Save the Date! DESIGN IN ACTION 2012: Connecting People to Place will take place November 8-10 in Dallas, TX. Program announcements coming soon. Registration opens summer 2012.

Since 2002, ArchNewsNow has provided thousands of readers with a daily email update on what's happening in the world of architecture and design. We talked with the founder and editor, Kristen Richards, Hon. AIA, Hon. ASLA, about how she selects content, the role that she's played to connect the architecture community around the globe, and where she sees ANN going in the next ten years. Congratulations to Kristen on the success of ANN and its 10th Anniversary.

AAO: How did you get started with ArchNewsNow (ANN)?

Kristen Richards (KR): I edited a similar webzine/newsletter for two years and developed an international readership hungry for news of the A/E/C industry from around the world. When the tech bubble burst and it went offline, I realized I had a fantastic opportunity to fill a void. A big plus was that the proprietary search engine I used was developed by my husband, George Yates -- a brilliant software designer/developer, so I already had a system in place. We launched February 18, 2002 -- about two weeks after I left the first online publication.

AAO: These days, lots of us take ANN for granted as one of the best go-to sources for architecture news. Thinking about the early years, what was the turning point when you knew it would be successful?

KR: The first time I felt we really had a shot was when the incredibly talented environmental graphic design firm Calori & Vanden-Eynden/Design Consultants (known for its graphics, signage, and wayfinding programs for notable projects such as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, the DC Heritage Trail, and Acela) contacted me very shortly after launching and offered to create a logo and style for ANN (which was much needed). The home page with our new look and first two features posted less than a month after starting the newsletter (and I am forever grateful).

I knew we were on the right track when Planetizen and Crain's Detroit named ANN one of their Best Websites of the Year in 2002 -- before we'd even been up and running for a year.

AAO: What's your best guess on the total article count since you started ten years ago?

KR: Feature article count is easy -- they're numbered, and we're nearing the 400 mark. I've posted well over 2,300 daily newsletters that average around 18-20 news links a day -- a guesstimate would at least 46,000 articles (give or take a few).

AAO: What is the process that you go through each day? How do you select content?

KR: My day starts around 6:30 a.m. with a strong cuppa coffee, a hug to my cats (George is still asleep), and making sure the bird feeder is filled. Then it's off to the Internet. I scan about 200 news stories every morning to come up with what I consider the Top 20. I love it when a thread emerges, tying a theme or trend or project type together. Keeping the readership (and my own focus) in mind, news stories, opinions, and reviews covering everything from urban and environmental issues to just really cool (or absurd) stuff will make the cut.

AAO: Because the newsletter format is digital, it can reach a large and diverse audience. How have you seen the community grow? Any advice for our AAO audience about how to increase readership of digital communications?

KR: I keep tabs on new subscribers (and the "unsubscribes"). ANN has about 16,000 subscribers to the daily newsletter; another 5,000-8,000 access it directly from the newsletter's web page. In addition to the list being an amazing gathering of international architectural talent (that just thrills me!), a great satisfaction is the number of architects and planners in government agencies, educational and cultural institutions, and real estate developers from around the world (and many send me tips about great stories!). Perhaps what excites me most is when I see educators and students subscribe, particularly when they hail from a country such as Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, China, Sri Lanka, and other countries in conflict or under severe rule. It gives me hope -- these students are our future.

My best advice to the AAO audience: if you have a website and you either use or someone suggests using Flash, don't! Your website will never be picked up by any search engine (Google or ANN). They are also most welcome to contact me directly with story ideas, links to interesting items they've posted, or questions: kristen@ArchNewsNow.com

AAO: You've been honored by a number of different organizations for your work. What specifically have they recognized about the value of ANN? What's the most interesting feedback that you've received?

I can't express how honored I am to have received Honorary membership in both the American Institute of Architects and the American Society of Landscape Architects. I don't see how one can really separate the two professions in the built environment, and I make every effort to call out the synergy between the two.

The most interesting feedback: the scores of e-mails that come in asking if everything is o.k. when I miss a day without an editor's note alerting readers the day before. Those e-mails keep me setting that alarm every morning.

AAO: This June will mark one year since you started curating "Watercooler," the monthly A+DEN eNews for our members interested in K-12 design education. What have you taken from this experience?

