Who is Vera Schultz?

From an endorsement on the back of the book, "Vera, First Lady of Marin": Vera took Marin County Government out of the hands of a small powerful oligarchy and made it into a truly representative government. She was an exceptional public servant, and a gracious lady. It was a privilege to know her. From William T. Bagley J.D., former California Assembly Member and Board of Regents, University of California.

Vera had followed Frank Lloyd Wright throughout his career with a shelf full of books on his work, and convinced him to produce plans for a new vision of a facility of open, transparent government that includes the Council Chambers, the Courthouse facilities, a library and administrative offices. She was instrumental in maneuvering Wright into agreeing to do a design for the Marin County Courthouse, which proved to be his last design comission prior to his death after a long, dramatic and interesting life. His death was the turning point for the political impetus from the community needed to wrest control from the old guard and finalize the contract to construct the building.

Carefully integrated into the site, this building displays classic elements of the FLLW lexicon, including the illuminated ceiling forms and the dramatic internal curved walkways. Its roof and spire are visible indicators of a fresh vision of the County of Marin that the citizens were successful in bringing about. It's a dynamic building that has accepted some modifications (such as the skylight spine to keep the rain out) with grace.

That Little Jewel

San Francisco, California, on Maiden Lane. Forerunner to the Guggenheim Museum in NYC and the Marin County Courthouse. Frank Lloyd Wright's other passions include his women, as indelibly portrayed in a book by T.C. Boyle. The book captures this indomitable will that became legend among clients, students and his contemporaries.

With Gas?

We're used to having to answer that question at restaurants in France. They make Shirley Temples with it. Pretty country, and they're really very nice to everybody nowadays. Particularly since all these english-speaking people now come across the Channel in the Chunnel and shop in Paris before going back home to their quaint British pubs.

Here in the USA we're asked a different question about Gas. It starts with our Uncle Sugar wanting to know how much Gas there is. So Uncle Sugar passed a law that makes us tell him, how very nice of him to ask us so politely.

This Gas is what heats up the planet, and we must not do this. So we must tell how much we're doing something that we're not supposed to be doing. Usually we cross our fingers when we hafta tell. In California all our politicians are doing this and fibbing to their little brothers and sisters who elected them. So what shall we say that we're supposed to tell them today?

That we will not be making this Gas if we build more and more houses and shops. And they scold us and scold us if we don't build these houses and shops faster and faster, so that we won't be making Gas anymore. We asked Mommy why all those houses stop us from making Gas, and she said it's because they don't actually stop the Gas, they just make so much more heat and trash that it looks like there's no Gas. This will also be expensive for us, we'll have to give a lot of our nickels to Uncle Sugar and Big Brother legislature to not have Gas.

So we'll just go outside and play and not worry about Gas except at French restaurants.

Those Greenhouse Gasses

One of the best articles I've seen to actually implement CO2 reduction and energy/water conservation is here. It lays out strategic approaches to all aspects of conservation in a brief summary. It's written by Steve Burrows, the leader of the Arup Property Business in the Americas. Arup is one of the top global engineering companies in the world with a hugely innovative practice. He discusses an important principle in carbon reduction: recycling existing commercial buildings.

Note that:

70 percent of the average city’s greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings (includes traffic emissions to deliver its components, equipment and products) LEED standards quantify this interconnection.

Since cities consume 75 percent of the world’s energy and are home to 75 percent of the world’s population, the upside becomes that with this increased population density comes a reduction in gasoline usage and energy costs per capita. (This applies to dense city cores) Its "converse" is that suburban sprawl is unsustainable, but the older "grid" communities relatively close to city centers are not a problem, especially if they have not mansionized .

This is the concept that SCAG is completely missing the ball with. Their solution is adding traffic to areas that don't have the ability to densify due to their old infrastructure and scale. Then this adds a load of traffic to arterials and freeways that did not exist before, since older communities are not linked directly to downtown. It's different on the east coast, for example, where the old grid communities were built up around the commuter rail into NYC. That is a form-based configuration that can't be imposed on vast tracts of suburbia.

