Episteme and Techne

Thesis project imagines a footbridge to Hutchinson

The Savannah Morning News has great recognition of Fulbright Scholar and Post-professional student Andreas Mayer as well as Fifth Year Professor Arpad Ronaszegi in this article of Andreas’ thesis investigation of a footbridge to Hutchinson Island. (Andreas’ project was also one of the projects selected by the faculty members to be exhibited during the visit by Frank Gehry).

I am a regular reader of Mr. Dawers’ column in the Savannah Morning News because of his articulate commentary of the built environment of the City of Savannah. His opinions and contributions are a vital part of the feedback mechanism which is so important to the critical observation of our community.

Every resident of every city or town has a role to observe and contribute to the dialogue of development and public space; it is when we allow our stereotypes and fears of differing opinions to steer the criticism that we loose sight of our own responsibility as stewards of the city. Marrying careful stewardship and good critical dialogue allows for proposals to progress the city forward while maintaining the utmost respect for the past.

Ultimately, as the title of this blog reflects and Mr. Dawers’ column suggests, the goal is balance.

May 16 marks the next installment of the Savannah Development and Renewal Authority’s “Dump the Pump: Leave Your Car at Home Day.” The SCAD eco practices council is an official partner organization for this event!

From 12:00 to 12:30 at the corner of MLK and Liberty, Pedestrian Advocates of the Coastal Empire will be staging a “crosswalk action.” During this event, a group of pedestrians will repeatedly cross the street in the marked crosswalks in a legal fashion. The goal is to communicate pedestrian safety messages to drivers, pedestrians, media representatives and other observers in a fun and friendly way. Members of the organized group carry cheerful, non-confrontational signs (provided by PACE) with educational and advocacy messages. Crosswalk actions can involve as few as 10 or more than 40 people.

Spread the word to your School of Building Arts colleagues and encourage participation. I imagine that pedestrian safety and motorist education on MLK might be concerns shared by Eichberg inhabitants.

New York Times Article

artdaily.org Article

Savannah’s Lee J. Meyer, Architect, 75 passed away Friday May 9, 2008, after a short illness. Obituary from the Savannah Morning News…

