Late last year the New York Times published a thought-provoking article about the importance of workplace culture. Adam Grant, professor of management and psychology at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, explains

When it comes to landing a good job, many people focus on the role. Although finding the right title, position and salary is important, there’s another consideration that matters just as much: culture. The culture of a workplace — an organization’s values, norms and practices — has a huge impact on our happiness and success.

What aspects of workplace culture do our readers most value? What are the elements of office culture that are important to you and push you to be more creative and efficient?

Committing your firm to BIM may seem daunting, especially with the time and cost investments that come with adopting new sets of software and a new workflow. There are hidden parallels however, between BIM and other processes within a firm, and therefore these changes to a new way of working may not be as demanding as they first seem. Here are five ways you may already be halfway to BIM.

The Dovrefjell mountain range, which divides the north and south of Norway, holds "a unique place in [the] Norwegian consciousness." A constellation of myths and legends are connected to these mountains which have, over recent years, born witness to hunting, mining and military activity. But it is also the home of a large wild reindeer population. At Hjerkinn, on the edge of the Dovrefjell National Park, Oslo-based Snøhetta have created an observation pavilion for the Wild Reindeer Foundation. In this film by Alejandro Villanueva, the building and the surrounding landscape are revealed through time-lapse and in astonishing detail.

US tech-giant Apple Inc. have revealed that they will consolidate their UK operations to "a new Apple campus" in London's Battersea, at the heart of a site formerly occupied by the derelict Grade II* Listed Battersea Power Station. The 42-acre complex, which is currently undergoing major redevelopment (and is soon to have a public square designed by BIG connecting to the Electric Boulevard development designed by Norman Foster and Frank Gehry), will provide a mix of commercial space and residential zones. According to the London Evening Standard, Apple will be relocating around 1,400 staff from eight sites around the British capital to the former power station, occupying all six floors of the restored building's extensive new office space. They will be the site's single largest single tenant.

Opening to much fanfare earlier this week, Zaha Hadid Architects' Port House holds a commanding presence over the port of Antwerp. The design combines a listed and formerly derelict fire station, which was restored as part of the project, with an eye-catching glass extension which rises out of the older building's courtyard and thrusts itself towards the water in a dramatic cantilever. In the context of the port, where large infrastructure and colossal machines form the backdrop to everyday functions, the building boldly stakes its claim as the operational centerpiece, providing a space for the Port of Antwerp's 500 employees. Photographer Thomas Mayer visited the building, capturing its striking external presence and investigating how its structural gymnastics translate to the building's internal space.

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Louisa Hutton and Matthias Sauerbruch, of Berlin-based practice Sauerbruch Hutton, have recently published Archive 2 – a second series of monographic volumes dedicated to the work of their practice between 2006 and 2015. In the nine years between two sets of books, the architects have observed that "the expansion of the digital realm has had a profound effect on the way we perceive, discuss and produce architecture." As such, and on the occasion of their second volume, they are inviting people to share their thoughts "on the convergence of architecture in concrete, pixel and print."

“Belonging,” the curatorial quintet of the 2016 Oslo Architecture Triennale, After Belonging, argue, “is no longer something bound to one’s own space of residence, or to the territory of a nation.” For this group of Spanish-born architects, academics and theorists—Lluís Alexandre Casanovas Blanco, Ignacio Galán, Carlos Minguez Carrasco, Alejandra Navarrese Llopis and Marina Otero Verzier—the very notion of our belongings and what it means to belong is becoming increasingly unstable.

After Belonging is the sixth incarnation of the Triennale and the first one in which a single curatorial thread has woven all of the festival’s activities together, including the international conference. The goal of the two primary exhibitions—On Residence and In Residence, including a series of Intervention Strategies—is to develop platforms with the aim of “rehearsing research strategies,” providing new ways for architects to engage with “contemporary changing realities."

Machines have long been integral to architectural discourse. Vitruvius concluded his ten books with a meditation on war machines, and Le Corbusier published on his industrial muses just over 100 years ago. Yet something is different today. We have always learned from machines—our societies are fundamentally shaped by their processes—but now, machines learn. We live in paradoxical times. Machinic processes, computational algorithms and artificial intelligence have never been so proximate, direct, and intimate to daily life, yet we are many steps removed from their practical operations.

This issue of Volume, the third in our Learning series, seeks to take one small step in the direction towards understanding the contemporary relevance of machines for architecture, and one giant leap for mankind. Volume #49: Hello World! also includes In Loving Support, a 32-page insert produced with Het Nieuwe Instituut on living and working with algorithms.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is pleased to announce the launch of an international open design competition for ‘The Wall’ - a structure made of a million bricks to represent answered prayer. The competition is being managed on behalf of the charity Network, The Evangelical Council for the Manchester Area Trust.

The iPhone 7 is here. Announced at Apple’s September Launch event today, the new device and its sibling, the iPhone 7 plus, have arrived after months of rumors, leaks and anticipation. The phones are loaded with a bevy of new components, including a new pressure-sensitive home button and bluetooth headphones, marking another step in the journey toward our wireless future.

Of course, in spite of the hype that the new iPhone will inevitably get—as it always does—it’s not the only smartphone on the market. Many will point to the fact that its expected RAM capabilities (2GB for the iPhone 7 and 3GB for the 7 Plus) still lag behind some competitors (for comparison the Samsung Galaxy S7 has 3GB and the S7 Edge 4GB), while the upgraded 32GB storage and newly-found water-resistance are no more than catching up with Apple’s competition. Nonetheless, Apple’s iPhone 7 also features a number of features that could make it a phone perfectly suited to architects. Read on to find out exactly why.

This past weekend, the Bauhaus in Dessau was animated by the Bauhaus Festival. Titled “Circus, Circus – from Black to White,” the event was intended to present all the fun of the fair with a monochrome twist--in opposition to the wild colors usually associated with circuses--and in the words of the Bauhaus was a “kinetic explorations of bodies, objects, media, space and sound.” The event was also an opportunity to tap into the legacy of Bauhaus legend László Moholy-Nagy, whose experiments in film and media blend well with the performative nature of the circus. The event featured a number of performances by artists, while “Cybernetic Circus” by Anhalt University of Applied Sciences and the Initiative Neuer Zirkus turned the grounds of the Bauhaus into an “architectural landscape” of performance modules inspired by Maholy-Nagy. Also featured were installations by students at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle titled “Neo Luna Park.” Photographer Laurian Ghinitoiu traveled to the event to capture the festivities, showing their interaction with Walter Gropius’ famous building.

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