Green Energy Ohio - Cleveland Office-Warming Party

Thursday, April 26
The Cleveland City Club Building
Tenth Floor
6.15pm - 7.30pm

"Join GEO for the offical opening of the new GEO office on the tenth floor of The Cleveland City Club Building located at 850 Euclid Ave in downtown Cleveland. Hear Executive Director, Bill Spratley, talk about the latest news on renewable energy, network with like-minded individuals, win door prizes, and enjoy good food provided by GEO staff. All volunteers, members, and friends are welcome! RSVP to Athan Barkoukis at Athan@greenenergyohio.org or (216) 526-5545."

Link

I admit, when I first read this I thought there was a little tongue in cheek climate joke there about global warming. I guess I was wrong, however I think those could be some fun parties to throw, especially with the weather getting nicer, etc. Just something to think about.

Regardless, Green Energy Ohio is continually improving getting their message out about promoting economically sustainable and environmental energy policies. Definitely something to pay attention to.

Happy pre-Earth Day!

Seriously kids, get out of the house and enjoy this strange Cleveland sun! Celebrate what you have. You better hurry.

Earthday.net which could be helpful in finding local going-ons for the weekend, I am not really going to spend time inside trying to find stuff online, I am getting back outside as soon as I can. I think something is going on at the Cleveland Zoo, I am also thinking you could tune up your bike and go for a ride, maybe grill out some delicious veggie dogs and talk to your neighbors.

Rawk.

Extemp. on "what is a Jersey Devil?"

For all the fans out there in the "blogosphere" no doubt awaiting another nail biting and poignant post I sleepily offer up a short discourse on Mr. Steve Badanes' recent and wonderful lecture at CSU regarding architect's role as builders, teachers and environmental stewards. First off I would like to openly berate those of you that did not attend, if only because it was a nice respite from the traditional pragmatic (d0gmatic?) approach that designers take and may have hearkened back to a time when you (now) fondly remember staying up all night, sneaking (questionable) beverages up into the studio as you attempted to stay awake enough to finalize a presentable thought for your next review/presentation/etc. It may have awoken some dreams that once were held dear and allowed you to justify "wasting" your college experience in an actual classroom instead of going to those great parties that everyone told you you just missed. It may have given you some hope. Maybe.

Things I learned (in no order and probably not in any sort of rationally, thought out manner):
-Utilizing community groups and educational classes as a catalyst to accomplish good, cheap and impactful urban projects that may be an important key for this damnable city.
-"Hands on" IS an extremely overlooked tool for most design schools. Personally I think that many buy into the lifestyle of architecture and design. They want to be known for having thought of something instead of really having done it. There may be a worthwhile way to explore a hands on approach such as Badanes' Yestermorrow, UW's Design/Build Studio and of course Rural Studio that may bring back the joy of creation and wonder to the design profession.
-When in doubt, one should get in there, get dirty and figure it out. There is a vast world of applied research that could explored through construction. I know the world of liability and litigation are fraught with danger and guile but that doesn't mean that prototyping and testing should be immediately thrown out. I understand that there are still some firms that truly believe in building mock ups and models and still "playing" with design but I worry that there are even more who will not exact the impetus needed to further studies of construction, spatial behavior and discovery that invigorate creative thought. I was asked the other night if I thought that working at a certain place made me less creative because I was forced to be constantly pragmatic and vigilant in guaranteeing a product that could be considered the less risk taking, less offensive but undoubtedly a less exciting solution and I had to admit it did. In fact, it took me a while to get back to the comfortable level of not listening to the remnants of past voices that would attempt to tell me what I couldn't do. Now when told that something is impossible I want to know WHY. Prove to me it doesn't work and then maybe I will begin to study why YOU think the way YOU do so I can work on a solution.
-The automotive industry, for ever how sluggish they have become to respond to global environmental and economic dissidence still are way ahead of the traditional design and building community when it comes to use, application and stewardship. Look up some fun figures on building performance and automotive performance and then argue against that.

I could quite possibly go on for quite some time but I am exhausted from the week thus far and would rather let you know that you could watch the whole dang thing right here, eventually.

Which you should do. Because it was awesome. Really.

- BONUS FEATURE -
Watch out for fun quotes, there will be many you will try to remember to impress your friends.

Wind powered street lighting

I was going to write a very exciting treatise about integrated firms and the loss arts of craftsmanship and renaissance but instead decided to write about silly wind turbine street lamps.

Why? Because I thought a little humour would be apt with the terrible-ness goings on right about now. So, without further ado, powering your streetlights with wind, or when an electrical engineer watches Disney movies with their kids while loaded.

I think this thing is actually by railroad tracks and gets powered when a passing trains turns the turbine. Seriously, if I saw this on a street I might actually get mad. Basically about the ugliest wind fixture I have seen yet.

