Category: community

architecture · community · creativity · disease

Adding art to Belltown, Seattle

Beth Kelley

This is an ongoing project in Seattle of sprucing up vacant office or retail space with art. It’s a plus for the artists, the building managers since it brings attention to their space, and the passersby who are charging to and from work or tourists who stop and linger a little bit longer to view. Always love seeing updates on new projects by this group.

storefrontsseattle's avatarStorefronts

Storefronts Seattle is proud to announce the first two of three projects in the Belltown neighborhood!

Ingrid Lahti
One Pacific Tower, 2006 First Avenue, Belltown
Through June 2013

IMG_3742

Ingrid Lahti traditionally works in neon, but has branched out into illuminated lighting gels in her new installation at First and Virginia.  Inspired by the saturated color in Matisse paintings and Chinese artwork, Ingrid views the illuminated window pieces as a study on the emotional effects of color and light, fitting seamlessly into the vibrant neighborhood in Belltown.  

These installations glow brightly at night, adding to the street-level nightlife of Belltown and kicking off a summer in Seattle with a burst of color.

Chris Papa
2505 Second Avenue
Through June 2013

IMG_0059

Chris Papa, a local printmaker and sculptor, has installed 5 sculptures at Second and Wall, featuring playful sewn wood sculptures conflating art, craft, and architecture.   Interested in the…

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community · creativity · environment

Creating Open & Collaborative Cultures through Play

Beth Kelley

A really great look at playfulness in a corporate environment.

annemariesteen's avatarAnnemarie Steen

worrySince 2004 IBM conducts every two years a Global CEO Survey among global business and public sector leaders to research what keeps them busy (at night in bed). The survey consists of in-person interviews with (in 2012) over 1700 CEO’s worldwide.

More than half of all CEO’s see Human Capital, Customer Relationships and Innovation as key sources of sustained economic value (report 2012).

The findings (2010 & 2012) show a fast growing need for some critical capabilities of employees, in order to deal with the complexity of operating in an increasingly volatile and uncertain world. These include; creativity and creative leadership, collaborativeness, connectedness, communication and flexibility.

To foster these capabilities “CEO’s are creating more Open & Collaborative cultures – encouraging employees to connect, learn from each other and thrive in a world of rapid change. The emphasis on Openness is even higher among Outperforming organizations(*) – and they have the changemanagement-capabilities to make it…

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behavior · community · happiness · Social

Seattle City Hall is at least thinking about happiness, even if haphazardly

Beth Kelley
Seattle: Christmas Cookie Edition
What about Seattle as a cookie? Cookies make people happy.

I read this article in Seattle’s The Stranger: Can City Government Make Us Happy?

The authror of the article was pretty snarky about the whole process, and I admit it’s not the best thought-out initiative, but my first thought was, “at least they’re interested and trying.”

I actually thought the task force (let’s call it that since the town hall meeting was fairly limited in public representation) had some pretty interesting insights:

“The last four days, we were out on the streets asking, ‘What makes people happy?'” explained Laura Musikanski of Seattle’s Happiness Initiative, which was tasked with surveying Seattle’s happiness levels in 2011 (spoiler: Poor people are less happy). Behind the panelists sat a wall of sticky notes with the answers to that question, including sex, fish, power, free parking, corn, and sun.
“A lot of people said water—they love the rain,” added Mario Chamorro of Make It Happy. “People in Seattle are waterproof!”

I don’t know if people meant rain when they said water – Seattle is also surrounded on multiple sides by lake or sound – but maybe they did mean rain. Who knows, we might just be that crazy. But rather than critique their methodology, I would like to applaud the city of Seattle, a city that is shrouded in damp, dark, and gray for most of the year, for at least starting to tackle this question.

I’m curious if anything will come of this, or if they’ve burned all their happy budget on the Make It Happy team from New York. If this is in fact ongoing, I might suggest having your next Happy Team meeting in the sun. It was one of the things on your list that makes people happy, after all. And maybe offer some fish and corn. 🙂

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architecture · community · creativity · culture

In Gritty Sao Paulo, Artists Take To The Streets : NPR

Beth Kelley

A great example of actively adding art in urban settings in order to create enrichment for its inhabitants:

Urban landscapes have always inspired art, and Brazil is no exception. A new crop of artists like Matos not only is taking inspiration from Sao Paulo‘s streets but also is trying to give something back.

Matos covers trees and street poles with woolen sleeves and small, colorful pompoms. Her works look like whimsical webs of rainbow yarn; the effect is surprising and oddly comforting.

