3 months in SE Asia

T-minus 21 days until we leave on our 11 week adventure in SE Asia. Wow! We will be leaving Jan 7 and returning March 23, flying in and out of Bangkok. Our itinerary beyond that is not set. We plan to play it by ear and see where the wind takes us. However, I have been reading up on the area and checking out some potential areas and things to do. Here is where we are going:We expect to spend most of our time in Thailand and Laos. We will likely go to Cambodia to visit Angkor Wat. We may go to Malaysia, especially to the island of Borneo to check out the wildlife and jungles. We may also head to Vietnam.

Some of the things we will likely see and do:
-Hang out on the beaches of southern Thailand
-Sea Kayak in the Gulf of Thailand
-Go on a jungle trek and visit the hill tribes of laos
-Bicycle through Laos villages
-Check out a lot of markets
-Eat a lot of tasty spicy food
-Visit many, many temples and historic buddhist sites
-Hang out with our friend Prigge who will be living in Bangkok
-Meet lots of local people and travellers
-Visit gardens and see lots of orchids
-Take lots of bus rides to get from town to town

We have been saving up for this trip for a long time. I am taking a leave from work, and Chad is in his off season, so he is able to get away. It's a big amount of time to be gone, certainly longer than any vacation i have taken in the past, and the expense is not insignificant. However it is one of the most affordable areas in the world to travel, with hotels often costing $10 a night.

There is never a good time to travel, never a time when a big trip fits easily into life. We had to make it a priority to find the time and money to make this trip a reality. I have been inspired and encouraged by all of my friends who have traveled the world and brought back stories that changed the direction of their future and shaped their character. I have been inspired by the life and loss of my dear friend Kelly, who lived in Vietnam teaching English and who in life and dying was an inspiring, fiercely independent, adventurous, gracious and compassionate spirit. I feel lucky every day to be healthy and surrounded by friends, family, opportunities and the things we take for granted like clean water coming out of the tap and comfortable furniture to rest upon. Chad and I are taking some time out of our busy working lives to travel together, see the world, and get a glimpse into other people's lives.

Halloween 2008

Ok, I am a little behind in my blog postings. Here are some pics from Halloween over at Collin's house.

My new initiative is to get my photos on Flicker for easy viewing and sharing. Ok, my other initiative is to actually start taking photos. I am terrible about that.

Announcing -- we are heading to SE Asia for three months in January, February and March!

We have been busy getting ready for the trip. More to come soon!

Homes Designed by Architects tour

We spent last weekend touring 13 homes in the area's first ever homes designed by architects tour. The tour was very inspiring and showcased a range of styles, ideas and solutions customized to the needs of today's homeowners. Our goal was to learn more about what is possible with architecture as well as to learn about our own preference and style as we think about our next home.

Some things that we saw and liked:

Screen porches. We were surprised by the number of screened porches we saw in higher end, custom designed homes, both in the city and in the posh Western suburbs. What a lovely way to enjoy Minnesota summers, free from mosquitoes.

Open Living / Dining / Kitchen Areas with 12-13 foot Ceilings and Clerestory Windows. Vaulted ceilings, especially in living rooms, can sometimes make the room feel too formal and disconnected. We saw several examples of kitchen/dining/living spaces we loved on the tour with roughly 12-13 foot ceilings and clerestory windows (a high wall with a band of narrow windows along the very top). I love the open kitchen/ living room / dining room layout --- when they are done well. The best open floor plans still have some division of space. The spaces are designed to be used, not designed to be formal areas for special occasions (ie a dining room that is only used once a year).

My thinking here is probably influenced by the Not So Big House philosophy, which basically promotes smaller houses that are designed for living, making the best use of all nooks and crannies and designing at a very human scale.

It seems to me that the open layout is actually trickier to design than having separate rooms, because you do need some separate of spaces and flow, but you can't do it with walls, which are easier design solutions. However, I think the effect of a great open floor plan is that people can have their separate spaces, while still feeling connected to each other and the outdoors.

One of the best examples was at a house designed by Charles R. Stinson Architects.
I found some photos from a similar project of theirs, not on the tour, to illustrate.

