This time of year, when it gets dark and cold, we make our spaces brighter and cheerier with lights and greenery and sweet, rich food. Or, in this case, some nicely knitted decorations to share and brighten up a public space:
Three-year-old Kirsten Mitchell can barely contain her excitement as Renee Walstad helps her "yarn bomb" a statue outside of the Imagine Children's Museum in Everett on Tuesday afternoon. Walstad handed out several knit ornaments and other decorations for children to place around the intersection. By Julie Muhlstein, Herald Columnist
A pompom here, a knitted ornament there, Everett has been hit by a yarn bomber.
“I just wanted to spread some Christmas cheer,” Renee Walstad said.
Walstad is part of a warm-and-fuzzy movement being embraced by creative types all over the world.
Her efforts are modest compared with the ways some yarn artists decorate public places. For some yarn bombers, what began as a covert operation has blossomed into commissioned public art projects.
Since early this month, Walstad, 28, has been putting knitted and crocheted decorations on Everett’s downtown sculptures. She calls it a “Yarnvent calendar.”
“You know, like Advent,” the Lake Stevens woman said. “Every day before Christmas, I put up an ornament.”
If you stopped for coffee on Everett’s Colby Avenue on Wednesday, you may have noticed Walstad’s cheery calling cards. Near the Starbucks shop, the statue of three little girls holding hands — Georgia Gerber’s “Along Colby” — finds the girls dressed for the season in knitted red and green anklets. One of the bronze figures held a knitted Christmas ornament.
I can see this roof garden from my office window.
Even in a city like Seattle where trees and moss are threatening to take over every unclaimed even-slightly-damp area, it is nice to see some greenery mixed in to the rooftops. I’m sorry to see they’ve let the grass go brown, but it is winter so that could be part of it. I notice so many other rooftops surrounding it have not taken advantage of their nice flat roofs, either for gardens or just "green roofs" or even solar panels. There is just so much wasted real estate up there it makes me sad.
Hooray rooftop gardeners, where ever you plant yourself!
Understanding environmental impacts like vibration can have a positive affect on patient recovery. Image via Wikipedia
I happened upon this tweet today:
@AIASeattle Did you know floor vibrations can affect patient outcomes?
Um, why no, no I didn’t. So I dug around a little bit and affirmed that, in fact, structural vibrations can in fact have an impact on patient recovery:
“Noticeable vibration leads many to fear structural collapse, although such fear is unwarranted in most cases because of the small displacements and stresses produced. Noticeable vibration is nevertheless undesirable in many occupancies because of its adverse psychological effect…It has been observed that continuous vertical floor oscillation becomes distinctly perceptible to people when peak acceleration reaches approximately 0.5 per cent g, where g is the acceleration due to gravity. People in residential, office and school occupancies do not like to feel distinct continuous vibration…
Continuous vibrations, defined here as vibrations lasting more than about 10 cycles, can arise from the periodic forces of machinery, from certain human activities such as dancing, or from vehicle traffic nearby. They can be considerably amplified when the periodic forces causing vibration are synchronized with a natural frequency of the structure – a phenomenon called resonance.”
Not only is shaking a problem, but there is also more and more research coming out that discusses the effects of the overall environment on a care-givers’ professional performance as well as a patient’s healing process:
“In a review of more than 600 articles, researchers found that there was a link between the physical environment (i.e., single-bed or multiple-bed patient rooms) and patient (e.g., fewer adverse events and better health care quality) and staff outcomes (e.g., reduced stress and fatigue and increased effectiveness in delivering care).
“There have been five other significant reviews of the literature relating to the physical environment and patient outcomes. Nelson and colleagues10 identified the need to reduce noise pollution and enhance factors that can shorten a patient’s length of stay (e.g., natural lighting, care in new/remodeled units, and access to music and views of nature); according to their study, patients can benefit from the skillful utilization of music and artwork. Ulrich and colleagues7 found research that demonstrated that the design of a hospital can significantly improve patient safety by decreasing health care associated infections and medical errors. They also found that facility design can have a direct impact on patient and staff satisfaction, a patient’s stress experience, and organization performance metrics. Three other reviews found that hospital design, particularly when single-bed rooms are employed, can enhance patient safety and create environments that are healthier for patients, families, and staff by preventing injury from falls, infections, and medical errors; minimizing environmental stressors associated with noise and inefficient room and unit layout; and using nature, color, light, and sound to control potential stressors.11–13
The Seattle branch of the AIA (that’s the American Institute of Architects) has hosting a talk specifically about how to design better, less drum-like floors, but is a nice indicator of how serious architects, designers, and other groups are taking this need to design and create better care facilities:
“Vibration criteria for hospital floors have become more stringent in the 2010 Edition of the Guidelines for the Design and Construction of Health Care Facilities (the FGI Guidelines). These new vibration requirements will increase structural construction costs in Healthcare construction. Understanding vibrations sources, criteria and benefits of different structural and non-structural approaches will provide healthcare designers with effective strategies to mitigate vibration issues and minimize cost impacts of the new requirements.”
