Greening the Greek Community at UC - A Baby Project

I'm blogging an e-mail or facebook message I'm about to send out in an effort to just spread the word a little further about one of my little projects. Since I'm too lazy to re write it for a different audience, I suppose you'll just have to read through it as if you are part of the specific audience I was going for. Don't get me wrong, I want you to read it, the information inside the e-mail is worth sharing with a community beyond the Greek Community, but to change it all up just seems to not fit into my schedule.

Why am I posting it anyone? I supposed I could use some form of critique if you are into critiquing things.

I hope this long assed message will give you a break from your studying, paper writing, or daaping.

I’ve been thinking about how to best execute some type of campaign that makes the Greek Community a little bit greener overall. Today I had an endless storm of ideas (until my lunch break ended) that I’d like to share with you on how we might actually deliver something to UC’s Greek Community and make an impact within that community, and beyond.

Nothing will happen before the end of this quarter, so keep working on your projects and papers and studying for your final crits and exams.  I just want to get this idea out before it gets stale or I lose steam.

My idea is to create a small youtube series of how-to videos. Each video’s format will go something like this:

1)      Digital Graphic of “GO GREEK. GO GREEN.” will play.

2)      Every how-to will open with a greeting from the “host”, wearing a classic Greek Letter shirt. There will be a different host for every how-to.  Each how-to will be filmed in the respective house of the host to show that the practices we are suggesting can be widely implemented. Host will briefly introduce themselves and go on to describe the subject of this how to.

3)      While they continue to narrate the practice (ex, recycling, shopping local, eating less meat) the shot changes to video of them actually participating in those practices.

4)      At the bottom of the screen, facts associated with a practice will be displayed.

-EX. While Mara is shopping at a local vintage clothing store, these facts display at the bottom of the screen while she narrates the practice:  

a.       Shopping locally reduces your gas consumption and pollution. Also, local stores help to sustain vibrant, walkable communities, reducing sprawl and the need for automobiles.  

b.      Buying Vintage means being green, helping the environment by recycling garments

5)      The host then transitions into their “Reading Rainbow” spiel. By saying something along the lines of “But don’t take my word for it” and then encouraging viewers to engage in this activity and then promote this activity with twitter and other forms of social media.

6)      Each video ends with all of the hosts of each of the videos signing off together. Each person in this group is wearing their greek letters and looks happy. This shot would be filmed once and tagged to the end of every video.

So, What are the subjects for these videos?

1)      Consumerism

a.       Shop local and for socially and environmentally sustainable products

b.      Eat fresh, local, organic food

c.       Patronize local bars, theatres, sports events, concerts, etc.

2)      Eating

a.       Eat fresh, local, organic food

b.      Eat less meat

c.       Cook with friends and share the food

d.      Compost food waste

e.      Have cooks shop at Findlay Market rather than Sams or Kroger

3)      Generating Waste

a.       What can and cannot be recycled

b.      How do you recycle (Cincinnati specific)

c.       Reduce consumption

                                                               i.      Refillable water bottles

                                                             ii.      Reusable shopping bags

4)      Clothes

a.       Buy used clothes

b.      Do laundry using cold settings

c.       Air dry your laundry

d.      Donate clothes after use

e.      Know where and how your clothes are manufactured

f.        Turn down your thermostat and wear more clothes in the winter

5)      Transportation

a.       Ride your bike or walk (include “Best Bike Accessories” )

b.      Carpool to minimize trips

c.       Use public transportation

The next step after this video project would be to incentivize these practices by adding an award to the Greek Awards at the end of Greek Week. There would be a rubric that houses could fill out, like they already do for Greek Awards.

FLOF (Fresh, Local, Organic Food) is a student organization on campus that already has its eyes set on the Greek community on how to implement FLOF on an industrial scale. Their end goal is to have all of UC’s food come from fresh, local, organic sources. They want to start within the Greek Community as a tasting ground (wocka wocka wocka) for how to change food systems. FLOF is preparing a presentation and survey that they will circle around the greek community, actually making the presentations before chapter meetings or as part of an house education presentations.

Let me know what you think of any of this! Any other video groupings that you can think of would be welcome as well!

