Actress Ellen Page for 350.org's Global Work Party on 10/10/10

Please check out Ellen Page below, the actress from the movies Juno and Inception sharing her thoughts about joining together in 350.org's global day of action. It's the weekend after next and there's plenty of work to do to high-light positive examples working to solve or mitigate the effects of climate change and global warming. Thanks!

The Promise of Green Manufacturing

When you think of green building design how often do you think of manufacturing buildings?  We hear and read about like schools, office buildings, environmental centers much more often than we do manufacturing facilities.  McGraw Hill Construction which tracks the construction industry found that today green building comprises roughly 30 percent of the market where in 2005 it had 2 percent.  This growth in market share shows the definite traction in the marketplace which now exists and will likely continue.  I especially see lots of potential and need for growth in the manufacturing and the consumer products, and retail sectors given the rise of corporate responsibility and accountability driven by better educated consumers and demanding company stakeholders.  Frankly, in these sectors, a lot of energy and resources are wasted or ineffectively used.  It seems to be a no-brainer and good business sense to find ways to more effectively manufacture, distribute and bring products to market, and if our planet can be cleaned up and our environment improved all the better!

Plastic to Oil Fantastic OW2.0

A LinkedIn contact sent this to me today, Tom Hackett an Architect from Tom Hackett Architectural and Environmental Design. It's a video showing Ako Ikonari CEO of Blest Company. His team has invented a way to turn waste plastic into oil with a small machine which processes plastic bags, bottles, wrappers into oil which can further be refined into various fuel sources. This potentially can help reduce CO2 and lessen the impacts of global warming. Ako's on a crusade to show the world you take waste plastic and converting it back to oil and obviously being helpful in the generational fight to halt global warming. Seeing is believing in this one!

Christo is Coming to Burlington, VT

View of the Gates in Central Park

The artist Christo has an exhibit at the Fleming Museum one of my favorite places in Burlington.  It's called "Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Tom Golden Collection" opening 9/21 and going through 12/18/10.   It's a collection of mixed media works assembled by Tom Golden who worked on and off with them for years.

Detail of the Fabric Hanging from "The Gates"

The last time I experienced a project by them was the Central Park project, called "The Gates" a series of curtains and gateways planted in a very interesting manner along paths and walks near reflecting ponds. 

Architecture Biennale_Rem Koolhaas on History and OMA's exhibit

I had the pleasure of viewing this short interview of Rem Koolhaas held recently at the Architecture Biennale in Venice, Italy. He talks about the work of OMA and their relationship / dialogue with history in their projects. Over OMA's long history of built and built work they've consistently been in constant dialogue about what it means to be of the present while relating to the past. So often their projects offer truly remarkable reinterpretations of spatial experiences, programming and functioning of spaces. The results are works which leave you with a sense of wonder and intrigue.

There's also an interesting exhibit about life beyond Architecture called

The sins of regurgitation and the art of rearranging

Do you ever say to yourself, "Wow, I should blog about this or maybe I should tweet this!"  You know, the moment of recognition, the aha you feel when you read, see, hear something worth sharing?  You turn to your left and no one's there, but you wish you could tell someone?  That's what it's like to participate in blogging and sometimes in the act of not blogging.  Why is this distinction worth sharing? 

Sometimes it's more important to really read that interesting blog post, article, magazine piece, explore that link and

Slow Green, an antidote to unrealistic expectations?

Some Observations

Reflecting over the Labor Day weekend here in the U.S., hearing all of the recent unemployment numbers, all the debate about whether are we or aren't still in a recession, when will these endless wars we keep fighting end?  How can we be optimistic for our children during such challenging times?  As a Green architect and design thinker, I sit here a bit brokenhearted about how the Green Movement seems to be stalled in effecting positive change, helping to right this unstable economy get America back to work, etc.