Saturday, March 17, 2007

Major press for one of Cleveland's boiling issues.

Metropolis's magazine online edition posted a rather interesting article about the fate of the Breuer Tower on Wednesday.

Regardless of what anyone may say, I wouldn't put any money on the County going ahead with plans to raze it just yet. Not while there is still a growing voice claiming the demolition to become a great regret for the county.

In positive news, this article and posting of Cleveland's Design Competition on the Metropolis website just might give avid readers the impression that something is going on in Cleveland.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Voices and Choices turns towards action

Voices and Choices forum
Friday, March 30th
Joseph S. Knight Center
Akron, Ohio
10am - noon

Kickoff forum of "Advance Northeast Ohio" to explain the region's economic action plan that was developed The Fund for Our Economic Future initiative Voices and Choices

Please register if you would like to attend the forum.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Fairlawn gets set to captialize on wind power

Thursday, March 8th, the Fairlawn Planning Commission voted approval for a new prototype wind turbine called a "windcube". This new design acts much like Cleveland State's proposed wind screw (I hate this article and wish someone else would write something about it) in that it depends on the shape of a shroud like structure to funnel and shape wind current into the turbine in order to increase the velocity of the passing air.

The structure, made mostly of recycled steel, would stand a total of 58 feet tall while the "wind cube" itself is about 25' x 25' x 15' deep is hoped to take advantage of an adjacent location to a Interstate 77 and would help generate power to a neighboring office park.

The technique of generating more power is typically achieved through blade design or increasing size but with the widespread interest in utilizing wind currents for electricity generation the effort to build cheap and effective turbines that can generate power at slow, sustained wind speeds in on.

The developer of the "wind cube", Green Energy Technologies, is located in Bath, Ohio. Another example of local companies making a difference and working towards allowing Ohio to stand out as an example of the new sustainable economy.

Resources:
American Wind Energy Association
GCBL interview with CEO of Green Energy Technologies
Green Energy Technologies (if you missed it the first time)

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

E4S Third Tuesday Event - Energy Efficiency

Entrepreneurs for Sustainability
Energy Efficiency
Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Great Lakes Brewing Company, Tasting Room, 2701 Carroll Ave. Cleveland
5.30pm - 8.30pm

With all the current discussion based upon "going green" and "utilizing green technology" perhaps the easiest to implement, understand and actually accomplish would be attempting to practice energy efficiency yourself. Whether this means planning your trips to hit a number of stops along a single route instead of making multiple start and stop voyages, or insulating your home against drafts to decrease energy spent on heating and cooling most savings are real, are instant and can be done without any specialized training or equipment.

Come join the Entrepreneurs for Sustainability Third Tuesday event centered on "Energy Efficiency" and find how as a business one can implement savings or capitalize on off peak demand to decrease operating costs.

As an added bonus, sign your business up for BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) to increase energy efficiency.

As usual, this is being held in Great Lakes Brewery tasting room so um, yeah, there is a good reason right there.

Monday, March 12, 2007

With Vigor!

“With vigor”. That was Christopher Diehl’s response as he voiced his expectations to follow Ruth Durack’s example as he plans to take over the position of director of Kent State’s Urban Design Collaborative on May 1st.

Steven Fong, director of Kent State University’s College of Architecture and Environmental Design also announced that he plans to move all of KSU’s master’s degree program (architecture) to Cleveland by 2009 and plans to use the majority of the budget to attract lecturer’s and speakers in an attempt to increase exposure for Cleveland students and designers.

This doubly impressive move by Steven Fong strongly indicates his decisive approach towards making Kent State a premier architecture school that practices what it teaches and allows for a multitude of partnership possibilities between the school and the city of Cleveland.

Both Fong and Diehl have impressive resumes to counter the staggering load that they are undertaking by forcing the school to look at the larger picture and visualize how they can shape the future of the region instead of solely responding to it. I am very excited to see what the future will bring. Hopefully the master’s program will maintain its key location downtown and increase collaboration with some of the other planning/design entities in order to strengthen Cleveland’s arts and architectural community.

Actually, out of all this, I see only good things.

Resources:
PD's Steven Litt writes much better then me.

More thanks to MarJ

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Influence + imposition

Thursday, March 29th, 2007
Cleveland Public Art
1951 West 26th St. no. 101
5.30pm

Another showing of some local design nutters. I supposition here is that some "recent work & current speculations about Cleveland" will be in the offering.

Oh, methinks there could be some drama.

Well, hopefully. Anyway, it isn't like I promised to be nice but I have to see these people around, you know, public type places so I won't make any odd comments just YET. Except for that one, that one could be construed as odd. It wasn't intentional. Crud, now that apology could be taken out of context. I think I am just digging a deeper hole. And what do I mean by that? I don't even know anymore.

This whole post is going to bite me on the ass tomorrow.

Regardless, go see stuff. I command thee.

Resources:
Exhibition statement as well as bios in .pdf form .

Cleveland Public Art Website, bound to have information up about the exhibit eventually.