Happy, Healthy, and Living the Dream

I wake up at 6AM, make breakfast from some nearby farmer's produce [we designed an built his chicken coop together, now he wants to do a garden shed], and get dressed for work. [I over dress for my studio/shop, but it's only because I want to believe that I am a neat and tidy worker.] Always prepared, I pack some extra clothes, just in case. I ride my bike to work at 7:30.

 

[I can't decide if my work is downtown or in the old industrial part, near downtown, but never-the-less, the further from the front door you are in the building, the messier it is. Walk in, reception/lounge, meeting space, studio, shop, outdoor shop, all in a line. You can see parts of each space from the front door. There are 10 other people there and we are all friends. I'm pretty sure everyone works here, but not everyone is employed. No heirarchy, tons of worker bees.]

 

Times are better than they were in 2008... but, as the people who work where I do all predicted, the economy was forever changed. I have three ongoing projects which required me to inlist the help of 4 other people. No one is getting rich, but we love what we are doing and that keeps us comfortable.

 

The first project is the big project. A few local community members pooled their cash to buy the abandoned drive in movie theater. [Screen, soaring, mostly intact, graffitied by some "gangster" farm boy. Lot, gravely asphault, pocked with rusting poles that radios used to rest on, someone dumped a bunch of tires next to an overflowing dumpster. Cinder block projection booth/bathroom/concession shelter is falling apart. The roof caved in, mortar has eroded, allowing walls to pile upon themselves. When I was in Detroit one time, I said "The best type of building has a tree growing out of it." I'm not quite sure how the saplings got here, but this arboretum upon ruins makes me recognize the insensitivity and immatureness of that statement.] My group has been hired to masterplan the site. The community members want to make it an affordable, year-round attraction. [... a year round drive in? How does that work?] We're proposing a restaurant in the on top the rubble called "The Projection Booth." The waiters and waitresses will race to wrap the film, then patrons will be able to watch the double feature while they have dinner. During the summer, drive-in operates how most do. [Maybe we pressured the investors into this, so what? If we understand one thing, it is increasing quality of life for the community. How we do it? By convincing other people that they are able to affect change and then stoking their fire into action... and donations] We're excited to be part of the idea making process. Call us old fashioned, but today we are watercolor rendering print outs of the digital model. When you are working for scraps, you understand that you get to do what you want to do. [People like watercolors]

 

The second project has me off to the vocational school. I'm teaching two classes for the young men and women going into construction. [I could try to pressure them into thinking that they were designing things, but for reasons that design is still largely considered a plaything of the elite, my ultimate goal is that they understand that everyone can be creative. Seeing someone who says that they can't think outside of the box literally burst out of said box makes me so happy. I think they are pretty satisfied with themselves as well. So what it isn't practical? A parade float is a harmless way to test structural forms and building techniques. It looks a lot like the model from tectonics studio my 2nd year of undergrad got thrown into a kaleidiscope.] I really enjoy teaching. It's in my bones.

 

The third project is rogue. [It could be illegal. Laws aren't that enforced here.] We've been making art out of haybales. [Art is probably an inappropriate way to describe it... but it is the only way to describe it so we don't get in more trouble. I'd like to call them playgrounds, theaters, plazas and picnic shelters. So we don't get sued, we call them art installations.] They're on sidewalks, in parking lots, attached to buildings, engulfing unsightly or dangerous objects, abandoned cars and dilapidated signage. Hard to miss. Highly allergenic.

 

I work through lunch [that's how you stay skinny] without realizing it. Stomach growling [howling more like it] I call up my friends who are working the buy local campaign and ask them if they want to have linner [lunch+dinner] at a local deli. They oblige... barely eating around noon because they were so busy as well... solidarity in hunger and being addicted to our jobs. I still don't eat meat much... but the deli's chicken supply comes from my farmer friend, so I order the chicken melt. We play scrabble with half the letters missing while we wait. Everyone and their mother seems to have had the same lunch ignorance, because there is a steady stream of customers at 3:45. We know every other person in line. Makes it hard to eat.

 

At 5:00 I go back to work. [If I had a wife and kids, they would have either been there, in and out, all day, or showed up around this time to hang out. The studio is a comfortable, hangout-y type place] I keep working until 7, not really minding the time. 8:00 is a good time for dinner, at least that is my defense for not being able to depart from "work" in time for a more traditional, American, dinner time.

