This month we mark ten years since we started this thing. The market crash of 2008 left me (and so many of us) unemployed and without prospects. So, like more than a few of us out there now, I decided to go it alone. 10 years and dozens of projects later, we’re still here, still going strong. To everyone who has helped make that possible, thank you so much.

Can’t make this stuff up.

The dark political genius of the “protecting the character of the community” argument is that it allows those who employ it to avoid responsibility for their obstructionism. They portray themselves as “stakeholders” merely trying to keep their neighborhood from getting hurt. Even worse, at a time that celebrates activism, many of these community-character protectors pose as righteous neighborhood activists. 

Please. They are the powerful, not the powerless. They’re victimizers, not victims. And they’ve been getting away with the crime of shutting their communities off from change, and putting big problems onto the younger, poorer, more diverse generations…

Great piece by Joe Mathews for Zocalo.

Good piece from Fast Company on the scourge of open offices.

Above: a concept for a prefab park house I designed in Studio during my first year at UBC. Original, right?

Below: an experimental house from Leningrad made many decades before.

There's probably a moral here, but for now I'm pretty upset about time traveling Russian design thieves.

42four is on Apple Music. Right now we're releasing playlists one at a time, but coming this fall. when the social networking features of Apple Music kick in, we'll be engaging with the community more fully.

Music is important to what we do over here. 42four HQ is rarely without a soundtrack, so we've decided to share our favourite playlists.

Up first is Jazz. We made this playlist with people who are new to Jazz and need a place to start. 35 songs and growing this playlist will be updated from time to time and those updates should appear automatically in your music when you subscribe. Clich here for the playlist.

Enjoy. Next up: Soul.