The Village Bottoms

The Black Dot Cafe, which we blogged about last week, is part of a larger effort of The Village Bottoms community in West Oakland to re-claim and re-vitalize their neighborhood. Anchored at one end by the Black Dot Cafe and at the other by the Black New World cultural center, the three block stretch of Pine Street has the potential to become a vibrant historic and cultural focal point of West Oakland.

Besides the Black Dot Cafe, we are also working with Marcel Diallo, and other members of the Village Bottoms Community, and EcoCity Builders to upgrade the Black New World space so that it can once again become a cultural events gathering venue. Between the Black Dot Cafe and the Black New World are other cultural and historical attractions as well as the beginnings of a large community garden. The lot where the garden is situated is big enough to have space for a sizable greenhouse and an aquaponics system.

Right now we are primarily helping with the drawings and documentation for the two spaces at either end of the district, so that they can begin functioning and drawing people to the neighborhood. Funding the improvements necessary to getting the permits and licenses is as always the major challenge. Anyone who wishes to help please check out the website of Friends of the Black New World. Or be in touch with us -- we’d love to have your involvement!

Black Dot Cafe

The Black Dot Cafe in West Oakland, CA is going to be a cafe and cultural center. It will hopefully be an anchor for the African-American community there in a recent wave of gentrification. Located in the new Woodside Zoning Area, the cafe includes sitting and performance spaces.









fDC is helping draft the permit documents to have this space go from a studio apartment to a cafe. We've taken as-built measurements, documented new appliances and fixtures and, along with EcoCity Builders, conferenced with the Health Inspector.





This cafe is the much beloved project of Marcel Diallo. Read more about Marcel and his work here.

I spent a good part of the day yesterday at CCA's [California College of the Arts] open studios for potential grad students, since I've been accepted into the Masters of Architecture program there and intend to enroll this fall. I found myself filtering much of what I was hearing through the lens of my experience with our developing organization and wondering how my MArch education at CCA will enhance my work with our mission as an organization. There were many areas where I saw a dovetailing of purpose with our real world work and the academic pursuits of the CCA School of Architecture. One example: Last year students from CCA's architecture and design program entered the Solar Decathalon jointly with engineering students from Santa Clara University and created the Refract House. The design is one that is potentially low cost and sustainable while being simple and elegant. Although it incorporates some hi-tech and, at this juncture, costly elements to drive its energy efficiency, it is nonetheless exciting to see academic design institutions involving themselves in real world concerns using holistic approaches. Our goal is to find solutions that make high performance, good design available to all, in collaboration and conversation with communities and organizations that want and need that design.

Umbrella Structures, anyone?

Wow...I feel cheated. I guess now I understand how all the "greats" feel when an idea is spawned from them, yet credit is not attributed in the line notes. Sure, we're probably not the FIRST group to use umbrellas in an interesting way (see us in http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/09/19/parking-day-2009-transforms-parking-spaces-into-public-parks/), but i do feel strongly that in some way, shape, or form, we may have helped others find both tranquility and excitement through the mundane and tattered.

Our friend and group member Stephanie found this link/image and passed it onto the group...why do i feel so "hurt" and cheated? (See http://www.inhabitat.com/2010/03/31/bucky-bar-built-from-umbrellas-is-a-pop-up-party/ ...SAME WEBSITE, nonetheless!) Isn't mimicry the most sincere form of flattery? Since our group is still in its infancy, I'll shrug it off and not call in the Intellectual Property lawyers. Our "greatness" can be kept to the small few for the time being...we know what we accomplished and how to replicate efforts like these in the future. Thanks to committee member Sarah for bringing a great idea to the group and allowing us to aid/support that vision.

One thing's for sure...if the Dutch are imitating us, I guess we're doing something right! ;)

Visiting Crissy Field Center with AIA

On Friday, I joined with other members of the architectural community through AIA SF for a tour at the new Crissy Field Center (CFC) at its new location, a stone’s throw from the beach at the beginning of Crissy Field. The CFC teaches San Franciscans about the intersection between the urban and the natural environment. This temporary location is anything but temporary. It hosts a wide range of healthy aspects for humans and our habitat. I was happier inside the building than out. The glazing and roof lines all emphasize its orientation towards the Golden Gate Bridge, which in some wild combination of science, nature, and man is also the most desirable orientation for sunlight and passive heating during winter.