KR: For me, it's a marriage made in heaven. During my 10-year tenure at Interiors magazine, I was called the "education editor." And since 2003, I've had the privilege of serving as editor of the AIANY Chapter's quarterly journal, Oculus and, for its first three years, the electronic newsletter, e-Oculus. I've learned so much (and have so much fun) working with the Center for Architecture Foundation's indefatigable team.

In doing ANN, I come across so many wonderful stories about architectural education for the K-12 generation that inspire me, but don't really fit ANN. Watercooler is an incredibly rewarding way to help "get the word out." I look forward to developing the dialogue with -- and among -- AAO/A+DEN members (and hope they spread the word, too!).

You can subscribe to Kristen's daily posts by visiting http://www.archnewsnow.com.

Just days ago, when the Hyatt Foundation announced its 2012 Pritzker Prize winner, Wang Shu, we leafed through our AAO members’ programming records. Sure enough, Wang Shu made appearances at two AAO member organizations, Rice Design Alliance (RDA) and Dallas Architecture Forum (Forum) – part of a collaborative, multi-part investigation on Chinese architecture in fall 2011. While there are many ways to demonstrate the merits of the architecture organizations in the AAO network, consistently identifying design talent on the rise – before the big appearance fees – is certainly one indicator, and, in this regard, RDA and the Forum represent some of the best.

We caught up with RDA and Forum leaders, Linda Sylvan and Nate Eudaly, to learn more about their fall 2011 programming partnership.

AAO: How did Rice Design Alliance (RDA) come to consider this multiple-part series on China and its recent building practices?
Linda Sylvan (LS): A subcommittee of the RDA Programs Committee, consisting of faculty from the architecture schools at Rice and the University of Houston as well as design professionals, began meeting in spring 2010. The Committee was drawn to exploring China’s building boom post 1978, when the government finally ended decades of central planning and allowed its cities to grow in competition with each other and the global economy. The Chinese experience with explosive growth is not far removed from what Texas has been experiencing, too: our state’s population is expected to grow exponentially over the next few decades. We thought we could learn much from the Chinese experience. There’s been much criticism of Chinese urban planning and architecture during this period of growth because of the destruction of so many traditional structures, but there’s a small group of Chinese architects that are creating innovative projects largely influenced by their country’s vernacular architecture. It was expected that audiences, including those from emerging Chinese and Asian communities, could learn from China how to accommodate new buildings within the existing fabric of a city undergoing globalization. RDA then invited the Dallas Architecture Forum and the University of Texas-Austin School of Architecture to partner with us on the series.

AAO: So how did the actual partnership take shape?
Nate Eudaly (NE): The Dallas Architecture Forum (Forum) and the Rice Design Alliance (RDA) have a long history of collaborating together on programming, especially for our respective Lecture Series, and being members of AAO has certainly strengthened that relationship. With UT-Austin’s School of Architecture added as a third presenter, each speaker we invited was given the chance to lecture in Houston on a Wednesday, Dallas on Thursday, and then Austin the following Monday. The Forum, RDA, and UT-Austin all researched and pooled recommendations on speakers for the series, which was one of the reasons the program turned out so well. RDA extended the invitations to the final speakers we selected, and it took the lead in organizing and coordinating the series’ overall logistics, developing the master schedule and the international flight arrangements, with our two partner organizations handling all of the details, logistics, and expenses for the speakers’ time in our respective cities. RDA also produced collateral material for the overall series with input from us, which we used to bolster the publicity we prepared specific to our own organizations.   
LS: By working together with partners and sharing transportation and other program costs RDA could much more easily afford to bring three visiting architects from China to Texas to participate in the series. The chance to pool the brain power from our respective organizations led to a much better series – and something worth much more than the savings from cost-sharing. Plus, in our experience, international travelers are more willing to extend their trips to see more of the United States. This latest group welcomed the opportunity to visit three of Texas’s largest cities, each very different from one another. Our location on the Gulf Coast can feel isolated at times, and our audience loves to hear from innovative people from around the world. The RDA lecture series always seeks to bring voices and ideas from outside Houston. Partnering on the delivery further complements this larger objective.
NE: I’d second that comment. Attempting to present a series like this, with international flight expenses for multiple speakers, would have been very expensive for the Forum itself. Having RDA and UT-Austin involved and splitting many of the larger costs three ways made the series much more doable. The frequent communication among the three organizations as the series was planned and presented was very important. 

