Terri Peters offered up a report from SmartGeometry 2012 in Troy, New York. SmartGeometry is an international community of academics and professionals who hold annual workshops and conference days at academic institutions around the world and the theme for this year (it’s ninth) was Material Intensities. This year featured clusters with titles like Bio-Responsive Building Envelopes, Gridshell Digital Tectonics, Reactive Acoustic Environments and Beyond Mechanics.

News
The Trust for the National Mall exhibited the final design concepts of the National Mall Design Competition last week. The concepts, created by the country’s top designers including amongst others; snohetta; Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Ken Smith, Rogers Marvel and Peter Walker re-envision three prominent National Mall locations: Constitution Gardens, Washington Monument Grounds at Sylvan Theater and Union Square. The winning designs, to be selected by a Jury of design experts, will be announced in May. Orhan Ayyüce, argued "It is really deplorable when all the renderings are depicting entertained crowds and happy go around shopping mall like experiences. The National Mall is much more meaningful when it houses 'people' voicing something in masses. These ideas have no such purpose in them but watered down commercial thinking...In the eighties architecture merged with fashion, now it is merging with the entertainment industry." Gregory Walker, couldn't have agreed more continuing "what caught me off guard (and prompted the post) was the fact that barrels of ink have been spilled over the eisenhower memorial and i'd argue it pales in overall significance to any of these three sites in terms of prominence or their contribution to the public realm. and yet, this is the first post and are the first images i've even seen."

Reacting to reports that up-and-coming Mexico City architect Tatiana Bilbao is among those shortlisted as part of the Menil Collection's extensive international search to select an architect to design its Menil Drawing Institute (MDI), Donna Sink, commented "I know nothing about her but based on the above descriptions  I'm pulling for Tatiana Bilbao - a woman, an up-and-comer, a Latina in (fucking) Texas, and definitely not a usual suspect."

Wired.com highlighted the work of photographer Richard Ross who documents the The Architecture of Juvenile Detention in America and Micah McKelvey opined "‘Ross often cites the situation in Oakland, a city which spends $4945 per child in its public school system, but $224,712 per child incarcerated in the Alameda County Juvenile Justice Center.’ wow, that figure really puts this situation into perspective. unbelievable."

The news that Goettsch Partners’ new Music Building for Northwestern University will break ground in May, led formwhore to wonder "I am curious how others feel about this building? Personally, I feel it is reasonable at best and banal at worst, but probably it's just reasonably banal. The building seems emblematic to me of the sort of work pervasive in North America at the moment... big, bland, polite...Am I right to expect better?"

Schools/School Blogs
The students at Virginia Tech’s design/buildLAB invite any and all to "Come see our progress, get a tour of the facilities and socialize with the crew!" this upcoming Sat April 21 from noon to 3pm in Blacksburg Virginia.

A.D.Morley & J.A.Wong visited Malmö where they checked out Malmö City Library by Henning Larsen Architectsand the impressive transformation of Västra Hamnen the former location of the Kockums Shipyard into a new urbanlive-work district.

Work Updates/Firm Updates/Blogs
Check out Gwynne Pugh Urban Studio’s Rosa Parks affordable housing project which offers  57 units of  energy-efficient, multi-family housing in Coachella Valley.

EXIT ARCHITECTS Easter Sculpture Museum in Hellín consists of a white-concrete space, shaped by light. The museum is clad in local stone which helps to integrate the building in the historic centre of Hellín and the main historic facade has been carefully restored and incorporated to the new building.

Discussion Threads
an ad via ants, is visiting Japan and trying to locate the Toyota Aizuma Hall and Seijo Townhouses location, done by Sejima&Associates, anyone want to help out?

LayingOutTheDots* is trying to find construction manuals for architectural styles prior to the 20th century. calculator recommended "Palladio - The Four Books of Architecture" and won and done williams suggested "Ed Ford's Details of Modern Architecture is a classic. The first volume includes the pre- and proto- moderns like Richardson, Luytens, Greene and Greene, etc. The drawings are excellent."

Meanwhile ALEX Han wanted information about U of F’s program, Citylab in Orlando. MixmasterFestus replied "It's the UF architecture program, but in Orlando.  I think there may be a stronger focus on professional practice there, but that's mostly an accident of the fact that it's away from the main campus in a larger city than Gainesville...It's pretty new, so I haven't heard much about how it integrates with the rest of the program - it used to be that Citylab was a community outreach/research program for UF in Orlando, and sort of a research annex...If you're looking in the I-4 corridor for any particular reason, USF may also be an alternative - they've recently started a master's degree in urban design and have faculty and a research center in this topic based in Tampa."
Finally, William Huchting announced STEM is in and Architecture is out. "The Co-op Guy" then posted "John Maeda, President at RISD, has been trying to address this recently, and gave a pretty interesting talk at MIT that I listened to on the webs." He then linked to STEM to STEAM a briefing intended as a showcase to Rhode Island’s commitment to fostering innovation through the addition of Art and Design to STEM education and research. To which, Rusty Shackleford interjected "I feel really confused here...In other news, pressure cookers are in, and rubber boots are out."

Additionally

A new report released by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), American Rivers, the Water Environment Federation (WEF), and ECONorthwest,Banking on Green: How Green Infrastructure Saves Municipalities Money and Provides Economic Benefits Community-wide provides some hard number on the economic benefits of green infrastructure. Titled Banking on Green it looks at the most cost-effective options for managing polluted runoff and protecting clean water, and finds that green infrastructure solutions save taxpayer money and provide community benefits by managing stormwater where it falls.