruceprice is looking for suggestions on note taking/information management software. Brandon Sargent, suggested “If you're just looking for a simple, flexible note taking program, I would suggest Evernote.  It is available in desktop, smartphone, and tablet versions that all sync with each other automatically when opened” and i r giv up agreed regarding evernote “i keep everything from receipts, a rolodex equivalent, an inspiration clips journal and an archive of every course i've ever taken on mine. for work related tasks lists, a lot of the people in my office use http://abstractspoon.com/ 's to-do list app. it has tons of features. it's essentially a mini-project management suite.”

Finally, inspired by a recent visit to Michael Heizer's Levitated Mass at LACMA, Barry Lehrman started a thread titled Welding - the good, the bad, the ugly. Rusty Shackleford posted the American Welding Society (AWS) standards and opined “Poor welding is just an indication of poor quality control. Quality control is 100% responsibility of the architect”. Meanwhile strlt_typ countered “It's tough to judge the strength of a weld by the way the bead looks because the strength of it lies in the penetration, which is not clearly visible.  Vice versa, a nice, fat-looking bead might not have enough penetration.  Reason why x-ray is used to truly test a weld.  Grinding welds smooth might look nicer but it's actually weakening the weld since you are removing material.”

Additionally
Today (7/2/12) at 6:30 PM the Critical and Activist practice: A Discussion an event organized by DSGN AGNC will be taking place, at the Austrian Cultural Forum.

Or, if you already missed todays event, check out MEDIA AS TACTIC: from print to practice, an event organized by DSGN AGNC, at the Austrian Cultural Forum scheduled for 07.08.12 || 04:00 PM.