Architect and Woodbury School of Architecture professor Barbara Bestor presented an optimistic vision of architecture—one grounded in entrepreneurial practice and creating new opportunities—at the 2011 ACSA Administrators Conference: Old School/New School in November. (Co-chaired by Dean Norman Millar.) — vimeo.com

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and Architecture for Humanity announced a strategic partnership to coordinate advocacy, education, and training that helps architects make effective contributions to communities preparing for, responding to, and rebuilding after disaster. The partnership is focused on providing resources so more architects can utilize their skills in disaster response environments and better serve as leaders in their community. — aia.org

A dandy bedecked in flashy all-white outfits and a pince-nez, chain-smoking custom-made cigarettes that he ordered from a New York manufacturer in lots of 10,000... an early devotee of the motorcar, president of the local Automobile Club, and a notably fast and reckless driver... He paid his rent in gold coins, before moving to an opulently furnished, Oriental-themed downtown Kansas City apartment/studio building of his own design. — Places Journal

“A replica will be built,” one official unapologetically told the state news media. — NYT

Designers in Buffalo have proposed stripping down a mall to its foundation and reinventing it as housing, while an aspiring architect in Detroit has proposed turning a mall’s parking lot there into a community farm. Columbus, Ohio, arguing that it was too expensive to maintain an empty mall on prime real estate, dismantled its City Center mall and replaced it with a park. — nytimes.com

We’ve received emails from people just starting out or thinking of going into architecture asking for advice. It gets heavy sometimes. People who have been laid off in the recession have also written to share their stories. One architect I know told me without irony that he wishes he had read it before starting out on this path. — metropolismag.com

I would like to tell a short story—or perhaps not such a short story—about the reasons why I chose to become an architect. Exactly why this blog’s readers should be interested in my recollections about such a matter I cannot say, and perhaps I am mistaken in spinning out such a story here. Still, I feel compelled to do so and can only hope for the readers’ tolerance. — lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com

Scott Timberg wrote a piece for Salon examining how "One of the coolest creative-class careers has cratered with the economy". spaceman was surprised by some of the architects quoted and wrote "One successful architect feels ‘Very much like an immigrant worker,’ and another says, ‘We are making less than a cleaning lady.’ This seems a little over the top.”

One of the coolest creative-class careers has cratered with the economy. Where does architecture go from here? — salon.com

Construction was completed on a new straw bale building for the University of Nottingham which brings together the School of Biosciences and the School of Veterinary and Medical Sciences. The project is the first stage of a 20-year visionary masterplan for the university's Sutton Bonington Campus. — youtube.com

The project of Lacaton-Vassal-Druot is a brilliant contemporary example of working within built-up heritage, solving with an exceptional industrial and even adaptable solution the problem which many European cities face. — Domus Magazine

...will re-examine the built environment of the arid and semi-arid west as a vast field of opportunities for design innovation at a range of scales, from building systems to infrastructure and landscape spaces. The conference will present and debate a portfolio of design strategies generated in response to the challenges set forth in ALI's Drylands Design Initiative... — Arid Lands Institute

About three-quarters of the people who spoke favored renovating the existing pier or picking a "Mediterranean-style" design for a replacement. The ultra-modern design of "The Lens" did not draw support from most of the people who spoke.

"We are paying for $50 million for a sidewalk over the water," one commenter said.

"I wanted Mediterranean style. (I) feel we are being locked into (a design) that doesn't have any local flavor." — oldnortheast.patch.com

Within the parameters of the building art there cannot be artists like Saul Bellow and Philip Roth or like Sidney Lumet and Woody Allen, who in books and movies probe the excruciating details of the Jewish encounter with American capitalism and lifestyle. Architecture cannot tell stories about one’s Jewish mother or one’s Jewish nose. Especially in the era of high modernism, architecture possessed limited expressive resources for detailed cultural critique. — Places Journal

“I’m never trying to be disparaging to these other communities in any way,” says Bill Browne, a local architect on Indianapolis’ host committee who has looked at what other Super Bowl cities have done. “But we came away with the sense that they’re putting on an event. We’re certainly putting on an event here, but we are absolutely trying to transform a number of elements of our community as a part of this.” — theatlanticcities.com