MASS Design Group is one of a handful of nonprofits showing that design isn’t just for the wealthy, nor is it just image-making. The challenge, for MASS and others trying to do public service design work, is to make their operations financially sustainable. As students, MASS provided much of their work on the Butaro Hospital pro bono, but they are not students anymore. The staff of MASS eclipsed 20 in the past year... — blog.sfgate.com

According to a new study led by Connie Wanberg, a University of Minnesota professor of organizational and work behavior, the average laid-off worker experiences a gradual improvement in mental health until the 10- to 12-week mark, when the trend reverses.

The study found that those participants who reported better mental health tended to conduct more intense job searches, increasing their likelihood of landing jobs. — online.wsj.com

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) today called for Congress to pass legislation that includes architecture school graduates in the same programs that offer other graduates loan debt assistance if they donate their services to their communities and elsewhere. — aia.org

The study used a scientific technique called “eye tracking” on 30 professional recruiters and examined their eye movements during a 10-week period to "record and analyze where and how long someone focuses when digesting a piece of information or completing a task.

...the study showed recruiters will look at your name, current title and company, current position start and end dates, previous title and company, previous position start and end dates, and education. — businessinsider.com

Only four people in the United States carry the official designation of Lego Master Model Builder. And 23-year-old Andrew Johnson of Illinois is the newest — and youngest — to earn the title. — npr.org

Released on Sunday by the Center for an Urban Future — a think tank focused on New York City — “Designing New York’s Future” cites that New York City graduates twice as many students in design and architecture as any other city in the country. While extolling the schools’ strengths, the report also advocates for more business coursework in curricula... — thirteen.org

An intern-rights movement is afoot, sparking class-action suits against Hearst and Fox Searchlight; rumors of new rules at Condé Nast; a Times “Ethicist” column (headline: “The Internship Rip-Off”); and a book (Intern Nation) decrying many of the unpaid jobs as boondoggles. Amid the uprising, our interns surveyed 100 other New York interns about the apprentice’s life. — nymag.com

"Last month more than 25 staff failed to turn up for work one day in an organised protest at missing wages.

...Staff in New York are owed up to two-and-a-half month’s wages and the email sets out the company’s response to those either not turning up for work or asking to be put on unpaid leave." — bdonline.uk

The Learner stage generally lasts about three years. Entry level compensation starts at roughly $36,966 and can grow to $46,701 during that time — an increase of 26 percent, or nearly 9 percent per year. The starting base is small, but the growth potential is large in percentage terms. — di.net

China, of course, is not new terrain for international architects. Many top American firms have run offices inside China for a decade or more. The new arrivals, though, come not by invitation or out of curiosity but because they need work. They are, as Michael Tunkey, head of the China office for the North American firm Cannon Design, says, “refugees from the economic crisis.” — New York Times

Look, the infrastructure of industry is broken. It’s time to consider going pirate, setting sail, and making your own rules. Try life as your own boss, on your own voyage. No daily commute. No salad bar at 12:15. No cc’ing about the meeting. As Sara Horowitz, executive director of the Freelancers Union, puts it: “You can either be in the past and mired in bureaucracy in these big nonfunctioning institutions or you can be a swashbuckler.” — wired.com

With steady migration to Sun Belt states and many baby boomers retiring in the next few years, there should be an uptick in demand for new homes, healthcare facilities, and office buildings. This means the job market for architects should remain solid. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects architect employment growth of 23.1 percent between 2010 and 2020, adding 31,300 more professionals to the 135,400 already-existing jobs in this field. — money.usnews.com

For three straight months now, the Architecture Billings Index — a measure from the American Institute of Architects — has shown slight increases in work levels at architectural firms, with the latest figures showing a score in January of 50.9, compared with 51.0 in December.

... the index tends to provide a decent lens into the mood of the real estate world, and an increase may lay the groundwork for new construction projects months down the road. — blogs.wsj.com

I first visited Los Angeles in 1987 and the joint was then jumping for architects, as it was in many cities caught up in the building boom of that time. Then I moved from London to LA in 1991 and found all my new architect friends out of work, in the economic slump of the early 90s. The New York Times was running articles[...] that sounded remarkably similar to the Salon piece in their “it will never be the same again” declarations about the profession. — blogs.kcrw.com