“I want people to have something familiar in the city. Here in Brazil we teach knitting from mother to daughter,” Matos says. “When they see my art, they suddenly feel comfortable walking these cold streets. And you can feel better.”

The newest and the biggest urban art project here is called , and it has an impressive list of corporate sponsors. The idea is to connect graffiti artists with individuals or business owners who have a wall they want covered with original art.

Artist Guilherme Matsumoto says he saw the website and signed up to say he was available to paint a space. Walter Orsati, owner of the Purple House Hostel, responded.

It was that easy, they say.

via In Gritty Sao Paulo, Artists Take To The Streets : NPR.

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behavior · community · creativity · happiness · play · youtube

Take a Seat – Make a Friend? – YouTube

Beth Kelley

SoulPancake hits the streets to see what happens when two strangers sit in a ball pit… and talk about lifes big questions.

via Take a Seat – Make a Friend? – YouTube.

brain · children · community · education · play · school

The New Exploratorium Opens in San Francisco – NYTimes.com

Beth Kelley
Exploratorium
Exploratorium (Photo credit: rvr)

Yippee! I loved the old Exploratorium, and it sounds like I’ll love the new one!

The new home, with all of those characteristics (and a 200-seat cabaret), is opening on Wednesday, and while it doesn’t deserve unalloyed acclaim, the achievement is remarkable. Under its executive director, Dennis Bartels, the Exploratorium has preserved and expanded what it was when the physicist Frank Oppenheimer created it. It remains the most important science museum to have opened since the mid-20th century because of the nature of its exhibits, its wide-ranging influence and its sophisticated teacher training program.

Yet the new Exploratorium remains eccentrically original. Technology is scarce. There are few video screens. There are fewer computers. There are circuits but no evident circuit boards. Woodworking and metalworking take place on the museum floor. There are more than 600 exhibits, but the emphasis remains on the laws of physics and motion, elementary principles of perception, and elegantly designed machines that conceal nothing.

You can still play with pendulums that were designed for the museum’s original opening. You can spin disks atop a whirling wheel; you can try to get a bicycle’s pedals to move using a sequence of buttons; you can gaze at the physicality of inverted reflections created by a finely polished parabolic mirror; you can position toy robots to create spinning animations.

more via The New Exploratorium Opens in San Francisco – NYTimes.com.

via The New Exploratorium Opens in San Francisco – NYTimes.com.

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community · environment · Social

In Quebec City, the Rivers Return to the People

Beth Kelley

Another great example of creating enriching public spaces out of natural environments and features already in place.

Unknown's avatar

Another great example of creating enriching public spaces out of natural environments and features already in place.

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behavior · community · creativity · environment · play

When is Whimsy Not Wanted? Or Harmful?

Beth Kelley2 Comments

When does public art and playfulness interfere with the health and well being of other living things? That can be up for debate… more often than we think.

The war between whimsy and responsibility is an ancient one, and it is raging in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Someone, and you’d be hard pressed to find who,  has put a tiny door on a tree in the park. Officials took it away, saying it was hurting the tree. But people freaked out, so they are putting it back.

via A big battle over a tiny door in a San Francisco tree | Grist (caution, original article has swearing).

While the Grist article favors the tree and park officials, I honestly feel like the door did no more damage than a bird feeder attached to a tree, probably less.

I also like seed bombs, however the seeds contained in those are sometimes invasive, so you do have to be aware.

What are your feelings about adding on to or embellishing living things in order to create public art and whimsy? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

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community · creativity · environment · play · Social · technology

Music for the Masses

Beth Kelley

Happy Friday everyone. Be sure to go out and play today. 🙂

Unknown's avatar

Happy Friday everyone. Be sure to go out and play today. 🙂

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architecture · community · environment · Nature
Beth Kelley

It makes sense since several studies have found nature in general to be calming and correlates with an increase in concentration.

Jared Green's avatarTHE DIRT

benefits
What many landscape architects and designers know intuitively is increasingly becoming proven scientifically. In fact, more and more exciting research appears showing the cognitive and mental health benefits of being out in nature — in places like parks, or even just meandering down leafy streets. According to The New York Times, a new study from Scotland shows that “brain fatigue” can be eased by simply walking a half-mile through a park.

In The New York Times’ Well blog, Gretchen Reynolds writes that “scientists have known for some time that the human brain’s ability to stay calm and focused is limited and can be overwhelmed by the constant noise and hectic, jangling demands of city living, sometimes resulting in a condition informally known as brain fatigue.”

Green spaces help alleviate brain fatigue because they are “calming” and require “less of our so-called directed mental attention than busy, urban streets…

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