AAO: Did the complexity or investment in this speaker series give you good reason to do anything differently or explore additional opportunities?
LS: In contrast to the RDA’s lecture series, another of our core programs, our Cite publication, distinguishes itself through its steady focus on the Houston area and has a committed readership for that reason. The idea for this China lecture series seemed like a great way to push Cite into new territory. We sought to remain true to our audience and RDA's mission while looking well beyond our region.  Funds from an NEA grant allowed Cite to send one of Houston's brightest design leaders, Christof Spieler, to China. He had no prior expertise on China, but he is an astute observer and knows what would be of greatest interest to our Houston audience. Rather than focus on star architecture, he looked at traditional streets, massive new developments, and efforts at place-making from the point of view of an ordinary pedestrian wandering through the cities. Much of the new China has been designed by foreign architects, including a great deal of work by the Houston office of SWA Group. Spieler’s contribution will appear in our upcoming issue of Cite, but here’s a quick snippet: “I spent two weeks in China last summer to see what these cities are like on the ground. I came away simultaneously impressed, depressed, startled, and awed. I was also left with an odd feeling of familiarity. We can see China as a way of looking at ourselves, a mirror reflecting our own cities back to us. In looking at Beijing or Shanghai, we see how another culture sees us. Often it’s an unsettling view." [Note: Learn more about Cite here.]  Also for our members, we pursued a relationship with Cai Lian, the Consul for Cultural Affairs from the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in Houston. The Consulate publicized the lecture series through their sources, so we had a large Chinese presence at the lectures. We also hosted a RDA Membership Party with the Consul General in their building following one of the lectures, giving our members an opportunity to see their reception spaces.

                              
                                                   Wang Shu with Patrick Peters

AAO: This is not the first time your organizations have gotten in front of architects before the broader world learns of their talents. Can you comment on this?
LS: You are correct – this was not the first time that RDA featured speakers before they become Pritzker Prize winners. We brought Richard Meier, Aldo Rossi, Robert Venturi, Rafael Moneo, Renzo Piano, and Glenn Murcutt to Houston – all before they won the grand prize for architecture. RDA has drawn great strength from the ideas and talents of its members, whom we ask to do extensive research to identify individuals on the cutting edge of the profession.
NE: Spotting talent on the rise is important to us; it’s a value our Forum members have come to expect. We’ve enjoyed the opportunity to bring to Dallas some of the same individuals Linda mentions. A few years ago, while exploring Japanese contributions, we were fortunate to welcome Kazuyo Sejima, who went on to receive the Pritzker, as well. We viewed this latest series as being a very vital one since China is certainly an epicenter of architectural activity in the 21st century. Bringing these architects to Texas was important for our members, and the geographical proximity and established relationships with RDA and UT-Austin made the series concept very appealing. I think it’s a capacity that should only grow with the advent of a resource like AAO and the now regular opportunities to meet up with program managers and curators working in other cities.

AAO: This series must have been an interesting opportunity for the guest speakers. What comments did they have to share?
LS: Pei Zhu is the leading designer of museums in China. The morning after his talk, he was given a personal tour of The Menil Collection by Karl Kilian, a longtime protégé of Dominique de Menil. He was interviewed after the tour under the great louvers of the Menil. He was deeply moved and talked at length about the building, and drew lines to his own work in China, in particular the Cai Guo-Qiang Courtyard House. Wang Shu, meanwhile, took great pleasure in speaking in the Mies-designed auditorium in The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston building, and the next morning he toured its campus snapping dozens of photographs for his records. He was especially intrigued by the Isamu Noguchi-designed sculpture garden.

                                           
                                                                    Pei Zhu

AAO: Do you have any final comments for our readers and fellow AAO members?
LS: The secret to partnering – if you can call it a secret – is to start early, before any other program planning may be too far along to consider a collaboration. It is important that each sponsor organization has the opportunity to participate in the speaker selection process. I think the opportunities for collaboration are even greater today using the resources and networking possibilities with other AAO organizations, as getting to know peer organizations and their areas of focus is critical. Of course, it certainly helps when you can engage someone like Wang Shu, whose work is deeply moving and is so emblematic of what this series was trying to demonstrate. We’re all delighted that he continues to receive increasing recognition.

