Alexander Walter connected with Andrew Linn and Jack Becker of Washington, DC-based BLDUS, for Archinect’s latest Studio Snapshot.
We learn they “think of BLDUS houses as wood salads: organic ingredients tastefully combined, balanced for flavor and texture. Living on a diet of salads has kept us lean, and we’re ready to bulk up on something heartier. The historic DC built environment is full of spectacular masonry buildings, and our pre-BLDUS experience with brick and stone at a civic scale has given us the technical know-how to work on this next course.”
rubinazainab “Really enjoyed…The…ethos and the idea that a modest project can lift the life next door stays with you.”
Wide House in Washington, DC. Photo – Ty Cole
Plus, the latest Deans List features a conversation with Winka Dubbeldam, the first female director at SCI-Arc.
News
We got our first look inside the new David Geffen Galleries by Peter Zumthor. While some thought “It looks dope” others were “underwhelmed”. Paul Petrunia noted, “I was skeptical when I heard that Zumthor wanted to paint the concrete in the gallery spaces (the enclosed rooms), but it turned out beautifully, from the choice of colors to the way the patterns in the concrete is expressed” and shared an almost 30-minute first-person perspective video walk-through of the building to prove it.
Image credit – LACMA
Belarusian authorities detained more than 50 employees of an architectural firm in the country’s largest single raid this year. quadrus penseroso commented “Экстремальный контроль, если он не сбалансирован, как правило, сокращает долгосрочную жизнеспособность”.
A team led by Níall McLaughlin will design Australia’s first new Catholic cathedral in over a century. OddArchitect has “never been a fan of using masonry to create acute angled forms and overhangs. So often there is a large amount of hidden structural steel used to support the masonry…really hope the design is using the masonry to support itself.” In response Gary Garvin was able to dig up an interior view of the proposed cathedral, “which shows the extensive use of wood supports.”
Bjarke Ingels Group unveiled designs for the new Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville. Donna Sink chimed in “It’s pretty, and seems like it will fill a community need. And that site on the river is very nice…Also William Rawn does good work, so I trust it will be constructed with sufficient firmness.”
Sirmai-Peterson House – Image credit – Cameron Carothers
A rare 1980s Frank Gehry home with unique geometries exchanged hands, and so we all got to peak inside the Sirmai-Peterson House.
Blogs/Firms/WorkUpdates
Ennead Architects joined with CannonDesign, yet will remain a distinct studio, practicing as Ennead, a CannonDesign company and keeping existing teams in New York, Los Angeles and Shanghai. The_Crow criticized “Must be nice to be a partner that assumed the legacy of Polshek and then cashes out 5 or so years later.”
YET Office, a San Francisco based firm, published a text on ‘East Asian spatial traditions and an architectural critique of the modern ICU‘.
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Schools
Our Get Lectured series continued with a look at the Spring 26 lineups for the Department of Architecture at LA’s East Los Angeles College and the School of Architecture at the University of Minnesota’s College of Design in Minneapolis.
In hiring news: MIT selected Ana Miljački as the next leader for the Department of Architecture while John Ochsendorf was named Associate Dean for Research for SA+P.
Discussion/Threads
Only one ‘Nector jumped into the fray, when prompted, in the new thread Underrated vs. Overrated Buildings. ill_will’s answer “SANAA’s collection of structures at the University of Bocconi Urban Campus in Milan, Italy.”
Veduta del Nuovo Campus SANAA dell’Università Bocconi a Milano photo by Plumbago Capensis via Wikimedia Commons
The same ill_will started a thread as a result of a challenge they were running into working on a small project with “some family of mine”. Specifically “This idea of theirs…I have advised against this but want to do my best to honor their wishes.” Non Sequitur advised telling the “relatives to stop being cheapskates and pay for proper construction advice” whereas Wilma Buttfit suggested “Beam or wall to pick up the load at the opening. It’s that easy. If that’s too expensive, maybe turn the stair? At least then you might find it’s not too expensive because you are getting what you want.”
BulgarBlogger is thinking of using AI for some vibecoding. His (not yet) MVP, is an App for rating Architecture Firms. Wood Guy wasn’t convinced “You think clients understand what firms need to do well enough to give accurate ratings? You don’t see disgruntled employees or competitors taking advantage of the system? How is your idea different than Glassdoor.com?” Richard Balkins saw at least one potential feature “Glassdoor without the baggage of sifting through a mountain pile of software architects and IT architects…but beyond that…not sure.” proto added “A rating system works if reviewers agree on what constitutes quality. But I suspect a whole range of unintended consequences for a system open to the whimsy of humans, not to mention bots built to game the results.”
Additionally
Vol. 48 No. 7 · 23 April 2026 of the London Review of Books published Eyal Weizman on the demolition of Gaza.
Therein we read “Throughout the past two and a half years, Gaza has not only been a demolition zone but a construction site, reshaped according to Israel’s blueprint…The scale of the earthworks…so great…The surviving population of Gaza has been reduced to a condition of bare existence…For the Israeli government, reconstruction provides leverage…The erasure of Palestinian life in Gaza could, counterintuitively, be achieved by architectural means.”