For the latest edition in his NEXT SERIES: features, Orhan Ayyüce spoofed the rise of architectural firms who hire media experts, also known as social media coordinators or marketing directors. The piece titled Media Specialist Wanted began provocatively "in architectural media, what it used to be ‘there is no such thing as bad publicity’ in the prime print years, has turned into ‘puffery is the only publicity’ in the age of social media and infinite promotion"...

Nicholas Cecchi doubted "an architect would personally insult someone who dislikes their building, why is OK for someone hired by an architect to do so? Have architects forgotten that they serve clients and the public, not their own egos and interests?".

While, Will Galloway offered up some praise for Orhan and an answer to Steven Ward’s previous comment/question "another great piece of irony truth and fiction, orhan. @ steven, we never pay to be published, except that it costs us a bit of time to prepare material...twitter and facebook sometimes leads to interesting contacts but most interesting people that drop a line from out of the blue are through archinect".
 

News
Sonja Haller of Arizona Republic News reported that the visionary architect Paolo Soleri,the Italian-born designer of the experimental Arizona city near Cordes Junction called Arcosanti, died Tuesday. He was 93. Apurimac bid him farewell "He will be missed.  I really do think he was on to something huge out there in that Arizona desert" and Boguslaw WITKOWSKI suggested "Paolo Soleri will miss to all of us and especially to whom who are involved into the evolution of the City research respecting the Nature. His works should be particularly inspiring together with the ideas of Sant’Ellia, Kenzo Tange and  Yona Friedman for the sake of our lost Cities".

Over at Places Journal, they published an excerpt from the new book Building Seagram, in which Phyllis Lambert recounts the evolution of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's architectural philosophy, from his early years in Berlin to the postwar American projects; in particular she explores his deep concern for the interrelationship between architecture and landscape, which culminated in his design for the Seagram Building.

Eric Chavkin was intrigued "Very good article by someone intimate with Mies' methods. The discussion on parallax is new to me. Recommended" and Evan Chakroff noted "I'm consistently impressed by the essays over at Design Observer. Great stuff...But no mention of the whiskey-colored glass?! Must be in another chapter...."

UNStudio announced that in June of this year they will launch the new organisation of its practice as an open-source knowledge-based practice operating projects around four specialised Knowledge Platforms. As part of the reorganisation of the studio a new interactive online knowledge platform will be launched, aimed at facilitating the open exchange of knowledge, with the ultimate goal of introducing and encouraging the expansion from a collaborative to a co-creative working model for architecture.

George Showman was interested "to see how much architects are willing and able to share on such a platform.  It's not clear to me exactly how it works yet for people outside of the specific projects", however thunderclap criticized "Almost certain this is nothing more than a publicity stunt...Behind this fog of feel-good rhetoric and abuse of the phrase ‘open-source’...My sense is UNStudio is going to do the same things they've been doing.  They're just going to release a couple more images or rough process material".

To which Darkman replied "I guess we shall see if they follow through or not. Then we can judge".          

Business Week let readers know that since 2011, the budget for Apple’s Campus 2 has ballooned from less than $3 billion to nearly $5 billion. rusty! opined "Apple has been hoarding cash for much too long. I hope Foster takes them for twice as much. Releasing all that mullah into general money pool can only help, no matter how simpleton-ic the architecture actually is" and Save Western felt "that we are seeing a bit of the skyscraper index at a corporate level"...
                          

Firms/Blogs/Work Updates

Waterfall Bay House in Marlborough, New Zealand by Bossley Architects

and Vilnius University Library, Science Communication and Information Center in Vilnius, Lithuania by PALEKO ARCH STUDIJA were just two of the projects featured in the latest post Ten Top Images on Archinect's "Architect Sure!" Pinterest Board.

Rajiv Vyas recently worked on Manglam Investment.

Over at the blog Architectural Ellipsis everydayintern provided a list (and some scoring) of a few architecture and design specific podcasts, that you might not have heard about. Therein everydayintern wrote about one of their favorite podcasts, "Whisper Cities: Sadly, there are only two episodes of this show created by Sam Greenspan. You'll hear that name come up in 99% Invisible episodes like this one and this one ... he's currently a producer for the show. My only hope is that someday Greenspan stumbles across this post and decides to resurrect his show".