 

Back home, it's dinner, outside chores and general soaking up of the evening, reading. [That sounds a little too relaxed, I would undoubtedly do those things, but also fit in a committee meeting for something, replying and sending e-mails, and perhaps visiting friends at a watering hole or some other type of community function... there, that adds a proper amount of craze to my schedule.] I make sure I get no more than 6 hours of sleep. [dreams happen while you sleep, yes, but no matter how many dreams I have sleeping, nothing stops me from being a day dreamer]

 

I probably won't do the same thing tomorrow. It will be recognizable to the previous day, but definitely not the same. Who am I and what is my title? I have no idea. I am happy, healthy, and living the dream.

Just for my mom.

I bet you think I want to become a priest from that last post.

No...

The Sublimation of Thoughts

I think it is starting to come together. Glacial ideas, slowly moving towards one another so I can make sense of their mass, of how they are connected, of how they can move together. I’ve been using the word nebulous to describe what my thoughts about the future, my future, are. Nebulous seems a little flaky, unfocused, and boundless. I've used it because I've been afraid that other people might think that someone who has focus is close-minded, and unwilling to change and learn. I think I’ll start using glacial. Big ideas, slowly moving, very powerful and formative; you have a good idea where they came from, and you can guess where they might go, but to the naked eye, they’re heavy, resting, waiting, collecting. Glacial has boundaries, but will push those boundaries if they are in its way. Glacial has a grounding, a composite of solidity and fluidity.

I have a folder on my desktop called, “My Nebula.” In it, I store away ideas that are floating around in the dust cloud. Today I’ll rename it, “My Glacier”.

This weekend, I heard another glacier, all part of the same ice cap, I’m sure, start its slow migration: “I want a vocation, not an occupation.”

I’m excited.

Pages from a Journal Tatu (Three)

Americans working abroad can be criticized for not helping solve problems in their own country. A classic argument I've heard from those who do not support foreign aid is this, "We have veterans, wasting their lives away, homeless on benches, cracked out, drugged up, penniless. We have problems of our own to solve."

Those focusing domestically are probably not criticized nearly as much, but sure enough, they can be. "Why should I donate to this food pantry when children are starving from West Africa to India? How can you advocate for providing excessive comforts to _____ when AIDS, HIV, and Measles are ravaging Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia?"

What do I think about this? What what what.... what can people do. I just flew half way around the world but my heart is still in the fields of my home. What role does a person play in a global community? When you are part of the 1st World, rapidly becoming blind to the simplicity of life, how do you relate to those who have "less" than you?
 
Domestic -> Subtractive Role. Increase quality of life by subtracting unnecessary elements from society to reintroduce culture and community.

Foreign -> Additive Role. Increase quality of life by contributing technological advances that don't compromise culture, environment, and an established way of life.



And that's all I wrote.



This thought has really blossomed since returning from Africa. In my next blog post, I will extrapolate on where these thoughts have settled. I've had the time to run my thoughts past some trustworthy others and I think I am almost ready to describe my stance on domestic and foreign aid.

Pages from a Journal Mbili (Two)

11 JUN, 2011 8:58 SHED

Yesterday... wow. Yesterday was one of the most exhausting days I have experienced in the most positive of ways! The day began with meetings at the SHED compound with Daniel, one of the translators. Mike, Jeanie (who now goes by Jean because "Genies" are very evil here) and I had to discuss the signage survey. What's wonderful is that more than just business we had a beautiful conversation about his family, particularly his oldest daughter, and also about how he came to be so good at English. Where I get off assuming some sort of difference in the family dynamic and how proud a father could be of this children I don't know. It just struck me, being halfway around the world from my own parents, knowing that somewhere, they might be saying the same about me... you know... it makes you feel loved. Daniel made me miss my parents. Love those folks.

One part of the day that was really nerdy on my part was cataloging examples of Tanzanian construction techniques. I have really enjoyed documenting and diagramming the techniques. It falls in line with my thesis for coming on the trip, unlearning, relearning, figuring out a way to live off the land. I'm excited for future research knowing that it entertains me so much now.

The pique of the day was finally being able to go to the Roche Health Center. I have been looking forward to seeing this building for not only the past 10 weeks, but since the prospect of joining this brigade entered my head. I can only imagine the excitement that Michael Z and Tom Bible experienced, having so much to do with the construction and design of the clinic.

