Wired News: Monster Fueled by Caffeine on a startup that works out of a coffee shop. After a false start with ‘hot desking’ in the 90’s freely available wifi, laptops and cellphones really do mean that in some case you can work anywhere. In this case, history has come full circle with some of the biggest institutions in the world, such as Lloyd’s insurance, having been started in 18th century coffee houses. Increasingly I am meeting people, that like myself would rather work out of a coffee shop than some anonymous cube hell that is the staple of most US work environments. I have a friend who is looking to buy a coffee house in San Francisco as space for his startup, whilst keeping it selling coffee to the public. From an architectural standpoint I see this as the perfect rebellion. Unlike coffee houses, office space does not have to…

My recent experiences with realtors show me that: most of them don’t know very much about buildings; waste your time by lying in descriptions; seem to be the last people on earth to use email and digital cameras instead of time wasting phone calls and expensive on-site visits. Realtors charge up to a quarter of what architects do, without most of the skill, service or liability. The reason that this happens is that they own the customer. By extension, if their services don’t benefit customers then this will change. Why hasn’t the Internet destroyed the current hopeless realtor merry-go-round. Perhaps a listings service could be built where data can only be submitted if: 1. the realtor or seller lists a contact email(rather than them contact you, or by phone). 2. all listing have digital pictures of outside and all rooms. 3. all room sizes are listed in square foot. 4….