Chicago Architecture Foundation has launched DiscoverDesign.org, a free online educational tool to connect teens, teachers, and architects to project-based learning opportunities. To celebrate, the CAF is inviting U.S high school students (at least 13 years old, grades 9-12) to enter the 2012 National High School Architecture Competition.

Official ribbon cutting on the District Architecture Center (DAC) took place November 4 in a grand celebration for AIA DC, the Washington Architectural Foundation, and its many friends and community partners that made the new center a reality. It’s terrific to finally see images from the opening party and compare the after shots to the promotional video footage exploring plans for converting raw space in the Penn Quarter into a new center for public engagement and learning. In catching up with Executive Director Mary Fitch, it was clear that the Center will greatly amplify existing programs, affording much needed space for meetings and educational functions as well as exhibitions to draw newcomers to the building. “The large meeting room on the first floor [of the Center] can hold about 225 people seated,” explains Fitch, “In our old digs, we had one room that could handle 47.”

The new space brings a few welcome changes to the everyday routine, too: “The Center is great because we can do several events simultaneously; the Center is also a challenge for the same reason. We’ve had to hire a security guard in the evenings – not because our location is particularly scary, but because our staff can no longer monitor a class and watch the door and answer questions. And, of course, once you get it built, you don’t just stop fundraising. We have so much more capacity now and consequently we have to find resources to support it.”

Congratulations to Mary and the army of volunteers and donors whose efforts have delivered a great new asset to DC. More info at http://aiadac.com/.

Here's a sampling of the twitter conversation during Design in Action 2011.

bet_miller Beth Miller
Great day #DIA2011... all tuckered out with visions of neighborhoods+inspiring words from #teddycruz #aaronlevy #davidjurca #dianalindindex

romanmars Roman Mars
Had a great time chatting w/ the architecture & design nerds today at #dia2011- Thanks to Micheal Wood & @AAOnet for inviting me! An honor.

ronbogle Ron Bogle
Mayor Nutter: "Planning matters. Design Matters." Yes sir! #DIA2011

freetots Trinity Simons
Philly goal to have 75% of population live within 1/4 mile of open space and fresh fruit and vegetables @Michael_Nutter #DIA2011

rosefellowship Rose Fellowship
Rural design at #DIA2011 - If 80% of people will live on 20% of land, remember 20% will live on 80%. social, landscape, design implications?

JasonSchupbach Jason Schupbach
Learning the amazing history of community design centers. Such useful information, can't wait to get the papers and data! #DIA2011

jmasengarb Jen Masengarb
Community design panel: "What you do on yr own is what you already know. What you do in collaboration is what you don't yet know." #DIA2011

rosefellowship Rose Fellowship
Alan Greenberger: Design is about the life we live. Down economy has refocused people on fact that design is an ordinary act. #DIA2011

ccalvarez ccalvarez
To make arch & design routine discourse for laypeople make the messages & language easy to understand. Knock off jargon! #dia2011

ACDtweets ACD Tweets
Great discussion at noon session about creating a peace park on the River Jordan. Inspiring + innovative collaborative methods #dia2011

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

Thank you to all who attended Design in Action 2011, our joint meeting of the Association of Architecture Organizations/Architecture + Design Education Network and the Association for Community Design. Special kudos to our local hosts and our event volunteers, without whom we would not have accomplished nearly as many good things as we did at this year’s conference. And a hearty acknowledge our members, sponsors, and boards of directors whose support and encouragement made this event possible in the first place.

We’re proud to report that we welcomed 223 delegates to this year’s meeting in Philadelphia. People came to Design in Action from 30 U.S. States and from as far away as Seoul, Korea to take advantage of this rare networking opportunity within our industry. At the public lecture featuring Teddy Cruz, our ranks swelled to more than 300. 

