It's hard enough convincing people that calls for freedom and democracy are hardly an antidote to the insanity of the capitalist economy. It might seem futile to write a song about it, but I've given it a try: youtu.be/rbampA_TyY4

This won't excite everyone, but I just posted an "Exterior wall psychrometric analysis calculator" that shows the temperature and dew point temperature gradients across a user-specified wall section. More of a teaching tool than something useful in practice: jonochshorn.com/scholarship/...

February break, so not many people are around Cornell's campus. This is what they missed yesterday. @cornellaaup.bsky.social

I've noticed a form of argument consisting of a list of nouns modified by a list of appropriate adjectives: compare Louis Sullivan on form and function (1896) — the toiling work-horse, the branching oak — with Robert Morris on harmony (1739) — the silent grove, the verdant meads.

I've uploaded a web version of my paper called "Revisiting Decorated Sheds and Ducks for Sustainable Building" in advance of its official presentation at the ACSA Annual meeting in March 2026. jonochshorn.com/scholarship/...

Not crazy about BYD's logo, screen-captured from www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/b...: Really confusing as the steering wheel turns, or in a rear-view mirror (where it reads as CYE).

I'm performing at the Cortland Coffeehouse Plus, 3 Church St., Cortland, NY, on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, 7–9 PM (doors open at 6:30 PM). Song list includes live "unplugged" versions of Ode to Fluff, OMA's Milstein Hall, and more. Listen to studio versions at jonochshorn.com/music/

Rereading Banham's Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment (1969), seems like Wright's Larkin Building, which Banham discusses, shares some formal qualities with @fosterandpartners.bsky.social Hongkong Shanghai Bank, including articulation of exterior mechanical and stairs, central open space.

Time to put your affairs in order... news.cornell.edu/stories/2025...

“After two centuries of ‘energy transitions,’ humanity has never burned so much oil and gas, so much coal and so much wood. Today around 2 billion cubic metres of wood are felled each year to be burned, three times more than a century ago.” Interesting review: www.thenation.com/article/cult...

Four "that"s within a 5-word span in this New Yorker interview: www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a... "I think [that that suggests that that] person is more likely to back Republican congressional candidates..." Not much an editor can do, I suppose.

To mark the seventh anniversary of my prostatectomy, I wrote a two-song cycle about my experience with prostate cancer. Both songs cover much of the same ground from slightly different perspectives. And both are embedded on my blog: jon.ochshorn.org/2025/08/two-... On YouTube: youtu.be/3zH9SXUzzwE

I wonder if Trump knows that the Smithsonian's Arts and Industries Building was designed by architect Adolf Cluss, "a leading revolutionary, an early card-carrying Communist, a close associate of Friedrich Engels and an intimate member of Karl Marx's circle." www.nytimes.com/1984/02/18/u...

Construction trash from McGraw Tower renovation at @cornelluniversity.bsky.social. On the one hand, I'm impressed that someone on the jobsite makes use of their knowledge of trigonometry; on the other hand, I'm wondering why such ad hoc on-site calculations are required in the first place.

Amongst this serious crowd, there must be some Madonna fans. @madonnatribe.com‬ Here is my cover of Papa Don't Preach (1986) youtu.be/jlYjGfSybT0

My new song is an inquiry into the nature of happiness in relation to certain quotidien activities of daily life. youtu.be/6aLQILbM7_g

This is a live version of my song, Adaptation, "adapted" from the movie, Adaptation, starring Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, and others. The movie was written by Charlie Kaufman, who inserts himself into the film as the screenwriter, played by Nicolas Cage. youtu.be/jBxf-PQJZXw

From OMA's Milstein Hall: "...there is also an implicit conflation of a type of performative athletic movement—whether featuring trained dancers, "free runners," or skateboarders—with the type of movement in and around buildings that constitutes useful circulation." jonochshorn.com/milsteinhall...

I sang three songs at the Nocturnal Cafe Open Mic in Ithaca, NY, on July 2, 2025. Here's one of the songs I performed, "Just Another Bad Dream," which I wrote in 1980 thinking about the trauma of the Vietnam war: youtu.be/xybdyaB5AFk

File under: don't quit your day job...

My cover of Dire Strait's 1985 "So Far Away" is also a tribute to Rand Hall at Cornell University, whose 1917 industrial-loft design—before the building was architecturally destroyed ("renovated") in 2017—serves as an imaginary setting for the performance: youtu.be/76CQYo2vayA

I talk about wayfinding in OMA's Milstein Hall in my open-access book of the same name. Here's a video update showing the continuing deterioration of floor-mounted signage for the auditorium (see ch. 6 www.jonochshorn.com/milsteinhall... in the book).

Three reasons to wear a mask today in Ithaca, NY, not even including COVID: 1. Bad day for pollen 2. Dust kicked up by trucks that are entering and leaving construction site 3. Canadian wildfire smoke

I played two singer-songwriter sets at the Coffeehouse Plus in Cortland's historic Universalist Unitarian Church last Saturday, May 31, 2025 — the first set with guitar, the second with digital piano. These are unedited iPhone videos of 2 songs (with iPhone audio). jon.ochshorn.org/2025/06/live...