The building has already achieved LEED Gold, but it is expected to reach LEED Platinum. I can verify that the luminescence of the work spaces does not require any additional lighting, just as it was planned to do. While on the tour we got a unique look at the rainwater cistern, which has not yet been fully buried and got to talk to the installer. He made some valuable points about the scarcity of water and amazed us all with the fascinating statistic that 1 inch of rain water on the CFC roofs equals to 10,000 gallons of water. The roof space is a feature of every building which needs to be further utilized – it has so many beneficial qualities, a possible gathering space for people, greenery, water, and sun-power.

This project was designed and fabricated by the wonder child of pre-fab modern design, Project FROG. You can read more about them at their website here.

Well readers, you might be asking yourselves - How does this pricey building (I make this conjecture on the fact that the Architect wasn’t allowed to reveal the budget to us) relate to the Free Design Clinic? How is it a model for the freeing of design and information? Let me tell you.

There is an opposite side to our efforts, whereas we try to give people free information and design, it is also important to let people experience good, healthy design at no cost. This is the void that the Crissy Field Center fills. Just by being in this space, a person’s expectations change for what is appropriate and normal and achievable. This is a huge benefit of civic architecture – it belongs to the people.

When I first sat down to write this blog posting I spent most of the time ranting about my terrible memories of the sweltering portable I had to spend third grade encased by. It’s my hope that this building technology of prefab, cost-effective healthy structures can benefit other students and not just in their after-school programs.

Photo is from Green Building: Project FROG

Illustration: Transparency House, Inc.

Site Studies Package completed for ArtHouse / ArtsDeCo!

It's great to work with partners who understand your initiatives and believe in your efforts.



This past week, our design group submitted a Site Studies Package to ArtHouse / ArtsDeCo to give objective site information for use in a later feasibility study. This will determine proper site occupancy and strategic uses for the built environment to come. It was a large undertaking, since most of us have full-time jobs while balancing the rest of our lives. All in all, three people totalled over 100 hours - periodically working on the project over the last two months...sounds like a long time to work, but OH, how time flies!!!



One thing I'm trying to learn through this continuous project is how to balance life/work/extras. Though many strive and complete this balance, I am a "one-track minded" person who must finish a task before completing another. Thankfully, I've had motivated people alongside me, whom without we would not have completed what we did.



Special thanks to members Frances Reid and Beth Moore. Let's continue this project with meaning and vigor!

Thanks to the group - your continual interest, love, and creativity ceases to amaze me.

Extra special thanks to Brendan Dunnigan, John Wong, and ArtHouse...I cannot wait to see where this pursuit takes us.



With great excitement through humble project beginnings,

Jason Harm

The founding members of the Free Design Clinic are hard at work creating an organization for those who need our design services and for those who want to lend a hand to providing good design to those who need it. We're having fun doing it and can't wait to share it with you all...soon! The devastating news this week from Haiti makes us more aware than ever of the urgency of this work and how much there is to do to help make the world a safe equitable sustainable place.

In the meantime, in honor of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, we leave you with these quotes from Dr. King:

"The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood."

And this: "The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists"

We're looking for a bunch of disciplined nonconformists and creative extremists to help us change the world.

year end update

Hey, Blog-O-Sphere, I know it has been a while since you've heard from us here at fDC. We've been doing a lot of internal tinkering, ensuring that we function like a real collective instead a hodgedy podgedy mish mash shmoopy whoopy of friends and colleagues who are working together to make a difference in our community.

Some might say we've become more rigid in our tasks (and now have fewer baby talk words to describe our working order), but I say we're becoming more stream-lined and highly efficient. The organization is as follows:

There are six committees and each committee chair is automatically a member of the steering comittee, who makes large picture decisions for the organization and the budget. Chair positions last for the year, but there will be a 3 month review (March 2010), where it is a possibility that chair position and general tasks might be rotated or altered or deleted.

