More Celebration...

These images give you a pretty good feel of this town...

A typical block...check out the "features!"

Downtown

Signage says it all!

A slice of Americana

The Condos along Celebration Ave.

Check out the Marketing!

Module 6...My thoughts...

First, in the Jensen piece, indeed a very harsh "manifesto" of sorts, we are reminded very sarcastically that "non-humans" don't matter when it comes to our desire for progress.  Certainly, this is what we have discussed at length in Artie's class this semester.  There was also mention of polar bears and what immediately came to mind was the photo of one sitting atop of a tiny piece of ice which Artie so effectively included in one of this PP presentations.
But I found myself jarred by Jensen's vocabulary and the use of words like "dismemberment" and "cult".  His suggestion that path of the Jews towards the Final Solution is a strong example of progress and his further classification of progress as is a drug, an addiction were particular harsh and very hard to move forward from with any sense of hope or positive feeling with regards to human beings then and now.  Indeed the Nazis, and Hitler specifically, had a very sick sense of, and a total disregard for, life and humanity to say the very, very least, but to call that Progress?  Well, I suppose my first reaction to the word is more on the side of positive.  I took a minute to look up the word in a dictionary (actually not in a physical dictionary, as we have progressed toward "dictionary.com") and surprisingly, I found the definition to be rather "Jensen-esque."  See for yourself here:  dictionary.reference.com/browse/progress
Regardless of the truth that this definition and the Jensen piece provides, I would prefer to have them with a drop of optimism.  Is it possible to acknowledge past transgressions, decisions, and overt wrongs with regards to our treatment of the environment, and human beings and proceed more carefully and thoughtfully toward a more sustainable world?  Is this not progress?
The Schellenberger & Nordhaus piece was equally tough.  The Venice scenario was an interesting example that they provided and one I was not really aware of. 
Once again, themes from our classes with Artie were sprinkled throughout, such as mention of deforestation, overfishing, and Global Warming (specifically "Human Impact".  The authors also pointed to the Industrial Revolution and post WWII as prominent dates in the history of our thinking and relationships towards resources, modernity, and materialism.  These were also mentions in Artie's class.
Discussion of greenwashing in order for us to "express" our "higher moral status" reminded me of many a discussion with Grazyna this semester.
As an aside, I also could not help but think that with the mention of the development of our more "modern hands" and opposable thumbs, such were better adapted for tool use...more specifically to TEXT! :)

On The S & N piece in Orion Magazine, there were alot of terms being thrown around such as "knowledge economy", "ecotheology" and "modernization theology."  I found myself tripping over these terms and thoughts, but the overall message and the modern day parallel of Occupy Wall Street and even the religious comparisons were quite compelling.  It is like sitting in church and having the priest go on and on about the folks who are not coming to church on Sundays!  Hello...I am here...they are not...talk to me!!!
Indeed we have the higher echelon of thought and commerce in our society feeding this fear based frenzy of "doom and gloom" scenarios while jetting off to one of their 4 homes around the world or outsourcing goods and services to poor countries instead of challenging our home base.  None of it makes any sense and indeed is wildly hypocritical!
The article goes on and on, placing all blame and disregard for all "non-humans" square on our shoulders.  It is hard to dispute all of this, but again, were is the hope? To say that "in attempting to solve these problems, we will inevitably create new ones" is pretty harsh and defeatist.  I suppose this exemplifies how severe and huge these problems are, but that makes me feel more bad about trying to do things less bad.
I read "The Architect Has No Clothes" by Nora's suggestion prior to her having assigned it.  I found it to be a fascinating look at how we all see things differently, but to qualify that with some science restores a bit more faith in me.  It reminded me of the Gayle Epp piece and the MIT study, and how you had 4 different people looking at a project, and where the professional od design almost seemed the least clued in!
More reference to the Industrial Revolution, and an alternative perception of what other effects it has had on us and society since rather than the typical positive raves it received when I was in school was a theme yet again.  It is interesting to see its significance be explored under the filter of sustainability and design today.
I do, however, feel that the authors were a little hard on Corbusier and Mies Van der Rohe and the whole Modernist movement.  It seems an over simplification to say that they stood dramatically apart from context almost for the sake of being different.  Was it not this architectural movement that spurred on the invention of such modern marvels as the elevator and bridges? 
Maybe it is because I am a designer that I do not fall into the clutches of the "emperor's new clothes" as I do not have a problem questioning architects and their ignorance when it comes to total design.  I look around me and where I live and I see a lack of imagination, a lack of research, and a lack of thought for humanity when I think of the monstrosities they dub "McMansions."  I see the failure of a planned community, or "mini-urban center" that was fairly recently built in my community without much thought to the environment, the people or to the economy.  Certainly aesthetics were not considered as well.  But are we missing the boat and trying to capture this idea of community and neighborhood when that is not really what people want nowadays?  I look at Celebration, Florida as I mentioned in class and I do not see a person or a child outside walking or playing.

