Author Archives: jonochshorn

About jonochshorn

Jonathan Ochshorn is a singer-songwriter, registered architect, and Phius Passive House Consultant with an academic background in structural engineering and urban design as well as architecture. He has taught at Cornell University since 1988, and before that at the City College of New York while working with community groups in New York City. He is the author of OMA's Milstein Hall: A Case Study of Architectural Failure; Building Bad: How Architectural Utility is Constrained by Politics and Damaged by Expression (Lund Humphries, 2021); three editions of the textbook, Structural Elements for Architects and Builders; and numerous essays and chapters on building technology in relation to design.

hawaii conference

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I just returned from Hawai’i, where I presented a paper at the Hawai’i International Conference on Arts & Humanities. The abstract for the paper was originally targeted for another conference in Washington, D.C., but, having failed to make the cut there, I submitted the abstract to, and it was accepted at, this conference on Waikiki Beach: such are the vicissitudes of academic life. Having arrived in late evening, I took an early morning walk along the beach, waiting for the sun to rise.sun rising over waikiki beach

just another

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I wrote Just Another (Bad Dream) sometime in the early 1980s, and recorded it using just an electric guitar and nominal drums and bass last July as a first trial application of my audio-midi interface, microphone and GarageBand software. It has one of my favorite lyrics.

Christmas rap

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Brother Kurt wrote and recorded this Silent Night Christmas rap on New Year’s eve, probably in 1984 (the exact date remains shrouded in mystery). I helped out with some keyboards and vocals on the chorus (“Have yourself a very funky Christmas…”). A new video based on the original recording was made on Christmas day, 2007, by the children of Rollo: see the YouTube description for more information (linked above).