Chinese architect Wang Shu was this week named the 2012 Pritzker Prize winner. Will Galloway commented "unexpected but very coolio. i met wang shu last year at conference held by my uni her in tokyo. nice guy and very impressive presentation. love his work and his approach. i like that pritzker is not going after the usual suspects, personally."

Architect Michael Graves considers the Portland Building one of his top achievements even though the building is still controversial. mdler thinks "this thing is a POS" and elletoman commented "gross". Donna Sink disagreed arguing "I love the Portland building and most important I love that this building happened.

Reacting to the Beach & Howe Tower proposal in Vancouver by Bjarke Ingels Group holz.box argued "still beats 90% of what's out there. i'd love to see this built."

Jeanne Gang and Greg Lindsay suggested some ways of Designing a Fix for Housing, beginning with rethinking our historic commitment to detached, single-family homes and segregated Euclidean zoning. Louis Arleo agreed that we need to redesign suburbia but argued "however suburbia will never be improved until architects embrace the idea of a developers business model."

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.”

This week the U.S. Department of Energy announced the 20 collegiate teams selected to compete in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2013 and unveiled the competition’s location, the Orange County Great Park. caffeine junkie is disheartened by the decision "This is a real miss-step in my opinion.

Y Design Office has proposed Unit Fusion, a modular, plug-in high-rise residential typology for Hong Kong. However, as of yet, the 75-story tower project is still in its conceptual design phase. Liebchen quipped "Who wants to bet it won't leave the conceptual design phase?"

Anthony Stephens offered up his euology for Ricardo Legorreta. "Ricardo Legorreta is the reason I began to study architecture...The spaces he designed had something long gone from most architects, soul. Unlike so many of the steel, glass and white wall designs that seem so clever and popular nowadays, his buildings could convey a feeling to those that laid eyes on the spaces he designed."

Snøhetta has released a virtual tour exploring their proposed expansion/redesign for SFMOMA. SUVERK noted that he spends a lot of time walking through that hood and argues "the new Snohetta design is very stealthy...The surrounding towers St. Regis(SOM) and the W Hotel(Hornberger and Worstell) dominate the skyline to the point that one would not right away notice the SFMOMA expansion- (which is the same size as Botta's).- It will sneak up on you and then you will be curious -WTF is that?

The Royal Institute of British Architects named internationally acclaimed Dutch architect Herman Hertzberger as the recipient of the 2012 Royal Gold Medal. Aaron Lim griped "@Orhan, I completely agree. A lifetime's work of innovative social ideas remains largely unrecognized by the architectural establishment today: his work remains fresh after all these years."

Finally, toasteroven has recently "got word from a couple local arch programs that enrollment has dropped this past year" and asks if anyone else has heard the same? To which jordans99 replies "Based on what I've heard, I expect that applications will be stagnant if not decrease.

The 2011 SCI-Arc Graduation Pavilion entitled Netscape, was designed by faculty members Dwayne Oyler and Jenny Wu of Oyler Wu Collaborative, along with their students. Earlier this week Archinect posted a video and some text detailing the construction process. In response Tima Bell, posted a couple images from the 1997 SCI-Arc Graduation pavilion which he noted did not have "quite the budget of Oyler/Wu".

Finally, sameolddoctor wants to talk about architecture and the ethics of working in developing countries vs the ethics of vanity skyscraper projects. Citizen responds:
We don't have to go overseas for ethical dilemmas! How about the shiny new project on theseshores...
whose architect uses unpaid intern labor?
with the bold, avante garde design that is opposed by all the neighbors?
whose objective is to make more profit for an already-wealthy developer?......

Richard.Rozewski, discusses a microtecture solution being developed by a friend Patrick of APOC. Stephanie however contends “ the idea that this will promote sustainable living is patently false...the construction, however small, of individual buildings for individual people, will always inherently mean the opposite of 'sustainable' ” To which holz.box responded “false false false. microtecture can be very sustainable”.

Gregory Walker, noted that Zaha Hadid Architects now has an app for that and thinks they may have finally jumped the shark. However, Steven Ward thought that "in a context where your business is built on maintaining your brand, this probably doesn't seem like a tough or strange decision at all." and lletdownl agreed arguing that "it makes perfect sense to me to develop a method of viewing your work targeted specifically to the fastest growing method of browsing.