Mediation, then arbitration, then litigation. 

The owner is throwing good money after bad. The longer this contractor is on the job the more it is going to cost in time and money to fix it.

Stop the job, terminate the contract and make an immediate demand for refund based on cost to correct bad work. If you can find grounds, call in the building inspector to issue a stop work order.

The owner should be prepared to take a loss now, multiplied by time and aggravation if legal action is pursued, in order to limit further losses and move the project ahead. The idea of collection is laughable but can possibly be achieved with a strong bluff.

And he's not YOUR crap contractor unless you recommended him.

Someone has finally come up with an application that is perfect for 3D printing.

Great news for Naptown! Cummins has chosen TWBTA, SHoP, and Deborah Berke to "compete" for their new downtown Indy headquarters/office building.  ALL excellent architects, I'm very very excited!

I just hope all three firms get paid for their "competition" entry. Maybe the local newspaper misrepresented an RFP as being a design competition.

Hi TC! just realized it has been a week or so since I dropped by.

last couple of days been fighting a summer cold. ugh...

Congrats archanonymous, sorry to hear gruen.

I watched To Rome With Love last night.  Alec Baldwin plays a very funny architect character. It's a pretty delightful movie, which was fun as I've been avoiding Woody Allen movies for awhile since he went through a very angry stage. Lovely views of Rome, too, of course.

Allen's movies all look the same to me now, with a neurotic lead bumbling his way through life. 

Just saw Jean-Pierre Jeunet's City of Lost Children again. Well worth it. As was Amelie, a funny, lovely film.

We watched Trance last night, which is Danny Boyle's version of Inception, basically.  it was very good and nicely confusing.  Best of all was the architecture: reflective glassy glowing indecipherable spaces for the bad stuff and some lovely shots of Ronchamp for the safe place.

My safe place lately is on my couch watching movies with my family.  Perhaps I should see about a film festival at Ronchamp?

last night i watched last tango in halifax, masterpiece mystery and went to bed. wtf?

But Steven you're tired from a weekend of FUN!

So, a serious question: how does one work effectively and in good spirits on a project to which they are deeply opposed? How do you find the will to put your best abilities to work on something you think should *not* be built in the first place?

I certainly have developed some coping strategies over the years, but this is bigger.  It's one thing to go ahead and accommodate an entire kitchen cabinet devoted to housing nothing but the Kitchenaid mixer on a pop-out shelf even when you think it's a waste of space that will just break in a year anyway. This is a much bigger question of using architecture to solve a problem that should be solved by other means entirely - an architectural solution is the wrong answer.

Suggestion, anyone? How do I keep a smile on my face and in my heart when I'm so deeply skeptical?

tell us more donna.  this isn't like a pro-lifer designing a clinic that performs abortions?

Donna, skeptical about Kitchenaid mixers? I prefer the Bodum ones personally.

Donna, you can recuse yourself (consequences unknown) or hold your nose and make the best possible wrong solution. If opting for the latter, document the process, your objections to it and the alternative course(s) of action better suited for the task. At least in the end you will have the basis for a revealing short film or essay on the matter.

Alternatively you could independently pursue the more intelligent alternative while punching the clock on stupidity. The important thing is to be doing something you care about and believe in. In every crisis there is opportunity. Find one.

In the end, sometimes it comes down to a simple choice: eat or sleep.

Donna, don't you remember my grin and bear it disposition back in Indy. You know those days of Lifestyle Centers and Beaux Arts inspired manses for the Stepford Wife town of West Clay where I went to a reception on the Ronald Reagan Greene and blamed my vomiting on a bad oyster. Oh, how I grinned when we all received an email from a client in which he strongly urged us to support the McCain/Palin ticket. Don't you remember my good spirits? Neither do I.

vado i watched last tango in halifax and then went to bed when masterpiece mystery came on.  so i got you beat.  then again i get pretty sleepy pretty early these days.

donna, have you expressed your views (in an appropriate fashion) to the appropriate people?  they did hire you for your expertise, after all.  perhaps it's worth a shot.  

also, willl the architecture (non)solution preclude the adopting of a true, non-architectural solution to the problem?  if not, you can at least feel like this piece of architecture is not going to make anything WORSE, and maybe you can follow a separate path to help instigate the appropriate non-architectural solution.  (start an advocacy group, write a letter to someone who can help, etc.)

hard to know what else to say without more specifics, but understood that you don't feel you can provide them...

the Ronald Reagan Greene… ugh I think I just vomited a little just from hearing that.

vado isn't it the same in rural louisiana?  every time I'm down in the south people just start randomly (apropos of nothing) bitching about obama, just assuming that i will (of course! i'm white!) agree… so irritating.  makes me feel slightly better about living in a place where the other side (which i normally would support) is so entrenched that THEY'RE pretty terrible too… 

yes, manta i get that all the time being a middle aged white guy the conversation quickly goes from how are you to obama is ruining the country to it is the end of days. we had a guy working on our a/c recently and he almost fainted when he saw the sheppard fairey Yes We Did Obama poster hanging in better half's office.

