News
Blair Kamin, Chicago Tribune architecture critic tweeted "George Schipporeit, co-architect of Chicago's suavely-curving Lake Point Tower, once the world's tallest all-residential building, has died".

Donna Sink offered up her memories "I spent a summer living in that building.  It's very lovely and graceful, though I like ‘suavely-curved’ much better as a descriptor! The views are unmatched, IMO, still. Breathtaking...Back then its only drawback was that it was very removed from the activity of the city.  It was a bleak walk for several blocks to get back into the hustle of daily life in a city.  These days it's surrounded by smaller scale housing, retail, and the much-improved Navy Pier, yes?"

thisisnotmyname answered "Somewhat.  A few more adjacent sites need to fill in.  Lake Point Tower is still one of the finest examples of residential high rise design in Chicago".

Over at the New Yorker Elizabeth Greenspan chatted with Daniel Libeskind and discussed the opening of 1 World Trade Center. observant opined "I saw Libeskind's initial master plan for which he was commissioned.  It looked like a small collection of stalagmites.  They were trendy...I think the building currently being erected is a more enduring architectural statement". EKE continued "Having visited the site this year, I have to agree with observant that the tower is a fairly elegant one...I think the low museum buildings are really ugly and uninspiring.  But the open space on the site is welcome, and I found the memorial fountain to be a moving statement of loss.  I didn't expect to be as affected by it as I was. The serene, soothing, almost benevolent sound of the water falling into the footprint, and the ultimately disappearing into what might as well be a bottomless void, seemed to me achingly melancholic".

Amelia Taylor-Hochberg highlighted the work of architect Seth Goodman, "who has  developed a series of nifty infographics that show just how much parking space is allotted for a given institution or destination.  Inspired by Donald Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking as a student at Rice University, Goodman has created five different charts comparing a city’s minimal parking space regulations to the square footage of the institution that the parking accommodates, such as a restaurant or office space".

drewjmcnamara complained "Just in time for the start of school and the requisite Anti-Car Indoctrination" but toasteroven corrected "no one is anti-car - it's that parking takes up a lot of space - can often be a loss-leader on urban projects and go unused - and we need to be much smarter about how much parking we really need".

Bustler.net announced "The Politics of Parametricism" conference, which will be held at LA's Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT) from Nov. 15-16. The conference will explore  the evolving design paradigm described as becoming the "avant-garde in architecture and design" and "the next 'grand style' of architectural movements".

citizen pointed out the "nice irony in the fact that this event won't be held in the parametric beacon of Disney Hall, but in REDCAT, the boxy space in the boxy basement of the boxy part of the building".

Firms/Blogs/Work Updates
A reader had requested a one day itinerary to visit the highlights of "innovative contemporary architecture" in Mexico City, so Alec Perkins, an intern working for Tatiana Bilbao's office, did his best. 

The tour is organized "in a rough arc which sweeps up from Tlalpan/Coyoacan in the south to Polanco in the East, to Buenavista, and finally arcing back to end in the Centro Historico".

House in Geochang, South Korea by Hyungnam Lim, Eunjoo Roh + studio_GAON and  bSIDE6 in Portland, OR by Works Partnership Architecture (W.PA) were just two of the projects featured recently on the Ten Top Images on Archinect's "Architect Sure!" Pinterest Board.

Justine Testado posted the news of Wiels Arets Architects winning the competition to design the Europaallee 'Site D' building in Zurich. Construction will begin in 2017. Median griped "Is there anything at all of interest within this building? If this was 1968, it would still be ignored".

Sarah Finkelstein recently worked on a "Residential freelance work. Chalkboard/bike rack wall" and Norinpong Rith recently worked on year 1...

Schools/Blogs
Last week Matthew Messner started his last first day of school. He wrote "This will be my eighth year of school in the last ten years (there was a break in there for the War).  As I am essentially done with my M.Arch curriculum, I will not have any design classes this year.  The next two semesters will be focused on writing as I finish up my Masters of Art and Design Criticism, MAD-Crit...Most of the people I called my class, many of which have been featured on this blog, have scattered to places near and far in search of work.  From Singapore to New York, it would seem that job prospects are looking up".

jesusmaldonado published the first post of his new school-blog which will he promises will be  used "to record the overload of people, perspectives and projects that run through the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University. 3 years of M.Arch studies from 2013-2016. Lectures. Tours. Crits, reviews, juries. Studio transgressions. Contentious viewpoints. Facts and fiction, with a side of parti(e)s".

Alec Perkins had some advice "you may find it more difficult than you think to hold even a part time job. Architecture school is a total time suck and it was not uncommon for me to given assignments for studio which were impossible to complete even if I gave up sleep".

Discussions
doinker started a thread to share "an amateur interest in working up a list of building materials that mature and beautify over time". Miles Jaffee suggested looking into "Redwood, cedar and a few others, depending on where you are for availability and climate...Copper, not just for turning green (eventually) but for the green stain it leaves on adjacent masonry. Let's not forget vegetation". Donna Sink was surprised by one of doinker’s examples yet had a few add to the list "Huh, I never knew that about Sacre Coeur's travertine. Cool...Bronze ages beautifully, as does leather.  Hardware like drawer pulls made of bronze and leather will only get better over time.  Also leather floor tiles age beautifully.  IMO cork floor ages beautifully, too...On of my favorite things is stone stair treads with a foot impression worn into them".

piero1910 wanted to know where he could find drawings of de Young Museum? Rueben Alt recommended piero1910 "Try to find a copy of ‘The deYoung in the 21st Century.’  Good book.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Young-21st-Century-Museum/dp/0500342156"

Finally, David Cole whose MArch thesis involves the design for a new Penn Station in NYC, asked the peanut gallery: "What are some notable moments of arrival, in architecture or otherwise, that I should look to as precedents? It could be at the scale of entering a room, entering a building, or entering a geographical place. Are there any particularly relevant readings you know of that I should be looking at?"

Quondam answered "Not exactly a precedent of arrival, or arrival-threshold-gateway, but take a look at Le Corbusier's promenade architecturale formula as played out in several building designs...If anything, it might give you a better idea how architecture can deliver a sequential narrative. It also demonstrates how architecture can be used to deliver a destination".

Even though boy in a well exclaimed "fck it. just make your revit dd set and see how it goes", Steven Ward pointed out "Entry into Olmsted's major parks in Louisville was conceived as a process of shedding the city, decompression. Very clear physical conditions were implemented to achieve this goal. I'm sure that was not unique to here, but a strategy employed throughout their work of the period...for me, sequence of events and transitions is key. Similar to Quondam, I guess".

Additionally
Mimi Zeiger tweeted "Word of the day: tweebanism.
You know what it means. @sevensixfive @AlJavieera @quilian @BrendanCormier"...