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF SMALL URBAN SPACES
by Wm. H. Whyte

I LOVE this video.  It is dated, but so worth checking out.  While some of the places may have changed, I am not sure the behavior has changed.

http://vimeo.com/21556697

Dredging for PCBs in Hudson River

Saw this in my local paper this morning and thought I would share!

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20111116/NEWS01/311160027/Heart-disease-tie-PCBs-feared?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|PoughkeepsieJournal.com

Pro Bicycle

Saw this on a Friend's Facebook Page...

QUEENS BOTANICAL GARDENS

A TASTE OF THE PICS...

From the Green Roof...

Auditorium Space

Overlooking the Garden

Hmm...

Lucky that we had a Rainy Day so we can see how they
Capture the Rainwater!

A Handsome Group of People Just Trying to Save the Planet!

AND...
CHECK OUT THIS LINK TO MY WEB ALBUM CONTAINING MORE PHOTOS FROM OUR SEMINAR FIELD TRIP TO THE QUEENS BOTANICAL GARDENS...

https://picasaweb.google.com/114817259749697586086/FITSIE1011FieldTripQBG?authkey=Gv1sRgCP-3jLOxhIuJ5gE

Celebration, Florida

I came across this info a few years back which talks of the evolution of Celebration from Walt Disney's own mind, and its interesting connection to EPCOT.

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma98/hogan/celebration/epcot.htm

Here is Celebrations official website...

http://www.celebration.fl.us/

(Note the designers of some of Downtown Celebrations buildings!)

What the Mortgage Brokers say...
http://www.floridamortgageblogger.com/orange-county-mortgage/celebration-florida-mortgage/

Here are some photos of mine from the 4+ years my brother and his family spent living in Celebration...

My Brother's First House in Celebration

The House on Indigo Drive decorated for Christmas

On the Front Porch

The Celebration Pumpkin Patch

Downtown Celebration...They make it "Snow" at Christmas Time!"

The Lake at Celebration

Swimming in one of Celebration's MANY Pools

MORE TO FOLLOW....

Guernica / Michael Mehaffy and Nikos A. Salingaros: The Architect Has No Clothes

This is an interesting article that Nora sent me to look at with regards to my Term Paper...I thought it was cool enough to share...


Guernica / Michael Mehaffy and Nikos A. Salingaros: The Architect Has No Clothes

Personal Glossary

I am sure you are not at all interested in my Personal Glossary, as you all have your own, but I have posted a whole mess of terms under that tab, tho it is surely still a work in progress!


Check it out if you dare...
Shannon

Module 3 Abs-Part III

Gertner, Jon.  "Why Isn't the Brain Green."  The New York Times, November 11, 2001.

In this article by Mr. Jon Gertner, we begin to see how something that seems such an obvious concern, like the current state of our global environment, specifically climate change, can get pushed somewhat to the "back burner" amongst the many worries and many issues facing us today.  The "decisions" we make, both as groups and as individuals, have a profound effect on what kind of "support" we lend to a cause.  The heart of this piece lies in what Columbia University chair Elke Weber states which is that "climate change is anthropogenic....caused by human behavior."  Weber deduces that if it is "caused by human behavior, then the solution probably lies in changing human behavior," and this may start in how we process this problem.  

