Green Community Competition

I am working on a design competition with a few other students (Chelsea, Katie, Michael). We are looking at what a sustainable community would look like if we could design it basically from the ground up, rather than take the common piecemeal approach. We are particularly looking at the idea of reducing or eliminating redundancy by uzing resources as a community rather than individuals. A good example is transportation. A lot of resources are tied up in manufacturing, purchasing, and maintaining the vehicles themselves not to mention the infrastructure of roads, service stations, etc. That amounts to a huge investment in things that sit idle for the vast majority of the time. When we live in ways that eliminate our dependancy on personal vehicles and rely on public transportation, fewer resources are committed to tranportation and it used practically all day. This concept can be applied to public and commercial building space by using spaces to serve multiple functions with the goal of 24-hr. a day utilization, you dramatically reduce not only the amount of built space but reduce the expense and energy required to maintain them.

In our research we discovered that the new Boone Pickens Stadium, which cost several hundred million dollars to construct is only used 24 hours a year. The high school is in the process of building a new football stadium just a few miles away. While it will probably be used a little more frequently and certainly will not cost anywhere near as much, why do we need another one when the one we have is hardly used at all? If we really lived as a community, we would maximize the utilization of the things we built and manufactured and would use our limited resources in a much more efficient way. We would also benefit from living amongst others and not isolate ourselves.

The following is a video we created for our presentation. I think it turned out very well. Hopefully it doesn't take forever to download. There is a narration that is read aloud during the presentation. The text is posted below. We are in the process of having the narration added.

Charley Harper 1922-2007

I am thoroughly enjoying my discovery of Charley Harper's work. His paintings are so deceptively simple. They are more overtly a product of design and not just expression than most artwork - and I like that. Harper was a keen observer of not only animals but the shapes, patterns and colors of the world around him. I particularly like their subtle humor, like the pelican with the out-of-sync pier or the angry owls.

I won't bore you with any more superlatives or analysis here. I will just post a few images and let you go from there. Enjoy!

P.S. (I just noticed that all of the expamples I first selected were of birds. While birds do seem to be a favorite subject, Harper's work is not exclusively avian. So I added a few others that I particularly like.)

Design 21>Going With the Grain Challenge

I posted this on my family blog but as well. This is for a design competition I have entered. Details of the competition requirements are found here.

My New Design Blog

My intention is to post things that I have designed, any thoughts I feel like sharing about the design process or its results, and great work by others that I wish I had thought of first.