Finally, to be brief so I am not taking up so much time writing this morning, Nate, Natasha, Regina, Matt, and I all walked [tried to walk] to Lake Victoria yesterday. We didn't make it all the way, but we were far from disappointed. We met this incredible young man, name of Alex among many others. We were to refer to him as Alex, but if we came to his house we were supposed to call him something else, they know by a different name at school, and his father, only his father, has permission to you another name. He wants to be a teacher or a driver. In a sad sort of way he told us he might not be able to follow his dreams exactly as planned because of the cost of education. I'm going to pray for this boy... he his a very special person. So is everyone, I suppose, but he has a certain spark.

Pages from a Journal Moja (one)

Pop quiz...

What does TIA mean?

How do you apply TIA?

Would someone be forgiven for not consistently writing their blog when they promised to under TIA rules?

10 JUN 2011     7:20     MOTEL 2000

Who needs an alarm clock here?
Eat when hungry, sleep when tired, wake when the sun comes up (6:45) or when the rooster crows (5:30). Considering it is 'winter' here right now, the days have been very short. It is very beautiful here. I met Robert, the manager of the Motel 2000, and he gave Jim and I a tour of the hotel. There is a great big banquet hall where he said he wants to have a disco! He kept saying "We'll have a disco, that is, if you like to disco." He's in luck, because I love to disco, haha!

I knew Africa -Kenya, Tanzania- had to more than the shanties and huts that the media portrays. It is SO much more and it is SO real! I want to know who built what, how and when. That has a lot to do with a place's realness, or its being 'alive'. Read Christopher Alexander's A Timeless Way of Building.

The place we are staying has a lot of CMU, concrete, stone, wood, metal. How did the supplied get here? I want to think that they built it with their own devices. It looks 'timeless.' I can't really put a date on its construction... but I don't really know the history here. It looks 'alive.' 

I recognize my journaling is fairly choppy and lacks a certain quality of flow or story telling. I guess you are going to get an inside view of how my brain thoughts function (that is in direct contrast to my toe thoughts, nose thoughts, and on rare occasions, eyebrow thoughts).

And I still cannot get over all the birds. Bird noises that is. There is one that is purring... I like it.

Journeying Across the Cradle of Civilization

So, I have already failed a little… slacked yesterday on getting a post up, but, as we said in Africa whenever something didn’t obey Western temporal standards: “This is Africa”. Meaning, basically the same thing as “Hakuna Matata,” “No worries, we’ve got no time, we’ve got all the time in the world, this is Africa”.

I’ll go back to day one to go forward to day three. Luckily, not all that much happens on the second straight day of travel, but I’ll share a few pictures and insights. 

This is the Paris Airport, and while it was technically on the first day of the trip, the architecture is just too incredible to pass up. Here, Paris has taken the brutalism that it is and has been known for and transformed it into a contemporary masterpiece! 

I feel like I looked awfully touristy in the Paris Airport... I hadn't yet found a concealed or comfortable way to wear my, to make it sound cooler, money belt, and I was feeling pretty frompy in my glasses, gym shoes and waffle T. All of a sudden I had an epiphany... what if American tourists embraced the look of an American tourist and they were really cool and sensitive to cultural cues and polite and exhibit all sorts of positive international behavior. Perhaps the world's perception of Americans would improve. My message out to everyone, be true to yourself, wear your fanny pack, let the world know who you are.

Thinking about it... fanny packs are pretty awful. Scratch that last epiphany.

I began my journal the first night in Nairobi, June 9th, under less than ideal terms. We had just left the airport and were only missing one bag. I guess a bag normally goes missing from trip to trip, so no big deal. Would it be my luck or not for it to be my bag? Of course. But, if anyone knows me well enough, I was mostly unphased by this, worse things happen to better people, I always say.. We went to talk to baggage claim and they informed me that my bag took a little bit of a grand tour and visited Amsterdam after Paris, and that I should have it in the morning, and if not, they would send it to the Tanzania-Kenyan border. Fortunately, we were staying in Nairobi for the night to increase my chances of getting it as soon as it made it to Africa. 