Taken together, design education, community design, and public programming represent a solid cross-section of today’s most important design advocates. It was exciting to see so many different groups of thinkers and doers in the same place this year at Design in Action, even if at times it made for a rather crowded event schedule. And for our two Associations, it offered incredibly fertile grounds for testing which areas might deserve continued partnership and group thought. We’re all much the better for having extended the reach of our own networks.

We learned so many wonderful things at Design in Action 2011, from lessons on talking architecture to lessons on listening, on topics ranging from pop up urbanism to rural collaboration, and inquiries into emerging methods and necessary failures. A review here would be exhausting, so instead we’ve posted links to all presentations we received permission to share, and we’ve included a post-event survey giving you the chance to help shape where we take the dialogue.

During one session held late in the conference came an extraordinary statement: memory is the residue of thinking. The presenter was calling attention to our deep human need to attach personal meaning to information to help make it stick, but it offers an explanation for the presence of our many organizations, as well. Design educators, community designers, and public programmers are lightning rods for stirring in others emotional connections to space, place, and problem solving, and, therefore, generating capacity for new thinking. It’s a powerful, necessary resource, and you have our deepest admiration for the work you do day-in and day-out to strengthen your local communities.

We hope you left Philadelphia with your own bank of memories, new contacts, and ideas to test and implement in the year ahead. As the presenting organizations, AAO/A+DEN and ACD are proud to have offered you this opportunity. For those of you who are not members of either AAO/A+DEN or ACD, we certainly encourage you to become active participants in our online networks and forums and member events.

Sincerely,

Thank you to Linda Norlen of AIA Seattle for discussing the inaugural Seattle Design Festival with us and providing an introduction.

The Seattle Design Festival, the first of its kind in the Puget Sound region, ran for ten days from September 16-25, 2011. With more than 30 events—including tours, films, speakers, panels, exhibits and installations—the Festival explored and celebrated the variety and depth of design in Seattle and beyond.

Responding to the festival theme of “Beneath the Surface,” ten different partner organizations organized events and installations, many focusing on aspects of design that are often overlooked or hidden from view. The ten groups were AIA Seattle, AIGA Seattle, ARCADE magazine (interdisciplinary design publication), 4Culture (non-profit public arts agency), IDSA NW (industrial designers), IIDA Northern Pacific (interior designers), Seattle Architecture Foundation, Space.city (architecture + art group), SIFF Cinema (film society), and WASLA (landscape architects).

By putting design at the forefront of conversation, the Festival aimed to raise expectations about what is possible through great design, especially in the public sphere. The varied programs of the Festival offered the public an opportunity to better understand design and how it adds value our lives, our city and our region.

The final attendance tallies are just now being finished, but the size of the Festival audience altogether topped 3,500. The Festival used more than 60 volunteers, not counting all the volunteers of the 10 partner organizations.

Katherine Stalker, AAO (KS): What models did you look at when you set out to create the festival? What appealed to you about the examples that you studied?
Linda Norlen, AIA Seattle (LN): We looked at models from around the U.S. and around the world, both architecture festivals and design festivals, but we also felt it was important that the Seattle Design Festival be in tune with local sensibilities and not feel imported from somewhere else. AAO member Erin Cullerton was especially helpful in recounting the history of the “Architecture and the City” festival in San Francisco. Her description of their modest first year and how that festival grew over the years was instructive.

KS: How did you organize events? Did you curate them internally or seek community participation? Why?
LN: From the beginning the board had decided we would invite other design organizations and cultural nonprofits in Seattle to become “program partners” in the festival. The motivation for that was both philosophical and practical. Because part of the purpose of the festival was to build relationships in the community to pave the way for a future design center, inviting partners was essential.
And only by collaborating with such partners could we mount an ambitious 10-day festival. We curated only a few of the events internally, gave advice and input to some of the partner organizations about programs, and collaborated on the programming of the film series within the festival.

KS: What was the relationship between the collaborators? Any surprisingly fruitful partnerships?
LN: My initial vision was that each of the 10 partner organizations would send one or two members to the festival planning committee, but only some of the organizations did so. While the partner events were quite successful, it did require a great deal of coordination and communication from us to deal with that many organizations. Most of our partner organizations were staffed by volunteers. The most fruitful partnerships were those with more established non-profits that had staff resources to interact with us more extensively. One surprisingly fruitful partnerships was with SIFF Cinema, the year-round programming arm of the Seattle International Film Festival.

