A Black & White Palette:

Each course is supposed to be designed with a particular size and genre that befits its place in the sequence. There are variations depending on location and custom. The following is a common sequence for multi-course meals:

that responds to the ceremony of dining in a way that reflects the evolution of the dining experience itself.

The Animator’s Palate is credited as being designed by the Rockwell Group on their website, however there is no doubt that the design is the result of a close collaboration between the Rockwell Group and Walt Disney Imagineers, because of

Animator’s Palate on the Disney Wonder is an approximate 462-seat, Main Dining restaurant located on Deck 4, Aft that serves contemporary Pacific Rim cuisine made up of Pacific Island foods, Asian cooking techniques, California freshness and other cultural and culinary influences.

Honoring the magic of Disney storytelling and animation, Animator’s Palate serves up something more than just fine food: an innovative dinner show where many of your favorite Disney characters come to life right before your eyes, amid the enchanting theme music of classic Disney films.

Boasting a spacious yet stylized dining room that recalls a real life hand-drawn environment, the restaurant features a fantastic architectual design, where proportions bend and slant suddenly and sketches showcasing characters and scenes from classic Disney films adorn the walls around you.

Dinner Show

Dining at Animator’s Palate is a colorful affair. Throughout your meal, stare in wonderment as the Disney animation sketches on the walls all around you slowly transform from stark black and white to brilliant color, over the familiar classic orchestral themes of Disney movies playing overhead.

Behold Ariel from The Little Mermaid become bathed in blue seawater. Watch Pocahontas become filled with golden earth tones. Gaze upon the shimmering beauty of Belle and the Beast during the unforgettable ballroom scene. Even your servers will magically become drenched in vivid color. You’re sure to never view animation quite the same way after this unique dinner show that places you in the middle of a brilliant masterpiece celebrating the art of Disney storytelling.

For Guests embarking on 4-Night cruises who may enjoy dinner at Animator’s Palate on 2 select nights depending on dining rotation, the dinner show will be replaced with Disney’s classic Silly Symphonies animated shorts.

http://www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=56180_0_42_0_C156

HKS founded in 1939
The firm now employs over 689 people, making it one of the largest architectural firms in the United States. During the recent Econonic collapse of 2008 and 2009, HKS Inc had to layoff over 685 1455

HKS Architects Inc. employs 689 people at the time this article was written

An excerpt from the AIA most recent Work on the Boards survey report:

“Employment at architecture firms was down 2,000 in April (the most recent month available) bringing losses to almost 22,000 from April 2008, and 31,000 from their high in July 2008. Through April, architecture firms have … reduced their payrolls by almost 14 percent. In contrast, throughout the broader economy payrolls have declined only 4.3 percent since the recession began at the end of 2007.”

I post this only because it’s about the only actual data I’ve seen published on this topic so far.

http://www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=81575_1600_42_1300
http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3123605

http://www.sbnonline.com/Local/Article/10613/71/0/Ralph_Hawkins.aspx?Category=117

http://www.architecturaldigest.com/homes/homes/2009/09/nunzio_desantis_slideshow?slide=6#globalNav

In case you have not heard, we are in the middle of a recession, the Great Recession, and although many of my colleagues feel that the end is near, I’m afraid to tell you that the end is not here. The economy has ceased its unfettered free fall, and we are now in a period of recovery which will last much longer than the collapse that everyone witnessed during the past two years. No, I am not an economists, and will refrain from going into great detail about the economic context of our time. What I do want to do is illustrate how serious the status of the architectural profession is, in fact it is in a state of critical condition.

I have never quite fully understood how or why Danny-boy is capable of earning such amazing commissions as the Denver Art Museum, Royal Ontario Museum or the Jewish Museum in Berlin. For the longest time, I could not trace the source of my dislike for Danny-boy to a critical statement. Likes and dislikes are arbitrary. I could simply discount him for his glasses, but that is neither critical, nor constructive. Sometimes I wonder if he really needs glasses to correct his vision, or if they are for show. Another reason that I think a lot of people do not like Danny-boy is because of his performance in There’s Something About Mary, where he plays a pizza delivery boy who is stalking Cameron Diaz’s character, while pretending to be an architect. Maybe I would like Danny-boy more if I knew that he was a pizza delivery boy, pretending to be an architect. That would make the design of the Contemporary Jewish Museum even more impressive if I knew it was designed by a pizza-boy and not a Danny-boy. Another reason that I might not like Danny-boy is that he always has a camera man following him around. I hear he pays the paparazzi to follow him so that unknowing spectators ask the question: Is he a celebrity? And then the camerman says: No, he’s just a starchitect. Performing a quick search, I found  a seemingly infinite amount of photos of Danny-boy, I added the narrative text.

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Maybe I don’t like Danny-boy because it wares me out watching him, it seems like he tries so hard all the time to be a Starchitect, yet he never looks tired. In fact, I heard he invented the term for himself, okay that probably isn’t true, but like his wardrobe, Danny-boy’s architecture bears a distinct signature. The distinct signature is what disturbs me the most about Danny-boy’s work, but it is not for the same reasons that you think. Richard Meier, Frank Gehry, Michael Graves, all of these architects have a distinct signature, and they manage to produce great architecture, and I still like them.

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This is natural, and is sadly the first step in learning how to lose an architecture competition. If you have recently lost a design competition, curse at your computer, throw stuff and get drunk. If you like pain, and enter more competitions and lose, mix the order up and you will have more fun, I promise.

I have been lucky enough to win a few architecture design competitions in my short career, but none of that would have been possible had I not learned what I am about to tell you.

1. Architects are Losers:
Let’s face it this statement is true on many levels, but it is a very important lesson to learn if you want to become a successful designer. I have friends whom are lawyers, and they talk about how they never lose a case, when they do lose, which is like once every five years, they go on a drinking binge and think the world is going to end.

Competitions are exciting to architects for many reasons. Design competitions and competitions in general are a vital part of the history of the profession of architecture. History shows us that the architecture competition has not only changed the lives of many architects, but it has also changed the course of history.

Although there are many design competitions that are a complete waste of time, I believe that there are many competitions that are worth the effort. A recent post from one of my favorite architecture blogs by Modative recently published a post on architecture design competitions.