Collaborative Consumption, A third way out of over consumption?

Watch Rachel speak about Collaborative Consumption and the potential power to transform our everyday excess capacity of the stuff which surrounds us, our skills laying dormant with the powerful forces of sharing and trust building.  My family and I are ideal candidates for this game changing shift in thinking...  "What's mine is yours, what's yours is mine".  You probably are too!  Take 15 minutes, watch and shift your thinking!

I first heard about this on Treehugger radio on a podcast a few months ago and have enjoyed replaying it often.  The concept stuck in my head so solidly I mentally noted to check out www.collaborativeconsumption.org later and learn more.  Go there and see for your self.  It's genuinely heartwarming stuff.

There's a book you can buy or seek out in your community to read about Collaborative Consumption movement in detail.  It operates like a library book.  There's a library card in it which shows the path of those who've read it and passed it on to others to read.  If there's anyone in central Vermont who has a copy to lend please let me know.  I would like to read it and pass it on.  Meanwhile, enjoy Rachel's presentation!

After you've watched tell me what do you think?  Have you read the book yet? Do you have anything you'd like to share in your garage?  Would you do this in your community?  Share your thoughts with dc and other readers.  Don't be bashful.  It would be delightful to hear from you.

Letting Nature Speak - Lines Which Inspire

Today I skied Stowe's Mountain's heralded Perry Merrill trail in gorgeous March sun.

Hoar frost stuck intensely to the branches today frozen their from last night's sudden snow and drop in temperatures.  The upper reaches of the mountain was a wintry wonderland and a true albeit ironic gift of spring.

This is what inspires me to design.  Nature's gifts!

Fingers of branches reaching up to the sky yearning to burst forth with Spring's budding energy.

Values Driven Office Workplace Design...It's Not About The Furniture.

Recently, a client asked me how I recommend going about selecting workstation furniture and equipment for their office as part of a process to reorganize a couple of growing departments.  They had heard good things about a variety of the vendors and their service in our area and needed suggestions on how to start the process.  Until now, they had largely purchased equipment on an ad-hoc basis, going to office superstores and the occasional office furniture dealership for what they needed, piece by piece.

However, they weren't totally happy with the end result and the overall appearance and performance of their workplace.  Frankly it looked a little tired and there wasn't a cohesive plan in place going forward and set of standards to work with when changing or adding new staff.  In fact, pretty much all budgets for this had been on hold for the last two to three years just to weather out the recession and economic curve balls.

But now things were starting to look up with sales projected to rise, albeit modestly this year and a department needed to be reorganized in a part of the building with others to follow over the next few years etc.  What advice did I have?

First things first.  Let's celebrate the fact things were looking up for this company.  Maybe this is a harbinger of better times ahead.  And, it's also great the client is asking questions like this before starting this process.  Better sooner than later.  But let's not get the cart before the horse.

Here's why

Space matters.  Whether you know it or not, your workplace is a tangible business resource supporting and enhancing daily business operations while in the best of cases reinforcing your corporate brand and ethos for the positive, and the worst of cases, for the negative.    Your workplace is your company and what it's all about.  It supports your people and their work throughout the year.  It can be a special place creating a unique work community focused on a set of common goals and values.  And, it can rapidly grow out of date, reflecting in its design and equipment choices and layout ways of working relevant ten years ago but not today.  Like this blog's name, high performing organizations must cultivate organizational and physical design excellence to truly lead in their business space.

Strategic Workplace Design Survey Results - Part 2 of 2

Earlier in February I wrote about initial results of the Strategic Workplace Survey I conducted to test out the Surveymonkey interface and gather insight about key business issues shaping the high performance workplace in 2011 and beyond.  I also sought out insight on how respondents workplace environments could be improved through better more informed design and operational strategies.

Increased worker mobility and collaboration link the five to seven issues survey respondents identified can improve their workspace.  Most surprisingly stand-up work stations were tops with improving workspace acoustics and easier access to meeting rooms tying for second.  Having space for guest seating at workstations, more meeting spaces with greater diversity of sizes reinforced the need for collaborative options to help workers perform more effectively.  Improving task seating at workstations and more filing and storage options were also important.

This is especially relevant with the downward trend of workspace per worker.  While digital filing continues to   grow in usage, having space to store needed support materials and long term filing remained important to respondents.  When selecting workstations or designing built-in work areas, consider installing overhead bins with lockable doors or open shelving helps achieve a double level of storage.  There seems to be an informal trend to use this kind of storage also for stacking documents.  Another option to consider is to select some level of storage below the desk work surface such as a fixed or movable pedestal file along with small drawers and open shelving.

Respondents weren't enthused about less walls and more open work areas, didn't find access to fresh air as important and didn't find adding video conferencing cameras at the work-area enticing.  This might reflect the demographics of those who took the survey. A majority were between the ages of 36 to 55 reflecting perhaps a tendency to yet use web cameras as part of their daily routine.  I suspect if asked in a couple of years, workers will be using video conferencing more often.

I also asked about the importance of a more sustain-ably designed or green workplace.  Over half said it matters but it's not critically important, while about 30 percent said it was.  So if you lump together the highest responses about 80 percent responded favorably at least with a large minority saying it was extremely critical to do so. While it's not an overwhelming mandate this sentiment certainly supports making serious efforts here.  Building owners, landlords, property managers and facilities staff please take note.  Especially with the wake up call recently in the Middle East we're reminded of how vulnerable we are to shifts in world events and dependency on carbon centric fossil fuels.  Moving forward with greater adoption of green design is I believe is fundamental to ensuring operational predictability for smart businesses going forward.  I'll write about that in future posts.