Congratulations to our 2010 Chairpersons/Steering Committee!

1. Internal Operations, chairman Jason Harm
2. Project Operations, chairwoman Alison Woolf
3. Development & Education, chairman Matt Jasmin
4. Marketing, chairwoman Katie Crepeau
   
5. Outreach, chairwoman Sarah Appleman
6. Lifeboat, chairwoman (and sole member) Frances Reid

Now, since the heads of these committee also make up the majority of our membership, each committee head has a partner otherwise known as their "sherpa."

This is what Sherpas usually look like (photo on the left):

Now, I must admit that we as sherpas don't quite look the same - our wood is bigger, heavier, more impressive - we have arranged our team leaders and sherpas to create a network of leadership and team work which should improve our activities. This network is a mixture of formal organizational structure and our hodgey podgey mish mash shmooshy whooshy that separates us from the rest.

Volunteer positions for committees will be opening up soon! All sherpa positions have been filled.

Check back for further descriptions of committee purposes and goals.




Many thanks to Ronak Dave for mentoring us through this organization process.

happy holidays. merry winter. be well in the new year.

design: window plants

We've had so much interest in our screen of plants and we've really enjoyed talking about the methods to create this beautiful, useful, delicious art, well at least the first fifty times it was fun to discuss. My point is, a huge amount of interest has been generated, and we are so humbled to have had so many people walk away from our park, saying, "I'm inspired..." "I'm gonna make one of those" "How Clever!"

One author, Jaymi, on TreeHugger has this to say link-to-awesome-article.

One of our members had the idea for a plant wall, but we figured out the specifics using the instructions created by windowfarms.org.

voice: tagging the tent

Many of you at West Coast Green were able to activate this year's theme, "You Are Brilliant," by sharing your dream design idea at our Park(ing) Day Park.

As promised, we have made these ideas available for all to see! Sharing your ideas is the first step to making them a reality.

LIVING WALLS - POLYCULTURE VEGETABLE GARDENS ALONG MARKET ST. - BART AFTER MIDNIGHT - MORE BIKES, LESS CARS - MORE BENCHES - MORE REDWOOD TREES - EDIBLE PLANTS EVERYWHERE - LESS CONCRETE - MORE BIKE FRIENDLY STREETS - MORE GREEN SPACES - WINDOW GARDENS - GREEN BUILDING EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS

behind the scenes

Photos op's from a meeting.

Pacific Coummunity Services

A phone call to Pacific Community Services (PCSI) proved right on target, when Executive Director Tom LaFleur conveyed to me the story of their office building being ravished by flames several months ago. PCSI is a wonderful non-profit housing counselor organization providing private consultation on a variety of topics at no charge to residents of Contra Costa County, Solano Couty and San Joaquin County.
They have set up shop literally right down the street, patiently waiting for the rebuild of their home.

Stephanie's initial consultation and last week's site visit were insightful, where she met the architect Mike Garavaglia and job captain Chris Lutjen with Garavaglia Architects, the Structural Engineer Al Saadeh of AWS, Alturo - MEP and other potential construction crew members.

Thursday morning, Stephanie, Katie and Matt made our first schematic presentation to Tom. The team discussed concept, layout, adjacencies, materiality, aesthetic taste and most important, budget. We are excited to be working with Tom in helping him re-envision his office and rebuild their team's home, which serves 1500 clients a year! We applaud Tom for providing individuals with such a great service. It's great to see organizations give back to communities and those in need. We wish PCSI the best of luck through their new transition and continued success and look forward to working with Tom through this process! Thank you Tom for the opportunity!

Park(ing) Day Complete!

Waking up with the sun is how fdC started its Park(ing) Day. Almost the entire team woke up with me –Katie, J, Stephanie, and Alison were a part of a set-up. Only three designers could have packed our City Car Share Scion like we did with room left to sit. There wasn’t far to drive since we had been able to store our entire park at an upholstery shop, Richard Andronaco, Inc. Richard was really gracious to give us a part of his storage space and he even helped us move some of the heavier buckets of sand! Thanks Richard!