In the second post of her new blog, Victoria Stepanov, Assoc. IIDA, walked us through one of her projects, a 2yr major renovation, of a 6-storey Tudor style house built in the 1920's. Although the results were really traditional, Oakhay really appreciated the way the renovation "brought a breath of fresh air to all the old stale spaces”.

Schools/Blogs
Jeffrey Maeshiro started a new school blog to document Points of interest from the MArch program at the California College of the Arts (CCA). His first post titled WHAT IS UTOPIA? reflected on an exhibition of 14 individual research projects, in-depth explorations of a particular historic or contemporary utopian venture, put together as part of a graduate architecture seminar—led by his indefatigable Professor Irene Cheng.

Naom Saragosti shared some images taken at Cal Poly Pomona’s Spring Interim exhibit, which showcased the "best" students' works from the previous quarter.

Kevin Griendling at Pratt Institute, admitted he has neglected his school blog, but took a break to plug his "current endeavors...Visual Sound Paintings grew from an academic exploration of the human sensory projections in urban social contexts" and the corresponding Kickstarter Campaign.

Farid Rakun, has finally dismantled the car and begun to install it's parts, for his thesis project, part of the upcoming 2013 Graduate Degree Exhibition of Cranbrook Academy of Art, exhibited at Cranbrook Art Museum.
 

Discussions
Paul Petrunia stopped by the forums to let it be known that there is a brand-spanking-new, (100% anonymous) Archinect Salary Poll. Evan Chakroff wanted to know if "this be ongoing/continuously updated, or once you've collected enough data, published as a snapshot, of 2013?" to which Paul replied "this will be an ongoing survey, with live results. Eventually, when this becomes a few years old, you'll be able filter the results within dates ranges so the data won't become tainted by outdated salaries".

legopiece quipped "Thanks archinect for verifying my belief that I am highly underpaid for what I do" while wurdan freo drew some early conclusions "Of the 1000 entries so far, only 8% of them are six figures or higher. Of that 8% a significant handful appear to be entered in foreign currency that may or may not be more valuable than the dollar..It's an early sample, but I can see a ceiling on architectural salaries in the 80-120k range as an employee".

Over at TC a few folks discussed the value or lack thereof, of architectural/design review boards. Donna Sink started things off by commenting "In our AIA Board meeting tonight we discussed a local city official who wants to improve the quality of our built environment (yay for city guy!).  One of his ideas was that he wants to have a design review group of some sort...There was much gnashing of teeth about architects offending other architects and it's a delicate situation and etc, ending with the question: how would we do this? My response was I'd drink a bourbon and then start talking. It really is that easy".

Miles Jaffe put forward the belief that "Architectural review boards are problematic. If staffed them with architects you invariably have conflicts of ego and interest. If staffed with laymen you're better off not having a review board. Never thought about having them run by AA, but that might actually be the most viable solution" yet, snooker-doodle-dandy argued "Architectural Review Boards have been around for awhile....I have been on both ends of the stick, and it has helped me in presenting my projects not only to review boards but also to  P&Z, insland wetland boards, and ZBA Boards". toasteroven opined "IMO - should be more like an advisory committee to help move along a zoning appeal process...I've been through design reviews around here - it's far more collegial and productive than a neighborhood hearing in a place where a bunch of architects live".

Finally, piero1910 wanted to discuss Who is a more experimental and challenging architect, Koolhaas or Herzog and De Meuron? IamGray answered "Frankly, I find HdM's collection of work to be more varied and diverse than OMA's. Doesn't necessarily mean it's more experimental though" while CAMARO argued "They are both very experimental, but they deal with different stuff. It depends what do you prefer. HdM experiment with materials and technology, leaving experiment outside, on the facade and appearance. OMA/ Koolhaas experiment with program and function of the building".
 

Additionally

Reacting to the news that MoMA will raze TWBTA’s  ex-American Folk Art Museum building some have launched #FolkMoMA ; a quick crowdsourced protest/impromptu call for ideas.