The next question revolved around inter-office communication between nearby co-workers.  I asked this because I'm not sure all of this technology is helping us to do our best, especially in team focused work.  Fortunately, most responded they get up and walk over to talk to co-workers when they need to interact. However, not far behind people called or emailed their co-workers instead.  Nobody tweeted or Facebooked but there was IM'ing happening.

1st photoshop sketch with my Bamboo Pad and Magic Pen

I live in Vermont.  It's a nexus of the slow food movement, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy with Wind and Solar. So I share with you a quick sketch composition with a barn, solar tracker in the foreground and ridge mounted wind turbines in the background.  As many of you know it's a great place to visit and be inspired.  Or if you live here you're likely participating in the conversation about all of this and doing great things!

Thanks to my brother and sister in law for the Bamboo Pad and Magic Pen Christmas present!  Sorry it took so long to get into it.  I think I was a little scared by it.  Seriously!

However I dove in today and boy was it worth it.  As a visualizer and artist among the many hats I wear these days, this tool rocks!  The pen's touch action to the pad was very intuitive with a pretty slick ability to manipulate the Photoshop CS5 menu, tap on various tools, widen brush width on the fly and vary opacity of the brush strokes.  I did this sketch in about 20 mins.  Doing the first part before dinner and the latter after.

The tip is pressure sensitive so the linework can vary whether making lines or erasing / subtracting shading.

One of my favorite things to do with Photoshop is the create various layers of shading and modeling and vary their intensity of opacity and fill to create more variation in visual surface appearance.  I did this here with the background of the Mountains and the foreground gray shades.

Tell me what you think?  Do any readers out there use Bamboo Pens like this?  What do you say!

Passivhaus to Our Haus?

Why the funny post title?  Well, I went to a conference last week in Burlington and came away wondering if the Passiv Haus movement is really accessible to the mainstream.  It's a play on words because I attended a presentation about a house which was titled "From Bauhaus to Passivhaus".   I commend conference planners for bringing together professionals with their case studies working on opposite ends of the spectrum; designers working for the rather wealthy 'spare no expense group' and those working with Habitat for Humanity,' let's figure out how to do this for everyone group'.  Somewhere in the middle we shall meet.

At last week's Better Building by Design Conference hosted by Efficiency Vermont I saw a handful of presentations showcasing Passiv Haus projects and their innovative design process as well as other super low energy net zero possible homes and projects.  I learned there is a little bit of controversy for some reason going on now in our community between engineers, architects and building scientists about how low is too low or over the top excessive in home design and performance.  And finally, how can Passivhaus and low energy/ net zero home design early adopters help move the residential marketplace toward a more positive energy efficient and resource conserving position?  How can they replicate and expand the learning and experiences upto a community and regional scale?  That's what it's all about.  How we can help soften the hard landing for coming generations Bill McKibben lately of the book Eaarth forecasts in our coming shared future? Well I now have a deeper understanding, albeit brief, of many of the issues at hand and passions uniting them.  And yes, there are some answers and there is hope.

What did I see and hear then...?
One was a renovation of a not so historic early modern Connecticut home designed by Ken Levenson of Ken Levenson Architects, P.C.  Another was a Habitat for Humanity home designed by J.B. Clancy of Albert, Righter & Tittmann Architects, Inc. who designed it in collaboration with Peter Schneider from VEIC (the mother company of Efficiency Vermont) and Preferred Building Systems out of Claremont, NH.  I also attended a spectacular presentation by  Marc Rosenbaum from South Mountain Company, a noted energy design consultant here in the northeast and Building Science Corporation's Kohta Ueno who did a great job standing in for John Straube who was unable to be there last week.  They started out as if they needed boxing gloves (actually not really...they're very kind and balanced engineers) but in the end there was much more agreement than consternation.

Where do I start...

BBBD 2011 - Bill Reed on Integrative and Regenerative Design

Almost a week ago at the annual Efficiency Vermont Better Buildings by Design Conference Bill Reed opened the conference Wedensday, Feb 9th with a galvanizing keynote address.  He spoke about how important it is to start the design process back out at the water ecosystem not on the perimeters of a project site. I've seen Bill speak before at AIA National conference in San Antonio in 2007 and at the USGBC 2008 Greenbuild in Boston. He's inspirational as a keynoter.  Here as then he reminded me and the likely 500+ in the room of the importance of seeking to understand the interaction between natural systems and forces on and around a site in our design work.

As a founding member of the USGBC, Bill also reiterated his view the LEED rating system is not an end unto itself but rather a means to the end point of creating sustainable places and communities.  Often as he said "In

Viability and impact of Sustainability Efforts in Manufacturing

I am always looking for interesting information and background about how moving towards sustainable design and business practices both in the design and operation of facilities leads to positive bottom line effecting change.   See the link below to Paul's helpful article describing his perspectives on this issue!  Have you incorporated various sustainaiblity and green design measures into your facilties design and operation?  What works for your company?  Any best practices to share with others here at designcultivation?  Let us know.  In the meanwhile, enjoy the link below.

Sustainability projects improve safety, raise efficiency and reduce costs
Paul Studebaker, CMRP, editorial directorPaul Studebaker, CMRP, editorial director, says industry is taking the lead on saving the world for future generations.

Thanks, Steve