News

Benjamin Paulker interviewed Frank Gehry for Foreign Policy regarding his first project in the Arab World. sameolddoctor was amused "It is funny that Gehry thinks of himself as a humanitarian" but pvbeeber wondered "Not sure why everyone is giving him such a hard time.  What other architects working in the Middle East would hire a human rights lawyer to make sure that workers are treated fairly?  Gehry's also one of the few starchitects who bothers to pay his interns".

citizen took exception to the "Epiphanies from Frank Gehry" title "I'm not giving FOG a hard time.  Bully for him...I'm giving the Archinect editors --with whom I generally concur, but who often title these little pieces ridiculously-- the hard time". However as Ryan Griffin noted "citizen.... the title given to this page is the title of the article to which it is referring..."

Christopher Hawthorne reviewed the new architecture exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art - concluding "When architects decide that they're interested only in talking to — or worse, designing for — one another, the result is a display as hermetically sealed and politically naive as this one". Darkman argued "I find this show to be very captivating and inspiring in showing the craft of new architecture from some of the best firms..I wish Christopher Hawthorne and other critics could find a better way way to talk about architecture that doesn't involve segregating capital A architecture from the new hipster talk about bike lanes, etc. etc".

Orhan Ayyüce differed, in his estimation "Getty funded three-four L.A. architecture shows so far and most of those people in all the shows. That's a lot of hyper curating...Yes, I agree with the curators that it is not a survey show like they say. It is pretty much a clusterfuck of millenium style spin with a lot of historical inaccuracies and personalization. I can only recommend Sylvia Lavin's Schindler House/MAK Center show, ‘Everything Loose Will Land’ which has some critical ideas and curating behind it".

Bustler.net offered a preview of The Future Is Here: A New Industrial Revolution, a major new exhibition which opens July 24. The exhibition is a collaboration between the Design Museum and the UK’s innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board. Exhibition design is done by dRMM and exhibition graphics by LucienneRoberts+.

SDR quipped "Wait -- does this make 3dh obsolete ?  Or does it just explain how Per would connect those  parts and pieces ? Either way, bring it on -- off course !"

Firms/Blogs/Work Updates

Sandal Magna School in Wakefield, Yorkshire, UK by Sarah Wigglesworth Architects; Project Architect: Mark Hadden

and MAISON D in Bordeaux, France by NADAU LAVERGNE ARCHITECTS are just two of the recent projects to be found in the post Ten Top Images on Archinect's "Wood" Pinterest Board.

Trudy Watt let us know she has "Updated website - thesis films are now up! www.trudywatt.com" while Sachin Gangadharan recently worked on "Wok shop: Space under metro rail".

R_O_B_E_R_T started their new blog with the following mission statement "The economics of ‘new media’ have left the North Texas Metroplex without a critical dialogue at a point in our history when we need a clear architectural voice more than ever...Knowing it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness, we present ROBERT. Robert is not a person. Robert is a voice. Robert is the voice of civil, critical, productive discourse about the built environment in North Texas. Robert is your voice".

In the second post R_O_B_E_R_T examined Irving Convention Center "Designed by Hillier Architecture (now merged with RMJM), the building takes on an opposite approach from prior schemes and from the traditional big-box norm of the Convention Center typology. Evocative of the work being pursued by UN Studio".

Alec Perkins an intern working for Tatiana Bilbao's office found time to visit San Ángel a wealthy village to the southwest of Mexico City. Alec also had a chance to travel to UNAM, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (the second oldest University in all of the Americas), where he went to  MUAC, the university museum of contemporary art, built in 2008 by Mexican Teodoro Gonzalas Leon.

Describing the experience of the new museum he writes "MUAC is what I think of when I think of architecture pornography. Massive, Ando-esque slabs of nearly reflective concrete, acres of glass, flooded with daylight...Modern art museums seem lend themselves to this kind of spatial masturbation. I took pictures of nothing everywhere".

Schools/Blogs
Patrick Beseda at University of Colorado Denver, provided a FOUNDhouse update. Basically, they’ve "secured a great spot at SPark, looked through the boneyard and found some great stuff there...talking with a few fabricators and fab spaces this week".

Portland State University’s School of Architecture is proud to announce the launch of its new Center for Public Interest Design, a research center that aims to investigate and utilize the power of design to make social, economic and environmental change in disadvantaged communities worldwide. The Center is headed by Professor Sergio Palleroni, a recipient of the AIA  Latrobe Prize for Public Interest Practice in Architecture in 2011.

Jason Nam and team at Architectural Institute in Prague (ARCHIP) completed design/build for their Möbius pavilion and opened it to the public, at the 2013 Prague ReSITE Festival.

Discussions
tomatomato is a graduate student getting ready to start preparing for job interview and has some basic questions re: What goes on in an architecture job interview? quizzical advised "In the many, many interviews I've conducted over the years, the single most destructive mistake made by many candidates is the failure to recognize that the person across the table is a trained and experienced Architect".

Stephanie Branconnier chimed in "All of my interviews have been about 1 hour long...The majority of my interviews we've gone through the entire portfolio project by project and I talk about my motivations and design methods. (I don't explain visuals or drawings - they do the talking for themselves, otherwise why are they there?) I try to talk about the method and theory of the project that isn't described explicitly in the images". there is no there replied "An interview might last an hour, but only if it goes well enough. If the conversation lulls then it is not a good interview and it will get cut short. The interviewer will likely flip through your portfolio, to which you can say the project name/type and where it is at and MAYBE one interesting thing about some of them".

Muladi started a thread to discuss Good Signage - Bad Signage. Donna Sink responded "I just visited the Seattle Public Library last week and loved its supergraphics.  There weren't many, but they gave a sense of order in a very complex building - as did color and lots of daylight" she also offered two examples of signage that impressed her from a trip to San Francisco two years ago: "bus stop signs and garbage can signs".

For his part Miles Jaffe shared "As I get older I really appreciate simplicity and clear thoughtful signage, especially since we are so flooded with identifiers, directions, advertising and bad signage, all of which makes good signage all but invisible when it exists".

Finally, observant who as regular posters know has strong feelings about IDP wanted to call attention to New Mexico, where he points out
"One is now eligible to take the ARE after receiving a professional degree and obtaining an NCARB IDP number. It is no longer necessary to complete all, or any, of the IDP requirements .... (there's more, see link)

http://www.nmbea.org/". 

observant thinks "This is great.  More states should adopt this policy, or only require a portion of all the IDP hours prior to testing".

Gregory Walker agreed suggesting "it's in ncarb's self interest to have people start taking the tests early (as long as IDP is required to get the actual license. no small detail). why? because once people start taking the test, they way more likely to finish idp (too much invested by then)...the reason it's not done ‘all over’ is probably raw inertia  - you'd have to change the actual law governing practice in the respective state and there may not be someone spearheading that effort (and to be fair, it's not going to be a top priority on your average state legislator's mind)"...