virtual gallery

One of my favorite product designers, Ayse Birsel of birsel+seck, has broken ground once again by utilizing a truly unique venue to showcase her work.

Birsel debuted 21 of her sketches on galerinternet, a new online art platform, curated by Birsel's friend Yilmaz Aysan. The site juxtaposes a film of the artist, together with their work, so it's almost like you're attending an actual gallery showing.

"I love the idea of being part of an online creative forum and letting people from all over the world have access," she says.

Apparently lots of other people loved the idea as well. Birsel says approximately 300 browsers logged on at the opening day of the exhibition alone. Her sketches will remain on display for the next few months.

There are currently three other artists on display at galerinternet and all work is up for sale. "It was kind of fun because I never really exhibited my drawings," Birsel explains. "It's not my core work so it's great to share something that is very intimate to me and personal and quite different from product design."

What’s Love Got to do With It?

In his new book, Confessions of a Radical Industrialist: Profits, People, Purpose—Doing Business By Respecting the Earth, published by St. Martin’s Press, Interface CEO Ray Anderson presents his argument and process for transforming Interface Inc. from a typical petroleum-intensive corporation of the 21^st century into an organization on course to achieve a zero carbon footprint by the year 2020. Many of us connected with the commercial A&D community are familiar with this goal, Mission Zero, from Anderson’s many public appearances at NeoCon^®, Greenbuild, and other industry events. But many of us may not be as familiar with its origins and implementation. 

Influenced by the brilliant book The Ecology of Commerce by environmentally-minded entrepreneur Paul Hawken, Anderson committed to transforming the carpet company he had founded in 1973 into a model of sustainability for the future. The process began in 1994, and has continued on pace ever since, sometimes slowed (but never stopped) by global economic realities and buoyed all along by a critical alignment in corporate culture from Anderson’s office right down to the factory floor. (In a humorous anecdote, Anderson tells the story of how one skeptical executive from another corporation, by the end of a visit to Interface for a lesson in sustainable industry, described that culture as nothing short of love.)

In Anderson’s view, the path to true sustainability—defined by the author as the continued healthy, balanced existence into the indefinite future of the biosphere (nature) and the technosphere (industry) on this thin shell (Earth)—lies in the rethinking of our entire industrial system, which is currently in the “iron grip” of the environmental impact equation that emerged from the first Industrial Revolution: Environmental Impact = Population x Affluence x Tehnology (I = P x  A x T). In this equation, the T represents current technologies that are fossil fuel-driven, focused on labor productivity, abusive, wasteful, and extract from the earth without giving back. “This made sense 300 years ago when people were scarce and nature was bountiful,” says Anderson.

 He goes on to say that this equation is deeply problematic, and underscores a flawed economic system where the gap between what we have and what we want defines all economic progress. It ignores the consequences of its actions. In the second Industrial Revolution—no time like the present—the environmental impact equation should look more like this: I = P x A / T₂, where T represents technologies that are renewable, cyclical, benign, solar/hydrogen-driven, emulate nature, and focus on resource productivity.

This new equation is obtainable if the corporation of the future adheres to the seven faces of “Mt. Sustainability”: eliminate waste; benign emissions; renewable energy; close the loop; use resource-efficient transportation; sensitize stakeholders (culture shift); and redefine commerce. In practicing what he preaches, Anderson’s own company, Interface, has cut greenhouse gas emissions by 82 percent; cut fossil fuel consumption by 60 percent; cut waste by 66 percent; cut water use by 75 percent; and increased sales by 66 percent, doubled earnings, and raised profit margins all since 1994—the example he uses to assert that the sustainable corporation of the future is indeed within reach. Anderson’s prediction is that the typical corporation of today “will become the proverbial fish out of water.”

It took 10 years of convincing, but Wall Street finally grasped Anderson’s unwavering intentions to build a green manufacturer—an important milestone in the aforementioned culture shift. And eventually, says Anderson, the environmental impact should resemble something more like I = P x A / T₂  x H, where H represents Happiness. The ideal sustainable world, he says, will defy today’s capitalistic principles of “more is better,” and instead be defined by “more happiness with less stuff.”

Click here for a video clip of Ray Anderson talking about his radical industrialist principles.

meet me in grand rapids

It’s funny. I keep finding myself in Grand Rapids, Mich.

 

Many of you probably just shrugged your shoulders and gave me a big ol’ “DUH.”

 

This trip though, was for something extra special…a ride on Steelcase’s corporate jet!

 

OK, OK, just kidding. But in all seriousness, that was definitely a highlight. I don’t know how I’ll go back to commercial flights after this experience.

 

Anyway, the real reason was for the 100^th anniversary of the Meyer May house – a small yet visually striking home built in 1909 by Frank Lloyd Wright for Meyer May, a local clothing merchant who was actually the first retailer to display pieces on hangers. The home is a perfect example of Wright’s prairie style of architecture, and was acquired and restored by Steelcase, opening for tours in 1987.

 

I’m not telling you anything new when I say that Wright believed in working with the foundation, surroundings, and landscape, rather than against them. For him, it was the site that determined the character of the house, not the other way around.

 

“You should never build on top of anything directly,” he said in an interview he did with Hugh Downes when he was 83. If there’s a hill, build out from the side of it so that you don’t lose it. He placed extensive emphasis on the horizontal, rather than the vertical that most structures highlight. And he was constantly linking his interiors with the exterior.