I live in an alternate universe where people talk about the green party candidate as if they have a shot.

I'm about to start a thread.  

Christopher Scoates named as new Director of Cranbrook.  I can't say I have much of an opinion but his resume looks good and I actually like the fact that he's an alum.

I'M hanging on by a thread....

hope it's a strong thread

Has anyone gotten around to complaining about George Lucas hiring a Chinese firm to design his Chicago museum yet?

If not, please let me be first.

What's wrong with hiring an international firm?  Plenty of American firms do work in China.

I find that to be distasteful as well.

Architects claim to care about site specifics and cultural sensitivity and then simply plop huge buildings on sites willy-nilly with the majority of the design team having never set foot in the country much less spending any appreciable time at the site.

MAD architects - in case anyone was wondering... they do interesting work, IMO.  looks like half the partners went to school in the US.

I am not critiquing MAD or their work. I simply find it annoying when a plutocrat makes multiple major cities compete to get a building, then promptly ensures that a large portion of the money will not stay in that city (which has plenty of design talent to come up with a good idea).

@sneaky though to be fair - the land/pedestrian-scape design firm and executive architect role will be played by two local offices - Studio Gang and VOA associates.

And Donna, trying to do your best within context of not believing in what your doing, cannot be an easy thing. good luck.

Hi TC!

and vado re: that story sure it wasn't "GIN and bear it disposition back in Indy", what with the vomiting...

That's true, but it feels token to me. Granted I am not a part of the discussion or process. 

honestly, being from around here in chicago, i'm a little excited to get MAD here.  There are also a number of Chicago firms which specialize in peppering the landscape in China with towers (in some cases displacing slums in a questionable manner, though that has nothing to do with the a and e firms).  And, really, I'm tired of some of the more reserved modernist local architecture.  It should be a nice contrast and add a lot of flavor to our fair city (though it will sit next to soldier field out in our architectural sculpture garden of sorts).  Maybe that's being a little spoiled in the sense that we can curate our city like that, but whatevs.

I am excited to have a MAD building in Chicago (not that I live there). They do good work. I am sure plenty of local firms submitted to the rfq... It doesn't mean they are not talented, just that the client felt MAD was best suited for the project. 

I may have a move coming up! I always talk about how my slight detour out of college into structural design and steel detailing/ scripting, coding, analysis would someday pay off and I think I just got a pretty good job offer. Celebratory pickle? For a late snack. Nothing better around.

Good luck with the possible move, archanonymous!

My opinion is mostly unrelated to design and more related to the apparent (to me) lack of interest in keeping money and jobs in the country that made Lucas wealthy. My previous statement about plopitechture is only tangentially related to my overall distaste for Lucas the businessman. As a filmmaker, he's to be lauded (prequels aside, of course). With the salary-fixing scandal that his firm was actively engaged in, I find it hard to believe that Lucas the businessman gives two shits about anyone who isn't as important as he is. Just another plutocrat shitting wherever he prefers and trying to get the rest of us to believe it's ice cream.

sneaky - it's not really a museum - it's a mausoleum.  If he were interested in giving back he wouldn't be building a monument to himself.

toaster, that's a very interesting point. We shall see what the cost to visit entails.

Why is George spending all his money in Chi-town when his fortune was made in LA?  I think Frank G should be bull shit that he didn't come to him to do yet another get LA Building. Ya that is the ticket...California Architects....should protest this shameful  thought of him building a Museum  in Chicago.

Many of them are, although I understand that wasn't the intent of your sarcasm.

I just want to say I'm a big fan of the posts by Amelia.

Morning all,

Anyone seen Linklater's Boyhood? Really want to see.

Toasterovern could agree more!

Sarah - Chai-town is how I've heard it... usually thought it referred to a Chinatown until I heard deep dish being mentioned.

'k' as in 'kappa;

'I' as in Ice

cardamom