This is not the best example i have seen, but the one that i could find a picture of! We were not allowed to take photos on the tour. You'll have to ignore the furniture selection in this, which is totally not our style.


Build or Remodel? This is a big question for us. We want to be in the city, where land is not available and is not cheap. Building is expensive, and i am not sure that we can afford it. This project was a good example of a total renovation of a 1920s bungalow by adding a second story. However, there were a lot of spaces in this house that I thought were unresolved, likely due to the constraints of a renovation vs. building from scratch.

The house below was another example of a total overhaul remodel of a 1920s house in the city. Read more from SALA about it. Again, i thought there were obvious constraints that were reflected in the end product.


Affordability. There was one house on the tour that was meant to be "more affordable" -- "This small, functional, more affordable project is meant to be a prototype for a new urban revitalization style, all green, including solar panels, and all new. "

Size? 1500 square feet.
Asking price? $600,000.
Affordable? Well, not for us.

One architect told us that $300/square foot was a comfortable but not extravegant budget for new construction. This, of course, is not including the price of land.

How we can actually AFFORD our next house is a huge question. This tour gave us lots of tall hopes & dreams about what is possible -- but really nothing in the way of answering the affordability question.

Then again, we are resourceful and we definitely won't be paying to have a full service team of experts working at full speed to meet our wishes and dreams. We just don't have the budget.


Design for Design -- Not for Living.
There was a house on the tour by Salmela Architecture that we were really excited to see.

However, we both felt that it was a better expression of form than function. Most obviously -- see those big white boxes? Those are slats that obscure the bedroom views of the beautiful natural setting, and whose lines made us both feel like we need to lie down and close our eyes. We were disappointed, especially after having stopped at the GORGEOUS Gooseberry Falls Visitor Center, also designed by Salmela, shown below.


We did however buy the book Salmela Architect.


We also bought The Farmhouse by Jean Rehkamp Larson.

We talked to so many interesting architects and homeowners, including Jean, who were overwhelmingly friendly and who loved telling us about their projects.

Overall, highly recommended. Hopefully, the tour will be repeated again next year.

The Infinite Plan: A Novel by Isabel Allende

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
loved this book. highly recommended, best book i have read in a long time. a lifelong journey starting with boyhood in the barrios of LA with a father who proselytized his religious plan called the infinite plan, ending with a harrowing legal career and redemption from a lifelong of mistakes. a character driven, emotional journey.


View all my reviews.

August Workshop: Image, Space, Object 5 in Denver, CO

In August I attended a workshop on people-centered design tools and processes in Denver, CO. Each morning, we heard presentations from speakers from various backgrounds and disciplines about people-centered design -- past projects, processes, methods, successes and ideas. In the afternoons, we worked with a small team of other workshop attendees to concept and design a product extension for a well known brand. Each team made a presentation at the end of the workshop. The presentations were really fun and were like a talent show! Here is my team's presentation:

Workshop Team 5 Presentation: Introducing NIKE FIT
Concept for Nike's entry to the hand tools market



Other highlights included:

-Exploring Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. The campus is a former TB hospital and village and all RMCAD buildings are restored historic facilities. Can't beat the fresh mountain air!

-Conference facilitation and presentations from Michael and Kathy McCoy, Highground Design Workshops. They were both great facilitators and clearly enjoyed themselves.

Michael covered small scale tools and strategies for people centered design, including ways of asking, ways of envisioning, and ways of trying. Kind of a soup to nuts methods overview.

Kathy covered cultural sustainability -- a concept she is exploring. She said that as a society, we have reached the end of mass communication and economy of scale and are moving towards a period of narrowcasting (personalization of communication) and an economy of individual choice. Globalization is at odds with a desire to preserve local cultures. CULTURAL sustainability is a way to think about preserving, acknowledging and encouraging geographic, ethnic and special interest subcultures. Her goals is to design target messages and communications to reflect the values and needs of the target audience-- a kind of cultural sustainability.

I thought it was an interesting extension of the current focus on environmental sustainability. Are we being too narrow by focusing on sustainable practices for the natural resources? She asks us to give our cultural resources the same amount of care and attention. She observes that globalization is erasing local cultures while micro-movements arise in protest to preserve the old ways of doing things. It's an interesting way to frame the upcoming challenges that face our global society.

