Spring, she is risen...

I am both sad and ecstatic at the prospect of spring...

The snow is officially gone and we have crawled out of our winter dens. I've been biking (weather permitting) to and from work as often as I can, and it feels great to be in motion again. I've packed on some winter pounds and with gas prices as high as ever, I can't think of a reason not to commute on two wheels.

But alas, as I put petal to the pavement I can't help but notice a grime. A filth. A yuck.

In addition to avoiding the 9,487,341,245 potholes from our city's use of cheap, non-Snowbelt grade pavement, I've found myself bouncing over bottles, swerving past cigarette packs, riding around wrappers, a flailing over fast food bags.

The snow plows, while adept at pushing snow off of our roads, also transport and and all rubbish to the curbside. Seeing as we've (yet) to install any bike lanes on any of our streets, this has left for some utterly disgusting rides.

Wanna see what I'm talking about?

You get this:

From this:

Welcome to beautiful Columbus.

Anywhoo...

In honor of Earth Day weekend --!April 25th-27th!-- my firm is sponsoring a clean-up at a Frisbee golf course near Grigg's Reservoir (it doesn't get anymore hippie than that), as well as an all-office/landscape scrubbing around the perimeter of our building (we happen to be situated at the north end of a quarry and the wind blows all the trash our direction, so we're constantly flooded with garbage).

I'm thinking I might need to extend that clean-up to my ride home. I encourage anyone and everyone who reads this little hole-in-the-wall to do the same.

Grab a biodegradable bag and a pair of gloves and hit your street/school/church/work/park/library/bar. Help get some of this disgusting grime off our roads.

The forsythia is about to bloom, so why not make a better backdrop for her pictures.

Columbus Forsythia picture from Flickr user jfsl3.

Proud to be a Mauist...

Quite some time ago in a very optimistic land called the late 90's, Bruce Mau began his Incomplete Manifesto for Growth. It's a short list of Mau's beliefs, thoughts, motivations and strategies.

While Mau continues to shape and influence the design community at-large, it's easy to see that the list transcends the design niche (Deena, you could easily apply some of these at one of your shirt-and-tie throwdowns). Optimistic landscapes change, but Mau's smile never stops (google it...you'll see).

So for those of you working Monday through Friday sans thick black-framed glasses, I encourage you to read all 43 points, develop your own, and keep checking back for more.

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.

Read the last 37 manifesto points HERE.

[Picture: Andrew Dickson's wonderful Guardian Blog]

[Additionally, check out Change Design: Conversations About Architecture as the Ultimate Business Tool. The book is a collaboration by NBBJ and Bruce Mau Design.]

Ample samples...one man's treasure...

With the amount of samples flowing in and out of our office, we're often inundated with (almost) more than we can handle. Fortunately for the firm, we found a wonderful organization in which to donate our carpet, tile, steel, plastics and wood samples, in which they're reborn as student and teacher work's of art.

The Waste Not Center is a program of Keep Franklin County Beautiful (KFCB, receiving donations from businesses and local donors with extra goodies (some of you might remember Re:Art). The program benefits local area teachers, artists, and others for various types of projects, ranging from schools to galleries.

Why?

The center estimates that members receive about $4,000 of materials PER WEEK compared to what these items and supplies would cost if they were purchased at a traditional store. It never hurts to help those helping our kids.

So for about two years now, NBBJ has donated all of our excess (used, but not abused) pens, pencils, card stock, binders and material samples.

So, what do you do if you don't have a program like this available in your area?

Ample Sample!

You know that design firms receive some pretty amazing samples that would be otherwise discarded (hopefully into your company's comprehensive waste recycling programs!). A little while back, Ample Sample sponsored an "upcycling" design contest in collaboration with Tricycle, Inc. Needless to say that some of the finalist's entries were downright amazing!

Check them out on the finalist page (Flash saturated website, so no direct linkage).

Although the contest is over, it doesn't hurt to pre-plan for next year's event!