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Clips: Who is Responsible for Privacy in the Age of Health Information Technology?

pic: plurimus

We all know that privacy means something different in the age of social networking than it did before. With the move now toward electronic health records and participatory healthcare our most personal data is now increasingly accessible by medical providers and associated businesses like insurance companies or laboratories. New laws have gone into effect to help protect privacy in this quickly changing framework of data accessibility. Read more about it on the Neenan blog, Who is Responsible for Privacy in the Age of Health Information Technology.

Clips: Engaging Students to Design their Sustainable Future

pic: Pink Sherbet Photography

This week I spoke with Neenan Architect David Kurtz about Engaging Students to Design their Sustainable Future. At the Alamosa Schools in Colorado, uncertainty about who to hire for a playground consultant turned into a design-research project for students. Their presentations to playground bidders resulted in an active design for all grade levels. We also spoke about putting students on the new school construction board in Monte Vista, CO, and how architects can be involved in creating sustainable curricula through building and site design.

Clips: Rural Healthcare Issues

A series of posts I've written for Neenan blog recently have dealt with financing issues for rural healthcare, regarding both facilities and technology. The design-build firm is active in this sector and has completed more than 2,000,000 square feet of healthcare environments over the past 20 years.

pic: bterrycompton

Rural Critical Access Hospital Financing Tips
I spoke with rural healthcare financing expert Andleeb Dawood, Vice President of Dougherty Mortgage, about different funding avenues for critical access hospitals.

pic: clevercupcakes

Funding Community
Health Centers
Laurie Casias, Chief Development Officer of CommuniCare Health Centers in Texas, explains how stimulus funds, strong leadership, and a committed staff are serving the working poor. 

pic: actionwolf

Closing the Digital Divide for Rural Healthcare
Health and Human Services and the Federal Communications Commission are offering multi-pronged support for rural communities to get up to technological speed.

Clips: Climate Wisdom

pic: chez_sugi

Fort Collins, CO has an interesting program called Climate Wise for inspiring and aiding businesses to do their part in reaching the city's atmospheric and environmental goals. The Neenan Company, who I've been blogging for regularly on sustainability issues, is an active participant.

I spoke with Climate Wise's Business Outreach Specialist, Wendy Serour, and Neenan's Sustainability Coordinator  John Drigot, about how their partnership in my latest post, Climate Wisdom: Brining Business and Government Together to Achieve Environmental Goals.

Functional Ambiance: Designing for Clean Air

For more than you ever wanted to know about indoor air quality (IAQ) please check out my article Functional Ambiance: Designing for Clean Air on Metropolis magazine's continuing-education site, sponsored by Humanscale.  

A few highlights...
[Download the PDF]

• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that air in homes is often five times more polluted than outdoors, and considering that most people today spend upwards of 80 percent of their days and nights inside, the interior atmosphere is a critical design criteria for functional environments.
• The average adult breathes in around eight germs per minute, for a total of 10,000 per day.
• The American Lung Association reports that 23 million Americans have asthma. This includes seven million children.
• Indoor air quality is the human factor that gets lost in design. Since air is invisible, it’s easy not to notice. Companies are aware of employee efficiency so they invest in ergonomic furniture and lighting, but IAQ gets forgotten by clients and designers alike. This is a mistake considering the relationship between air quality and health.
• Preventing and solving air quality problems are integrated issues that should include the participation of everyone along the design, construction, and occupancy process. In the first place, architectural choices set up initial air quality conditions that all other factors tie into. These need to be coordinated with the building’s mechanical engineers. Even the order of a building’s construction process can impact air quality if there are reactions between materials at different stages. And then interior design choices constitute a whole new layer of chemical interactions, followed by all the things building occupants bring in.

This course is registered for 1 Learning Unit through the American Institute of Architects Continuing Education System.

Pavilion Disassembly... FREE

click for more pics

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.

The Living Pavilion is Thriving

The Living Pavilion is visible from outer space on Google Maps satellite.

The Living Pavilion is doing great. My colleagues from CASE and I had a delicious picnic in it on Friday. In some of the milk crates, the Liriope were spurting purple flowers. We hadn't been sure if this species would bloom or not. It's been wonderful to see the pavilion growing into its landscape, and continuing to receive so much attention from the community. Here are a few clips from various times this summer, you can check out a bunch more on our Architizer page.

We were published in the New York Times style section, print and online.

New York AIA has continued to be an amazing supporter.

Design Trust for Public Space held their regular potluck at the pavilion.

Figment and the Living Pavilion was aired on WNBC.

Clips: Sustainable Urban Typologies

pic: Joel Bedford

My second post this week for the Neenan Company blog explores the question "How will we build in 2050?" following the twitter conversation #rethinkarch. I spoke with journalist Greg Lindsey and architect Robyn Vettraino about connections between technology, resources, and policy in the design of urban typologies. Take a read and please leave a comment letting us know where you stand on the urban/suburban spectrum.