"Here I lay in a bed at the Methodist Guest House in Nairobi, Kenya, with some of the most campassionate people I [am beginning to] know [very well] and the last thing that is worrying me is my rerouted luggage. The only reason I mentioned it was because I keep getting asked about how I am doing from others. 

-luggage convo boring-

So how was my day? 

Cincinnati-NYC-Paris-Nairobi

Someone looks like they have been in an airplane for a while! [THIS GUY]

I am still waiting for this overwhelming reaction: "HOLY COW! I'M IN AFRICA" But to tell the truth, I just have not been nervous or anxious this entire trip. I suspect that seeing the Roche Health Center will do it if nothing else does before we get to Shirati. What happens if I don't get the feeling? Am I unphased by anything? Those questions and more will likely be answered in the next 13 days... I am going to sleep... to the sound of a ticking clock, barking dogs, and the whispering bustle of Nairobi, Kenya"

I credit my lack of "holy cow, I'm in Africa-ness" to the 10 weeks I spent with my class, preparing for this trip. I noticed on the ride through Kenya the next day, when I was in a van without anyone from the class, that the vocabulary that the other students used compared to the way I had been "trained" to describe, observe, and understand Africa was totally different. Not to say that my thoughts were not completely unadulterated by the West's perception of Africa, but the thoughts going through my head while dismissive comments about people walking barefoot or the crumbling houses leaned in the direction of sensitive and unknowing. Am I making any sense? I'm trying to say that I had been taught to react naturally, without precedent, versus comparing Africa to things I had seen and experienced before... like America. I mean, check out the BEAUTY of this market we passed! Africa has community!

On the way through Kenya to Tanzania, I made a few quick jots. The notes are short, reflective, some have a little humor, but mostly just jots. Take them for what they are worth.

"African ARchitecture -> People live outside for the most part. Buildings are for storage and sleeping. I suppose the climate allows for this. Wouldn't it be nice to live outside all the time? What if it rais really hard, then what? What opportunities does the climate provide in America? The Midwest?"

"I asked Fat Joe [our driver] if there were any mythologies associated with the Great Rift Valley... ... ... Mine."

"Hey Matt [Rasch... my roommate who asked me to slap a zebra for him]... I just saw a dead zebra on the side of the road... I don't think I'm going to touch it. 

"Just saw a live one... we are traveling at 100kph... I won't be touching that one either"

"On the road, just say a "World Cup 2010 Show House"... set up like a business, painted on the storefront. I wondering if the entire village gathered there to watch the World Cup? Community... they've got it!"

"I spoke with Regina about the "Wow" moment and she agreed that she hadn't felt it either. Perhaps we have matured beyond our giddiness. Maybe we are waiting to get to Roche, to meet the people we have been refering to all quarter. I guess I'll find out tomorrow. "

"Our two day voyage to reach Tanzania is over! I'm sitting in my bed at Motel 2000, walking distance away from the SHED compound. Everything I've been studying on maps and from the pictures is becoming very real very fast. I can't wait to see the place in the daylight."

Much like I was feeling at the end of the day of travel, I think it's time to head to bed. I sort of miss those mosquito nets... 

yeah, not really... that's one thing I wasn't sold on, haha.

Humanitarian Design, What is it?

Refer to title. That question, the one of Humanitarian Design and its nature, is a tough question. And I am sorry to say that it does not have a concise answer. If I have learned anything in the past couple years it is that black and white bleed and cut and dry answers are difficult, if not impossible, to come by. This spring, I took a class appropriately titled "Humanitarian Design" to dissect the possibilities of this question. I think by the end of the next 13 blog posts, some type of answer will be defined. Most likely and indirect answer, one that will need searching for in the loose grammar and babble. For the sake of making the definition seem more nebulous, I am going to highlight glimpses of Humanitarian Design in my writing so that you might form your own definition, based off my reflections. I think nebulous is a great way to describe Humanitarian Design, its definition is constantly adjusting to parameters and sites and situations and histories. We can all learn something from the flexibility of its definition.

For ten weeks of my 2nd year at UC I studied this subject with Professor Michael Zaretsky. When I reflect on my application for this class, I marvel at its simplicity.