KS: With every design festival there are the flashy programs and then the more serious, educational programs. Did you feel Seattle was ready for some heavy conversations about design or did you strategize that a lighter touch would reach more people?
LN: We were mindful in all our planning that the main audience we were trying to reach was the public. We had several humorous and light-hearted events and installations that struck the right chord with broad audiences. But we also found that two of the best-attended and highest energy events were the ones that were more challenging conversations about design (one that focused on architectural work that stretches conventional boundaries of the practice and moves into art installation; another proposed a manifesto for design in the 21st century).
Where both the more serious and more accessible content really came together, though, was in the films and some of the panel discussions we ran with them. We showed 8 documentaries about architecture and design, 5 of them Seattle premieres. The audiences for these were quite mixed—there were some architects and designers there, but it was mostly a general audience, and the discussions were very lively.

KS: What specific tools or technology proved to be useful, for organization or communication purposes?
LN: I don’t know that there were any particular tools that we used in organization, but for communicating the festival to the public, we spent a lot of time and attention on building a good website, which we felt was a good investment of time and budget.

KS: Were there ways the local press made certain aspects really successful or overlooked other areas you personally thought were very successful?
LN: We got quite a few notices in the press for the film series, which I think was appropriate, since they really were a great crossover medium for reaching beyond the design disciplines. We would have liked some broadcast media to have covered the street installations and an installation we had in a storefront, but weren’t successful in getting their attention, despite our attempts.

KS: What were the biggest challenges, and how did you address them?
LN: One of the biggest challenges was that this was the first time for a design festival in Seattle—and people weren’t quite sure what a design festival was. We did a lot of branding and communication: posters, postcards, signage, ads, email blasts, social media. Of course the other challenges were having a modest budget and a tiny staff. We stretched our resources as far as we could.

KS: What have been the most popular programs?
LN: Some of the most popular programs were these:
Dear Seattle, a hands-on installation with four activities that allowed the public to identify design treasures  and places in Seattle they loved, write a collective letter to the city,  and contribute their “bright ideas” for how to make the city better.
Design Marks, a series of 25 outdoor columns, each installed at a different cultural site in the city and designed by a different design firm.
Beyond Boundaries, a panel of three design studios pushing the boundaries between architecture and art.
A 21st Century Design Manifesto lecture 
Films on Architecture and Design: 8 documentaries
Design League, an event in a public park where a team of industrial designers engaged hundreds of visitors in a playful game of design trivia to raise awareness about the design of everyday objects.

KS: What’s been the mood/attitude of the Board and staff after such a big undertaking?
LN: Since the festival just ended last night, we haven’t fully assessed everything yet, but when the Board met last week, during the middle of the festival, they were pleased…

With cost and time savings, exhibition sharing seems to be an obvious choice for any cultural organization. AAO decided to take a closer look at members AIA San Francisco and the Virginia Center for Architecture, and their experience with Vertical Gardens - an exhibition conceived by Exit Art. Lauren Rosati, Margie O’Driscoll, Erin Cullerton, and Helene Combs Dreiling offered us their views and personal experiences with this specific exhibition.

Lauren, could you give us some background on Vertical Gardens?
LAUREN (Exit Art): Vertical Gardens was conceived by our Artistic Director Papo Colo for our SEA program, a multimedia exhibition program. The exhibition was curated using our open call model ConcepPlus, for which we publicize the exhibition concept and invite artists to submit relevant works. It featured more than 20 projects, both imaginary and real, by artists and architects that envisioned solutions for 
building greener urban environments.

The exhibit traveled to AIA San Francisco, San Francisco, CA (February 
18 - April 30, 2010) and to the Virginia Center for Architecture, 
Richmond, VA
 (March 10 - May 29, 2010).

Is this your first experience with exhibition sharing? What merits and challenges could you share with your fellow AAO members?
MARGIE (AIA San Francisco): This was not our first experience with exhibition sharing - we share or co-produce exhibitions at least once a year. For a current exhibition, we're being faced with challenges of language, time zones, and funding (our European counterparts are so much better funded for exhibitions and programming than we are in the US).