A sneak preview of my upcoming benefit concert at the Universalist Unitarian Church "Coffeehouse +," 3 Church St., Cortland, NY, on Saturday, May 31, 2025 (7–9 PM): Here are two songs I performed two days ago at the AKE Gallery open mic, also in Cortland... youtu.be/sPn9MQByZTE

I'll be doing a benefit concert of original songs (first set with guitar, second set with piano) at the Coffeehouse+, Unitarian Universalist Church of Cortland, NY, Sat., May 31, 2025, 7–9 PM. More details: jonochshorn.com/music/music-...

When I designed and built an addition to my house, I took some pleasure in not only matching but also in lining up the red oak floor boards across the threshold between old and new.

From my photo archives, age 11: Freewheeling Bob Dylan for Christmas in 1963: supplemented by Google search and Photoshop's transform-distort mode.

A short and interesting account of the building code logic underlying air-tight buildings from my favorite mechanical engineer (Joe #Lstiburek): youtu.be/MEvcIj8ko-s?...

I posted two songs performed live at the Cortland Coffeehouse Plus on Feb. 22, 2025. These are piano-based, rather than guitar-based, and the audio is taken directly from the iPhone video clips, for better or worse: jon.ochshorn.org/2025/02/more...

I'm taking off my architect hat and putting on my singer-songwriter hat for a benefit concert this Saturday in Cortland, NY. All piano this time — no guitar. Details at jonochshorn.com/music/perfor...

Real estate people have been known to use wide-angle lenses to inflate the apparent size of homes or to create plans that exaggerate the dimensions of certain rooms (always with a small-print disclaimer), but turning Ithaca's 6-mile creek into a full-blown river? Wow! ithacavoice.org/2025/01/indu...

This is the excellent New Yorker article by @elizkolbert.bsky.social that I quote in my new song about the failure of human civilization to overcome war, poverty, and superstition during the 12,000-year Holocene. youtu.be/z0CO69ChpkM?...

This is my new song about the failure of human civilization to take advantage of the conditions created during the Holocene: We Only Had a Few Good Years. youtu.be/z0CO69ChpkM

This is a live version of my song, Ran Through My Mind, recently performed at the Cortland Coffeehouse Plus as an unplanned and unexpected guest of Colleen Kattau (singer-songwriter of Latin-influenced progressive eclectic folk). youtu.be/FP__-Y-ovng

Richard Meier's Weill Hall bathroom at Cornell "reveals" an attention to detail and modularity that is almost pathological: follow the continuous reveal above wall tile, and note the way that toilet partitions line up precisely at tile joints. And this is just the bathroom...

I asked ChatGPT to write a "Bananagrams poem" and was struck by the shameless self-confidence it projected as it consistently offered up incorrect responses. Read the entire verbatim transcript of our conversation, for your amusement or horror: jon.ochshorn.org/2025/01/my-c...

Passed a Tesla Cybertruck parked on College Avenue with Texas plates on my morning walk today. Did not explode.

Karl Marx writing about the NFL, with apologies to Matthew Walther, editor of The Lamp (thelampmagazine.com), who actually wrote the article in today's NY Times—the text has not been changed; only the author.

“The idea that formal architectural qualities reflect the complexity of contemporary life is not merely flawed, but is a transparent ideological construct…to support the various…modes of expression that characterize avant-garde production.” Download my paper here: www.agathon.it/agathon/arti...

Concrete structure in India with formwork supported by wooden sticks has some resemblance to Corbusier’s Dom-Ino project. Captain Konkan dispenses with Corb's conceptual niceties in the interest of pure expediency! And yet, the final product still has some residual Modernist tendencies.

My letter in the The Chronicle of Higher Education: "Union-Busting at Boston University?" www.chronicle.com/blogs/letter...

Just to add that faculty's exclusive rights and responsibility for curriculum derives from Cornell's Bylaws which state that college faculties "determine the entrance requirements for its own students [and] prescribe and define courses of study for them." deanoffaculty.cornell.edu/wp-content/u...

I've been collecting provocative/absurd building technology quotes at: jonochshorn.com/academics/co...

I've just passed my exams to become a Certified Passive House Consultant, a designation awarded by Phius (Passive House Institute US). For architects troubled by the LEED hoax, the rigorous attention paid to air-tightness, super-insulation, and good air quality is a useful antidote.

“Honestly, I feel fantastic. ... The auction has turned what began as a statement in Basel into an even more absurd global spectacle.” He added: “In that way, the work becomes self-reflexive: The higher the price, the more it reinforces its original concept.” www.nytimes.com/2024/11/27/n...

Great holiday T-shirts for your left-leaning architecture/culture fans: Material Girl—Material Guy; Building Bad; OMA's Milstein Hall; Great Moments in the History of Rhetoric jonochshorn-merch.printify.me/products Low-cost paperback versions of my free open-access books jonochshorn.com/index.html

The most interesting way to return a basketball to the Issue Room in Teagle Hall at #Cornell — after shooting some hoops across the street in Barton Hall: youtube.com/shorts/o3Vnc...

While I'm working on a new (original) song with ironic political content relating to climate change and the Holocene epoch, I took a break to record this live cover of #TaylorSwift 's #loml: youtu.be/FrtcGlnP3wg

Can we talk about urinals? jon.ochshorn.org/2024/11/can-...