No doubt Cleveland ordered 50 for the Euclid Corridor.

Frank the Gehry coming to Cleveland

Wednesday April 25th at 5:30 p.m.
Bank of America Conference Center InterContinental Hotel, Cleveland Clinic

As part of the Ideas for Tomorrow - speaker series Mr. Peter B. Lewis and Frank Gehry will be holding a forum/lecture at the InterContinental Hotel. Both names may sound familiar is you have at all heard about the Peter B. Lewis Building : Weatherhead school of Management designed by Frank Gehry.

Hosted by The Cleveland Clinic with support from Cleveland chapter of the AIA

registration

Not environmental nor Cleveland related but definately about design tools

Ripped from the headlines

A group called The Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) were apparently sitting around a pub one evening, no doubt luxuriating in a glass of the good stuff when it dawned on someone that their pint glass wasn't quite full. They (relatively) quickly got off their duffs, conducted a survey, and discovered that over 25% of drinks poured at pubs contained at least 5% less beer then they should have. Camra is estimating the discrepancy at 481 million pounds ($956,305,471.74) a year (someone check that math).

Camra has called the shortcomings "a disgrace" and have begun an online petition to "end short beer measures".

Seriously. THIS is news.

thanks to the Bradford for the heads up.

Low Calorie Diet - Local film about local food

Monday, April 16th, Hallock Auditorium, 7:30pm

Lewis Environmental Studies Center, 122 Elm Street, Oberlin College

Wednesday, May 9th, Talkies Coffee House, 6:00pm

2521 Market Street, Ohio City, across from Great Lakes Brewing Company

There is a noticeable disconnect as we continuously de-evolve into consuming prepackaged and preprepared meals. Food comes to us "quicker" and "cleaner" or at least boxed and bagged to make us think so. The joy of cooking is slipping from the grasp of the typical American family and being replaced with eating from glossy containers with a growing absence of communication and interaction between family members.

Bit by bit you can see people start to wonder, consciously, why that is. Why are we constantly rushed? Why is it that meal time is taken so for granted? Why is ordering a pizza really better then making a dinner together? With all the time saving kitchen technology we have at our disposal, why is the phone the most used? What the heck are the ingredients in this stuff?

Most importantly, why is it so hard to figure out where our food is coming from?

Check out the trailor for The Low Calorie Diet and if your interest in local urban community farms and community farms project is piqued, check out the showings listed above.

This is all part of the New Agrarian Center that I am so happy about, especially as the City Fresh program is up and running again.

Stewardship, community, education, nutrition, these are building blocks for a new and healthy urban economy and they are not as overlooked as one might fear. Of course neither are they as accessible as they ought to be.

RTA -redline "community workshop"

April 18th - 5pm - 9.30pm
April 19th - 8am - 1.00pm

Community Workshop regarding E120th Red Line Station
Community Room, Abington Arms Apartments
11501 Mayfield Road

There is a lot going down in University Circle. FOA will be designing a new home for Clevland's MOCA and MVRDV will be designing the new expansion for Cleveland Institute of Art. Now there is the option for Cleveland to tie it all together by creating a wonderful travel nexus for the GCRTA by refurbishing/re-imagining the E120th Redline Station between Euclid and Mayfield roads.

This station is a rather important one as it serves Case Wester Reserve University, CIA and University Hospitals as well as offers access to the University Circle collection of cultural institutions and various neighborhoods around Euclid and Mayfield. Over the years the existing 120th station has gathered some rather questionable accolades such as "Station you don't want to be at after 6pm", "Most akin to reeking of stale urine", "Best place to bring new visitors you hate", etc and is in dire need of becoming something more functional, pleasant and with the current movement of design in the area, wonderful.

The attached photo was the first I had heard of a specific date/time for a community workshop regarding the planning of said station. I discovered it on Friday (the 13th) whilst jumping off the red line early to make my way to Tremont for the ArtWalk. The notice asked for an RSVP by Friday. I don't know when this was posted (I am responsible for removing one "free guitar lesson style" pull tab) but it seemed to generate enough interest to at least have two other people pull tabs. I am concerned that I didn't see one of these at the Triscuit station or at Tower City (my two regular stops) since one has a gigantic lot and collects a lot of riders and Tower City which is a major nexus.

I also noticed nothing on RTA's website. In fact, during various google searches the only thing that actually came up was Green City Blue Lake (who know EVERYTHING) so I have no idea how anyone was really supposed to know about this thing.

Regardless, there is opportunity here for those interested in making sure that a major cultural gateway in Cleveland is designed with, well, attention to things that are typically overlooked, you might want to swing by a workshop. I know it is too late to RSVP so pack a lunch or dinner and bring your own notepad and camera. There is a lot of possibility and potential here and careful attention will have to be paid to an area and structure of such importance so that it doesn't get screwed up. We don't need any more examples of poor public spaces in Cleveland.