But we love to do exhibitions because it draws new audiences; gives us the opportunity to develop new partners; and give us a chance to develop really stellar programming.  

Why did you believe this exhibition was appropriate for your organization to show?
ERIN (formerly with AIA San Francisco): The show was fundamentally in line with our gallery’s philosophy, but also different enough from our typical exhibitions to make it interesting for our audience. It seemed important to tackle a subject that, on one hand, appeared trendy and fleeting, and on the other hand, could offer real, practical solutions that might reshape methodology and discourse.

HELENE (Virginia Center for Architecture): The Virginia Center for Architecture maintains a commitment to green design principles and this exhibition certainly adheres to that commitment. It is essential in the 21st century that institutions such as ours promote a greater understanding of eco-friendly built environments.

How did Vertical Gardens work within your space?
ERIN: The gallery is approximately 240 linear square feet; it is very flexible with moveable walls. Since there was a ‘living wall’ in the show, we also had to be sensitive to how to best integrate pumps and water sources into the space.

When we borrowed Vertical Gardens we decided to expand its content so that it would feature a more localized viewpoint. We invited local architects and designers with either expertise or a history of investigation into vertical gardening or vertical landscape design.

HELENE: The exhibition certainly presented a few problems for us! The Virginia Center for Architecture boasts walls 16 feet in height, requiring large works to fill the space. However, our space created an amazing opportunity for Mundo Ortega, the guest botanical artist, to create a site-specific living wall measuring 13 feet high and 8 feet wide.

Do you believe Vertical Gardens was a success for your organization?
MARGIE: We received a great deal of press attention; helped develop a new audience in the landscape community; and created an exhibition that our staff loved being around. We wished we could have kept that green wall up forever, but it was very difficult to maintain (especially for a staff which includes no landscape gardeners!).

Vertical Gardens Logistics
LAUREN: We do not require an organization to exhibit the show for any particular length of time, but a contract must be drawn up delimiting their borrowing privileges. The exhibition is available for travel for $3,000, excluding the living wall by Mundo Verde Ortega (which must be included but at a price depending on the space availability / specifications of each institution).

There are no current travel plans for the exhibition, though we are always looking for new potential travel venues. Any interested parties are welcome to contact me at Exit Art.

Lauren Rosati, Assistant Curator, Exit Art, New York, New York, lauren@exitart.org
Margie O’Driscoll, Executive Director, AIA San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
Erin Cullerton, Hon. AIA SF, Founder of Design Agency Co

, Los Angeles, CA, erin@designagencyco.com
Helene Combs Dreiling, FAIA, Executive Director, Virginia Center for Architecture, Richmond, VA

PHOTO CREDIT: All AIA San Francisco photographs are by Bruce Damonte Photography. All other photographs are the property of the Virginia Center for Architecture and Exit Art.

At our Design in Action 2011 conference in Philadelphia, David Ghoogasian will speak on the “architecture of the brain” and how it matches up with traditional classroom teaching practices. Hailing from California, Ghoogasian is a formal school principal who now devotes his time to using information on brain research, teaching and learning styles, and emotional intelligence to reach a range of students. With a long list of clients in the educational field, Ghoogasian analyzes how certain brain structures reflect a student’s classroom experience. He presents nationally and internationally, to a variety of fields, making this information applicable to all areas. Ghoogasian currently works through his own company, The Lyceum, and teaches through the extension programs of the University of California, Riverside, Irvine, and San Diego.

See the following links for more of his work and involvements:

• Lyceum company website
• David Ghoogasian presentation for the Aldeen Foundation
• Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) Specialized Study Program

Design in Action 2011 Conference Session

The Architecture of the Brain and What It Might Tell Us About What Should Happen In Learning
When we enter the classroom, we sometimes do so with trepidation. While we realize that opportunities to do some of what we set out to do – raise interest, communicate, perhaps inspire, and teach – abound, we are quickly confronted with challenges. Will the students pay attention? Will they be interested? Will they listen? Will they learn? If they learn, will they remember? The answers to many of our questions may lie in the structures and workings of the brain. This session will outline some of what neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology, education, and experience might suggest to us.

David Ghoogasian, The Lyceum, Los Angeles