For those who live in Seattle, there is a class on December 14th, 2011.
I’ve found some great examples of designing better medical facilities, but I’d love to hear about other projects you’ve seen, experienced, or even read about. Leave a comment with your thoughts.
I used to be a technology journalist, and got to read a lot about the different ideas for the supposed “smart grid” that was supposedly going to reduce waste, alert emergency workers faster, and make our lives better. A few years later, it looks like it really might be happening!
With a little help from what’s called the Internet of Things, engineers are transforming cities from passive conduits for water into dynamic systems that store and manage it like the tissues of desert animals. By using the Internet to connect real-world sensors and control mechanisms to cloud-based control systems that can pull in streams from any other data source, including weather reports, these efforts enable conservation and money-saving measures that would have been impossible without this virtual nervous system.
It may sound like a trivial problem, but the EPA estimates that the U.S. has $13 billion invested in wastewater infrastructure alone. More importantly, the majority of America’s largest cities–more than 700 in all–dump millions of gallons of raw sewage into our waterways every time it rains, because their sewer and stormwater systems were designed a century ago.
You’ve seen those glass containers sitting on people’s desks that are supposed to be self-sustaining mini ecosystems. What if you could create one in your own apartment, out of your own apartment?
The Microbial Home Probe project consists of a domestic ecosystem that challenges conventional design solutions to energy, cleaning, food preservation, lighting and human waste.
I found another great article from Grist magazine about how something as simple as a bucket of paint, or several different colored, buckets of paint, can have a huge positive impact on a neighborhood:
Sunnyside Piazza, it is called, which may seem a bit much for a splash of color on asphalt, but in person, it seemed fitting. This whimsical design, interrupting the functional but monotonous gray of Portland’s street grid, felt like a somewhere. It seemed like a place deserving a name. It even felt like a “piazza.”
That was in 2002. I later learned that the Sunnyside Piazza was the second painted public square in Portland, facilitated by the nonprofit City Repair Project. Now, dozens of painted plazas, dubbed Intersection Repairs, pepper the map not just of Portland but also of Los Angeles, New York, St. Paul, and Seattle.
It all started in the mid-1990s with Share-It-Square, in Portland’s Sellwood neighborhood, where architect and City Repair co-founder Mark Lakeman lives. After visiting villages in Central America where residents gather around common spaces, Lakeman decided to bring similar spaces to Portland. “Putting the public space back where it’s supposed to be may not sound like a huge change,” Lakeman says, “but it has a profound effect on the social culture … We know that Americans are more lonely and isolated than ever before, but we don’t realize that the absence of cohesion in American communities is totally related to the absence of places where people can actually build that.”
The article goes on to discuss how creating a group mural creates a sense of community:
“It’s not about the paint,” says professor Jan Semenza, a professor of public health at Portland State University who lives near the Sunnyside Piazza and has researched intersection repairs. “It’s about neighbors creating something bigger than themselves.” As an everyday intersection becomes someplace special, residents begin to experience the value of community. Neighbors paint themselves out of a corner — of the intersection, of their individual homes — and into the middle of the street. By turning an intersection from a dividing line between neighbors into a gathering place, residents begin to solve the problems that plague neighborhoods and cities. Where isolation existed, they find community. Where cars dominated, they create a people place. With a little paint, neighbors are solving big problems.
I have seeen some great community spaces also created out of roundabouts, water fountains at outdoor shopping centers, and often at landmarks like stairs or trees. Sometimes, if a natural landmark or meeting space isn’t in place, all it takes is some paint, chalk, or even ribbon to make a place significant and identify it as a community gathering space.
Humans are greatly effected by the greenery in their environments, but remember how a few weeks back I was lamenting that not much robust analysis or study had been done on this kind of positive impact? Well, voila!
