2009 Free Summer Lecture Series

All lectures begin at 7pm, are free, and open to the general public.
Videos of each lecture are posted the following week at: http://www.yestermorrow.blip.tv

June 24
Jeff Parsons
What Were We Thinking?:
Reflections on How Place, Personality and Process Influence Furniture Design at Beeken Parsons

Topic Summary:
Hear about and view images of pieces, material procurements & processing, and design process of the fine furniture produced at Beeken Parsons.

Bio: Vermont furniture maker Jeff Parsons formed a partnership with Bruce Beeken in 1983, establishing a workshop at historic Shelburne Farms, in Shelburne, Vermont. They met as students in Boston University's Program in Artisanry, where they earned degrees in furniture design and construction. Their partnership has resulted in an approach to furniture making that integrates their interest in design, process and material. The collaborative work of Beeken and Parsons has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country, including the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Art in Washington D.C., Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, New York’s American Craft Museum, the Tucson Museum of Art, and the Rhode Island School of Design’s Museum of Art, among many others.

Watch the video:

July 1
Joel Glanzberg
Patterns: Key to Sustainable Communities

Topic Summary:
Living in a technological world we often try to address every problem with technological solutions. These solutions are often generically applied. Every place is unique and living. Every problem is connected to every other problem. Trying to solve them in isolation merely moves the problem. In order to understand communities and how to address community issues systemically, they need to be understood as a whole. This can only be done through understanding patterns.

Bio:
Joel has broad experience in environmental design and ecological restoration projects, particularly in the arid regions of the southwest US and Latin America.  He has also worked extensively in the field of regenerative agriculture, including recent agricultural restoration projects in Maryland, Hubbell Trading Post and at the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania.  He has worked as a consultant to the City of Santa Fe on watershed restoration, where he has helped to design and implement programs for restoration as well as public education and engagement.  Current work includes collaboration with internationally known environmental artists Helen and Newton Harrison on restoring the Santa Fe River watershed and with pueblo basket weavers on the Pojoaque River. An active author and educator in the fields of permaculture and ecological restoration, he is skilled in cross-cultural communication and teaching. Joel has taught throughout the U.S., and South America, and worked with a number of Native American tribes and communities. His research has focused on the integration of traditional agricultural/agro-forestry techniques and species from dryland areas world-wide. He has studied with Bill Mollison, John Todd, Rosalind Creasy, Gabriel Howearth and Gary Nabhan.

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July 8
Jacob Racusin
Bridging the Gap:
Bringing Together the Worlds of Natural and Green Building

Topic Summary:
The modern natural building movement has been growing slowly but steadily for decades across the globe, yet much misunderstanding still remains about its form, function, purpose, and potential.  The growth of the green building movement has helped increase awareness of energy efficiency, building performance, and ecological sensitivity.  Developments in natural building and design in our cold climate are addressing these concerns, while continuing to support core issues of social and ecological justice and affordability.  Come find out how the natural and green building movements can - and must - learn from and work with each other to reach mutual goals.

Bio:
Jacob has been creating functional art with wood, stone, straw, earth, and other assorted materials since 2000, when he began design and construction on a solar-oriented straw bale house in Montgomery, Vermont, in which he lives with his family.  Through contracting, consultation, teaching, and lots of tinkering, he explores particular interest in cold-climate straw bale construction, natural painting and plastering, bioregional design and construction, and the integration between buildings and their environments.

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July 15
John Ringel
Thoughts on Designing Additions:
From Context to Content and Intention to Invention

Topic Summary:
An “addition” attempts to transform an “existing condition”--with its unique history---into a new configuration for the present owner’s future aspirations.  The Design has to account for the existing context with all its foibles, implications and technical challenges.  The Design has to articulate the present intentions both stated and implied.  The Design becomes an invention—a product of the imagination—that will be a future owners’ existing condition.  This lecture will reflect, with examples, on some of the speaker’s experiences “adding on” to numerous residences over the years.  It will also show as an example the currently Proposed Yestermorrow Design/Build School Shop Addition.