E4S - 3rd Tuesday - Future of Sustainability in NE Ohio

Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Great Lake Brewery Tasting Room
5.30-8.30

Exactly what is the future of sustainability in Northeast Ohio? Sure, the local Garland Co. is leading the nation in green roofs and the current plans for installing a PV array at Jacob's Field and the Science Center, and of course since it is spring there is an surge in community garden projects, but what are you doing?

The latest E4S event will center on a discussion about the goals that many businesses are attempting to attain in order to create a more sustainable city.

registration

Guerilla's in the street...

More specifically, designers need to take a more active role instead of just complaining and blaming the helpless; designers need to change their role from that of commander and decision-maker to coordinator and facilitator (Hsia, 1993; Liu, 1995; Sanoff, 2000).

With quotes like that, I wonder if anyone could resist the wonderful Guerrilla Wars in Everyday Public Spaces: Reflections and Inspirations for Designers by Kin Wai Michael Siu.

Kin presents the history of deciphering of the urban spaces and the singular attempts of conventional planning by attempting to combine sociological thinking into the rather pragmatic equation of urban planning. While using three Hong Kong market streets as a basis for studying the ways in which we should study public spaces the concentration is removed from the traditional study of how built spaces impact the user to how the user inhabits the provided space. In fact, by working in the vacuum of a city street with restricted vehicular movement one can see the territoriality and social behavior of those that utilize the public domain in the most intimate of manners.

Not that every movement is unnecessarily unprescribed or even perhaps too regimented to present itself as a proper case study, the area under investigation finds a rather delicate harmonic between the rules and regulations of the street as well as the intent of those that use it. A major portion of the argument for studying the social behavior of design actually respects this dialog between what is described as the "weak" (inhabitants/hawkers) and the "strong" (governmental authority) and presents a rather wonderfully flexible and respecting solution while showing how the "weak" can actually rely on their flexibility to overcome restrictive regulations and rules.

While not inherently a proper study for American society and public space planning (in that cultural consumer and social differences, coupled with our prescriptive space planning techniques refuse to accept flex-space as a proper solution) there are arguments and nuances that could be further applied to perhaps facilitate good spaces in our fair city of Cleveland.

Regardless, it was a good read.

Tremont Art Hop/Walk

Friday, April 13th 2007

Once again it is time for the Tremont ArtHop, or if your knees are a little sore the Tremont Art Walk.

You can find past date information on the sites. Nothing for the new one yet. Sigh, don't get discouraged, I am sure it will be an awesome way to spend some nicer spring weather outside wandering about.

Take a loved one and pretend to have some culture or something.

First National Architecture Week?

I am not entirely sure what we are really supposed to be celebrating, but I will never turn down an event.

I assume the whole thing was started by the AIA which have created a myriad in rules and regulations about what an architect really is and who can call themselves an architect. Since I am still short of completing my exams I cannot technically wear the mantle of an actual architect, however I have developed software programs so perhaps I can sneak in under the radar that way. Still though, this celebration is for the building type of architects, not the software guys (especially because it annoys me so when I do job searches in cities I love and the only "architect" position that shows up is for the non-architect degree holding sorts).

Anyway, if anyone really cares, you can read about it here.

In the time it has taken me to write I have become completely indifferent. I may however still use it as an excuse to act silly and perhaps imbibe a bit. Maybe.

Stop Building Shit

I had a whole tirade about SBS-44114, a blog devoted to poor construction and misguided design intent (while strangely ignoring aesthetics) but really thought that the whole thing spoke for itself.

Seriously, I have nothing to add. I couldn't even be upset about it. I suspect criticism eventually makes us better. I might actually love it.

Easter weekend breakdown

Well, sorry to be missing out on some posting this weekend, I was in Indianapolis for the Manufacturing Materials Effects seminar hosted by Ball State University in the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

I don't really know if I can make intelligible comments upon the seminar without launching off into a tirade about current assumptions and failures in vision and similar thoughts that made me feel very frustrated about working with and around certain peoples. I will say that the seminar was well put together, that the food and venue were amazing, that the discussions/lectures were so invigorating as to instill in one a euphoric feeling of self realization and intent that could prove very dangerous if not properly stifled in the up coming weeks.

It basically made one feel as if they could change the world. I hadn't felt that way for a while actually. It was creeping back in after being properly trampled upon but now my veins course with the power of potential.

Shaping metal with explosives underwater will do that to you.

I will actually attempt to possibly break down some of the lectures, the uses for technology and possibilities as I see them for the local and environmental economy. I just need some personal time for shoveling the driveway, sleeping and catching up with loved ones.

Happy holidays.