ScienceDaily (2011-11-17) — Greening of vacant urban land may affect the health and safety of nearby residents. In a decade-long comparison of vacant lots and improved vacant lots, greening was linked to significant reductions in gun assaults across most of Philadelphia and significant reductions in vandalism in one section of the city. Vacant lot greening was also associated with residents in certain sections of the city reporting significantly less stress and more exercise.
C. C. Branas, R. A. Cheney, J. M. MacDonald, V. W. Tam, T. D. Jackson, T. R. Ten Have. A Difference-in-Differences Analysis of Health, Safety, and Greening Vacant Urban Space. American Journal of Epidemiology, 2011; DOI: 10.1093/aje/kwr273
I saw this article about a house made out of plastic bottles…
With a serious housing shortage but no shortage of plastic bottles littering the streets, the Development Association for Renewable Energies (DARE) – an NGO based in Nigeria – decided to build this incredible two-bedroom bungalow entirely out of plastic bottles! Although many in Kaduna were dubious when the project began construction in June this year, the nearly-complete home is bullet and fireproof, earthquake resistant, and maintains a comfortable interior temperature of 64 degrees fahrenheit year round!
This led to further searches, and found some other cool houses made out of reused materials:
Architects and homeowners are gradually discovering the benefits of shipping container homes. It turns out that the strong, cheap freight boxes make pretty useful building blocks. They can be loaded with creature comforts and stacked to create modular, efficient spaces for a fraction of the cost, labor and resources of more conventional materials. Shipping containers can be easily insulated and climate controlled, and they are being deployed as disaster relief shelters and modest vacation homes. In stacking configurations they are appearing as student housing and even luxury condos.
Plus for all you survivalists out there, they would be a great start to a less conspicuous (if left au naturale on the outside), possibly fit with a grounding net against EMPs, and generally fire proof.
Salvaged wine corks, which are easy to come by, provide an inexpensive form of cork flooring.This Boeing 727 carried in the past passengers for South Africa Air and Avianca Airlines (Columbia). Today it is suspended on a 50 foot pedestal on the edge of the National Park, in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica.
Lots more here and here. What other houses made out of recycled houses have you seen?
One question I have, however, is how well some of these houses actually blend into the environments they’re built. Are they actually beneficial to the Earth because they keep this stuff out of the landfill? Does it make the families who live in these places’ lives better? Thoughts?
Making cities safe for residents of all ages is a major step to creating a more lively, sustainable community. Image via Wikipedia
Great article in the Vancouver Sun about the city working to make urban living more conducive to older folks:
City planners, engineers, seniors and health researchers came together to discuss things such as pedestrian crosswalks, which often don’t allow enough time for a safe crossing, given that at many lights the halting hand starts to flash after just seven seconds.
“It takes all hands on deck,” said Heather McKay, director of the Centre for Hip Health and Mobility, referring to the necessity of collaboration when making infrastructure changes to the so-called “built environment.” That’s why the Vancouver Coastal Health centre helped organize the second annual research and community partnership symposium, called “If we build it, will they walk?”
Using a $1.5-million grant from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, McKay and her colleagues are examining factors that help make cities good places to grow older. Their goal is to identify the things that can prolong active and independent living, which will also help improve physical and emotional health, plus reduce dependency on the health care system.
Living in an urban environment makes a lot of sense for retired folks – easy access to public transportation, food, activities – as long as those resources are made accessible to their needs.
What other cities are making their spaces and infrastructure better for residents of all ages?
Well, we’ve passed the 7 billion mark with humans on the planet So what to do about it? Make room!
The problem is there just isn’t enough cheap energy or water or land for 9 billion or 10 billion people to live the same way. So what if Americans set a different example? Consume less by living smaller? The Japanese do it. Can small be beautiful in the U.S.? Some people think so.
The article goes on to explain lots of different examples, such as micro studios:
In cities, modules can be stacked to make a new generation of efficient buildings. At ZETA headquarters, architect Taeko Takagi rolls out a blueprints with one of ZETA’s prototypes.
“It is a micro studio,” she says. “The units are under 300 square feet.”
That’s truly micro: smaller than most suburban living rooms. Porat says there’s a group that might find this alluring, though: “What I call the technocrati generation that uses the city as its living room and kitchen and goes to practically a dorm room to crash at the end of the day.”
“The psychology of convincing someone is to provide very simple things, like enough storage,” Takagi says. “I like to provide a large sink, so that the person who’s using it doesn’t feel like they’re lacking or living smaller and everything is miniaturized.”
Mental Flowers 