•  Risk processing is looked at:  Analytic system involves careful consideration of cost and benefits; often undervaluing future outcomes; less likely to change our lifestyle.  "Risk as a feeling" system urgent reaction to danger; usually based on personal experience therefore underestimating things by which we have no experience in.
• Weber surmises that we may have a "finite pool of worry," meaning we can only worry about too many problems at one time, or we react with "single action bias," meaning we stop at doing one thing to make us feel as if we have moved to solve the problem in some way.
• CRED (Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters) studies presented in this article, state that our reaction to such problems vary based on whether or not we make our decisions as individuals or in a group, if we do both, and in what order we do this (e.g..do we prepare individually prior to group work?) 
• Collaborating more helps us to make decisions, but it is also shown that we tend to lose sight of the subject we are considering and the group effort becomes more about the method we are using to assess the problem.
• Frames are defined as a more "sophisticated nudge" whereby research takes advantage of our own cognitive biases in hopes it will resonate, whereas nudges are more gentle and more broad, moving us in a way so that we do not make mistakes but still arrive at the desired response.

The closed group studies done in Columbia University labs remind me of the Kwok and Rajkovich piece where they talk about static systems not being the most reliable model.  I was happy to see Gertner challenge that the studies at Columbia should be questioned based not just on the fact that they were "closed" but based on who did them, how they were financed, and who participated.

Framing and nudging are interesting tactics, as we need to recognize that we cannot talk to every person the same way.  We all come to the table with our own biases, our own upbringing and background, our own experiences, therefore, we do not hear things the same way or process them with the same mechanisms. 

On the other hand, by framing these problems and real life atrocities against our environment, are we somehow watering it down and in effect accepting that people only really care about what affects them directly the most?  Shouldn't the negative effect we are having on the environment speak volumes for itself?  In America, we tend to think about climate change as a distant problem and wait until we "feel" threatened to react.  It is only when it is in our own backyard that we are forced to face it, so why bother changing until that happens.  But if framing, or the alternative, achieve the same goal of awareness, responsibility, and motivation for change, does it really matter so long as the result is positive.

Heshong, Lisa.  "Delight" and "Affection" in Thermal Delight in Architecture, 18-49.  Cambridge:  MIT Press, 1979.

In these two chapters by Heshong, the author visits the idea of our thermal sense and the fact that thermal information "always reflects what is directly happening to the body," and our system is more apt to noticing change than it is aware of a steady state, yet these steady states are the norm in the built environment.

 The thermal sense has a profound effect on us physically, emotionally, and psychologically, and is the sense that we cannot escape the experience of, unlike other senses and forms the background for everything we experience.  It makes a place more or less desirable, and creates the opportunity for us to gather and share with each other.

Even with the evidence that people take delight in extremes, the opposite extreme is often closely available, therefore creating balance and a sort of steady state.  Co-existence of such extremes, Heshong suggests, also helps us to appreciate each more and satisfy our need for contrast in our environments.

The other senses are important to our experience of space and place as well (as evidenced by the pieces by Owen and Bull and Back) and are also pre-cursors to our thermal experience, often indicating what is to come and can make us more aware of thermal processes.  Other senses also can evoke a feeling of thermal change; for instance, the taste of mint cooling us.

Thermal sensory experiences, since always with us, create strong memory connections and symbolism (e.g..the hearth is the center of the home, or the Japanese bath as a gathering space) particularly with space and the built environment.

• Heshong states "each sense contributes to the fuller comprehension of other sensory information," but if this is true, what if we are without use of a particular sense?  Will the others compensate so we can still have the full experience?
• Heshong also presents that we are our own source of heat.  This was also brought up in the Kwok and Rajkovich piece.  In terms of sustainability, maybe it is possible to harness such thermal energy as a means to reduce our impact on the environment.
•  As designers and decorators, this is where we may be able to have our greatest impact as we look to create more sustainable spaces.  By understanding the sensory connections people have with their space and the ritualism they foster, particularly with the thermal sense, and people's need to have more control over their environment (as we have seen in the pieces by Chabon and Monaghan) we can look at patterns of activity, time of day, and the like, and create systems that are more efficient but still provide the desired feeling of space.

