What if, with a push of a button, you could save one of your favorite historic places?

The Partners in Preservation need your help. They need you to press a button and help decide who should get $3 million.

Some of the places on the list are really well known in New York and beyond; the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, the Guggenheim Museum, the Apollo Theater, the Coney Island B&B Carousel… The list goes on and on.

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In my last post, I suggested that the ways we used to plan workspaces are no longer effective.  Maybe they never were. I have several reasons for saying this. First and foremost is the fact that many organizations think of space allocation according to entitlement or status whereas they should consider designs that support the business of their business. Certainly, organizations are free to determine who gets what, or to use space as a reward or symbol of accomplishment as they choose. But this approach erodes designers’ ability to link “place” to “work” and teach workers to see space as a resource, not an entitlement. A workplace should be considered a resource that its users can adapt over time as their work changes.

This adaptability can help an organization redefine itself for the new market conditions; it also teaches and empowers workers to be conscientious consumers of their own environments and feel so much at ease with it that they can modify many aspects of it for themselves.

Another faulty assumption is that work happens mostly at workstations or in assigned offices. AECOM Strategy Plus, as well as other workplace-consulting firms have plenty of evidence to prove that people are only in their assigned seats half the time or even less. And this applies across industries and worker types.

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Infrastructure is a major issue of out time, stretching across towns, cities, states, regions, and countries. Our current methodology of building and maintaining it is too expensive, too inflexible, and too ecologically damaging. If we hope to solve the numerous problems we face with energy, water, transportation, healthcare, and urbanized areas, we must completely reinvent our infrastructure. We can’t “efficient” our way out of problems like energy consumption or ecological decay.  It will take a paradigm shift and a complete overhaul of careers from architecture to engineering to ecology to urban design.

An alternative to the conventional approach to public infrastructure work is emerging: Ecomimicry.

Ecomimicry conceives and constructs infrastructure that aligns the needs of society with the needs of nature. It is based on the concept of taking the knowledge we have gained as an industrious society and applying it to create a global culture more in harmony with nature. When I say “nature”, I’m not talking about a vague idyllic notion of the natural world. I mean the nature that science has discovered over the past 150 years.

In this series, I (and a host of co-writers from fields as diverse as conservation biology, re-wilding, architecture, healthcare, academia, design, wildlife conservation, urban planning, and business) will discuss how infrastructure needs to change in fundamental ways.

We will have to re-imagine the very things that have given us our modern day comforts. Don’t worry, none of the ideas discussed within this series will advocate going back into the wild to live as cavemen and cavewomen. Instead, the conversation will focus on new methods of infrastructure. For example, the practice of oyster-tecture uses oysters to help improve water quality, protect shorelines, eliminate erosion, re-generate fish stocks, and shield local coastal economies from collapse. Oyster-tecture, if done correctly, costs less to build and to maintain than standard storm water management techniques.  Oysters have indirect benefits that include carbon sequestration, habitat restoration, and increased tourism.  Oyster-tecture is just one example of this new model.

Photo from NOAA Habitat Conservation

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http://youtu.be/VE86C5qPWLg

At the University of Minnesota College of Design graduation ceremonies, on Saturday, May 12, John Cary, who received his BA in 1999 from the same school, delivered the 2012 commencement address. After thanking dean Thomas Fisher and the faculty of the educational institution that “has given me so much,” Cary started with his inauspicious beginnings and launched into the story of his inspirational and accomplished life story and career—the two intricately entwined. His trajectory is sharply focused on the growing field of public interest design, an area that he is personally is helping to define. Here is his message to the graduating class, any graduating class in any field in fact, as well as the design professions in search of defining the 21^st century practice.—SSS

I came to the University of Minnesota in 1995, having graduated from a Jesuit high school in Milwaukee’s inner city. Few people, except my parents who are here today, know that my first semester GPA in high school was a whopping 1.9. If you weren’t book smart or an athletic super star at my high school, you kind of fell through the cracks. At least I did.

Thankfully, I landed in the basement, where an inspiring teacher—who was trained as an engineer and taught drafting classes—introduced me to design. It was through that high school teacher that I got involved with Habitat for Humanity, and helped transform an abandoned house into a family’s dream home—to this day one of the most meaningful projects that I’ve ever worked on.

