eric chavkin penned a review of "Glen Small: Recovery Room" an exhibit at Assembly in Los Angeles, organized and curated by Archinect's own Orhan Ayyüce. He concluded "Despite the flaws the works of Glen Small offer so much that another architect could base an entire career on re-doing, modifying, repeating any one of his single works".

MightyMike (aka Michael Locke) commented "For local (Los Angeles) fans of Archinect, there's a wonderful example of Small's work in the Franklin Hills...the Leiberman House, designed by Glen Howard Small, AIA c.1989 and completed by Anthony Eckelberry  in 1995". For his part davidd felt "This review and Small's work seems to come from an ingroup/niche point of view".

Plus, in latest edition of the series Working out of the Box, Archinect spoke with with Microsoft Design Leads Mary-Lynne Williams and Moneta Ho Kushner.

News
Brian Henry noted a move by Ohio towards banning LEED. katscan thought "It sure is about time, I was wondering why states don't just start using the IGCC". Gregory Walker added some context "I know in the Southeast, the biggest point of contention has been the FSC requirement for certified wood, something which almost none of the managed forests here have been able or willing to attain. Forrestry/timber is still a big industry here - hence, their pressure on the USGBC".

Steven Fleming (aka BehoovingMoving) imagined a future in which urban districts are developed on a bicycle mobility platform. tammuz really liked the idea and recommended "it will be useful to develop this in terms of how the landscape is informed by this rather than just being an open terrain punctuated by mounds ..and as well, how you can incorporate a less defaced architecture...those huge pedestrian platforms formed at the cross intersection of bridges seem to be perhaps badly thought-out". 

BehoovingMoving  appreciated the feedback and provided some more details "I need to explain that we doubled the vertical scale of the mounds on the 1:1000 scale model-base pictured. They're actually quite shallow….While we're working on more images explaining the ground plane, here is an explanation of the wedge shaped apartment block".

Over at the magazine Architect, Kriston Capps reported that Northwestern University is barring architecture firms who protested the demolition of the Prentice Women's Hospital from work on some Northwestern projects.

Bustler.net featured the L.A-Frame House by Tim Durfee and Iris Anna Regn. The collaborative team won a NextLA Merit Award for the project in the recent conclusion of the 2013 AIA|LA Design Awards, which honors the best works by Los Angeles-based architects. Donna Sink felt it was a cool house "Ugh this is so cool! and ‘ugh’ because I'm envious.  I have a lakeside plot of land in my sights on which I'm ready to design an A-frame house...I love the patchwork".

Firms/Blogs/Work Updates
Lian Chikako Chang along with Drew Harry attended MIT’s Media Lab for Futures Past: Design and the Machine, a three-day conference on the institutional and intellectual history of research and visions for human-machine systems.

Specifically, the second-to-last session, called 'Mediating Interfaces' which Peter Galison (Harvard) chaired and David Mindell (MIT), Molly Steenson (Wisconsin), and David Theodore (Harvard/McGill) spoke at.

A quote "Another theme that seems to come out from all three papers: They’re all attentive to technological issues, but in all three cases you’re saying there’s something more than the technological which is decisive".

Recently Brice Desportes worked on mid-term review - Cultural center while Julia Torrubia worked on a drawing of exeter library louis kahn.

Ian Wilson who is documenting his travels to/in Rio de Janiero spent a rainy day at  MAR - Rio's Museum of Art, finished this year and designed by architecture firm Jacobsen Arquitetura. observant found it’s "contrast of the white and the color of the glazing...appealing and sort of Rio, though still restrained".

Schools/Blogs
December 3, 2013 at 06:00 PM Ann Markusen Director of the Arts Economy Initiative at the Project on Regional and Industrial Economics at the University of Minnesota will be giving a lecture titled Creative Placemaking: How Artists and Designers are Leading City Transformation.

For those looking for a career in academia the College of Architecture, Visual Arts and Design at California Baptist University is currently accepting applications for a full-time tenure-track faculty position in architecture. Also, CUNY Bronx Community College wants to hire a full-time Construction Project Manager - Level 1  for a Temporary Appointment.

lizziey affiliated with MIT's M.Arch program wrote about the plan vs reality let down of visiting de Uithof, one mile outside of Utrecht, NL’s historic (and highly adorable) city center. As the site contains maybe the highest density of contemporary (st)architecture that she has ever observed by the likes of OMA, Weil Arets, and Mecanoo, lizziey argues "it serves as a testing ground for 90′s concepts of architecture and masterplanning. And while I wouldn’t call it a total failure, it certainly exposes the weakness of privileging the architectural icon over the human body".

Discussions
Steven Ward started a thread to discuss What other models for architectural practice might be workable?

"For instance, can a model be developed for a not-for-profit practice offering professional architectural services? Could it be made sustainable"?

Quondam proposed "Taking it a step further, the 'office' could actually be the architecture school as well, thus eliminating the whole notion of intern...my notion of the office also being a school is that students would be part of the office work force and the registered architects of the office would be the teachers". Yet, Miles Jaffe argued "Quondam, all you've done is replace an institution (a school) with a laboratory (a school). Sounds a lot like IDP to me".

bowling_ball offered up one alternative "Along with 2 other architects, I'm involved in one of a couple of projects where we're experimenting with a pseudo-development model where we pre-sell condo units, find a lot, figure out what exactly we can build there, and then design everybody's unit WITH the clients hand-in-hand. No developer fees and everybody gets what their budget will allow. We're taking single-family lots and building 5 to 7 times density, which the city is keen about, we don't need outside investors, and suddenly building and owning a (custom) home becomes much more affordable".

whoknows wanted to know, with the upcoming holiday semester break and travels "Is it inappropriate to drop into firms I'm interested in and just say something to the effect ‘Hi, I am a Graduate Architecture Student just in town a couple of days  and I really admire your guys' work and was wondering if I could take a peek around the office?’ Then if they let me, awesome, if not leave them with a ‘Portfolio Teaser’...Not sure if it will be annoying to have unplanned visitors".

SpatialSojourner speaking from personal experience begged "Please, please, please contact them first to give them a heads up...I work at a small firm that constantly gets random students dropping by to drop off their stuff.  It's so awkward and even more so if we're in meetings" and HandsumCa$hMoneyYo advised going old-school "definitely send an email first...If you really want to blow their mind, send a snail mail letter and take the opportunity to show off your penmanship by handwriting it.  Older architects specially love that kind of thing".

Finally, juniiboy was looking for help with a design problem "which is a prison. It has to be modern and it is situated in an islet".

tammuz noted "I had a teacher who had brought up prisons, penitentiary architecture as an object of moral concern irrespective of design intent...She herself said she would not assign such a brief to her students. So, you see, its not a totally uncontroversial issue". Based on the posted image MyDream believed junilboy should "take a look at Alcatraz and how it was situated on the site and how were corridors designed and use that as a  general concept with corrections and changes of course" though Volunteer suggested looking up "photos of the French prison ruins off New Guinea. And view the Steve McQueen movie Papillon".

Additionally
Bryan Finoki wrote a piece for openDemocracy on the growing ubiquity of militarized borders and the corresponding subterranean network of cross-border tunnels.