 Washington’s Newseum Goes to Press
Polshek Partnership’s museum is a testament to the media and the First Amendment
Polshek Partnership’s Newseum, which opened April 11 in the nation’s capital, uses a material and formal language of Modernist industrial glass and steel to communicate the concept of media transparency and the professionalization of the decentralized field of journalism. Its site and materials further distinguish it as a symbol of the institutional watchdog function of journalism. 
 San Francisco Moves Toward Far-Reaching Green Building Code
San Francisco is blazing a trail on sustainability as it moves towards enacting the most far-reaching green building legislation in the U.S. This new green building policy builds on the city’s current sustainability initiatives and will be implemented gradually over the next four years, with full implementation in 2012. The green building code will require all new high-rise residential buildings to be certified LEED® Silver, commercial buildings and major renovations over 25,000 square feet to be LEED Gold, and new small- and mid-sized residential to be rated with the GreenPoint rating system—all leading to a holistic plan for greening the building stock and meeting the city’s climate action goals.
 In Memory, Rex Whitaker Allen, 1914–2008
Rex Whitaker Allen, the 1969-’70 AIA president and architect/author who played a major role in reshaping health-care facility design, died April 7. He was 93.
Allen’s interest in hospital design started early in his career, perhaps partially motivated by the fact that his father was a surgeon. Born in San Francisco and raised in New England, Allen received an AB from Harvard in 1936. He spent a year at the Columbia Architectural School before returning to Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, from which he received his MArch degree in 1939. After graduation, he worked in several offices on the East Coast, including that of Isadore Rosenfield, a hospital architect. He returned to San Francisco in 1949 and, four years later, opened his own office.
 Survive, Even Thrive in an Uncertain Economy
Registration and submissions due January 17
How can you position your firm to remain profitable in a time when recession, tight credit, and soaring costs are eating into consumer confidence and the willingness of clients to build and financiers to lend? Join in April 29 from 1:30 to 3 p.m., EDT, to find out as the AIA brings a free on-line seminar right to your office or component. AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA, will set the pace with an analysis of the latest data from the Architecture Billings Index (ABI), which has shown its steepest downturn in its 12-year history. Providing the large-firm perspective will be Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects Managing Principal Robert G. Packard III, Assoc. AIA, the current chair of the AIA Large Firm Roundtable on Excellence in Design and Practice. And sharing her insights into small-firm practice excellence will be Karen L.W. Harris, AIA, principal, Architecture Matters, and past chair of the AIA Small Project Practitioners Knowledge Community.
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