News
In our latest In Focus we talk to English photographer Tim Pike. To our question What is your goal when capturing buildings in photographs? Tom responded "That would vary. If it is entirely at my discretion, I tend to want to almost 'deconstruct' the building to an essence that is summed up by singular, minimalist, iconic images. A client led, or a more practical approach would, more often than not require the building to be captured in its entirety to provide a sense of scale and location.

Aaron Willette interviewed Professor Tod Machover, the director of Festival of Art, Science and Technology (FAST), in MIT, Going FAST After 150 Years. They talked about the importance both historically and currently, of the blending of art and technology at MIT and the benefit of installations as a form of practice and hands on design learning.

Archinecters discussed the news that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan on Monday, May 2. While on the lighter side the Geronimo EKIA thread, Orhan Ayyüce ended up having to say "JeffryBurchard, to ridicule the things one does not get can be interpreted as cynical and unimaginative." while le bossman said "and if you are not an insider, you are not a real archinector." And J James R confessed "Well, I keep reading this thread as "Geronimo IKEA" and am really wanting to see some sweet deer skin covered furniture and EXPIDIT shelves with elk racks."

A number of people thought  MVRDV's design to transform a disused Dijon Mustard laboratory, didn't cut the mustard. Medit wrote "It is completely ridiculous." brorstein "I thought MVRDV had maybe jumped the shark after that weird book pyramid library.  But this one takes the cake." and WorkSpace wonders, "Is it going to work like this in France?".

In response to a post on ScanLAB: Poist-Bartlett architects embracing scanning johnszot, quipped "what the hell is that? and da_la asked "why does bartlett work always look like bartlett work? (not intended to sound negative)."

Schools/School Blogs
Shannon at University of Manitoba has begun to ponder the post-deconstruction phase of her sites life, "These things will be buried soon, pushed into a pit and covered with soil, sowed with grain and forgotten. One hundred years from now, recovered from within the earth as archaeological remains, we wonder what sort of narrative they will tell.".

At a recent presentation/lecture at Harvard's GSD on the three categories of their work (House, Stack, Structure) Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron had this to say about Ai Weiwei, "This [the Beijing Film Academy in Qingdao, China] was one of the first of our collaborations with the artist Ai Weiwei, who has now become world-famous...unfortunately [because of his imprisonment]...but I would just like to say how much of a pleasure it always is to travel and be with him" as related by Lian our avid live-blogger.

Member work updates

Richard South showed off images of the [SWEET] Tea House a tea house for an art gallery installation.

Brian Crawford, who recently finished "service with the Peace Corps and entered the field of architecture" is  interested in applying his architecture skills to serve people in need of quality affordable housing and vibrant community designs shared a plan  for a potential GroHomes community in New Orleans.

Discussion Threads

On TC toasteroven shared a image by the person who taught him color theory class.

hagaandaz asked "What's the best Graphic to represent landscape?" to which won and done williams noted "Wow! The cad monkeys come out in force for this one." and suggested "I would look at Field Operations. Actually, I would probably just rip off Field Operations. They do it best."

Donna Sink is now officially on the board of directors at People for Urban Progress. Via here

alucidwake wants to revisit "the idea that the ability to communicate architecture to the public is not only in crisis, but the responsibility of an architect, and is something that is to be desired."