"This study abroad program interests me for two primary reasons. The first is the subject of the course, studying humanitarian design. For Christmas, my sister gifted me Design Like You Give A Damn, a book featuring humanitarian design projects globally, and charged me to do exactly that, design like I give a damn about the sustainability of our planet, the environment, and its people. The possibilities of my future are limitless, but my focus is very strong on using my talents and interests to help others and improve quality of life for all. I have a particular interest in the rural landscape of America, a place abundant in simple resources, but exploited in innumerable ways. I see this opportunity as a chance to make connections between the emerging ‘humanitarian design’ and a field I feel has yet to become fad enough to be heavily investigated, ‘rural design’.
The second primary reason I am interested in this study abroad program is because of my lack of travel outside the United States. I have never been particularly intrigued with exploring Western Europe as a rite of passage into young adulthood like many of my peers. Rather, I pour over the development of favelas in Rio de Janiero or the gentrification of slums in India and China to build sleek modern constructions. The dynamics of these developments provide me meditative exploration that make prospects of Paris or Barcelona or Prague pale in comparison. I have developed an itch for adventure, an itch to learn, and an itch to explore and this opportunity fits my interests perfectly."

It is understandable... we never can really register or remember what we didn't know after we learn something (check it... it makes sense).

Over the course of the class, I not only gained a sensitivity to the culture I would encounter in Tanzania and Kenya, but rather I learned a method by which I could treat all people with sensitivity, whether here in Cincinnati, back at home in St. Martin, Fayetteville, or Wilmington, or on the other side of the world in Tanzania. Every person has a unique history that requires your interaction with them to be deliberate and individual.

So, why was I going to Tanzania? Broadly, to witness sensitive humanitarian design work after having studied it for 10 weeks. Specifically? I was tasked with continuing research on way-finding signage for the Roche Health Center and the Shirati Hospital, as well as catalog as many construction materials and methods as I saw to create an arsenal for future studios.

Day one of the trip was travel heavy. Leaving Cincinnati at 11AM, the next day and a half would be a swirl of time zone changes and layovers.
Cinci - NYC - Paris - Nairobi

During the day and a half of being in the air, I had a lot of time to think about my role in this humanitarian design project. The roots of my definition of Humanitarian Design really took root during those rides and it helped to inform my actions following landing in Nairobi.

TIA - This is Africa: The Preface

Oh my blog, you have gotten awfully cobwebby in my absence! Yes, I am a bit ashamed for neglecting my blog for so long. It was always on the back of my mind... too bad what was on the front of my mind was studio projects and campus organization logistics out the wazoo. I never made it around to talking about all of the reflections I had made.
Apologies aside, I'm about ready to launch into a BIG endeavor... write a blog everyday for the next 14 days. These 14 entries will summarize my thoughts while I was in Tanzania from June 7 to June 21 (fourteen days). I don't want to spoil too much of these blog entries by even giving a synopsis, just let it be known that this will happen, and the diction will be witty and the thoughts will be thunk and the conclusions will most likely be poorly written because that is part of blogs that I haven't mastered yet... wrapping it up.







What if I stopped right there? I would reinforce my lack of closure in blog posts. Why not? See you tomorrow. :)

Thinking about food, always

While most of my reflections have lately been reserved for snarky -140 characters twitter posts in the last few weeks, I promise I have thoughts deeper than compulsory musings about architecture professors.

Because this quarter is beginning to control my life a little more every minute, this post will be no exception to my time constraint.

How do I talk to people about food? It depends on the time I have to explain and the reaction I might expect from that person after I tell them my diet.

Less than one minute: I am a vegetarian

One minute: I am a vegetarian who is really picky about meat. I like to know where my food comes from as much as possible.

Five minutes: In my dreams, I am a locavore. What is a locavore? Oh it is a person who only eats foods produced locally. It cuts down on the gasoline used in transporting food to me and provides me with a certain level of quality control. So you eat meat? Yeah, but very rarely and only locally, and even then I am reluctant. People eat too much meat in the first place, and beyond that, there are incredible environmental implications attached to over-consumption of meat and meat products. While I am in school and busy beyond belief it is a little hard to pay attention to the source of all my food. So what do you eat? I'm a vegetarian.

