I have watched several documentaries that have made me think and act in new ways. I am exercising my thinking, and squeezing in a bike ride when the sun comes out.
I think they are important consideration in my architectural work and in attempting to act locally while thinking GREEN GLOBALLY.
The first film is FOOD, Inc. My partner owns a copy of the DVD and is hoping to share it with 100 people. Although we already eat locally and organically, this film ends in very positive path finding for voting with your food dollar, saving money and being responsible to one’s community.
My daughter is watching Food, Inc on the streaming video feature of Netflix on her computer, although parts are hard to watch the ending is so helpful- positive. I also see that it has been nominated for an Academy Award.
Documentary Wire is a spot to watch free documentaries on one’s computer. I have added the FUTURE OF FOOD to my must see list. I think these add to my concepts of design, saving money and keeping it green.
FLOW: FOR THE LOVE OF WATER which I watched for free was a reminder of what is happening all over the world about water and a look at who owns water. I did not know that the Nestle company is attempting to own all the water in Michigan, did you?
3 companies are attempting to own all the water rights in the world and they are making lots and lots of money. Some more GREED.
HOWARD ZINN I saw interviewed on Bill Moyer’s Journal this week. He reminded me that the people have all the power – not government! But I need to understand history – the people’s history and not text book history in order to find and foundation that power into action. Netflix has a 5 star documentary about Mr. Zinn and his book THE PEOPLES HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
I am working on exercising my brain and part of the rainy season is doing some reading. I was reviewing mostly architectural articles and then my family persuaded me to read Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
The Day I finished the book Greg Mortenson was on Bill Moyer’s Journal on PBS promoting his new book and schools. He is also coming to speak at a local high school as a senior project in May 2010.
I enjoyed reading this book.
Why did your whole family want you to read this book?
- It was a different look at Afghanistan and the effects of war.
- Mortenson looked at the people and their need rather than the politics first
- Mortenson came to Afghanistan because of Mountain Climbing – my earliest sport
- I was amazed at his willingness to volunteer at such an extreme level
What was the most significant idea you took away from reading this book?
- His vision of the people of Afghanistan was very eye opening and personal
- Others haven’t presented this vision
- Understanding people’s goals and helping them accomplish THEIR goals and not dictate our goals.
- How important educating women is to a society and the development of that society to its fullest potential.
Why is this book an important read for an architect?
- Totally new way of looking at a green building – simplicity, no luxury
- Not a great deal of accuracy about architecture – codes very different
- Good to understand the diversity and situation/culture
- Green Seismic concerns – bomb concerns – maybe just green because not using so much stuff and computers etc.
How will the read change you?
- It changes how I view the country of Afghanistan and the war – escalation is wrong.
- Wanted to change how we assist the people of Haiti in recovery
- I am reminded to look at Green buildings with greater care and deeper observation. Mortenson did not think so much about design and greenness; he based his concerns on meeting the people’s needs and assisting the meeting of those needs.
- Working with women and educating women his greatest priority.
- I am reminded of how important listening to people is – reinforcing how hard I work at this skill.
Why would you recommend this book to others?
- Exceedingly important because we are at War in Afghanistan
- Understanding the way to get OUT and how to treat the people as humans
- Women’s rights and how to negotiate with closed minded people while advocating for others.
- The importance of personal conversation and listening to others – hearing them
- All needs are the same for every person….
It was very interesting to me how this man found his life’s work and mission and how it just came to him.
Have you read a good book you would like to recommend? Thank you for sharing.
Enjoy this site? Subscribe and keep up with all the updates! Or support this site by promoting us through your favorite network:
I just had to wander over and figure out who these fascinating woman might be, who would jump into a guy’s head so quickly. I have very much enjoyed discovering the range and body of work accomplished by these two women architects.
I find myself wandering back today to the Maya Lin website. Studying all the pictures and enjoying the chime as my cursor passes over each mark. Just the home page is a work of simple beauty. It is contemplative and restorative to me today.
Maya Lin Webpage
I can tell that this designer is drawn into the environment with all her art, architecture and memorials. The natural world and her designs are seamlessly intertwined.
I am listening to Debussy’s music as I pause on each work and stay there to recognize the feeling.
From her biographical material:
“Maya Lin has been drawn to the critical social and historical issues of our time and addressed them in her memorials, including the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial in Washington DC, the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, AL, and the Women’s Table at Yale University. Currently she is working on the Confluence Project, a multi-sited installation spanning the Columbia River system in the Pacific Northwest that intertwines the history of Lewis and Clark with the history of the Native American tribes who inhabit those regions. With a critical eye toward the environmental changes that have rapidly occurred, Ms. Lin’s Confluence Project has brought significant ecological restoration to six state and national parks along the Columbia River Basin. It is an ongoing project with three of the six sites completed. For more information visit.
