In the latest edition to the In Focus series of features we talk to German photo artist Josef Schulz.

We asked him

How do you feel about seeing your photographs on blogs and websites?"

He answered

I am okay with my work appearing in blogs, as long as they are rather non-commercial and clearly indicate my name. In general, there is still a lot of catching up to do here with solving the issue of copyrights.

News
Sam Wainwright Douglas, filmmaker of CITIZEN ARCHITECT, is embarking on his next project and asks for your help raising money for his ambitious new film Moving Mountains: Land Arts of the American West (working title) which will be a feature length documentary film exploring the evolution of Land Art in the West.

Architect Magazine's recently released, third-annual ranking of American architecture firms judges them on three factors: profitability, sustainable ethos, and design quality. Orhan Ayyüce quips that "this is a corporate take over list but i don't know if i am disturbed by it or not.  where are the star offices all the students flock to?"

On May 21, the late John Chase birthday, a group of his friends, family, co-workers, and collaborators will lead a walking tour across the city to experience John's legacy. Architects and city leaders will meet the group at the various projects to talk about working with John and offer advice on how designers and developers can collaborate on successful urban spaces.

Seventeen exceptional new homes form the longlist for the RIBA Manser Medal 2011 for the best new house or major extension in the UK. More over at Bustler.net


Schools/School Blogs
The University of Kentucky College of Design’s (UK/CoD) project, “Kentucky River Cities: Louisville, Paducah, Henderson,” will be included as a “CounterSite” in the 5th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR), April thru August 2012.

Samuel at University of Tennessee helped host a "soft opening" of the New Norris House to celebrate the completion of major construction.

Anthony at Columbia University GSAPP posts some great photos from the GSAPP 2011 End-of-the-Year Show.

Member work updates
Chris Hildrey shared a wireframe render he recently completed and Ghinea Oana posted images of Ciudada Empresarial which she worked on in collobaration with cCe Arquitectos the project is currently under construction. Wendy W Fok showed a CFS Wall Detail.

Discussion Threads
jbushkey wonders how a 26,000sqft home=sustainable? To which Medusa says
"This is like calling a double Whopper with cheese health food because it has lettuce and tomato in it" However FRaC points out that the article in question noted "The homeowners are very philanthropic so they wanted an area of the house that would accommodate 200- to 300-person events" Which leads jbushkey to then argue "I think it's great that the owner's give something back.  That does not necessarily mean that having a convention center in your house is sustainable. Are their any guidelines where if you fail any criteria your home is not sustainable?  Perhaps there should be.  Sort of like regardless of size if your home uses more electricity than X, more gallons of water than X, you drive more than X miles per year etc your home is not sustainable."

pieroarguello wants to know "Why is civil engineer's opinion worthier than architect's opinion?" after reading "Towards an architecture" by Le Corbusier. The discussion leads to Donna Sink exclaiming "for godssake PLEASE don't waste your time on Fountainhead - that bit of silliness masquerading as a novel has done more to discredit the profession of architecture than has 40 years of strip malls in the US combined." jmanganelli then states "damn...donna is now in the running for most emphatic statement of 2011"

momafresh25 can't figure out how, they go the rivets so perfect looking on both sides.

Meanwhile, Steven. "would like to learn more about applied math in architecture.  Although I am not much a fan of it, how does parametric design work? " Jump's  answer is "statics.  thats it for math, and not much of it.  simultaneous equations is about as hard as it gets.from what i see at my uni if you are into parametric stuff it is more about programming, though you can get pretty far just with grasshopper and rhino. "

Finally, in the post SMALL, BIG, FOG and LEONG LEONG Orhan Ayyüce
compares three older projects by Glen Small to their contemporary re-visionings by BIG, Frank O. Gehry and Leong Leon Architects. Jump suggests  that there is "nothing new under the sun" and offers a critique of Glen Small's work writing, "i am beginning to get the idea that glen never was able to build much but ripped out a lot of projects.  he seems like the russian constructivists but without the retro-respect of oma or zaha to validate his parking." But to Tim Do "it's an interesting question you raise though regarding how much ownership an architect should take in whether or not a vision is realized. It's clear Copy Cat Scraper is not be possible without Gehry's technological innovation and Turf Town is not possible in an American, developer-driven environment. Is it up to the architect to invent the means?"