Amelia Taylor-Hochberg interviewed architectural photographer Bilyana Dimitrova, formerly Metropolis Magazine’s photo editor. The two discussed Architecture Photography in the 21st Century ahead of the exhibition 'Beyond the Assignment: Defining Photographs of Architecture and Design' which will be presented by the Julius Shulman Institute at Woodbury University, October 5 - November 1, 2013.

Orhan Ayyüce penned a remembrance to his friend architect Larry Totah, titled Slow Weather of Architecture. Therein he describes "The House" which "continuously frames and de-frames itself in three or four sets of axis minded passages. In the front, overlooking Pacific Ocean rather edgewise and build like a long drawing depicting a horizontally composed architecture. The fog, roof and the walls are more of Chumash hiring Hopi to build on their mountains for few exquisite basket full of shellfish to adorn the wedding dresses in Hopi villages like the ones a Don Juan dreamed of, a fair exchange"...

News

On September 10, the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) releases Around the Bay: Man-Made Sites of Interest in the San Francisco Bay Region -- the second book in its "Man-Made Sites of Interest" series. Aimed to coincide with the historic opening of the Bay Bridge expansion, the book will feature aerial portraits of locations along the Bay's waterfront, accompanied by historical explanations for the site's status.

observant was pleased "So damn nice that ‘the Stick’ is back...instead of ‘3 Com’ or ‘Monster’ Park...The Bay, around the cities of San Francisco and Oakland, and points north, is indeed a bay with discernible contours... In truly urban places in the San Francisco Bay, it is very much a defining feature, if not the most defining".

Al Jazeera reported Tokyo beat out rival bids from Istanbul and Madrid to win right to host 2020 Olympics. sameolddoctor argued "Tokyo was chosen, exactly because there would not be a thousand meaningless interventions to the urban and infrastructural fabric - Tokyo already has a lot of those issues worked. out. I am also sure that the whole "uprising" in Istanbul a few months back contributed to their not being selected. And that is a good thing, seeing that the people were clearly opposed to meaningless interventions".

Apple’s new architectural design language made its debut in Stanford. Menona was puzzled "So is the roof cantilevered out, or are the glazing panels and lateral stabilizing fins somehow bearing the roof load?"...

Justine Testado plugged Foundry Square in the SoMa district of San Francisco, which is in its final phase of construction for Foundry III. Completion of Foundry III is expected in early 2014 and STUDIOS Architecture and SWA Group are targeting a LEED Gold rating for the building. Kyu Kim shared "I got to work on the yet to be finished building 3 while back in school...One fun note: I vividly remember how angry the principal at the firm was that the exterior column sizes across the buildings didn't match"

The Seattle Times’ Hannah Leone talked with the creators of ‘Thresholds’ an installation on display at Saar Pioneer Cemetery, to honor the those buried in 89 unmarked graves, until Sept. 29, 2013. Donna Sink believed "This is a very beautiful project...Personally I'm very drawn to the idea of an informal unmarked grave site...But I like that this project shows respect for both the dead and for the living who are troubled by the idea of being unremembered".

Firms/Blogs/Work Updates

Calibration Channel in Anderson, IN by Institute for Digital Fabrication, Ball State University and Happy Panda in Quito, Ecuador by Hou de Sousa; were just two of the images from the post Ten Top Images on Archinect's "Wood" Pinterest Board.

Alec Perkins an intern working for Tatiana Bilbao's office, provided readers with a rundown on three projects (the centro historico/Zocalo, the Centro Cultural de Espana and the XXI Century Cineteca Nacional) , all of which make "reference to time- temporary cities on ancient, new buildings enveloping old, and an attempt to capture the future"

Julian Torrubia recently worked on an Urban research about different subjects that may affect to the sustainable masterplan she is proposing while Facundo Arana recently worked on REF.CS2.
 

Schools/Blogs

The current edition of The Architectural Association Visiting School is taking place in Jordan from September 1st to 10th. In the last week students and faculty kicked off with an "incredible first day" spent "day 2 of the workshop exploring formations at the magnificent Wadi Rum" worked on digital, physical models and explored "the ancient Nabatean city of Petra by night and the unravelling of Petra by day".

wabi.sabi finished an intense first week at Cornell’s AAP. Reflecting on their first experience of Milstein Hall wabi.sabi offered the following review "it's striking how open the building feels to its surroundings...The studio space is as impressive as the rest of the building...curious if and how my opinion of the building will change with time"...

Matthew Messner highlighted the (at least German) release of The Western Town: A Theory of Aggregation. The culmination of a long research process the book looks  at, none other than, the western towns of the United States including; 25 real Western cities and some towns built for western movies. He also promised to "try and let everyone know when it is more widely available".

Discussions
observant wanted to know Are you into modernism or do you also like historical architectural styles? there is no there answered "I like all of the 'styles', except maybe Po-mo (post-modern). I held my breath while designing a building in Spanish missionary style and felt so silly doing it until it won an award, then I felt even sillier" while Quondam wittily replied "Obviously, I'm into (creating) 'dys' architecture styles: dyskenesic architecture, dyslexic architecture, dyslalic architecture. Hopefully, I'll continue to design even more dys-architecture styles"...

For his part Peter Normand opined "In some places Modern 1930-1970s is a historical style. Contemporary is a more appropriate term for what we see in architectural record covers today. I think there is no rigid cannon dominating global architecture with a rigid dogma such as the International style a classic example of Modern or Modernist architecture...There was a while where Green architecture almost had a sense of a unique style,sunshades and passive solar were used expressively and greatly influenced the massing and even the details of many built buildings...I am all for creative freedom".

cmrhm had a question re: the Interlace project by Ole. Specifically, "I am curious how their cores and fire safety travel distance were configured. from the perspective, it is obvious that the vertical cores connecting several blocks atop on each other. is this all the secrets? In Singapore, what is the max. fire safety travel distance?"...

Finally, thisisnotmyname restarted architexture’s thread from a couple of years ago re: Really great architecture offices doing great work with a great office culture. In response to a 2011 comment by Gregory Walker, thisisnotmyname provided the update "Long hours are customary at Eskew+Dumez+Ripple.  It's also taken on a much more corporate atmosphere in recent years".

mfischer3387 noted "If you find a firm with a really great culture, and people you truly enjoy working/socializing/interacting with, then long hours can be looked passed in some respects...Look at firm's client bases, and dig up research on who they've worked for and continue to work for. In the minds of architects, this is who you'll be working for. If these people that are using the architects are not visionary, or flexible, or operate on insane demands and timelines, it probably isn't the place for you". Added full ofit "i think a lot of this will depend on the culture of the location as well. I am in the Pacific Northwest, and the culture up here is definitely more laid back than any of the places my friends work in NYC. LA seems really fast, San Francisco seems like a good bet for a reasonable mixture of work/life"...

Additionally

This past August dpr-barcelona (Ethel Baraona Pohl) started a critical discussion regarding "the aestheticization of favelas and slums" and late capitalism, inspired by let's talk about garbage, a project proposed by UGO architecture and design. thefunambulist (Léopold Lambert) joined in providing some thoughts and a TRANSCRIPT OF THE DEBATE (August 15th 2013) ///