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Business consultant, regenerative systems thinker, planner, business consultant, regenerative systems thinker, and author of The Responsible Business: Reimagining Sustainability & Success (2011), Carol Sanford gave a keynote address on the last day of the Living Future “un-conference” in Portland, Oregon. Working as a land planner, she began to explore ways to think about “the whole system,” which led her to regenerative systems thinking.

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This past Sunday evening Emily Pilloton delivered the commencement address at the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley, her alma mater. Here is a lightly edited version of her inspirational talk that can apply to everyone in the design field today, not just to new grads, as well as to anyone seeking to put meaning in what they do all day.—SSS

I feel fairly unqualified to be your graduation speaker: I was not a great student during my time here. I am not really a good “adult,” either, as I have no savings account or long-term health insurance. Also, I am not primarily interested in addressing you as architects and designers this evening, but first and foremost as citizens, and only then, as members of a professional community.

So with those disclaimers in mind, I want to share two stories with you. They are not stories of success so much as adventure. Take them as cautionary tales or advice or just stories of a girl who, like you, graduated from this institution and is still trying to find the best modes of operation in design and in life.

First story: Almost five years ago, I quit a corporate retail design job, selecting paint colors and doorknobs, moved in with my parents, and started a nonprofit design agency with no business plan and $1,000 in my bank account. Many people called this impulsive.

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Jason McLennan has a potty mouth. The head of the International Living Future Institute, which recently hosted the Living Future conference in Portland, Oregon, says that he regularly uses his keynote to christen the conference’s four-letter word. Last year, there was a lot of talk about composting toilets, so “shit” was the word. This year, he challenged the nearly 1,000 conference participants to find ways to use the most complex one of all: love. “This is the most dangerous word of all,” he said. “My challenge to you: Use this word liberally with meaning and heart. Try to use the word love at least once every 30 minutes. It is essential that we open our hearts to awaken the human spirit. It’s going to take a lot more than PVs and FSC wood to change the world.”

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The Hunger Games logo is a symbol you’ve seen on books in the hands of people everywhere and on movie posters plastered all over subways and theaters. The infamous logo originated from Tim O’Brien, an adjunct professor in Pratt Institute’s Undergraduate Department of Communications Design who illustrated the three The Hunger Games’ covers for Scholastic.

The Hunger Games cover design by Tim O’brien

The Hunger Games movie poster designed by Ignition Print

O’Brien is an illustrator and portrait painter who’s work has been featured on the cover of Time, Harpers and Rolling Stone, among others. His paintings are in the collection of the National Gallery, Washington, DC., and he is a winner of the prestigious Hamilton King Award from the Society of Illustrators. His work is intricately detailed and imaginative with a curious balance of realism and fantasy that makes him the perfect fit for The Hunger Games. Not so coincidently, his wife Elizabeth Parisi happens to be the Creative Director at Scholastic.

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One of the world’s busiest commercial districts, Midtown is a unique mix of moxie and polish, packed with not just skyscrapers but top-flight showrooms, restaurants, shops, and museums. Here, we’ve listed the area’s best spots.

Check out the Metropolis Design Guide for Design Week events and highlights from New York’s most design-forward neighborhoods.  And look for the printed version of the Metropolis Design Guide around the city, especially in Chelsea at WantedDesign, in Midtown at the Architects & Designers Building and the Decoration & Design Building, in Flatiron at the New York Design Center, and at the newsstand at ICFF at the Javits Center.

Keep an eye out for what we “like” during NY Design Week. Around the city, you’ll see our lovely signs, produced by 3M Architectural Markets using 3M ™ Crystal Glass Finishes, at all of our editors’ favorite, must-see spots. Throughout our neighborhood listings, you’ll also see a next to our favorites.

METROPOLIS LIKES ICFF
Celebrated hub for the latest trends in international design, the International Contemporary Furniture Fair returns this year to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. May 19^th to May 22^nd. Get there: Eleventh Ave. at W. 38th St. Find out more: 800-272-7469 or icff.com (image courtesy Barcelona).

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The MoMA Design Store on 53 St. in New York City.

Want a chance to be in the Museum of Modern Art? Well, the MoMA Design Store at least. If you are a talented designer based in one of New York City’s five boroughs, then the design store’s open call may just be for you. The store is inviting local New York City designers to submit items for a product collection launching next year. “In addition to working with designers from around the world, the MoMA Design Store has also been a longtime champion of local design right here in our own backyard,” Kathy Thornton-Bias, president of MoMA’s retail division. “We’re proud that many of the designers we’ve nurtured over the years have gone on to achieve incredible success at home and abroad.”

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