Pier Solar and the Great Architects playthrough pt39
Pier Solar and the Great Architects playthrough on the ps3 with no live commentary.

By: Jen Black

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Pier Solar and the Great Architects playthrough pt39 - Video

Pier Solar and the Great Architects playthrough pt40
Pier Solar and the Great Architects playthrough on the ps3 with no live commentary.

By: Jen Black

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Pier Solar and the Great Architects playthrough pt40 - Video

Most professional liability insurers for architects and engineers anticipate flat or modest rate hikes this year, a brokers survey says.

Eight of the 14 insurers surveyed by McLean, Virginia-based Ames & Gough said they expect to obtain professional liability rate increases during 2015, while the remaining six see their rates remaining flat, according to the survey issued Wednesday.

They consider this discipline necessary to offset the continued low-interest environment and recover from the premium rate decline of past years, says the survey.

While the professional liability insurance market generally remains competitive, insurers are sharpening their focus on sound underwriting and carefully assessing the performance of their overall book, Dan Knise, president and CEO of Ames & Gough, said in a statement.

In this environment, many insurers continue to vie for relationships with smaller design firms, considered by underwriters as lower risk, and those with a good loss history and well-established and documented risk management programs, Mr. Knise said.

The Ames & Gough 2015 Architects & Engineers Professional Liability Insurance Survey also found that 64% of the insurers had increased their professional liability insurance rates modestly in 2014, while 29% generally saw rates remain at previous levels, and one insurer lowered its rates.

A total of 43% of the insurers cited higher claims severity, but only 7% saw increased claim frequency. A total of 43% of those surveyed identified certain project types, such as condominiums, schools, and wastewater treatment and data centers, as causing more claims. In addition, 36% cited increased defense costs as an emerging cost driver for claims.

The 14 insurers participating in the survey account for more than 75% of the overall market for architects and engineers professional liability insurance in the U.S., according to the broker.

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Architects and engineers face flat to modest rate hikes in 2015

Pier Solar and the great Architects #51 - Riesenspinne
Nix mehr verpassen: http://goo.gl/iYz3bn Playlist: http://goo.gl/mZJVbh VLogs: http://goo.gl/EGdeMp ------------------------------------------------------...

By: ByteMe

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Pier Solar and the great Architects #51 - Riesenspinne - Video

Architects are always in a precarious position. Unlike doctors and lawyers, their services are never required. (There are only a few exceptions.) If you need design services, its just as easy to hire a contractor or engineer to slap something together. Architects are an additional expense, and they have a reputation for being difficult and impractical. (Case in point: President George Washington had to fire Pierre LEnfant, the brilliant planner of the nations capital, for insubordination.)

In the past, architects overcame this challenge by demonstrating the superiority of their skills and knowledge. Their buildings were simply better. Now, however, few people believe that. The reputation of architects is at its lowest point ever. They are perceived as being problem-causers, not problem-solvers. They are purveyors of the ugly and dysfunctional, of the emotionally detached and culturally disconnected.

As I previously noted, the profession is collapsing from within as more and more insiders have been admitting the failure of contemporary architecture. The latest obituary is an essay in Architectural Review by mainstream critic Peter Buchanan, who writes, Future architects will look back at our times astounded byour confusions, gullibility and inability to exercise critical judgement [M]uch contemporary architecture is sh*t.

Likewise, Alastair Gordon, contributing editor for architecture and design attheWall Street Journalsmagazine,comments in the Miami Herald, Its hard to find much in the way of inspiration or direction from mainstream architecture these days. Indeed, the profession seems largely on the defensive, lurching towards a nervous breakdown.

With the reputation of architects in free-fall, the American Institute of Architects, the main trade organization for the profession, recently launched a three-year public relations campaign called I Look Up. According to Robert Ivy, the organizations CEO, the chief message of the campaign is Architecture has a beneficial effect to change our lives for the better. Observe its not Architects are changing our lives for the better. Is that too hard of a sell?

More broadly, Ivy said the campaign aims to Reach not just clients but a woman whos going to serve on a school board, the person who may run for public office, the developer who is right now in graduate school, and also people who pass through public spaces (i.e., everyone else).

The centerpiece of the campaign is the AIAs first ever TV spot. Ninety seconds long, it has all the trappings of a Generic Brand Video: the hipster with funky hair, contemplative scenes of nature, time-lapse photography, urgent strings and echoing piano, pretentious blather in a sonorous voice: The world is counting on us to look ahead. What the commercial does not show is a single client or a person using a building. It suggests that architects build for no one but themselves. The video is all too accurate.

As the name of the campaign suggests, the AIA believes that by encouraging people to look at buildings, they will somehow see the value of architects today. But the AIA is oblivious to the fact that the more that ordinary people consciously observe new buildings, the more they will see the bad in them. People will ask themselves, Why does that school look like an office park? Why does that courthouse look like a prison? Why is that concert hall an alien spacecraft? Why does that brand-new house look like its been damaged by a hurricane? Whats with all the boring glass box commercial buildings? Why cant I find the entrance to the building? Why is the Freedom Tower so uninspiring?

