Re: Precis 12!! You should read this!! (fwd)

Sorry I missed your deadline, Scott.  I spent two days at the Eco-Design
Arts Conference at the Univ. of Oregon on Friday and Saturday.  I believe
this is the first time I have ever paid for a meeting myself, and I was
struck by how serious I was about every lecture!

As you know, I am neither an architect nor a planner, however, my interest
in sustainability is long-standing.  In fact, I bought the first edition of
Ian McHarg's book _Design with Nature_ (1969.)  My life has not permitted
much time to pursue this interest and, indeed, I still spend 40 hours a
week in an office and four hours in transit, so my time is still severely
limited.

However, a couple of things have happened recently which have pushed me
back into the sustainability mind-set.  First, I took some time off a year
or so ago to attend the ciy council meeting in which Adele Santos presented
her plan which had brought together local and national urban planners,
architects and landscape architects with the last graduate class at the
UCSD School of Architecture.  The plan, which included a
bay-to-(Balboa)park link, a view corridor through the city to the bay,
public waterfront access, etc, etc., was (I thought at the time) quite
enthusiastically embraced by the council, and supported by the mayor.

I wondered from time to time what was happening.  Then a couple of months
ago I learned that the expansion of the convention center was on the brink
of happening, was going to block off another huge section of the waterfront
with only a sliver of view remaining between it and a new hotel(!) which
was proposed by the Port District as their bribe for the money which they
would kick in so that the project would not have to be approved by the
voters.  Very depressing.

Well, the other incident that happened recently was that a friend of mine
called and asked if I would go with him to see a house that he described as
similar to a Case Study house, the only problem being the freeway noise
from below it.  Of course I said I'd be happy to look at it, (His wife
hadn't even seen it yet though he was considering buying it.) but I also
realized that I needed to take seriously how seriously he took my opinion.
Essentially, I realized that if I knew the real scoop on downtown, this
person and probably a lot of other people would listen to my opinion when
it came time to vote.

Hence the eco-design arts conference.  There was lots of straw bale and
rammed earth talk, but the most useful part for me was a panel in which I
learned about a project called Sustainable Seattle, in  which a group of
volunteers and community leaders surveyed the area for long-term trends
affecting the Seattle area's capacity to thrive in the decades ahead.  The
40 "Indicators" which seemed to be most useful were as diverse as wild
salmon and wetlands to distribultion of personal income, adult literacy,
neighborliness and perceived quality of life.

Sustainable Seattle took five years to complete its initial survey and is
now  ongoing.  A similar group, apparently more involved in planning and
legal issues  has been formed in Portland and was also discussed in the
panel.  In San Diego a group called C-3 (Citizens for Century Three) has
been formed to work towards a better quality of life in this region.  I
think this group is where I can learn the most and maybe lend a hand.

I didn't allow myself much of the lovely touchy-feely part of the
eco-design arts conference, but I found poetry in the presenation given by
David Arkin, project architect for the Real Goods Solar Living Center in
the Russian River watershed at Hopland.   His work with Sim Van der Ryn is
at once state of the art, ecologically accountable for "real cost" and
beautiful.  "The building is not a fixed object but part of the larger
pattern that flows with change - a permeable living membrane responding to
changes in use and place."

The Ecological Design Education Network (EDEN) founded by Van der Ryn has
an internship program with some paid internships of 3-9 months for
university design students.  (HTTP://WWW.ECODESIGN.ORG/EDI) ECODES@xxxxxxx




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Carolyn Myhre
cmyhre@xxxxxxxx