Bio:
John Ringel has been a design/builder since 1972 when he co-founded Jersey Devil design/build firm with Steve Badanes. His natural propensities led him to concerns of sun, site, and energy in buildings. He has specialized in energy and sustainable design and has design/built numerous homes, additions, and alterations to existing residences. John has taught at Yestermorrow since 1990.

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July 22
Matthew O’Connell
Continuous Transformations:
Something Old, Something New in Making Next Generation Buildings

Topic Summary:
This talk will present highlights from twenty years of transforming buildings and discuss the specific mechanics of integrating the design and construction processes with examples from collaborations that produced dynamic environments at various scales, from rooms to buildings and landscapes.

Detailed Summary:
The primary theme in the transformation process, from minor interventions, to additions, complete renovations, and new structures on the land is CONTINUITY -- finding and communicating what exists and holds value for the participants in the experience of the building and landscape, and extending those discoveries at multiple scales to connect people to their environment with the fabric of the building. The building can be conceived as an instrument, and the occupants are the music, whereby the architecture is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

The experiences of continuity and transformation are embedded in the movement of people within the physical realm of fixed materials and the ethereal realm of moving patterns of natural phenomena. By appropriating materials, surfaces, and textures to create structure and enclosure which organize and inform our personal space, the building process creates multiple scales of simultaneous experience, a theme also found in the exploration of quantum mechanics. Examples of buildings and the team building processes which created them will highlight the importance of self-similarity and geometric grammars as a physical driver for a range of design solutions, and articulate the value of recognizing patterns from information theory as a catalyst for supporting successful collaborations in the process of "making buildings", old and new.

Bio:
Matthew O'Connell is the founding principal of ADG INC, an integrated firm providing architecture and interiors, building systems, and construction management services based in the Boston area. A twenty-year member of the Yestermorrow teaching community, Matthew was a leader in teaching the school’s W-10 professional curriculum and keeps a long standing interest in materials and artisanry, which developed into the Stone:Metal:Glass:Wood course and culminated with the formation of the architectural craft and building systems curriculums presently offered by the school. An architectural graduate of UPenn and MIT, Matthew was a post-graduate research affiliate and collaborated on the "Dimensions of Sustainability" conference held at MIT in 1996. Working as a design principal and a licensed construction manager, Matthew's professional experience in all facets of field construction, shop fabrication, project management, and performance-based design is at the heart of "making buildings" with his clients and collaborators.

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 Dan Reicher
The Power of Information in a Clean Energy Economy

Topic Summary:
Dan will talk about the currnent state of play in energy and climate technology, policy and investment. He will discuss Google's increasing focus in the energy world and the critical role of Washington, Wall Street, and Silicon including the massive energy stimulus package.

Bio:
Dan has over 20 years of experience in business, government and non-governmental organizations focused on energy and environmental technology, policy, finance and law. He recently joined Google where he serves as Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives for the company's new venture called Google.org. Google.org has been capitalized with more than $1 billion of Google stock to make investments and advance policy in the areas of climate change and energy, global poverty, and global health. Prior to his recent position at Google, Dan served as President and Co-Founder of New Energy Capital Corp., a New England-based company that develops, invests in, owns and operates renewable energy and distributed generation projects. He is also a member of General Electric's Ecomagination Advisory Board.

From 1997-2001, Dan was Assistant Secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). As Assistant Secretary, he directed annually more than $1 billion in investments in energy research, development and deployment related to renewable energy, distributed generation and energy efficiency. Prior to his roles at the Department of Energy and in the business community, Dan was a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council where he focused on the federal government's energy and nuclear programs as well as environmental law and policy issues in the former Soviet Union. Dan also recently served as an adjunct professor at the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and Vermont Law School. He holds a B.A. in Biology from Dartmouth College and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. He also studied at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

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July 29