UB professors Christopher Romano, Nicholas Bruscia are finalist in a recent digital fabrication contest http://tex-fab.net/skin-results/. This UB team leads sponsored research with support from Rigidized® Metals to explore the properties of deep textured metal on structures.
From the competition web site:
The first of the clearly agreed upon entry was Project 2XmT with a great many votes and a clearly developed working model, the entry was selected without much deliberation with just a few comments, one from Randy Stratman, “from a practicality standpoint it looks like they are pretty far along. It looks like they already have a mockup. I’m a big fan of how small undulations or changing panels really have a dramatic impact from the viewing standpoint moving around the building”