For Archinect’s latest Working out of the Box feature, Paul Petrunia interviewed Pinterest Co-Founder Evan Sharp. Will Galloway asked "say shouldn't someone interview paul for this feature too?" to which Paul responded "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain".

News
Felix Salmon the finance blogger at Reuters reviews MoMA’s Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream exhibit. Therein he wrote "Of course, for an idea to be sustainable, it also has to be realistic. Much of the MoMA show fails that criterion miserably." Steven Ward questioned  "he's reviewing a highly speculative ideas-based exhibit at an art museum as if it's a feasibility study?!" and then went on to suggest "this is why it's so hard for innovation and idea-generation activities to gain traction. they're squashed before anything really can be explored fully by those who say 'nah, that won't work' or, worse yet, 'woah, that's elitist/discriminatory/etc'."

The folks from www.wai-architecture.com catalogued the Shapes of Hardcore Architecture. They propose "an understanding of contemporary architecture through the creation of a taxonomic catalogue of shapes; an ontology of forms. This study shows how leading contemporary practices find their common language without any official statement to justify any political ideology or aesthetic trend." lletdownl noted "My friends and i have talked about this before, but its interesting how stringently architects avoid talking about 'trends'.  By its nature obviously, architecture needs to be more than trendy as its expected to outlast a fad, yet i still see little blips on the screen that last only long enough to be considered a trend....Id consider these trends in the same way one visiting fashion week in paris or nyc might see trends in clothing designers collections.  One is praised, one is ignored..."

BBC News visited Ordos: The biggest ghost town in China and investigated whether or not a bubble about to burst. Orhan Ayyüce commented that "Each time I hear Ordos I remember those cutting edge architects from Europe and N. America rushing with their tape measures to design 9000 sq. ft. homes subdivision in the desert there. Those were the euphoric days of the boom few years ago".

Schools/School Blogs
Prompted by a listen to the livestream of the Congreso Arquine MADianito at The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia asked  "Why do Architects, and architecture students (and all their surrounding machinery) fall so easily for big, fancy, pseudo-interesting pretentious words, instead of actual good pieces of architecture? Why in order to describe a building and/or an architecture-related topic we need so many stupid and pretentious words?"

Back by popular demand Matthew Messner posted some more images from Paul Preissner's Clumsy Forms Studio.

Jia Gu at UCLA recieved his Urban Snapper kit from dear friend Nick Green during finals week. Urban Snapper is a "toy", disposable camera used as a tool to crowdsource, documentation regarding the use of public space.

Work Updates/Firm Updates/Blogs

DAS99 recently discovered the work of landscape architect Martha Brookes Hutcheson "who was an advocate for ‘growing local’ and using native plants long before the current trend to do so".The discovery led him to visit one of her surviving landscapes in New Jersey, Bamboo Brook Park, formerly called the Merchiston Farm.

Noah Walker recently took a Night shot from the roof of the port-a-potty and Jones, Partners: Architecture posted images of their project a Central Chiller-Cogeneration Plant for UCLA. The project was commissioned through a limited design/construct competition and "celebrates the machinery of infrastructure. While sensitive to its surroundings, the use of familiar materials and architectural treatments is critical in application, rather than imitative. The building is not a mute box. It does not insist on hiding plant machinery, but proudly displays the inherently engaging qualities of technology as an integrated and carefully considered part of the composition."

With the warmer weather approaching the residents of The New Norris House are beginning to make preparations for the installation of the Phase IV landscape which will consist of native grass meadows.

The Behind the Archinect Curtain blog alerts us to the fact that there is an exciting new addition to the School Profiles. The new project galleries showcase the work of students, alumni and faculty from each school.

Discussion Threads
Gregory Walker started a discussion about the fact that Peter Zumthor lost a battle for ownership of the spa and hotel complex in Vals, eastern Switzerland. Evan Chakroff quipped "Well, they could certainly improve the entrance", while white fang added "Some big politics going on there. A smear campaign from a lazy hotel board member against Mr. Zumthor."

m3tropolis queried "Does anyone have experience asking schools for more grant/scholarship money? Has it worked?" Janosh cautioned "it can be considered distasteful in these troubled times to appear to be playing schools against one another.  Rather than acting totally mercenary, you may be best off if you at least appear to be trying to find a way to attend your first choice... even if you have two of them."

stiletta referenced an article by the Huffington Post titled The College Majors Of The One Percent and contended "among the professions, we are the servant class; mere muses and semioticians to the 1%" jlarch replied "oh this article strikes a nerve on a personal level.  my own family member (who I am doing a residential renovation for) told me the other day that 'I think too much like an architect, and you need to do what the client wants' basically be a mindless cog and do not interfere with my tastless un-informed half-ass vision."

Finally, piero1910 wants to talk about the 14 architects shortlisted for a new federal courthouse in LA. Gregory Walker wrote "gsa's design excellence program is a great fit for this - it's going to be a hard decision on some levels, probably not so hard on others. my guess is that if one of the 'alterna' l.a. firms gets shortlisted (gehry, brook scarpa, etc.), it's going to be one of the ones who've completed several larger institutional projects". However, zero fraction countered "Putting Brooks Scarpa in the same parenthesis with Gehry is bit of a stretch. I think this is a project for people with actual experience building in that scale, not just speculative renderings....All in all, if GSA is getting really adventurous, I think Michael Maltzan would be a good choice for this project."

Additionally
The intricate interrelationship between urban context and food production, central to the current debate on sustainability, will be the focus of the 2012 Garden and Landscape Studies symposium at Dumbarton Oaks. The symposium is titled Food and the City
and will be held from 8:45 am to 6:00 pm, May 4th and May 5th.