During Alissa's coverage of Compostmodern this weekend, this writer was extremely jealous of getting to travel elsewhere to go to a conference. Not so much because it was so interesting, which it definitely was, but because Chicago froze over this weekend, leveling out with highs at around negative ten degrees. When it gets that cold, even chilly, windy San Francisco sounds like a treat. But then we ran across Steven John Thompson's conference recap of the Second International Conference on Design Principles and Practices, which happened in Miami near the beginning of January. Oh, sweet Miami, how we would love to visit you right about now. But beyond that, once you've read up on all of Alissa's coverage from this weekend, scroll through and read Thompson's report. He has a batch of quick summaries on all of the lectures from the conference and they're a wonderfully strange mix of interesting. And hey, one even relates back to San Francisco, thus completing the great circle that is this very post:

Immersion /Illusion: Space, Place & Complicity at the San Francisco Zoo by Camelia George of the Visual & Critical Studies Department & Design Department, California College of the Arts, California. This was just a fascinating approach to considering the power and decision-making behind the design of zoo facades, the company that creates them, and the venues that immerse visitors into the illusion that they enjoy without consideration of reality or environmental consequence.

Though, with that one, we can't help but wonder how many hands went up during the Q&A, all with the same question: "How does this all apply to tigers eating your guests?"