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Archive for March, 2009
Amenityville Horror
Last month, at a dinner at friend’s house, I asked one their daughters (a sophomore in high school) if she was going to follow her older sister and attend the local Big Ten university. She said no, she was going to go to Illinois Wesleyan University in a neighboring town, because “it’s got the best food court I’ve ever seen.” And she was serious.
Following the Yellow Brick Road
‘Tis the season for basketball, especially in Indiana.
March Madness is here and in a big way with a portion of the Sweet Sixteen being played in Indianapolis. How ironic that “yellow” is one of the Color Marketing Group’s top picks this season. What is so ironic about “yellow”? Let me back up a few years.
In 2005 the Indiana Convention Center replaced all first floor carpeting with new patterned goods and added a substantial amount of walk off tile at entryways. The walk off carpet was installed primarily to differentiate entryway and hallway areas. A few months later in 2006, Indianapolis had the privilege of hosting the NCAA Final Four Tournament. Always a wonderful host, city officials and planners made certain everything looked its best. I wasn’t aware of the far reaching impact of this effort until I received a phone call from my client at the Indiana Convention Center. Footprints, wet, yellow footprints were everywhere inside their building! There were none to be found on the brick sidewalk and none to be found on the hallway carpet, but there were hundreds of yellow footprints on the walk off tile. Where did they come from? Sprucing up the city included curbs I soon found out: bright, shiny, freshly painted, yellow curbs.
Watch This Place: The Near Eastside
| INDIANAPOLIS |
I have the privilege of being involved in a number of the planning activities currently underway for the 2012 Super Bowl in Indianapolis. One of the efforts unique to the Indianapolis Super Bowl is the Civic Legacy Project.
Why I Do What I Do
Before I attempt to transform the thoughts in my head into an explanation of why I do what I do, I’ll touch briefly on what I do. I am a part of the graphic design team at RATIO Architects. My responsibilities include creating marketing materials such as mailers, advertisements and internal graphics, as well as business development materials which include brochures, proposal graphics and presentation boards. I develop concepts for these materials, come up with designs that convey those concepts and see them through to a final product.
Nice Move
On the subject of embodied energy and the useful life of a building, here is one very unique example:
In 1929, the Indiana Bell Telephone Company (now a part of AT&T) purchased the Central Union Telephone Company Building (1906-07) at the southwest corner of Meridian and New York Streets in Indianapolis. The building, overlooking University Park, was 118 feet tall, with eight floors and a roof garden on top of the elevator penthouse. Originally the company planned to demolish the Central Union Telephone Building, but architect Kurt Vonnegut, Sr. (father of the famed novelist) determined that the building could be moved to obtain its full life of service.
Higher Ed Consolidation?
I’ve lived in Illinois all my life, played basketball in high school and have been an avid follower of basketball at all levels – pro, college and high school. You can’t follow the Illinois high school scene without noticing the phenomena of hyphenated high schools in rural areas. In response to declining enrollments, many schools had to combine districts to maintain enrollment levels to justify facilities.
I wonder if the consolidation that has so changed the rural schools here in Illinois will be necessary in the higher ed market? The economy’s impact is influencing the higher ed world just as the number of future students is beginning to decline. How will this impact the higher ed landscape? Will smaller liberal arts colleges, having to come to grips with smaller enrollments, shrinking operating budgets and declining endowments, be looking at neighbors to share a name with?
Sustainable vs. Green, a brief overview
Today we hear a lot about “sustainability” and “green” alternatives, both from the media and in business. I think it is important to differentiate between these two distinct but related terms, so that we don’t confuse ourselves and others.
The Case for Water
For a long time, water has been treated as a nuisance that needs to be collected and sent away as quickly as possible. The large scale accumulated effect of sending our stormwater downstream for someone else to deal with is seen in the flooding that occurs along our creeks, streams and major rivers each year.
Whisking water away is a funny way to treat an element that is such a critical part of our world. While approximately 80% of the earth’s surface is covered in water, only 2.5% is fresh water. This means that if all of the world’s water were fit into a gallon jug, the fresh water available for our use would only equal about one tablespoon. Roughly 66% of the human body consists of water. Our brains are approximately 75% water. This is why a person can live about a month without food, but only about a week without water.
The Importance of Urban
| THEORY |
Over the past two decades, there has been renewed interest in urban places and considerable thought as to how to improve them or make new ones. Organizations such as the Congress for the New Urbanism, the U. S. Green Building Council and the Urban Land Institute have helped to make urban living popular again and brought sustainability into common parlance. Now, we are poised to create places that are not just livable but living – not simply sustainable but sustaining.
Organizational Heft
For the last eight months I’ve been leading an effort to help the State of Indiana improve their capital budgeting process. That effort has involved more than a dozen firms with expertise in everything from code compliance to software architecting. The breadth of this project has been daunting. And it has caused me to recall the dozen years I spent at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in roles that ranged from Project Manager to University Architect, to Campus Architect and Director of Planning, back to Project Manager. In those roles I was routinely exposed to an organization that was/is confounding to those outside of it. Who do I ask a question of? What might their answer really mean? Will it “stick”?
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