Until last week, my wife Tomo and I had the great pleasure of being stewards of Whitney Smith's Holmes House. It was built by Jackson and Evelyn Holmes in 1941. In 2021, it became LA County Historic Landmark #8. What made this house so special was not that it was gigantic, ostentatious, or glamorous, but that it was built for a middle-class family interested in the power of good design.

As wildfires continue to devastate Los Angeles, with thousands of residents displaced and entire communities struggling to recover, the urgency of addressing fire resilience in urban landscapes has never been greater. In light of the ongoing crisis, we are republishing our 2021 interview with UCLA’s Hitoshi Abe and Jeffrey Inaba about their collaborative research studios, FireCity and FireLAnd. This exploration into designing adaptive, fire-resilient environments feels more relevant than ever today. Inaba and Abe discuss critical topics such as the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI), strategies for balancing human activity with ecological systems, and rethinking urban regeneration in the face of climate change. Their approach to fostering a “new ecology of coexistence” between wilderness and city offers insights that could inspire architects, planners, and policymakers as they navigate the challenges of rebuilding and creating more sustainable communities. This republication also serves...

In the architectural profession, some argue, financial management often takes a backseat to creative pursuits, leaving firms vulnerable to cash flow challenges and unsustainable business practices. Concerns about profitability, rising costs, and the perceived value of the profession persist, not least in Archinect's recent business survey results.  In this article, we take the conversation about the architect's cash flow back to its roots: fees. With the help of Enoch Sears, founder of the Business of Architecture platform, we explore five common ways architects charge fees for design services, alongside five tips on how architects can charge fees effectively while maintaining profitability, client trust, and sustainable workplace culture for managers and employees.

Through storytelling and cutting-edge technology, the creative company Squint/Opera (formally a Journey studio since 2022) envisions a world where media architecture enriches urban life and reshapes how we interact with the built environment. From immersive experiences at the Empire State Building in New York or Sphere in Las Vegas to future-facing projects in augmented reality, the work of the London-based studio opens new gateways not only for our perception and experience of physical reality but for the mission and composition of contemporary design practices. In the latest edition of Archinect In-Depth: Visualization, Archinect's Niall Patrick Walsh spoke with Managing Director Matt Quinn about the studio's work and what it says about the future of physical and digital space.