Lee J. Meyer - SAVANNAH - Lee J. Meyer, Architect, 75 passed away Friday May 9, 2008, after a short illness. Mr. Meyer was born in St. Louis, Missouri to the late Aaron and Mirella Meyer and came to Savannah in 1954 as a Staff Sergeant with the US Air Force during the Korean Conflict. Mr. Meyer received the Von Barclam Scholarship for Sculpture from Washington University, an Associate of Arts Degree from Armstrong Junior College, a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Architecture from the University of Florida, where he was President of the student chapter of the AIA (American Institute of Architects), a member of the Gargoyle Honorary Fraternity of the College of Architecture, and a member of the Florida Blue Key Speaker Bureau. He also received the Alpha Rho Chi Medal for Leadership and Service. Later, Mr. Meyer was appointed Guild Architect and Lecturer in Historic Preservation at the University of Florida and lectured at many other academic institutions as well. In practice since 1966 as a licensed architect in Savannah, Mr. Meyer sought to promote the aesthetic, scientific, and practical efficiency of the architecture profession and produced a distinguished body of work that has been recognized nationally for its contribution to historic preservation and society. My. Meyer co-authored the original Historic Zoning Ordinance for the City of Savannah - the regulatory guide for construction in the Historic District. As architect for the Savannah Landmark Rehabilitation Project, Mr. Meyer oversaw the conservation and restoration of many historic buildings in Savannah’s Victorian District - the largest single project of its kind at the time. In 1979, Mr. Meyer readapted the Volunteer Guard Building for the newly formed Savannah College of Art and Design. He acted as chief architect for numerous additional SCAD properties, including the Jen Library, Eichberg Hall, and Trustees Theater. Mr. Meyer became nationally known for his expertise in colonial era tabby preservation for his restoration of the Slave Hospital Ruins in St. Simons Island. His efforts were subsequently documented in “The Conservation and Preservation of Tabby”, which remains a fundamental reference today. Mr. Meyer’s practice was denoted by contributions to several outstanding community advocacy projects, including the Midtown Neighborhood Association, the Beach Institute Museum renovation for the King-Tisdell Cottage Foundation, the Haitian Monument and the Steamship Savannah Monument on River Street. Mr. Meyer was the lead architect for two city blocks on Savannah’s Broughton Street redevelopment plan and designed the River Street Market Place, one of his favorite projects. Mr. Meyer’s practice was unique in its strong commitment to architectural apprenticeship, with former students receiving positions of influence and authority within the field of architecture, including Executive Directorship(s) at the San Francisco Architectural Heritage Society, the City of Charleston Historic Preservation Department, and the State of Maryland Historic Trust. Mr. Meyer’s numerous professional awards included the Historic Savannah Foundation Award for the Savannah Landmark Rehabilitation Project, Historic Preservation Awards from the Historic Savannah Foundation for First Congregational Church Fellowship Hall and Steeple in Savannah, the Governor’s Honor Award for the Phoenix Hotel Fa�ade restoration in Waycross, Georgia, the International Deco Defender Award for the Streamliner Diner restoration for the Savannah College of Art and Design, the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation Award for the Visitors Center in Kingsland, Georgia, the National Historic Preservation Award for his work on SCAD’s Preston Hall in Savannah, the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation Award for his tabby restoration at Retreat Plantation on St. Simons Island, and the AIA Honor Award for Excellence in Urban Design in for his work on the SCAD City Campus in Savannah. Mr. Meyer’s commitment to the betterment of his fellow man was exemplified by his tireless and devoted community and professional service. Over the years, he was the first President of the Savannah Housing and Development Corporation, Vice President of the Retarded Children’s Association of Chatham County, participated in Leadership Savannah, and served on the AIA Committee on Historic Resources. Mr. Meyer was a board member of the Chatham County Nursing Home Authority, a member of the City of Savannah Historic Review Board, a past president of the Savannah Zoological Society, a member of the Society of Architectural Historians, an Advisory Board Member for the Savannah College of Art and Design, a Board Member for the Mental Health Coalition of Savannah, a Charter Member of the Roof Consultants Institute Charter, President of the Toastmaster’s International Savannah Chapter, a board member of the Beach Institute / King-Tisdale Cottage Foundation, President of the South Georgia Chapter, a Board Member for the Georgia Association of Architects, a Board Member and later Executive Member, Secretary, and Vice-Chair of the Savannah-Chatham County Metropolitan Planning Commission. Mr. Meyer was twice President of the Armstrong State College Alumni Association in 1965 and held long-standing memberships in the Toastmasters International, National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, the Georgia Historical Society, and the Coastal Heritage Society. Mr. Meyer sailed with his son Sammy in 1983 on the United States Coast Guard “Eagle” Tall Ship from New London, Connecticut to Curtis Bay, Maryland. A long-time member of the US Propeller Club Savannah Chapter, Mr. Meyer was the Propeller Club Person of the Year in 2004 and was most recently elected to the 2008 Board of Directors. A strong supporter of the Polish community in Savannah, Mr. Meyer served as a Vice President of the General Pulaski Heritage Association and was the first citizen of the State of Georgia to visit the birthplace of General Kazimierz Pulaski representing the late Honorable Ben Fortson, Secretary of State of Georgia, and presenting the Bicentennial Medal to the Mayor of the City of Warka, Poland. Mr. Meyer served as co-chair of “Pulaski 2004″, spearheading a seven year preservation effort to restore Savannah’s 150 year-old Pulaski Monument. He received international recognition from the President of Poland in 2004 when he was awarded Poland’s “Cavalier Cross Order of Merit”. He was also awarded the “Amicus Poloniae” (Friend of Poland) by Janusz Reiter, Poland’s Ambassador to the United States. Recently, Mr. Meyer received recognition by the American Council for Polish Culture for his dedication to the memory of General Pulaski. Mr. Meyer was a long-time member of the congregation of B’Nai B’rith Jacob and past officer of the B’nai Brith Jacob Brotherhood and past member of the Board of Directors of the Jewish Education Alliance. He is past-president of HGH Benevolent Society and the architect/designer of Agudath Achim Synagogue. Lee was the beloved husband of Barbara Portman Meyer for 51 years, loving father of Captain Samuel J. Meyer, Tami Meyer Smith and son-in-law Phillip Smith, and Peri Meyer Kyriacos and son-in-law Demetre Kyriacos. He was “Poppa” to his adoring grandchildren Amber A. Smith, Jade M. Smith, Tiffany P. Smith, Benjamin S. Smith and Leita K. Kyriacos. Brother to Barbara M. Platke of St. Louis, Missouri and Julius M. Meyer of Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. Meyer has numerous nieces and nephews, great nieces and great nephews, cousins, special clients and close friends living in the United States and Poland. Funeral service will be held at 11 o’clock Monday morning in the chapel of Gamble Funeral Service conducted by Rabbi Avigdor Slatus. Interment will be in Bonaventure Cemetery. Remembrances: National Multiple Sclerosis Society Research Fund

