Why is it that we are so drawn to rankings? Even in this newsletter, some of the most popular entries have been "Best Architecture of 2010" and "Top 12 Architecture Films." Edward Glaeser, author of Triumph of the City, tackles this question as it relates to two recent studies that rank the world's cities.
Read "What Rankings Show About Cities" in The New York Times.

On a related note, here's the latest top ten! The AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) has listed the year's top green projects in the U.S.
Check out the Top 10 Green Buildings slideshow at Time.com.

Congratulations to Next.cc! They were awarded special mention during the international phase of the UIA Golden Cubes Awards. AAO was proud to present this project and three other national nominees to the international jury.
Read the UIA International Golden Cubes Awards announcement.

AAO welcomes two new members this month: John Comazzi, Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Minnesota's College of Design and Charles Knevitt, former Director of the RIBA Trust in London.
Learn more about AAO membership.

For those of you with retail stores, here's an interesting way to connect with shoppers. HarbourFront's Creative Genius blogs about the designers and process behind the products on sale at its Centre Shop.

Everyone seems to be doing film festivals, but this one has a twist: Architecture Minnesota's Videotect Competition crowd-sourced videos about the skyways, then had the mayor of Minneapolis present at a lively screening.

In a collaborative effort, the NY Center for Architecture, the Architectural League, and others put on the Festival of Ideas for the New City, which included a street festival, symposia, and over 80 projects and events.

Call for exhibition entries: Leverage: Strengthening Communities through Design, hosted by the Community Design Collaborative in conjunction with the 2011 AAO/A+DEN/ACD Design In Action Conference. Deadline: July 1

Call for proposals: The 49th International Making Cities Livable Conference. Deadline: June 15

Call for proposals: AIA 2012 National Convention, on the theme Design Connects. Deadline: July 1

Grant opportunity: NEA Arts in Media. Deadline: September 1

What capacity do 13-year-olds have to grasp the design process? When industrial design firm Aruliden and furniture design firm Bernhardt asked eighth graders to design the classroom of the future, they had amazing results. The students presented idea boards, identified solutions to common problems, and made sketches and models of their designs. To take it one step further, Aruliden made professional renderings and Bernhardt made full-scale prototypes, which were displayed at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) this month. Check out photos of the process at Fast Company. Also, see pics of the prototypes at ICFF.

Here's another great example of design education: AAO member the Buffalo Architecture Foundation (BAF) worked with K-8 students on design projects, then put on a gallery exhibition of their work. Read more about BAF here.

What makes an intelligent city? Find out from the best and brightest minds in the nation in this innovative, participatory, and thought-provoking forum at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. Join the president of the Rockefeller Foundation, a White House official, TIME magazine journalists, architects, IBM Smarter Cities experts, urban planners, technologists, and cutting-edge thinkers from MIT to the tiny town of Manor, Texas. What makes an intelligent city? We do. Join in and attend the forum on June 6, 2011 in D.C.

View information on Intelligent Cities speakers and session topics.
Follow @buildingmuseum and #icities on Twitter.

Job Openings at AAO Member Organizations

AIA Dallas / Dallas Center for Architecture Foundation, Executive Director

National Trust for Historic Preservation, Senior Director of Policy and Government Affairs; Manager of Marketing Programs

Seattle Architecture Foundation, Director of Youth Programs and Model Exhibit

Chicago Architecture Foundation, Director of Communications; Director of Tours Business

National Building Museum, Museum Teachers

Because AAO/A+DEN will be partnering with the Association of Community Designers (ACD) for our upcoming fall conference, we found this Design Observer series on university-based community design centers particularly interesting. This installment features a thoughtful interview with the director of the University of Arkansas Community Design Center. Stephen Luoni discusses the goal of addressing the triple bottom line: economic, social, and environmental concerns. He also talks about the community design movement, and how advocacy can be just as important as built works.

Read more about creative development at the UA CDC.

This month, we've compiled a listing of exhibitions currently on view at AAO member organizations. Highlights include:

Tight Urbanism at AIA Seattle: A study of alleyway architecture in the U.S., Australia, and Japan, organized by the chapter's emerging professionals travel scholarship recipient. After it's run in the chapter's gallery, the exhibition will be displayed in situ in the Seattle alleys that it addresses.

jumpUP and jumpZONE: To correspond with the sixth annual FitCity Conference, AIA New York/Center for Architecture presents interior/exterior installations that encourage healthy activity in our daily environments.

See the entire listing of AAO members' current exhibitions.