Pavilion Disassembly... FREE

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SPECIAL PRIZE FOR EVERYONE WHO SHOWS UP

***FREE***

TAKE HOME A MODULE FROM THE LIVING PAVILION

Can you believe it's been a whole summer since Figment!? The Living Pavilion needs to come down, it will be way quicker than putting it up I promise :) Please come out this weekend, Oct 2-3, to lend a hand. We'll be there all day, just come out any time (show up early if you haven't actually seen it yet!!!)

Governors Island Directions: http://www.govisland.com/html/visit/directions.shtml

Map to site: http://builtecology.blogspot.com/2010/06/living-pavilion-dispatch-4-new-location.html

Love you all, thanks for participating!

Portfolio: Neenan

11/8/10
Changes A Year Brings: The Trials and Successes of 2010

11/1/10
Promoting CHCs for Affordable, Accessible, and Convenient Care

10/27/10
Who is Responsible for Privacy in the Age of Health Information Technology?

10/21/10
Engaging Students to Design their Sustainable Future

10/18/10
Closing the Digital Divide for Rural Healthcare

10/13/10
Climate Wisdom: Bringing Business and Government Together to Achieve Environmental Goals

10/11/10
Funding Community Health Care Centers

9/28/10
Rural Critical Access Hospital Financing Tips

9/22/10
Sustainability 102: Tools for Creating Ecological Balance at Home and Work

9/15/10
Healthcare 2050: Envisioning the Next 40 Years of Design Improvement

8/30/10
Schools 2050: Accelerating the Connection Between Green Building and Green Learning

8/20/10
Sustainable Urban Typologies: The 2050 Debate

8/18/10
Renewable Energy 2050: Learning from International Lessons

7/30/10
What is Government’s Role in Achieving Price Parity for Renewable Energy?

7/15/10
Guidance on the Guidelines: How Good is LEED?

Work or Fakework? Playing Carnie at Maker Faire

pic: NBC

I joined the brilliant ladies of Fakework Design this weekend to play Living Trophies for the Madagascar Institute Chariot Races at Maker Faire New York. We spent all week grooming our golden stallions (and all morning grooming ourselves!) for the sake of adding more glamor to the ensuing mayhem. Power tools and bike-medic field operations met gold spandex and pillow stuffing for fabulous mobile costumes.

Our troupe was just one piece of a wondrous carnival full of jet-propelled rides, and a panoply of chariots including a giant squid named the Kracken that got caught in the nets of Swimming Cities, a fire-spitting raven (literally!), mutant bikes, and sundry other wheeled objects. I wish I could tell you more about the rest of the fair, but there was so much, and it was so easy to get distracted. 

pic: Arthur & Margareta

Clips: Sustainability 102

pic: takomabibelot

Just because something requires thought doesn't mean it has to be hard, and the right tool can make any job easier. When it comes to sustainability issues, a lot of those tools are in development, but there are quite a few available right now. Knowing that they exist and learning how to use them can color our approaches to problem solving.

Sustainability is complex and there are different tools for different jobs. Computers are great with numbers, and there are a whole bunch of quantification tools out there, from determining consumer electronics efficiency to measuring the thermal flow across a building membrane. For a methodology to measuring sustainability concerns within business and across value chains, consultancies such as Deloitte and BSR have published publicly available road maps for determining and addressing social,  environmental, and economic issues.

For more on this topic, see my latest post for Neenan, Sustainability 102: Tools for Creating Ecological Balance at Home and Work. Please leave a comment letting me know what sustainability tools you're using.

Clips: Healthcare 2050

pic: DieselDemon

This past year I spent quite some time looking at medical technology in the context of a material (electroactive polymer) tech transfer to architecture, but I haven't thought about it in a little while. When I was assigned to edit the comments of a group of medical visionaries for the Neenan blog this week it was great to be reminded of our thrilling bionic future! Of course that's only a small piece of the question of what healthcare will look like in forty years, plenty hinges on policy and systems design. Surprisingly, none of our panelists said anything about the design of hospitals themselves! (You can check out a CEU I put together on that topic a while back for Metropolis.)

Have a read and leave a comment giving us your 2 cents on imagining healthcare 2050.

Beauty and Endearing Destiny

pic: smastrong

"Be fun and engaging and strive for an aesthetic outcome. Government, business, and environmental organization cannot create a sustainable society. It will only come about through the accumulated effects of daily acts of billions of eager participants. Some think humans are predatory by nature. I cast my vote with those who feel humans take the shape of their culture, and that shifts in culture can occur in rare moments with remarkable speed and vigor. Good design can release humankind from its neurotic relationship to absurd destruction, and aim it toward a destiny that is far more 'realistic' and enduring. The urge to create beauty is an untapped power, and it exists in commerce as well as society."

--Objective #8 from the preface to The Ecology of Commerce, Paul Hawken, 1993

Clips: Schools 2050

pic: D. Sharon Pruitt

A gentleman of my father's age recently scoffed at me that sustainability will get no where as long as people of his generation are in charge and prospering off the status quo. Are baby boomers really so jaded? Is the future really only of concern to the young?

I think it's always important not only to lead by example but to lay a groundwork of tools and knowledge for those growing up in a harder climate. This week for Neenan I looked to the future in Schools 2050: Accelerating the Connection Between Green Building and Green Learning. Sustainable infrastructure needs to include both the physical and the intellectual. Take a look and let us know your thoughts and suggestions for getting there.