The latest edition of Showcase features the Fall House on Big Sur’s south coast, designed by Fougeron Architecture. 

SeriousQuestion felt it was a "Spectacular project-- there's obviously a lot more glass here, but there are nice nods at Lautner and Sea Ranch.  Makes me miss California.  I do wonder how much it costs to insure this place, though".  

News

FastCoExist called readers attention to the news that NYC's Hudson Yards is being developed as World’s largest "quantified community". In response Ryan Griffin suggested Archinectors should read Adam Greenfield pamphlet, "Against the smart city" the first installment of his forthcoming book The City is Here for You to Use.

Coincidentally, I just ordered and received my edition about a week ago..

Similarly, Adie Tomer and Rob Puentes wrote an editorial for Wired regarding the Right Way to Build the Futuristic Cities of Our Dreams. Some readers complained about the buzzwordiness and corporate agendas behind the term, however curtkram replied "saying things would be better if we could go back to mayberry where we didn't have access to as much information and aunt b put her pies on the window sill is not ‘smart.’  what might be more practical would be to learn how to better aggregate and filter the information available to us, and to use that information to develop better solutions to the problems we face".

Blair Kamin of The Chicago Tribune examined one proposal to protect Mies van der Rohe masterpiece from floodwaters. vicen93 commented “I really appreciate Mies works , this project is in the top ten of my favourite, but in my opinion, will be fascinating let the river appropriate the house and see how the nature evolves around this masterpiece...it could be a very interesting and beautiful photographic work”.
 

Firms/Blogs/Work Updates

Amelia Taylor-Hochberg Editorial Manager for Archinect, unveiled As It Lays, a new board game for interpreting Los Angeles.  

The game was created by her husband Anders Bjerregaard-Andersen, under their Los Angeles conceptual studio, The Conflict Arrives.

Following their appointment onto Peabody's Small Projects Panel, Urban Salon started work on the design of new homes in Morpeth Road, London for the London Housing Association.

For those looking for employment, Denver International Airport is seeking a seasoned Director of Facility Services/Airport Architect to become a key member of the Airport Infrastructure Management (AIM)leadership team.

Or URBANUS is hiring a Project Architect / Senior Designer for their Hong Kong, HK office.

Over at her blog Just an Intern Joann Lui, LEED Green Assoc. posted ARE Day 053: CDS EXAM DAY. Overall it went well but she was fighting an illness and "Next time, I will bring some snacks for the mandatory break".
 

School/Blogs

Students from NewSchoolSanDiego participated in the annual Cal Poly Design Village 2014 competition -  as part of a design studio led by NSAD instructor Hussein Munaim. tovstan commented "The other pictures I saw converting three private sleeping spaces into one large living area/single room were illustrative of another strength of this flexible design.  Interesting. Commercially viable?"

As part of their current project, the students in Virginia Tech’s design/buildLAB got to learn all about Hydrostop, who were "generous enough to donate the entire system for our building's roof".

Nicole Doan became "wrapped up in school once again" but found time to point out "Cal Poly Pomona has hosted a number of top notch lectures this quarter".

Discussions
Donna Sink started a thread Is there a single good reason for Acoustic Ceiling Tile to exist?! I think not.*

mightyaa took the bait "If you're serious, there's a ton of reasons to use it, and thousands of options, materials, shapes and forms. Hell just log onto USG or Armstrong for basic ideas". Miles Jaffe "Always a bunch of trade-offs. Hard to beat the price of ACT. Easy to beat the aesthetic". Janosh meanwhile pointed out a quality example by Simparch, which even Donna had to admit was "a justifiable use of ACT".

OsoJo needed some help dealing with a steep slope + thinking process. FRaC believed looking at Morphosis specifically "'twas the Barnes house or something like that" might help. jla-x wrote "think about it as a landscape project first...I would suggest that you do schematic models with something you can play with like wet sand ...to see how earth moves and slides…"

Anybody else have some tips on "noteworthy examples"?

Finally, inspired by some recent job postings bowling_ball asked Are we still shaming non-paying employers? thisisnotmyname chimed in "Yes! we should be shaming.  The ads you shared for Scalar are shocking.  The other two, to be fair, do appear to offer some money, and thus are not so bad". SeriousQuestion wondered "Does the DoL have some type of tip line for these types of violations"
 

Additionally

Léopold Lambert’s (aka The Funambulist) recent encounter with 301 Rhode Island Street in San Francisco led him to reflect on # WEAPONIZED ARCHITECTURE /// GENTRIFYING FORTRESSES: A CASE STUDY