Ten Minutes: If I gave you the ten minute explanation, I would be spending too much time on this blog post than I can afford. Perhaps in two weeks after finals and exams are through. Then I will right about how food relates to architecture in a very unresearched manner. For now, enjoy this awesome graphic about... EGGS! Thanks to my friend j-martin at get up, get outt for posting this from someone else ;)

A Bit on Life as a Minority

Tanzania is a country in East-Central Africa that looks a little bit like Wisconsin. Home to around 43 million people, the country is said to contain the earliest traces of human and pre-humanoid remains. Gaining their independence from the United Kingdom, two nations were formed, Tanganyika (1961) and Zanzibar (1963), merging as Tanzania in 1964. 80 percent rural, 20 percent urban, all set against the backdrop of the African Serengeti.

Why the interest? Well, I would not normally associate many of my thoughts in the realm of Eastern Africa, BUT to my delight I will be heading to Tanzania in 5 months to do what? I'm not entirely sure. The class is called "Humanitarian Design" and the professor, Michael Zaretsky, has a medical center/school complex being built there (A link to their blog here). Will we design and build? Will we just build? Is the trip peripheral to the class? When I have the answers to these questions, I will be sure to write about it. I guess the important thing is that I am going. 

The progress on the structure in Roche, Tanzania

For Christmas, my sister gifted me Design Like You Give A Damn, a book featuring humanitarian design projects globally, and charged me to do exactly that, design like I give a damn about the sustainability of our planet, the environment, and its people. The possibilities of my future are limitless, but my focus is very strong on using my talents and interests to help others and improve quality of life for all. I have a particular interest in the rural landscape of America (evident in my blog title), a place abundant in simple resources, but exploited in innumerable ways. I see this opportunity as a chance to make connections between the emerging ‘humanitarian design’ and a field I feel has yet to become fad enough to be heavily investigated, ‘rural design’.

My group, "Orange Door Hinge" in my days as a counselor

In the interview process for the class, Michael asked me if I had ever felt like I was in the minority. I first gave him the answer he might have expected to hear. From the 7th grade until just this past summer I have been involved with Leadership Development Center, a camp sponsored by the American Red Cross, Cincinnati Chapter that, for a few years, lacked diversity that it often preached about. I was one of the few white kids there. I told Michael about the experience, having an inkling that that answer would satisfy his question because Tanzania would be an experience where I would by "the white kid" again. 

Without letting him accept that answer though, I continued with something I felt was considerably more relevant to me. I told him that I am always in a minority. As a citizen, born and raised, in rural America, I am part of just 20% of the US population. My culture is that of the quilt, barn, square dance, bonfire, and main street. And where I find myself even more alone is that I love, love, love, love, love everything rural. In no particular order and not at all a complete list: I love where I am from, I love where I went to school, I love all the people, I love the tiny church, I love the nuns in the convent down the road, I love the gardens, I love the possibilities rooted in the soil, I love the stars... and many people don't. Out of my experience, I have found that there are a few groups of people among that 20%: People who love the land and the people, People who love the land, People who love the people, People who hate the land and the people, People who hate the land, and people who hate the people. I've found in no scientific way at all, that the people who have love in their titles are in an even smaller minority and those who brood in their hate make up a majority, whether they know it or not.

I've grown up in a place where all I've ever seen is people move away. A place where success and prosperity isn't found here, but over there. It wasn't until this summer, after reading Jayber Crow by Wendell Barry that I had the clarity to organize my thoughts and understand my love for the rural environment. The book details the rise and fall of rural America, and in that description, plants the seed of an idea. An idea that maybe there is something salvageable about the place I love. Maybe there is a way to change people's perception of the rural landscape, as something important and integral. To quote a reflection I made at the end of the summer: 

 "In The Giver by Lois Lowry, the main character, Jonas, accounts his experience of seeing color for the first time. Much like Jonas, this summer the rural environment I lived in exploded with color when for so long it had been grayscale. I had seen glimpses of this color growing up but never had the knowledge to understand its significance. Yes, I grew up in a house surrounded soybeans and corn dependent on the year, but I don’t think I ever appreciated the beauty of the landscape as much as I did this summer. I don’t think I ever knew where those crops went after they were harvested either. I don’t think I ever knew how much can change in such a short period of time or, conversely, how long it takes to make change. These bits of knowledge, along with countless others, repainted the canvas of my environment. What was once a dusty image of vestigial America has been reborn as an integral, necessary, beautiful, ALIVE masterpiece of my culture."

