Youthbuild Boston, USGBC Massachusetts Chapter, and the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Conservancy are teaming up to host the Design-Build 2011 competition: The New Urban Tree.
Registration deadline is Feb 11th. Check out the details here: http://epma-usgbc.org/page/design-competition
Google rocks. Seriously. Archventures would probably not be able to function without it – Docs, gchat, calendar, (formerly) Wave, AdWords, Maps, To-Do, and a professional-looking AV email address, let’s not forget.
Being about 300 miles away from Boston currently, I’ve been heavily relying on Google to get things done for upcoming AV events. The tasklist’s priority boxes seem to be proliferating… Lots of things do to. We’ve got an Advisory Board meeting tomorrow that we need to generate some materials for, a Career Fair on the 10th (intern hunting!) that we need more materials for, a launch party sometime in February, a capital campaign to plan, and a big fundraiser sometime in April. Good thing I’ll be getting academic credit for this next semester…
Steve and I will be gchatting shortly, and hopefully we’ll be able to cross some of this stuff out. My one qualm with Google… it’s less satisfying deleting something off the task list than getting a big black sharpie and scribbling all over one of your tasks. Ah well. Maybe there’s an iPhone app for that.
We like Bill McDonough’s philosophy – take something “unusable” or no longer fit for what it was originally created for, and recycle the crap out of it. Once it’s done with that job, recycle it again. Sorry, Bill, for my crude synopsis of Cradle-to-Cradle. His book (title aforementioned) is an interesting read, both for the solutions it proffers (a new form of corporate accountability) and the fact that you can read the book in the shower. That’s right. The book practices what it preaches – in an attempt to cut down paper waste, McDonough decided to make his pages out of plastic, with a certain type of ink that, when submerged in a particular solution, will disappear and render its pages re-printable.
If only the book weren’t so damn heavy.
Anyway, here’s an interesting McDonough interview. He’s a little bit pompous, but what famous architect isn’t? All in all, I much prefer him to Gehry.
Today Steve and the AV interns met at our favorite café near Downtown Crossing for our weekly work session. We were joined by two students from Bridges, a student-run group at Boston Architectural College (BAC), who will be our first university partner group! Bridges is interested in the design-build process and getting practical experience while still in school – apparently this has become more and more difficult in recent years because of the economic downturn.
Bridges will be assisting us with an upcoming project, both with the design and the fundraising, marketing, and building that goes along with it. Starting in the spring semester, one Bridges liaison will attend each of our weekly AV meetings. We’re all excited about growing the Bridges-Archventures relationship!
After the Bridges students excused themselves to go work on their finals (yuck.), the rest of the team refilled our coffees and started figuring out how exactly we’re going to throw an awesome fundraiser. We’ll most likely be co-hosting with another organization – further details to come. We set some easy, quickly attainable goals as well as some that will require a bit more finagling. Peter, one of our Advisory Board members, has graciously agreed to add his two cents (Thanks, Peter!).
We won’t be meeting together officially until after the holidays, although there may be some conference calling or g-chatting to keep the ball rolling.
Happy holidays, everyone!
Today the intern team (minus Jason, who is swamped with his new JOB!) met at the Tufts Medical Center after an unsuccessful attempt to get work done in the Boston Common Coffee Co (we still love you, but your internet was being screwy today). Watching people run around in their scrubs only mildly distracting and disconcerting.
We focused most heavily on our upcoming January fundraiser – identifying who we’ll collaborate with, what kind of vibe we want, and what steps we need to take to get there. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us, interns! I, for one, am excited for AV’s big debut.
Migdalia’s been tweaking her survey with the help of Brenda and Steve. The survey will help us get to know more nonprofits and identify which are in greatest need. She’s also been geocoding the locations of nonprofits and creating various map overlays. It’s going to be a really cool visual representation of the Roxbury/JP neighborhood, and Nadeem is going to create a Flash version for online display once it’s all put together.
Mike was a trooper and dealt with the databases, primarily synthesizing and updating information so that when we nail down the fundraiser details we can send out invites to affiliates. Molly did a bit of database pruning and inquiry responses and then started the blog!
Good work, guys.
~Molly
Welcome to our brand spankin’ new Archventures blog – we’re glad to see you here!
This blog will serve as an informal space to share information about Archventures: what we’re working on, who we’re working with, and what we find interesting. Check back frequently for updates – the designers, interns, officers, and advisers will all be posting.
See you soon!