The park was a huge success and we were able to feed the meter the entire day! We really enjoyed ourselves and loved our own foresight to have shade on a day which felt like you could cook eggs on the sidewalk. Thank you to all the Park Monitors who turned up to make our park a HUGE success Jenny, Stephanie, Katie, Jason, and Alison.

Our design intent was to have a park built from reused materials: cardboard tubes; umbrellas; tent poles; sand; buckets; FLOR sample tile; water bottles

Blogs where the fdC park was featured:

Inhabitat

Car-Free Talk

Streetsblog

Come Visit Us again At West Coast Green 2009 Oct 1-3! Free tradeshow passes when you volunteer to be a Park Monitor with fdC.

park(ing) day 2009 update

PARK IS LOCATED!
Come visit the Free Design Clinic on Valencia street at 20th & Valencia.

Come hang out with your friends! We're going to be hosting an ongoing art installation all day - "Voice." Stop and by to contribute yours and learn a little about what Free Design Clinic offers to clients and volunteers.

project 2: Park(ing) Day: mock-up

This past Sunday we met at Duboce Park to test constructability of an umbrella screen/canopy for our park. We had some ideas of how to put it together but doing a mock-up helped us test them out and find a system that we can use.

First we worked on securing the open umbrellas together with wire and washers, and then using sewing pins as a replacement for safety pins, which we determined will work the best. After being secured together, we could hold up the 'canopy' using the handles of the umbrellas but still needed a frame to create the main structure. We tried inverting the umbrellas and the interior space created with just the fabric of the umbrellas worked out much better!


Sarah had tent poles that we put together and strung through the inner frame of the umbrellas, popped them up, and the poles worked on supporting umbrellas. By adding smaller tent frame poles, we were able to support the inner umbrellas and we have our umbrella canopy figured out!


It would be great to use the handles and frame of umbrellas on the 'exterior' of the screen - any ideas?

We need a few more colorful umbrellas and we will be ready to construct this portion of our park on September 18th. If you have any slightly damaged and able to repair umbrellas that you would like to donate, we would love to use them for Park(ing) Day and West Coast Green - please comment below! And stop by September 18th at Valencia St & 18th to see our the completed project!

outreach

The Free Design Clinic is pleased to announce its first partnership with West Coast Green 2009, the premiere conference on green design and innovation. The fdC is going to be sharing its mini park, showcasing reused materials and urban farming. We hope to see you there!

thanks to our generous hosts

We want to send a big thank you to HKS Architects and SNOB Wine Bar for opening up their spaces for our weekly meetings. We really appreciate having a big table and room for all of us to gather!

We're looking for a place the week of September 28th for an info meeting so if you have any ideas or want to open up your space to us, please leave a comment below!

project 2: Park(ing) Day

I'm not sure that any group has spent as much time as we have trying to determine the best location for our Park(ing) Day spot. We're an interesting case because we're essentially homeless - so where do we go? Amongst the architects? Downtown with the tourists? Mission with young folks like us?

We're hoping that our park can serve as a launch pad for our board to come together with a great design and show San Francisco what we're capable of. I don't want to reveal too much about the current design ideas but they incorporate - interesting ground covers, shade, graffiti art, design therapy and reused objects!

project 1: Glide Memorial

Things are moving forward with Glide. We're waiting on having them fill out our program questionaire. We hope to receive the finished ones from their managers some time next week!

project 1: Glide Memorial

Our first client meeting with the Glide staff went well. We met with the facility director and the health services director, key players in outlining the program we will need to address. We got answers to some essential programming questions and fielded our new style of personal questioning, designed by Ronak.

Terry, the facility director, was able to show us the original architectural drawings from the 1930’s construction of Glide Memorial Church. The blueprints were printed on canvas and although the sheets seemed fit to last for another hundred years the white lines were faded and hard to read in some areas. It was a wonderful experience getting to handle these old blueprints and they shed light on some important structural considerations for the design.

Since all of us work during the day, we brought some incentives for the Glide staff and ourselves in the form of delicious coffee cheesecake from Joanne! She was modest about her cooking skills, but the cheesecake was yummy.

Thanks to Ray Viotti at PPV & Associates for lending us his laser measurer.