-Presentation of projects by antenna design. They are industrial designers whose work includes the NY subway kiosks. Especially interesting was their playful concept work, like this:

This is a proposal for Nyw York City sidewalk interventions inspired by their observations of the city. This was my favorite -- allow city transients sanctified space to sell their wares and legitimize their services.

-Hugh Graham talked about Emergent Design -- involving the storytellers in the creation of the evolving. He calls it "story-centered design".
I talked to him afterward about his Denver stories project.

Here is his process:
-understand context
-consider the subtext
-do some research
-create personas
-explore maps and models
-develop scenarios
-build prototypes
-iterate rapidly
-increase fidelity

-Party at KNOLL! I learned about the woman architect who founded KNoll in the 30s and browsed their incredible textile library.

-Hugh Dubbery talked about Service Design.
10 principles of service design:
1) the value is in the experience
2) experience = reputation
3) sending a message is not enough, it must be recieved
4) learning requires interaction with an environment
5) conversation buildings meaning
6) services are intangibles and unfold through time -- they must be seen as a whole
7) experience is an activity /performance / journey
8) create conditions in which users can design (meta design)
9) build platforms systems and rules
10) take advantage of network effects

-Melody Roberts talked about plans she has in the works to reinvent the model of quick service at McDonalds. She heads up customer experience for the global innovation team at McDonalds. She talked about her process for uncovering problems that no one has identified before. Highlight was a video of comedians ad-libbing ways that McDonalds employees could convey that food is made fresh and to-order.

-Tucker Viemister thinks that branding is a cool tool for good design. He gave us his whole life story including being named after a car, designing the OXO products that were later endorsed by jesus.com, how we should look to bad design (i.e. Nazi domination) to learn lessons, and overall, how brands make stuff better. His philosophy (and the old razorfish mission): everything that can be digital will be.

The value of a brand:

To business:
-cohesion
-shared language
-mission
-differentiation

To the user:
-shortcut
-reliability
-trust
-symbol

Branding = developing the soul of a company.

More senses = more touchpoints = more valuable

Brands make stuff better.

The end!

A story of Bangladesh

A Story of Bangladesh
Created by me, circa 2000

two amazing projects

What do Kids Really See?

view presentation (tags: kids photography granada nicaragua)

A Great Definition of an Expert

Someone who has made more mistakes than anyone else.

Summer Salad

DRESSING
4 cloves garlic unpeeled
fresh hot green chiles to taste, 1 jalapeno or 2 serranos
3/4 c. olive oil
1/4 c. balsamic vinegar
salt

Set dry skillet over medium heat. Lay in the unpeeled garlic cloves & the chiles. Roast, turning frequently until soft and otchy browin in spots--15 minutes. ALTERNATIVELY, grill until black spots appear. Cool until handleble then slip the skins off the garlic and roughly chop the chiles.

Compine in blender and puree.

SALAD
Tomatoes, diced
Fresh greens
Queso Fresco
Roasted Corn

To roast corn, peel corn from husk. Option 1) rub with oil. Throw on grill until blackened. Cool. Cut off corn. Option 2) Cut off corn from cob. Put kernels on cookie sheet with olive oil and salt. Roast for about 30-40 min at 350 until slightly blackened.

TOSS INGREDIENTS! YUM

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

--Dylan Thomas

Photos to remember her by

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/kellyandrews

Colorado

Kelly's Kickin Cancer Benefit -- April 11 at the Fineline

www.kellyskickincancer.com

Curb Appeal: Before and After

Chad's company Diggit Landscaping did a TV project this summer for the HGTV show Curb Appeal. The house is a modern 50s rambler in Minneapolis. Chad designed a complete overhaul of the house exterior and front yard. New paint, garage and front door, entry, landscape and gardens. The house went from tired 50s grandma to contemporary hipster.

Before:

After:

I love the work Chad did for this project, I am so proud of him! He is such a fantastic designer! He wants to focus on more contemporary, modern landscape design (while still incorporating lots of plants and flowers). The show still has not aired. I'll let you know when it does.

I want a green roof

Check out the green roof on this building in Japan:

More pictures at metaefficient.com, an excellent global green blog.

Home Organization

Office Organization complete!