 

We had the privilege of viewing this 30-minute recorded interview between the two men during an anniversary symposium on the Meyer May home and Wright’s principles, co-sponsored by Steelcase (the folks who were so kind as to put up myself and a small group of editors so that we could attend – oh and did I mention they flew us out on the corporate jet?) and Metropolis magazine. A couple of other good quotes from Wright during the interview included:

 

“Early in my life, I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility.” (You can probably guess which he chose)

 

“The box is a fascist symbol.”

 

And my personal favorite: “New York is just an overgrown, crazed city.”

 

But the real treat laid in the conversation we were witness to between seven panelists and Metropolis’ Editor-in-Chief, Susan Szenasy. The speakers included experts of all realms from materials to architecture to landscape architecture. They were: Shashi Caan, FRSA, IIDA (interior designer); Andrew H. Dent, Ph.D. (materials scientist); Bob Adams (design strategist); Jeffrey Bernett (industrial designer); Toshiko Mori, FAIA (architect); Kristie Strasen (design consultant); Michael Van Valkenburgh (landscape architect). Led by Szenasy, the group discussed Wright’s principles, the Meyer May home and how it exemplified them, and how his work and theories can and will affect the practice of design and architecture in the next 100 years. Love him or hate him for his ego-maniacal nature, they all expressed a deep appreciation and admiration for Wright’s work throughout their discussion.

 

Bernett actually pinpointed something that for some reason really struck me when I toured the Meyer May home with the other editors that morning: the table in the dining room had small plants topped off with light fixtures at all four corner posts. He foresaw the meeting room tables with electricity integrated into the structure, I had thought to myself. Here was one in a small home in a small town in Michigan, built at the turn of the century. Who would have thought?

 

But more than that, Bernett saw how Wright had taken these elements that were typically placed in the center of a table and moved them out to the sides so that there was no interruption of dialogue.

 

“Thinking about the consequences to our actions,” said Dent. This small detail is a perfect example of doing just that. According to Dent, Wright always thought about the consequences of his actions and that’s what we as a society need to revisit even further than we already are.

 

Many panelists felt that following Wright’s mindframe meant trying to figure out how they as architects and/or designers can influence energy conservation, water conservation and other sustainable difficulties of the moment. Architect Toshiko Mori said she thinks Wright would have been absolutely diving into the global crisis’s we are facing today and how he as a professional can help.

 

I have to say that I’m not sure if I agree with her – he seemed a bit too self-centered to me to care that deeply – but I do agree with the entire panel that the man was a profound visionary who embodied the idea of originality in his work.

 

I’d like to thank the Steelcase team for inviting me on this trip and all the surrounding tours we were able to experience over the course of those two days.

 

And if I haven’t mentioned it, thanks for the ride on the jet! It’s definitely one of my coolest experiences to date, despite my debilitating fear of turbulence.

 

I know, I need to get out more…

 

Below are some more pictures of the Meyer May home. Enjoy!

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

feeding the munchies

While in the middle of one of my monthly (OK, make that more like quarterly) desk cleanings, I came across the Spring 2009 Prattfolio. For those of you who don’t know it, Prattfolio is the magazine of NYC’s Pratt Institute. This issue was – appropriately enough – the publication’s “food issue.”

As we here at Contract are gearing up for a combined November/December issue, which will partially focus on spaces driven by food services and/or products, I figured I better sit down and tear into this.

So I more than willingly stopped my quarterly – oh right, I mean monthly – desk clearing off and went on to be pleasantly surprised at how many Pratt graduates have gone into the food services and sciences industry in one way or another, and how far reaching their efforts have been.

As a design editor, I am well aware of how a well-designed restaurant weighs tremendously on its success. But the design industry and the food industry mingle in many other ways that I’d admittedly never even bothered to think about.

Harsher folk might call it something like a form of capitalistic brain washing, but restaurants and food manufacturers can have a tough run of it trying to distinguish themselves from all the other products and services absolutely bombarding consumers on a regular basis, and need ways to stand out in the crowd. Many Pratt grads have helped them to do just that.

One such rock star is Herb Meyers, B.F.A. Advertising Design ’49 whom along with his firm Gerstman + Meyers have designed and redesigned product lines for manufacturers such as Campbell’s, Breyers, M&M Mars, Perdue, and many more. The firm redesigned Breyers Ice Cream packaging when the company was preparing for a national expansion, utilizing black backgrounds – unheard of for dairy packaging. G+M earned many industry awards for their redesign and the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times even wrote articles about it.

Other Pratt grads took a slight detour with their degrees. Colette Peters, M.F.A. Painting ’81, went on to open Colette’s Cakes, a New York City-based specialty cake company.

Q: When did you become interested in being a master baker?

A: I had always liked to bake, but I was more interested in painting. After graduating from Pratt, I worked for Tiffany & Co. and made many cakes for people at work. I also made some cakes for the windows, store displays, and some of the Tiffany books. This actually led me to a contract to write a book on cake decorating and that was what really encouraged me to start a cake business.

Definitely a fun issue! I hope we can deliver just as well in November. Download the PDF of Prattfolio, Spring’09.

it begins

As usual, we're behind the curve.

According to the NYT, restrictions on the sale of incandescent bulbs started to take effect today across most of Europe.

The article says the U.S. isn't scheduled to start phasing them out until 2012.

Most aren't as welcoming of the change to compact fluorescent lamps as you might think though. Some Europeans are complaining of the individual pricetags and others say "the light isn't as nice." The European Union however is putting their foot down, arguing that the energy savings would cut average household electricity bills by up to 50 euros a year, saving about 5 billion euros a year across Europe.

And Europe isn't alone -- according to the article, Australia has already introduced a ban and Cuba has entirely shifted to compact fluorescent bulbs.

There are pros and cons to compact fluorescents. What do you think of the change-over?