I was so drawn into this project and the words shared on the several linked sites that I now wish to go explore each of these sites – on the ground.
That she uses the rules of nature in the products and materials she chooses is also an interesting discovery.
Yes indeed an inspiring and impressive body of work, worth exploring and inspiring our future.
Who would you choose as a strong woman to inspire you to stay up all night to meet? Who would be another inspiring architect, engineer or planner to explore their work and learn more about?
I heard about this Move Your Money Group on the news. It was first publicized by the Huffington Post. I did not think too much about it because our family decided to move our Money out of the “too big to fail” banks nearly 30 years ago and have felt good about supporting our community banks and credit union instead. We have supported them and they have supported us.
It is also a suggestion made by David Korten in his book Agenda for a New Economy. It is a noteworthy action because it certainly is a move that has assisted us in building our local community.
I have had at least 10 people ask me just in the past week how to help green up the environment besides just recycling garbage, growing a garden, and taking shorter showers. I have now added Move Your Money to the opportunities’ list.
Two individuals and one organization have also overtly stated that they did not want to learn about banking problems, food production and related health issues, or how to make changes to find resolution – “Other people will figure it out.”
“There is no official organization here. It’s a volunteer project. If you have ideas about how this idea can grow, send us a note and we’ll display the best ideas in the Comments section of the site.”
“People all over the country are choosing to move their money out of bigger banks and into smaller, community-oriented financial institutions that generally avoided the reckless investments and schemes that helped cause the financial crisis.
“Fueled by the personal initiatives of thousands, it’s a grassroots effort that has the potential to shift power in the financial system away from Wall Street and to Main Street.”
~ From their site.
This site has a place to put your zip code in and find out the local banks and credit unions in your specific area that are worthy of your funds – well rated.
This is not a new story and I thought the site video was very good and informatively entertaining.
And there was a wonderful story of someone making the move on Salon.com
I wanted to share this idea and see what you thought about this kind of voting with your money to resolve an issue.
I thought it put the money back into the people’s hands. Money the people already gave to the banks and they are not sharing?
What do you think? Did you like the video?
Enjoy this site? Subscribe and keep up with all the updates! Or support this site by promoting us through your favorite network:
For the past several years I have taken my family cross country skiing on Christmas Day. We take off after a hearty breakfast, drive to the mountains and ski all day. Exhausted and happy when we finally arrive home, we share our seasonal gifts and enjoy a feast of good food.
This year I discovered, on my fall bike adventure, the Methow Valley in Washington State and made reservations for the holiday weekend. Nine family members and friends shared the great cabins/rooms at Mazama Ranch Lodge and enjoyed the cold particularly the groomed trails for 3 days of great skiing.
We were about 30 minutes away from Twisp, Washington, the downhill ski runs and snowboarding areas. The snow mobile runs were further away and did not disturb the quiet beauty along the river trails. There were dozens of trails to choose of variable lengths – including one that was 25 miles.
The Mazama Valley Lodge is a newly remodeled ranch and lots of groups come there to ski or hike with our without horses in the warmer months. We found the pricing very reasonable and the site very beautiful. There is a deli – store nearby, ski rental shop where one might also sign up for lessons; a meeting area with fireplace and tables to play games. A sign up clinic for a ski and shoot event was taking place on one day of our visit.
The Lodge rooms are designed very rustically and efficiently – clean. We were able to fit everyone around a table for a warmed up supper and good conversation each evening.
Discovering the snow skaters was a delight. They very gracefully glide over the snow and can achieve great speed. I wanted to know more and it made me excited to know that the Olympics were coming to Vancouver, Canada in the coming months.
The Twisp River Pub was a GREAT place for a full group brunch and send off from such a great adventure and fabulous holiday!
Happy New Year!
Enjoy this site? Subscribe and keep up with all the updates! Or support this site by promoting us through your favorite network:
As those of us who reside in Winter Climes are mending the harnesses and stoking the blaze, we can find a time to pause and reflect. It is a time to let our thoughts drift and flow. It is a time to gather closer and to communicate with light and balance.
For those of us who reside in Summer Climes you too can pause and envision your light within, cultivating our daily connections and past coldness and fears overcome.
We would like to wish all the best of reflections and the warmest of connections in this new season, by sharing our IT’s lovely animation of Robert Frost’s Poem: Stopping by Woods.
