Community project. The HMC Designing Futures Foundation board recently approved a grant to fund the restoration of the Micheltorena Steps in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. The steps are a main pathway to Micheltorena School for children in the neighborhood, and are unsafe and in disrepair.
Scott Plante of the LA Studio, who proposed the project, lives near the school, uses the steps and is committed to improving the quality of life in Silver Lake. He went to the Silver Lake Urban Design Committee with a design proposal to provide light steps and underpasses throughout Silver Lake. Recognizing the safety issues with children and the adjacent school, the Micheltorena Steps were selected as a prototype for repairing and relighting similar steps throughout the neighborhood.
Written by Adrienne Luce, Designing Futures Foundation Executive Director
LEEDing the Way. This week Portland International Jetport became the second commercial terminal in the United States to achieve LEED Gold certification. Gensler on Cities interviewed project manager Jim Stanislaski to find out what’s next in the field of sustainable aviation design.
It’s important to note that while the LEED program has done a great job of transforming the marketplace and generating public awareness for the importance of sustainable design, these certifications are not the finish line. To solve the current energy crisis we need to look beyond LEED. We need to start thinking about how to achieve net zero energy and net-zero water airport terminals. On paper that may seem daunting, but we aren’t that far off from making it a reality. – Jim Stanislaski
Written by Leah Ray
Enabling mobility. Steelcase's Jan Johnson blogs how mobility in the workplace means many things to different people.
“Mobility requires much more than a real estate strategy du jour to save space: It can and should be one of the ways we enable worker choice and control.”
Via Metropolis POV
Interview with BIM expert. Chirag Mistry has been at HOK for eight years and is one of HOK’s leading Building Information Modeling (BIM) experts, focusing primarily on lab and research facility design and development in HOK’s Science + Technology practice.
In this Q&A interview, Mistry talks about the biggest advantage for project teams designing lab and research facilities using BIM, his most favorite and most challenging aspects of being a BIM expert and what the future holds for BIM.
Via HOK Life