WHAT DOES AN ARCHITECT DO? To many people, what architects do is a mystery. Buildings simply appear. The general public has so little understanding of design vocabulary that buildings are incorporated into public life devoid of meaning. The divide between architecture and public understanding generates a host of problems: between architect and client, architecture school and student, community and planning board. It contributes to the rate of attrition in architecture schools, to logjams in offices, and to miscommunication among project teams. — Published 2001.0627
	A MUSEUM FOR EVERYONE The National Museum of Colombia houses a fragile and priceless archeological collection, like many historical museums around the world. How can such collections be made accessible to those whose primary mode of understanding is by touch and sound? — Published 2001.0613
	SHAPING MIDDLE SCHOOLS Stop into a science class at Angola Middle School in Angola, Indiana, and you might hear a discussion of how human bacteria has launched a multi-billion-dollar, international perfume and deodorant industry. At Edgar Allan Poe Middle School in Annandale, Virginia, eighth-graders in math and science may be checking the stock reports to review the latest figures for major consumer product and pharmaceutical companies. — Published 2001.0606
	PRACTICE PARTNERING PARADIGM The future appears to favor three types of architectural practice: niche specialists, global giants, and local practices. This is the view shared by three U.S. firms, each an international leader in its specialty. Together they are crafting an innovative response. — Published 2001.0530
	KILLER MONUMENTS OF VALPARAISO Halfway down its long, jagged Pacific coast, Chile's second city has seen better days. A century ago, Valparaiso was the country's main port, but it has since been abandoned by the wealthy classes and the industrialists and is rough, rusty, and grimy. The city's hodgepodge of Victorian follies, French neoclassical palaces, and modest wooden chalets clinging precariously to the hillsides is literally falling apart. — Published 2001.0516
	POSTCARD FROM JAPAN Dear ArchitectureWeek, While traveling in Japan, I was inspired to produce a new series of pieces. This artwork combines shape, color, form, and architectural "citygraphs," to translate a "physical reality" into a two-dimensional "constructed map." — Published 2001.0509
	WILLIAM TURNBULL - BUILDINGS IN THE LANDSCAPE We ended up on the rugged north coast of California, on an overgrazed sheep meadow, hard by the surf breaking at the foot of the rocky cliffs. The ground was not flat but shaped into low mounds and swells, edged on one side by the ribbon of Highway 1 and indented on the other by ocean forces seeking weak points in the rock. — William Turnbull, Jr., — Published 2001.0509
	PRESERVING WRIGHT'S WESTCOTT HOUSE In 1907, a house began to take shape on High Street in Springfield, Ohio. Local residents referred to it as a monstrosity. Some thought it to be such a bizarre design for a residential neighborhood, it was mistaken for a sanitarium or hospital. — Published 2001.0502
	PUBLIC AND PRIVATE IN NEW YORK Book Review: Privately Owned Public Space: The New York City Experience, by Jerold S. Kayden, the New York City Department of City Planning, and the Municipal Art Society of New York. John Wiley & Sons, 2000, ISBN 0471362573. — Published 2001.0425
	OWNER-BUILT SUSTAINABLE SHELTER Buying a tract house so insensitively placed on the land that extensively remodeled terrain results and using foreign materials that require large amounts of nonsustainable fuels for their manufacture and transport are signs of a people without guiding principles in their relationship to the environment. That we have become such people and willingly pay for this disconnected life suggests the depth of our alienation and distance from a secure relationship with sustainability and environmental sensitivity. — Published 2001.0418

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