Newly posted to Charlie Rose's website is the below video of his recently televised conversation about car design with automotive design gurus Joel Piaskowski of Hyundai, Franz "Zoom Zoom" von Holzhausen of Mazda, Edward T. Welburn, Jr. of General Motors, and Phil Patton of The New York Times. Fewer than 30 seconds elapse before someone mentions Harley Earl. We warn you that you may come away from this video craving a Pontiac Solstice, but you'll also hear about what makes a great car designer, what cars have in common with clipper ships, and why everyone still dreams of having a Ferrari in the garage. "You will note that this [conversation] happened a few months ago," cautions Rose rather cryptically when introducing the segment. "Because I still had the black eye."

Archinect, one of our favorite daily reads, has come through once again with the goods by offering up a backstage look at the making of Architecture School, the only reality show we've ever eagerly awaited, which premieres tonight on the Sundance Channel. The program, if you somehow hadn't caught wind of it, is a semi-documentary/competition thing following a group of Tulane architecture students who are trying to build replacement housing in New Orleans. The first half of Archinect's excellent feature gives you the whole rundown on the program itself, but quickly follows with the real meat and potatoes: an interview with the show's creators, Stan Bertheaud and "architect-turned-director" Michael Seiditch. If you're as eager for the show as we, it's the perfect buffer between now and when it finally starts airing tonight, and if you hadn't heard of it, consider it your opportunity to catch up with the rest of us.

While watching the below video, created in one extraordinary, continuous shot by digital media students at Germany's Hochschule Furtwangen University, your first thought is, "Wow, that's a gorgeous building. I wonder who designed it?" And note the presence of a wall-sized "Infograph" and an admirably restrained brown/yellow/green color palette, with pops of orange and red only toward the end. Who needs professionally produced music videos when you have a bunch of emotive, light-drenched German college kids? We've got our fingers crossed that some savvy Case Western Reserve students will pick a German pop song and get to work on a similar project in Frank Gehry's Lewis building.

Interesting piece of half-press release/half-profile from the AP about designer Robert Kearns, the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper and the subject of the upcoming film, Flash of Genius. The profile talks about bringing Kearns' story to the screen, as well as offering up some history on the man who was robbed of his creation by nearly every auto manufacturer on the planet, which ultimately led him to go crazy and left his life in utter shambles. It's an interesting read and the film looks promising, sort of like 2008's Tucker. Though from the trailer we get the sense that a lot of that "he went nuts and was committed to an asylum" was washed over a bit:

Rare is the day that we stand up for comedian Dane Cook, but sometimes even we pretentious jerkfaces realize when someone is being unfairly picked on. The story goes is that Cook put up a post on his blog about how much he dislikes the layout of the poster for his new film, My Best Friend's Girl. Through ten individually listed issues he has with it, his critique boils down to his belief that the poster is poorly designed and it doesn't say a thing about the movie's real content, both of which we completely and totally agree with (and even got a laugh out of a few of them, which surprised us, given that we have been taught to hate the man). Following this came a critique of Cook's critique by Ad Age's Ken Wheaton who uses three paragraphs to essentially agree with him, but all the while mocking Cook relentlessly, going as far as to even add sarcastic quotes around "comedian" when referencing the comedian's job. Seems to us there's a time and a place for this sort of thing and this really wasn't it. Otherwise, you come across sounding weirdly bitter, overly uppity, and just plain mean for no good reason.

Oh how this writer missed you dear readers. But sometimes the jet setting lifestyle calls and you must answer, and so it was last week, with too many flights, too much Xanax to get through said flights without succumbing to panic, and much, much too hot on the East Coast. But that's neither here nor there, as we're back to getting the news to you. First up, and related because we spent the good portion of this weekend next to Baltimore, Steve Rose's piece in the Guardian about the best character in the best ever television show, The Wire is the city's architecture. For we rabid fans of the now dearly departed show, it's a terrific read about the locations used in the program and their real histories. For others only vaguely familiar with a show you should be buying all 75 dvds of, it's an interesting look at the ins and outs of city planning, development, and the often-flawed elements of building design.

Gary Hustwit's must-see typographical documentary Helvetica is newly available for download onto your iPod, and so it's fitting that the director is now at work on Objectified, a documentary about industrial design that will include footage of his interviews with everyone from Jonathan Ive of Apple and Dieter Rams to Hella Jongerius and writer Alice Rawsthorn, who he asked to share stories behind the manufactured objects of everyday life and comment on issues of consumerism, sustainability, and identity. Slated to debut early next year, Objectified (with the above logo by Michael C. Place of Build that is already available on t-shirts) will aim to represent a dinner party conversation among designers and design experts: a dinner party at which every guest demands to bring his or her own chair, dishes, and flatware.

As with Helvetica, Hustwit's choice of topic was guided by passionate interest as opposed to expertise. "One reason that I'm delving into the world of objects in this film is that I, admittedly, am obsessed by them," wrote Hustwit yesterday on the film's blog. "I'm interested in industrial designers because their work influences so many aspects of our world yet most of the time it's taken for granted. And I think that, especially today, it's crucial for us to re-examine how we make and use consumer products at every level."

A meeting of the minds in this one, as we combine soon-to-be Mr. RISD John Maeda, Philip Johnson's Glass House, and the always cool Cool Hunting, all in just a single video. Maeda was out there in rural Connecticut visiting the famous architecture spot for a conference and there happened to be a crew following him, tracking his every move as he talked about the house. But we need say no more. Enjoy:

The American Institute of Architects has been on a roll ever since their "America's Favorite Architecture" campaign last year and, as we reported a little while back, they've become addicted to the popularity. So next in their ploy to keep on top is the announced release of "Shape of America," a series of short films on each of buildings they highlighted in last year's aforementioned top picks. There are only six available right now, from the Empire State Building to Taliesin West, but we're digging the quick, easily digestible mini-documentaries on some of the greatest pieces of building the country has to offer and we're hoping they keep it up.

We've reported on Philippe Starck's upcoming reality TV show a couple of times here and there, and now it all looks to be official, as the BBC has launched a new bare bones website for the show (apparently keeping the title "School of Design" after all). It's largely just a call for entries to try and land yourself a role as a contestant on the show, which is fairly interesting, seeing what the requirements are and reading the "Terms and Conditions." In the biography section, they've also included what we're guessing is the pitch video the production company used to land the financing for the series. In it, we see Starck being Starck, the renegade French person he'd like you to know him as. Overall, the whole idea is growing on us. You just can't help but to enjoy watching the guy. Whether it'll be any fun watching snot nosed, edgy, young product designers interact with him is anyone's guess.