Sustainable Urban Typologies: The 2050 Debate

Clips: Renewable Energy 2050

Wind turbines in Portugal by AiresAlmeida

This week for the Neenan Company blog I looked at international examples of renewable energy implementation and asked what's holding back the United States. Check out the article and please leave a comment at Renewable Energy 2050: Learning from International Lessons.

Since writing this piece I came across AMO's Roadmap 2050: A pathway to decarbonize the United States power grid, which reminded me that the first step is to flesh out the problem and the second to start sketching out solutions. The reasons and mechanics for our energy issues are vast, and looking at the international examples calls into the field an entire world of policies, resources, and national sentiments. It's easy to get overwhelmed, but the trick is to pick at our own problem from a lot of different angles at once.
 
AMO is the design and research studio of OMA. The roadmap redesigns the US energy grid according to the conclusion that "What we need is a technology neutral, energy agnostic, energy policy that ensures a massive infusion of capital for research and development." That sums it up pretty well, the actual sustainability of any type of energy or technology will depend on regional resources rather than monolithic prescriptions, and it's all going to take some money. 

I love seeing design solutions, visualization is a call to action. No matter how much we talk about it, or how wasteful we are, ultimately we will run up against limiting factors that make it impossible to ignore the big problems. It's better to start paying attention now. Every person in every field has something to offer.  

Video still from AMO.

Clips: What is Government’s Role in Achieving Price Parity for Renewable Energy?

pic: ThisIsDuffy

Check out my post What is Government’s Role in Achieving Price Parity for Renewable Energy? published by design-build firm The Neenan Company.

Excerpt...

Can renewable energy reach price parity without government subsidies? While green energy is gaining momentum, it is still generally considered more expensive than conventional fossil fuels. How can this be? The word “renewable” implies seamless cycles of regeneration. Sunlight and wind are infinite. If we could live truly passive lifestyles, they would be enough on their own. Unfortunately, our society has been built to require fuel, so the trick now is to make non-polluting sources affordable and available.

Recent reports claim that “renewable energy expansion counted for 60% of newly installed capacity in Europe and more than 50% in the US. Experts even believe that this year or the next, the world as a whole will add more capacity from renewable than conventional sources.” Unfortunately, this newly installed capacity still accounts for only 6.2% of the market in the United States.


click here for the whole article

Living Pavilion Exhibition Opening

The Figment Living Pavilion is getting its own exhibition at the Center for Architecture. Please join us for the opening. Free event. Free beer. Yay!

Monday, August 2nd, 6:30 - 8:30 pm

The Center for Architecture

536 LaGuardia Place

event info: http://cfa.aiany.org/index.php?section=calendar&evtid=2108&rsvid=12300&msg

Clips: Guidance on the Guidelines

pic: swanksalot 

Check out my post Guidance on the Guidelines: How Good is LEED? published by The Neenan Company, a design-build firm in Colorado.

Excerpt...

Green building is not just a fad. It’s a real change in society’s relationship with nature. While conscientious firms have always embodied the first principles of sustainable design–from proper siting to make the most of the sun to climate-sensitive passive heating and cooling–there is now a need for public guidance. This has led to the enormous success of the United States Green Building Council (USGBC)’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, and opened a critical debate on how best to serve the domain of green design.

click here for whole article

Living Pavilion Dispatch #6: Construction Completion

more pics here

I am proud, joyful, and relieved to report that the Figment Living Pavilion stands complete a day ahead of schedule. On a drizzly Wednesday morning, after weeks of reported thunderstorms but gorgeous weather, screws were tightened and foundation ditches filled to secure our dream of building architecture in NYC's best park.

Figment has been an amazing supporter of this project. I'm waiting with anticipation to see this beautiful structure filled with arts programming and impromptu gathering come the debut of Figment 2010 on Friday--note the wealth of scheduled performances on the Pavilion Stage, from belly and ballroom dancing to improv musical comedy and interactive folktale theater. The participatory arts scene has been a great source of inspiration for me over the past few years, as has the architecture and design community. It means a lot that the we were able to merge the glorious social utopia of the glittering costumed free-for-all with a professional, measured, and intellectual view toward larger scale design thinking and experiments in sustainability. The ultimate test of our health as a society is how we fulfill ourselves as individuals in the context of shared space and resources. Participatory architecture has produced an icon to this belief that will literally grow into its own as plantings germinate and people, through use, imbue their own meanings.

A special thank you at this moment to David Koren and Jessica Sheridan who have worked behind the scenes with skill and aplomb to make this possible; to our very patient and helpful representatives from the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation; to the pavilion's brilliant and committed architects Behrang Behin and Ann Ha; to the amazing Figment production team; and to the 60+ volunteers (final count TK) who have made this possible, including those in the home stretch since my last blog post, Berardo Matalucci, Rusty Brinkman, Nic Warner, Lydia Orsy, Max Akulin, Kayla Soo-Youn Kim, Baraket Kezwer, Malgorzata Danilczuk-Danilewicz, Breta Bishop, Damir Pozerac, Beatriz Ortiz, and Tara Mrowka.