Why am I going to Tanzania if I am so concerned with the cultivation of my home? I believe that I have much to unlearn. Rural America, at one time, was independent, and if anything, depended upon. In the last century, the landscape has become exploited and its people used as pawns in a money making endeavor and we have forgotten why we are here. I want to see how people live off the land in an unadulterated way (one could argue that my group's intervention in Tanzania is adulterous, I suppose). I want to relearn the way of life from the earth. I believe that, only then, I will be able to add to my store of observations that piece back together a livelihood that was lost and restore a fondness that is being carried around by a minority of people. 

Architect(R)ural Reflections' Baptismal Entry

Is it too early in my life to have found a concentration? I've always been a passionate person who obsesses over my interests, praying daily that I don't become bored of them.

An anatomical wonder!

In one of my earliest memories, I remember being enamored (not that I knew that word then) with the collection of zoo animals on my baby blanket. A zebra, a lion, a bird of some type, maybe a turtle, and the one that stood out the most, a giraffe. That giraffe spoke to me. Its height inspired and empowered me. I wanted, so badly, to be a giraffe. "When I grow up, I WILL be a giraffe." I can remember thinking that every time I looked at our clothespin basket too (which had a similar scene). Maybe the most telling tale of my obsession with giraffes was a drawing stretching about 4 feet on a wall in our basement. This green giraffe, with a neck stretching as far as my tippy-toes would take it, decorates the wall upon which my siblings and I would record our growth over the years. Every time I see that green giraffe, I am taken back to an image of my childhood bedroom: pale blue, light gray carpet, a curtain with buttons blowing the warm summer air, and my baby blanket pinned up on the west wall. While I have no recollection of sharing this passion with anyone as a child, it remains a strong force in my memory today.

Thanks to my mom for sending me these pictures

My passions certainly shifted through the years. Most pictures of me before 1996 probably featured me in one of many One Hundred and One Dalmatians shirts (the 1961 cartoon of course). By bedsheets and pillow cases were even themed after the adventurous pups. 1996 brought on an obsession with nationalism due to the Olympics, which my parents made a huge deal about (at least in my memory) by taping up posters in our basement of the Olympic Rings (which I took for a mutated Mickey Mouse and still do today). My mom had to wash this Red, White, and Blue polo shirt for me 2 to 3 times a week just so I could wear it as much as I wanted. The late 90's and early 2000's brought on obsessions with Power Rangers, Pokemon and Digimon (Digimon was always my favorite but the least among my friends). And after cartoons took the best of me, I got to drawing my own.
I was always drawing. I found that it garnered me a delightful amount of attention. As long as I could draw, I didn't necessarily have to worry about being second fiddle to anyone... an important thing for a pre-teen. My drawings were often times of people I made up. My own versions of Greek Gods and Goddesses, Bible Scenes, or what the characters of the books I read would look like. Slowly I began drawing the built environment.

Sketches like this (circa 2003)

didn't take long to develop to this (circa 2005-6)

It began with simple house plans. I used gridded paper for these, so the most primitive plans I have are shamelessly rectangular. Breaking out of the rectangle was the most pivotal moment in my drawing history since I had mastered the profile eye from the frontal (such an astonishing realization could have only been matched by those who followed the Egyptians). For some reason (maybe a minor, or major if you ask my family, obsession with The Sims) house plans absorbed my time. I drew the plans for no site, no family, no program. I just drew. Elevations became the next step in my development. Most of my elevations were a complicated mixture of isometric, perspective, and true elevation, and appeared to be extruded versions of their foot print. It would take some time for me to move on from that. Needless to say, my habit of drawing has turned itself into my field of study, architecture. Taking a look at my sketches from middle school (which is largely the earliest recording of my sketching career) it is fun to see what a budding architecture student did to nurture his interest. I painstakingly look through these pictures knowing now so much more than I knew then, but still aware (as I probably wasn't then) that I have so much to learn.

In a post about... what did I begin this blog post with? Concentration too early? I guess I got carried away telling a different tale. I'm not going to re-do anything. I'm content with this word vomit. I feel like I hardly hardly discussed the things I am/was passionate about. In my next blog post, perhaps I'll talk about concentrating and how that concentration has developed. My other passions will expose themselves I suppose.

Note to self: do not lose focus in next blog post