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Who:Anne Robinson
What: Recycling in Savannah - Everything you need to know!
When:Tuesday, May 27th 5:45-7:00pm
Where: Wild Wings Café (2nd floor) in City Market
Please RSVP to wards@thempc.org By May 22nd, 2008

Anne Robinson, Recycling Education Coordinator for the City of Savannah, will give a Recycling Education Presentation Tuesday, May 27 for the Savannah Chapter of the United States Green Building Council’s monthly meeting.
The presentation will introduce recycling as a market driven industry in order to explain why certain items are recyclable in some regions at particular times and not recyclable in others. In terms of local recycling; the presentation will cover where, what, and how citizens can recycle and explain the importance of recycling in Georgia for both economic and environmental reasons.
A review of the waste hierarchy will be included to remind the participants that recycling is only part of the equation in order to make a real impact on our waste disposal habits we must first intercept our trash by either limiting our consumption or reusing materials.
“Waste Disposal methods are rapidly changing in Savannah we must align our waste disposal habits with these changes in order to divert tonnage from the landfill and put our recyclable materials to good use,” Robinson said.

Don’t miss this fantastic opportunity to find out more about what is happening with recycling in Savannah!

From a favorite source of inspiration…TED Talks, here is an amazing demonstration of the power of the shared image.

A call for a return to the writing of good criticism
If [fill in the blank - your choice] “continues to snub this public — its core audience — by “explaining” art with incomprehensible drivel, it shouldn’t be surprised if people decide to return the favor and walk away.”

What this article does not address is the ulterior motive of poor, overwritten verbiage accompanying art (or architecture, or pick your favorite discipline)…as a shield to hide behind, for fear of of being found out, a discovery that in fact the emperor is not wearing any clothes.

I have always enjoyed Bruce Mau’s work. A student in my studio pointed me to this published manifesto from Mau’s web site that I post here because of it’s value to all of us, both student/teacher and teacher/student. Enjoy.

Quoted from http://www.brucemaudesign.com/manifesto.html:

Bruce Mau Design

An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth

Written in 1998, the Incomplete Manifesto is an articulation of statements that exemplify Bruce Mau’s beliefs, motivations and strategies. It also articulates how the BMD studio works.

1. Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.

2. Forget about good. Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you’ll never have real growth.

3. Process is more important than outcome. When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we’ve already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.

4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.

5. Go deep. The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.

6. Capture accidents. The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.

7. Study. A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.

8. Drift. Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.

9. Begin anywhere. John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.

10. Everyone is a leader. Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.

11. Harvest ideas. Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.

12. Keep moving. The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.

13. Slow down. Desynchronize from standard time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.

14. Don’t be cool. Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.

15. Ask stupid questions. Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.

16. Collaborate. The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.

17. ____________________. Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas of others.

18. Stay up late. Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you’re separated from the rest of the world.

19. Work the metaphor. Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.

20. Be careful to take risks. Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.

21. Repeat yourself. If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.

22. Make your own tools. Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.

23. Stand on someone’s shoulders. You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.

24. Avoid software. The problem with software is that everyone has it.

25. Don’t clean your desk. You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.

26. Don’t enter awards competitions. Just don’t. It’s not good for you.

27. Read only left-hand pages. Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our “noodle.”

28. Make new words. Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.

29. Think with your mind. Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.

30. Organization = Liberty. Real innovation in design, or any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between “creatives” and “suits” is what Leonard Cohen calls a ‘charming artifact of the past.’

31. Don’t borrow money. Once again, Frank Gehry’s advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline, and how many have failed.

32. Listen carefully. Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.

33. Take field trips. The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.

34. Make mistakes faster. This isn’t my idea — I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.

35. Imitate. Don’t be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You’ll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamp’s large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.

36. Scat. When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else … but not words.

37. Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.

38. Explore the other edge. Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the technological pack. We can’t find the leading edge because it’s trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential.

39. Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms. Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces — what Dr. Seuss calls “the waiting place.” Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference — the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals — but with no actual conference. Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.

40. Avoid fields. Jump fences. Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life. They are often understandable efforts to order what are manifold, complex, evolutionary processes. Our job is to jump the fences and cross the fields.

41. Laugh. People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I’ve become aware of this, I use it as a barometer of how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.

42. Remember. Growth is only possible as a product of history. Without memory, innovation is merely novelty. History gives growth a direction. But a memory is never perfect. Every memory is a degraded or composite image of a previous moment or event. That’s what makes us aware of its quality as a past and not a present. It means that every memory is new, a partial construct different from its source, and, as such, a potential for growth itself.

43. Power to the people. Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can’t be free agents if we’re not free.