I may be able to do some freelance presentation work. I’ve never done that before, does anyone have some suggestions as to appropriate freelance architectural presentation rates?
Feb 252009
Who do people use as a web-hosting company? I am looking to help a potential client with a new WordPress blog and website setup and I am looking for recommendations. I have issues with my current web-hosting service: their apache server is an older version and I cannot do “clean” post addresses. Any recommendations would help
Feb 232009
I normally don’t post my personal/professional life to this blog, but I figured I’d give it a shot. I just got laid off today due to workforce realignment/restructuring. My office laid off 20% of their staff – 4 people including me. Honestly, I’m not really upset, more relieved. Now I don’t have to worry if I will get laid off or not. Though, I now have to find a new job. So, does anyone know of any opportunities in the DC area? My resume is on here. I’d be interested in anything architectural, graphic design, urban planning, or IT.
Feb 222009
[Siftables via Archipreneur.] This would be such a great desk toy, not to mention the clinical and educational uses. I have to wonder about the obviously necessary computer interface required to change the content on the tiles. If this could interact with the new Microsoft Surface, then i could really see it gaining a foot hold in the high end lounge market. These remind me of a bunch of content aware manipulative devices. There was a dynamic music device like this i remember seeing on Gizmodo a while ago, and there are all of those cube toys where you have pets and people that interact when they are stacked. Of course, this is different from all of those because, like the art.lebedev optimus maximums keyboard it can be any of those things.
Feb 202009
I just read the headline that Foster + Partners will lay off 25% of their staff this follows on the heels of layoffs by SOM, Perkins Eastmen, and countless large and small firms around the country and the world. News articles talk about “hunkering down” and riding the depression/recession out and compare this architectural bloodbath to the job market during the recession of the 1990′s. Projects across the world are on hold, and the mega development of Dubai has virtually ground to a standstill. All that I can think of in regards to all of this is Douglas Adam’s The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the lost planet of Magrathea; this planet could be a parable for Dubai and Las Vegas. This was where custom worlds were created when the galactic economy was in a major boom cycle and there was plenty of cash to spare. Once the economy dried up, the planet shut down and went to sleep, literally. Everyone went into suspended animation/cold storage until the galactic stock market index rose high enough that their services would be affordable again. I almost have to wonder if the practice of architecture and the current avant garde design trends [...]
A great website was brought to my attention today, Stairway to Architecture. The author of this site is a licensed architect and practitioner of over 30 years and is concerned with the state of the internships and architectural licensing in the US today. He raises questions that everyone should be asking and which in any other professionally regulated field are easily obtainable, yet in architecture they are obfuscated under layers of bureaucratic records. The diagrams he has created showing architecture schools and the relationship between new admissions admissions to graduates and ARE pass rates are staggering. I feel lucky to have gone to a Torch Institution instead of a Pennant or Funnel. In addition he has a great plea for the better treatment and education of intern-architects by their employers. His rally against Headphones in the work place is something to be read and digested. I can understand the need to block out co-workers who do not know how to work in a communal environment or the need to listen to something while performing a rote task such as copying shop drawing comments, but I tend to agree with him that headphones isolate the wearer and help to create a [...]
I know this was created as a diaper bag for the fashionable working mom, but i have to say, as a design professional who is always looking for a bag that is both creative and acceptable in the workplace, I love it. In fact I love their whole line. Many of them would not be suitable for unisex use, but this and the Boxy Backpack – Black Orchid Roll could both find comfortable homes in my collection of messenger / laptop bags.
Above is the keynote address from the Tulane School of Architecture sponsored symposium: Preservation Matters by Tulane Alum and Editor of Architectural Record magazine, Robert Ivy, FAIA. The speech is a long overdue acknowledgement of the work of the Preservation Studies / Historic Preservation Program headed by my past professor, Eugene Cizek, FAIA and a discussion of the historic preservation movement within the city of New Orleans and Tulane’s role through the twentieth century. I have to laud the efforts of the new Dean of the Architecture School, Kenneth Schwartz, who introduces the conference and Mr. Ivy. Regional Modernism has a more detailed synopsis of the presentation. Throughout my years at the school, I always felt that the historical importance of place and the efforts of the preservation program to bring this idea to the student body was too often bulldozed by a blind passion for high modernism and other international styles. Issues of climate and green design were handled in the structural technology classes, but too often they did not play a part in the critically explored design studio work. As an aside, I spent a number of minutes trying to figure out where they held this symposium. This [...]
We’ve been in this crisis since September and I’ve been wondering how this has affected other people.