The AIAs cluelessness is further evident from the website for I Look Up. It features a video paean to the John Hancock Tower in Boston, which was designed by the world-famous architect I.M. Pei. Its hard to see how the building, completed in 1976, can be lovable since it is nothing but mirrored glass panels on a sharply angled slab. The tower is a Modernist 60-storey skyscraper slammed next to the human-scale Copley Square and historic Romanesque Trinity Church by Henry Hobson Richardson. The tower does not engage with its surroundings in any meaningful way, and it has no relation to Bostons history or urban fabric. It is a faceless, uncivil design that is as friendly as a state trooper staring at you in reflective aviator sunglasses. The former dean of MITs school of architecture called the building a monster.

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The American Institute of Architects' Outreach Campaign Is Doomed to Failure

-- @landarchitects need you to share photos of your favorite green spaces #WLAM2015

WASHINGTON, March 17, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Landscape architects are the people responsible for designing the parks, plazas, bike trails and other green spaces that make the outdoors fun, healthy, and sustainable. If you had to pick a favorite designed green space to photograph, which would you pick? That's the question asked by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) as it launches World Landscape Architecture Month in April.

Experience the interactive Multimedia News Release here: http://www.multivu.com/players/English/7474051-asla-world-landscape-architecture-month/

Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140325/DC90161LOGO-b

ASLA is unveiling the eventformerly National Landscape Architecture Monthin collaboration with the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA). Participants will celebrate landscape architecture by engaging their communities through the #WLAM2015 social media campaign. ASLA's chapters will also introduce the profession to schools and connect with IFLA member organizations in other countries via Skype and social media.

"We're excited to celebrate landscape architecture on a global level," said Nancy Somerville, Hon. ASLA, executive vice president and CEO of ASLA. "We look forward to working with IFLA member organizations around the world and helping to develop the next generation of landscape architects."

"At a time when the globe faces major challenges caused by industrialization, urbanization, climate changes and the depletion of natural resources, World Landscape Architecture Month shines a light on our progressive profession," said Professor Kathryn Moore, IFLA president. "We are pleased that international collaboration such as this will illuminate the solutions landscape architecture offers."

Celebrate #WLAM2015 and help us go viral: asla.org/wlam

How to share your photo for #WLAM2015:

- Download the wallet-sized card that reads "Designed by a Landscape Architect" here: http://asla.org/uploadedFiles/CMS/Events/WLAMcard8.5x11.pdf

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Landscape architects are diversifying their efforts and need your help for World Landscape Architecture Month in April

Union Stations entrance, normally snarled with personal vehicles and taxis, could become an open plaza with fountains and caf seating, across Union Avenue from a demolished or rebuilt Church Street South housing complex.

That vision emerged at a charette, or brainstorming design session, about how to improve the train station, New Havens gateway to much of the outside world.

Participants envisioned car traffic minimized by lower speed limits, and taxis lining up behind the station rather than out on the street.

As they dreamed up a new vision at the session, which took place Friday, engineers and architects invoked the names of early 20th century urban planners Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. and Cass Gilbert, and the comprehensive plan they drew up in 1910 for the city, which would have connected the station with downtown. (Click here for a story on that plan.) They spoke of restoring he grandeur that Olmstead and Gilbert had envisioned for the city.

David Panagore, executive director of Park New Haven (pictured), said Fridays workshop was a visioning process, including ideas New Haven might want to pursue before the state builds a promised second parking garage.

Were not headed from here to construction, he said. It is important to start feeding ideas now.

Divided into three teams, the architects and engineers were tasked with ways to better organize Union Avenue, enhance the visitor experience to the station, and promote transit, walking and cycling.

Architect Howard Hebel of Newman Architects (pictured) and his group tackled the design of Union Avenue and providing elbow room for all the current forms of transit at the train station as well as increased numbers of people walking and biking to the station. Their plan called for keeping the drop/off and arrivals out front and having the taxi line at a different end of the station. Instead of valet parking out front, they would relegate it to one of the parking garages. A potential traffic-calming idea would be to create an island much like the one in the Broadway district for Union Avenue. The group envisioned the front of the station connecting to the future Union Square envisioned for the Hill-to-Downtown project.

Before tackling the visitors experience outside Union Station, architect Patrick Pinnells group could not resist addressing the inside, which he described a big space that is not coherent. The group would start with an information kiosk with a person inside to help people get their bearings and information.

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Architects, Engineers Reimagine The Train Station

Pier Solar and the great Architects #55 - Die Wahrheit
Nix mehr verpassen: http://goo.gl/iYz3bn Playlist: http://goo.gl/mZJVbh VLogs: http://goo.gl/EGdeMp ------------------------------------------------------...

By: ByteMe

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Pier Solar and the great Architects #55 - Die Wahrheit - Video

McKean Rehabilitation Park.Chiang Mai,Thailand. SOOK architects
God save the McKean The 106 years old McKean hospital was introduced to Sook Architects by Pirak Anurakyawachon, the lead photographer of Spaceshift Studio...

By: Sook Architects

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McKean Rehabilitation Park.Chiang Mai,Thailand. SOOK architects - Video

These Colours Don #39;t Run - Architects (Drum Cover)
These Colours Don #39;t Run - Architects (Drum Cover) All rights reserved to Architects and Epitaph Records. Recorded at Vital Sounds Studio and Filmed by Cameron Burns.

By: lucas chayne

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These Colours Don't Run - Architects (Drum Cover) - Video