I am sharing some of my thoughts about green design needs and about why the biking architect’s firm and other small firms are holding on by the finger tips…. and not getting the stimulus work… Just sharing what is on my mind…
I just watched the movie”FOOD, Inc.” and highly recommend it.
I am wondering why the huge firms are getting the stimulus money and the energy efficiency work and nothing is trickling down. This is just like the big financial institutions which created the problems getting the funds and not trickling it down. Now the huge firms, might have some one person holding their feet to the fire on Green Design…energy efficiency and sustainability, but they don’t seem to have many who have actually done this kind of work or produced the results that are needed right now? Whereas the smaller firms that have been doing this kind of work for 30 years are not even being hired as consultants – they are still begging clients to do the right thing.
Why are the folks handing out the projects seemingly not asking these questions?
Why has this firm not been doing these projects before? Or only making surface changes?
How many firms are connected to the big energy – oil users?
Who is covering the Copenhagen meetings? What have they learned from this gathering?
Who is teaching the contractors and engineers about the new products?
Who is understanding the new equipment/surfaces/structures that are needed and designing it?
How many vegetarians are there within the firm?
How many live in situations where they truly recycle, reuse, and monitor their carbon foot print? And who can give a detailed reporting, but they all SAY they do…?
What is the firm’s home base and projects carbon foot print in the last year?
Who uses bikes for transportation? Who offsets their use of computers? Who supports the local economy and CSA groups? Who has changed codes and laws?
Who volunteers to help the less fortunate understand?
Are they connected to Architecture 2030? Or 360. Org? Treehuggers?
Which of these big firms know what is happening and what kinds of development the Green firms have been producing these pasts 30 years?
Yep I know that the world is not fair. I also know that by keeping our work localized that St. Louis firms may not know that there is all this expertise available for consulting or mentoring.
My looking and thinking says that folks are really trying and working hard….but they are not going to solve the problems and make a better world with this same old same old patterns…. (see: David Korten’s book Agenda for a New Economy.)
I started this discussion on my previous post – I just had to keep sharing these good words and the delight I find in them:
Bicycle In The Clouds
“ You know you’re in Copenhagen when a mother in high heels and mini skirt, with a 5 year old on the back and two bags of groceries dangling from the handlebars, blows past you like you’re carved in stone.” ~Unknown author
“When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments. Here was a machine of precision and balance for the convenience of man. And (unlike subsequent inventions for man’s convenience) the more he used it, the fitter his body became. Here, for once, was a product of man’s brain that was entirely beneficial to those who used it, and of no harm or irritation to others. Progress should have stopped when man invented the bicycle.” ~Elizabeth West from Hovel in the Hills
“Nothing compares to the simple pleasures of a bike ride.” ~JFK
“Get a bicycle. You will not regret it if your live.” ~Mark Twain
“Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives a woman a feeling of freedom & self-reliance. I stand & rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.” ~ Women’s Suffragist at a movement rally in London
“When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race.” ~H.G. Wells
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving” ~Albert Einstein
“Newspapers are unable, seemingly to discriminate between a bicycle accident & the collapse of civilization.” ~George Bernard Shaw
Right before my very eyes as I stood on the City Bus heading to the California Academy of Sciences at Golden Gate Park were the words – DREAMS ON WHEELS.
“Danish cycling Culture for Urban Sustainability” November 19 through December 15, 2009 at the South Light Court of San Francisco City Hall. (Designed by Inger & Jens Bruun of Scan/design Foundation)
Hopped on the Muni train to Van Ness stop and walked a couple of blocks to the city hall. The sun was shining and the morning was crisp. What better thing is there to do on the day before Thanksgiving than to go and look at this display of bicycles?
We also saw an impressive building and no less than 8 weddings being performed on the massive steps up to the newly installed Holiday Tree.
The display consisted of 10 booths each containing a bicycle, which demonstrated the changes and development of the vehicle. One booth was dedicated to photographs of happy Danes wheeling along in the city with the most bike traffic and use – fascinating.
I was amazed by how wide the bike lanes were designed and how skilled the peddlers were.
On each wall of the booths were quotes….and a history, economic or environmental lesson.
Here are my first favorites in order that I collected them from off the walls:
“Without the cycle Denmark grinds to a halt!” Famous Slogan
“Melancholy is incompatible with bicycling.” James E. Stares
“Everything is in the same gear even the old garden church spires, you yourself are the gliding camera. The bicycle is your centre in an entire universe. It’s just like you’re rising dizzily among twisting spires.”
Forgot to write down author
“Think of bicycles as rideable art that can just about save the world.” Grant Peterson
“It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.” Ernest Hemingway
Documentaries which have shaped my thinking
