Paul Petrunia spoke with Ali Jeevanjee and Ben Anderson from the Flux Foundation, an Oakland based organization dedicated to producing large scale public art via a collaborative process. To this end they installed Sidewalk's End at this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, California, back in April 2013.

News
Over at the LA Times Christopher Hawthorne reported on LACMA's unfurled Peter Zumthor's design. Mr. Hawthorne wrote "Still a work in progress, the design is full of gestures that are more speculative, even searching, than fully formed. One crucial element that remains under-developed is how it will feel to walk beneath the museum's raised main floor — and how the underside of the building will be clad or look as seen from the ground. (In such a large, dark piece of architecture it will be important to keep that space from feeling cave-like.) The plan so far has little to say about landscape architecture". Gregory Walker had a few questions "is this really any different (in overall approach) than OMA's ill-fated masterplan from roughly 10 years ago? Will this truly solve LACMA's core collections questions? And would the money raised be much better allocated towards improving those, the existing facilities and creating a long term operations fund to help stabilize the institution?"....

Miles Jaffe couldn’t help but wonder "how the fees are structured on a half-billion dollar project …"

BIG unveiled a design for a Lego Visitor Centre at the birthplace of the Lego Group in Denmark. jadzia criticized "The beginning of the video illustrates the kind of playfulness that I miss when the clean and fancy interiors are shown". Derek Kaplan agreed in part "This is a high end art museum, with the art exhibition swapped out for legos.  some space devoted to the crazy cool art people actually do with legos makes total sense, but it seems like there is little else. Where is the fun?  What are the people doing?  Why would I take my kids there?....Legos are the toy version of unitized construction -- the building concept could reflect this?  The building design seems like a generic high end container, and the programming as depicted seems woefully non-interactive".

The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2013, designed by multi award-winning Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto, opened on 8 June. In a video tour of the pavilion architecture critic Oliver Wainwright described his experience as like "sitting in a giant garden trellis".

Founder of 3D printing company 3D Print UK, Nick Allen made the argument that 3D printing is overhyped! ilya believed "Its always hard to predict the future, but the 3D technology is still in its infancy - with so many different opportunities..I am fascinated on how it is not only used in rapid prototyping but in medical sphere where body parts are literary being printed right now...haters are gonna hate".

Firms/Blogs/Work Updates
Mitch McEwen has completed her residency at Akademie Schloss Solitude for the moment and is back in New York for the summer. While in NY, her office is mobile, and she provides the specs, "Everything's in a hard-body VCR case that I found last year in Brooklyn and thoroughly disinfected".

TARH O AMAYESH one of Iran’s largest architectural firms has uploaded images of Koohbor House. Back in September 2009 the firm won The International Architecture Award from The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Center for Architecture, Art Design and urban Studies, for the project.

The Settlements and City Strategies series by Olalekan Jeyifous and  The House As A Metaphor: Dream House by Michael Jantzen were just two of the projects featured recently on the Ten Top Images on Archinect's "Art-chitecture" Pinterest Board.

Georgios Artopoulos, proposed an Urban Park of Environmental Education as his competition entry for a scheme in Nicosia Cyprus, seeking to highlight the natural wonders of Kakaristra gorge. The project included a Centre of Environmental Information, along with a café-restaurant and amphitheatre complex.

Joann Lui reflected on the study of an office colleague who had analyzed "Le Mani Sulla Citta" (Hands Over the City) a drama film directed by Francesco Rosi, and asked "What's your take on building speculation? Do you prefer large scale or small scale speculation"?

Schools/Blogs
Students in the design/buildLAB at Virginia Tech were excited for Crane Day. After months of designing, planning, and construction they craned the bridge into place. It took all day, but each piece of the bridge has been placed and bolted!

Anthony Sunga at Columbia University posted photos of TINA* at EOYS.

Professor Ann Dickson, former director of the University of Kentucky School of Interior Design, was named interim dean of the College of Design by the UK Provost. Her term will begin July 1; she will serve in the position until a new dean is appointed by the University Provost.

Discussions
Adam J French was looking for advice on cost estimates, specifically "For example, what do you need to make a cost estimate at the start of DD? Architects have to make cost estimates, often before there is a contractor on board. I'm at a stage in the beginning of DD and the project will go out to bid eventually but there is no contractor to get the price yet. Or, even earlier, in massing model phase where you only have the volume to go by, how do you get pricing from a BIM"?

gwharton cautioned "If you're an American architect, be VERY careful about giving cost-related information to your clients. That can have serious blowback under our legal system. Note that this is the exact opposite of how it is in many countries, where architects are legally responsible for providing quantity surveying at various stages of design". Will Galloway answered "We do per square meter costs to start then get rough estimate when prelim design is advanced enough. For bigger projects we do our own estimates same as contractor does. Then bid out competitively. Still get surprised which is a bitch. No legal ramifications here though".

Steven Ward shared his experience "we do detailed estimates on a regular basis. our public schools contracts require it. for others it's an important tracking tool...if you're clear with your client about what you've done, it's not that dangerous. a little wrong is reasonable. we've been very wrong, of course, on occasion, but the repercussion is usually just some rework for which we'd take responsibility anyway, just to keep our client happy...BIM is only useful if the person drawing is entering the information knowledgeably and intentionally toward using it for estimating, ie, not just for the drawings”

ebberly is an MArch student at Columbia, and along with two classmates, created a notebook for architects. It is small part architectural reference, and large part scaled dot grid for sketching. They were wondering what the Archinect community thinks about it?
 Apurimac opined "Looks neat.  You may want to consider adding some ANSI 117.1A / accessibility diagrams in there and perhaps the ICC rules on egress".

However, Joseph Wassell was torn "I know it's not for me, but I really enjoy the idea, and think it could be great for others, particularly students after their first year or two.  I'd be all over this if I were in my 3rd or 4th year of undergrad...These are minor points, and shouldn't take away from anything you've done.  I think it is a great idea overall, and it looks like you've condensed some very practical information into your reference section".

Plus archimatt added "if you envision it being used by actual architects you should lose those 30 pages or condense only the really important stuff to 2 or 3 pages, or the backs of the covers, or a fold-out.  Forget the Sejima-esque fluff,  just give me ADA / egress / structural sizing charts / other important dimensions".

Finally, David Cole started a thread to get some input on his M.Arch. thesis. Although a fellow student (one year ahead) advised him to "do  something small and non-urban” he has “decided to design a new Penn Station for New York". His plan is to more or less "the objectives set by the MAS in their design brief" but he want’s to know "does it sound like I have a decent approach here, or am I headed for a train wreck? Any aspects I'm neglecting, or am I already biting off more than I can chew"?

Donna Sink queried "Is critiquing the four proposals a part of the thesis - maybe part of your research - or is the thesis just to do the project"?