I really enjoyed this piece and am excited to further explore the thermal sense as more of a jumping off point for me to explore design approaches to sustainability. 

Alison G. Kwok and Nicholas B. Rajkovich.  "Addressing Climate Change in Comfort Standards." Building and Environment 45 (2010): 18-22.

In this article, the authors offer an alternative approach to the response to climate change that uses both mitigative (regarding efforts toward reducing the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere) and adaptive (our adjusting to the impacts of a warming world through enhancing our ecosystem's resilience) measures which focus on our HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) systems and our own human physiology, specifically, our human comfort.

• Kwok and Rajkovich define the two differing philosophies of thermal comfort as:  static model:  uses data from climate chamber studies to support its theory (says Fanger) and adaptive model:  uses data from the field studies of people in buildings (derived from work of Humphries and Nicol, Dear and Brager)

and surmise that people are indeed more tolerant of thermal changes than the static model suggests.  They, therefore, feel that we, as designers, need to look at the active capacity, which is our ability to adjust and cope with the system, and possibly have more control over it.  This ability to make adjustments is called adaptive opportunity.  This, in turn, could help us to help us to conserve energy and help buildings to adapt to climate change.

• The mesocomfort zone is a term coined by the authors to represent the area between  we are currently with the "optimum" conditions of the static zone and a place where adaptive measures are taken on the boundary where our bodies begin to respond involuntarily and physiologically to the thermal conditions.

Further research on this mesocomfort zone through study of people's expectations of their environment (and how much discomfort we are willing to accept), their memories of past experience in the space, and how much thermal control they are afforded, the authors feel, could change our energy usage in the long run.

The authors speak rather broadly of these interior environments and our opportunity for so-called control over them.  While it is public space, particularly work environments, that they seem to be focused on, variables, such as layouts of space (large open office pools made up of cubicles vs. individual enclosed office patterns) and demographic of employees (age, race, culture) are not mentioned.  These can have a major impact on the "control" over the thermal quality of the environment.  Is it really feasible to expect you will accommodate most, or all when it comes to human comfort.  What about new construction vs. existing building reuse and the limitations that this may pose? 

Even when one looks at anthropometrical data, as we have seen in Panero and Zelnik previously, there are ranges in what we design to be ergonomically effective.  You cannot make everyone happy, though flexibility is key.  Kwok and Rajkovich may indeed be onto something, but as they said, these conditions are not yet researched fully.

With this also needs to come a certain knowledge for the users who should be informed of the choice they are being granted, and better yet a range of adjustability, not the power to adjust the system to its extreme heat, extreme cold variables.  When is it better just to put on a sweater?

It would have been interesting, also, for the authors to raise the correlation between productivity in the workplace as both a social and economic by- product of this move to reduce our energy consumption.  There are studies that show that people who are physiologically comfortable will produce more, a benefit to the employee him/herself and to the company bottom line.

Finally, the transient spaces that were mentioned in the article made me think about extremes.  Often on a hot day, it is a huge "relief" to enter a fantastically cold lobby of a building, but can this really be healthy. to experience such a shift?  Might the authors be onto something when they bring up these spaces, and the possibility that we use them as more of a transition space so that we can ease into the thermal environment instead of being hit in the face with the severe change.

Another Cool Perception Thing....

Perception

Saw this on a friend's FB page and thought it was cool...

Disney Imagineering and the 5 Senses...

I do not know if anyone has been to Disney, but here are a few interesting websites regarding how they design for the senses...
I was glad when Jessica brought this up in class last week, as it was one of the things that I kept thinking of when I was reading these articles...
5 Senses at Disney
http://www.wdwinfo.com/columns/using-5-senses-at-walt-disney-world.cfm
PHILHARMAGIC Attraction at The Magic Kingdom
http://www.dadsguidetowdw.com/mickeys-philharmagic.html
Imagineering
http://www.oitc.com/Disney//Secrets/Imagineering.html