On my way to visit family across the country, way too much caffeine & late flights to mention. Always appreciating the wonderful luck I've had, family & shelter that I feel blessed to have. Have a fabulous Thanksgiving & give thanks to those less fortunate here while supporting some great art .... http://helpink.tumblr.com/
This week has been one of those weeks when you feel like you can't do enough. December is always when we receive our job reviews courtesy of the firm principals. Just the announcement of the impending meetings fills me with angst, so that's basically all of November. It's not that I'm not focused on progressing my career all year, it's just having to take the time to consider what your successes have been or where your weaknesses are, drives me to distraction. How do you promote the company you work for, other than making sure your relationships are solid & what you are producing is beyond the client's expectations? It's a rhetorical question, I realize, of course there's always more that can be done - it's just I might need a wee bit more time, more energy and a little less time trolling the internet. So, to celebrate my utter denial of job reviews I have decided to focus on sparkly, bright, colorful stuff which always makes me feel better - I invite you to join me....
Today is the first day of Greenbuild 2013 in Philadelphia. I attended Greenbuild 2007 in Chicago and it was a momentous occasion for me. I should say this is the one and only traveling I have done for work, so it made me feel very grown up and professional. Aside from that, the buzz at this conference (billed as the world's largest conference and expo dedicated to green building) was infectious and empowering. My colleague and I attended a bunch of seminars discussing case studies, advising tips, recommending products - it made you feel like you could conquer the world. I remember thinking that I was so fortunate to be in the career I was in because of the sheer potential for change, it was truly inspiring.
That year the keynote speaker was Bill Clinton, he could sell snow to an Eskimo as my grandma would say. That guy was smooth and leveraged his charisma to bring visibility to global warming and sustainable design. This year, the keynote speaker is Hillary Clinton - what an amazing powerhouse of a couple, that would make for one hell of an entertaining dinner party!
Anyway, with the onset of 2014 Greenbuild, I thought I would pass along resources on some of this year's best buildings and products.
paper sculpture installation @ PLACE
Tonight the Architecture Foundation of Oregon (AFO), in partnership with ForWARD (Forum for Women in Architecture & Related Design), hosted an event titled "Portlandia Moments: 60 Years of Architecture, Urban Design & Looking Forward". It was a slide show summarizing the last 60 years of Portland's growth, with commentary given by architects Martha Andrews, Nancy Merryman and Susan Anderson, who is the Director of the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. The event was being hosted by PLACE landscape architects in Northwest. I am still swooning over their office, a large warehouse space with exposed wood trusses painted out white, concrete floors and beautiful industrial windows. The space is massive, hulking steel sculptural pieces and expansive site models share the space with not only the staff (of let's say 12 - not 100% sure) but with no less than three motorcycles and two hammocks. The group of 100+ people attending this event didn't even seem to require any moving of office furniture, but it really didn't feel hugely out of wack even with a full scale pink elephant painted on one of the demising walls or hundreds of square feet of air taken up by massive paper sculpture installations! Maybe the wine had me madly out of tune with reality, who knows....
The slide show was full of interesting information and, not being originally from Portland, I appreciated hearing the history of how the city was shaped and who/what influenced the development. It's easy to take for granted what great forethought in planning went into creating the green vistas we enjoy today. Photos form the 1980's show a smoggy skyline and a horrifyingly polluted Willamette river. It took 7 years to reduce the smog to acceptable levels and 40 years to clean up the river, which is now actually swimmable! We've definitely been on the forefront of sustainable design, not only with buildings but with transportation, bike path infrastructure, open green space, etc. Now the future has set it's sights for the outlying areas of Portland where parks and open spaces lack infrastructure and neighborhood connectivity appears lost, a strong push in the upcoming years will attempt to revitalize these areas and bring them up to match our past successes. I was personally very persuaded to become a member of the AFO and be part of their mission towards preservation and education, I urge you to check it out as well!
This time of year is so crazy, with the holidays rolling along there's always a ton of stuff to do, see and participate in this lovely city of ours. I'm lucky to jot down just a few must see events on my kitchen calendar, so I'm always happy to stumble upon someone together enough to have all the go to events assembled. This lovely list is courtesy of Honey Kennedy - she's definitley got it going on, impress me with your devotion to local and enjoy the holiday season, PDX style!
Art courtesy of dukago