Thus Southern California will need to try to adapt some "hub" concentrations in the medium cities like Pasadena, Glendale, Burbank, etc. but they're pretty much at their limits now. There's a huge backlash building in Pasadena and adjacent communities over the amount and density of growth that has already occurred, mostly due to the major increase in traffic. Which this configuration was supposed to solve, but frankly is simply a justification for more square footage, and that always adds CO2 no matter what you do.

Remember Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and the five emotional stages of dealing with approaching death? Collectively we're still in denial about what the impact of human societies are on the planet, moving into bargaining. Hope it's not inevitable that humanity moves into acceptance and death, which is a fatalistic response to a solvable problem. You can't have it all without a cost, so you shrink Bigfoot.

Such sacrilege.

Living Walls Chill Out the Heat Island

A major contribution to the heat and drying out that many cities are experiencing is due to building structure and the paving over of the landscape. The re-radiation of sunlight as heat creates a "heat island" effect that contributes to planetary warming and prevents water from going into local aquifers. The strategies of UNpave, green roofs and urban reforestation are several ways of counteracting this problem. Another is the "living wall" incorporated into exterior multi-story building facades, such as the tallest living wall yet in Sydney, Australia.

Another living wall in Madrid (photo above) is also by Patric Blanc.

This is a creative approach that is used as an artistic statement, and an incremental one that can help mitigate the impact of construction in urban areas. It's a very visible application of plant material used as part of a dynamic urban environment, and puts in high profile the drip irrigation and grey water systems that recycle water and make it available to the environment again.

The Light of Advent

Entering the holiday season brings us into the traditions of honoring the ancient events that marked a sea change in human history and spiritual self-awareness. We're perhaps approaching another one of those epochal moments as we start to understand the importance of humanity's role in this global environment. Advent is the traditional preparation for the birth of Christ, considered to be Christmas day. From that point forward, we have Epiphany, the twelfth night, celebrating the visit of the three kings or wise men to the Christ Child, signifying the extension of salvation to the Gentiles.

Now shall we extend this salvation to all people, the creatures and life that inhabit our home, the planet?

When we begin to see, to understand, the vast tapestry of nature and its critical balances and complexities, it's then time to make some decisions together as a human race. For example, the study of natural sciences leads to kind of a "natural understanding" of what global realities we're dealing with, which is undergirded by the scientific method of study and rigorous analysis. A remarkable interview with Jane Goodall by Bill Moyers cuts to the heart of the issue:

Moyers: You even wrote once that it was your study of chimpanzees that crystallized your own belief in the ultimate destiny toward which humans are still evolving. What is that? What is that ultimate destiny? And how did the chimps contribute to your understanding?

Goodall: Because, when you have the thing that's more like us than any other living thing on the planet that helps you to realize the differences. You know, how are we different. And so, we have this kind of language. So, that's led to our intellectual development. That's led to refining of morals. And, you know, the questions about meaning and life and everything. So I think we've moving or should be moving towards some kind of spiritual evolution. Where we understand without having to ask why.

Social Justice in Sustainable Trade

This is how the yarn is spun in Nepal for the rug production and weaving here locally. In this particular shop, great care is taken to hire only adult women and men at decent wages, not children and young girls as has famously happened in the industry and its suppliers to the Western markets.
The yarn is spun in this shop, then sent out for the dyeing process. It is later woven by skilled labor that produces rugs of all kinds of designs, both traditional and modern. I was struck by how similar some of the designs were to the Navajo rugs produced here in the American Southwest for sale in the trading posts. The only difference was the pattern form and the colors of the dyes. The weaving process produces very similar patterning templates that generate the designs.

That's the beauty of craftwork and the labor of design; it's universal. And priceless.