November 2011 – Kristen Baumlier

Month: November 2011

The Bike Rack – New Bike Commuting Center in Downtown Cleveland

Posted on November 30, 2011November 30, 2011 by Kbaumlier

A couple of years ago – I managed to ride by bike through the month of October. I put fenders on my bike, got breathable long underwear, arm warmers, and was able to commute and ride my bike to work until the snow came.

If you are a bike commuter or just want to bike downtown and be able to park your bike downtown for a game or event, you are in luck. In August, the new Bike Rack, the new bike commuting and service center opened. The center is located at the corner of E.4^th and High St. in downtown Cleveland is worth riding to (and parking at.)

The center has both outdoor and indoor bike parking, shower and changing facilities, lockers, a bike repair shop, and also rentals. To get access to all the facilities, you can get a monthly pass for $25, or pay $5 per day. The monthly pass lets you enter the facility 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to park your bike. You do need to bring your own lock for your bike, but not for the day-use lockers.

I made a trip down to The Bike Rack this week – and talked to John Sirignano, Operations Manager, about how people have been using the center since it opened. The main use of the center has been for bike commuters, who usually bike to work, shower up a the center, park the bike, and then go to work. Some people will ride home, but many will put the bike on the rapid and take the bus home. Currently there is not a direct bus line to the center, but it is rumored that a shuttle will be added to go down 4^th Street.

In Spring, the center plans to have some programming and partner with the Ohio City Bike Coop to provide some workshops and events.

The center is a partnership of the City of Cleveland and The Downtown Cleveland Alliance to create a more bike friendly environment in downtown Cleveland.

The Bike Rack directly supports the Sustainable Cleveland 2019 Initiative by promoting alternative forms of transportation and was funded from Energy Efficiency Conservation Block Grants. The long range goal is to build more facilities in different parts of the city, and to support bike commuting in Cleveland.

Other uses of the center are to provide bike storage for residents living in small living units downtown. Currently on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, the center hosts spinning – and people bring their stationary bike trainers – and do a spinning video together.

Ready to bike downtown? Check the air in your tires then check out The Bike Rack’s website to get ready.

Links:

The Cleveland Bike Rack

Download – Bike To Work Commuter Booklet

A Piece of Cleveland (APOC) – Upcycling Wood and Re-Making History

Posted on November 29, 2011November 29, 2011 by Kbaumlier

APOC – A Piece of Cleveland- is a design company that turns unwanted materials into furniture and other products. The materials they use are from deconstructed buildings in the Cleveland area. APOC partners with private owners and developers to professionally salvage Wood, glass, and metal from buildings that are being renovated or demolished. These materials are then used to make new items that include tables, counters, cabinets, furniture, and other items.

“Upcycling” is a term for the process of repurposing old materials in new ways to increase their value. APOC practices upcyling by using materials that would usually be thrown into a landfill, and give them a new purpose as furniture and other products. Behind APOC is the partnership and leadership of Chris Kious, the material recovery partner of the business and P.J. Doran, the designer/fabricator.

APOC uses environmentally-friendly stains, paints and finishes on all works, and also makes a “Re-birth certificate” for pieces that explains the history of the materials of pieces which is often displayed on-site at businesses that have APOC pieces.

I heard P.J. Doran present at the Designers Accord Cleveland event earlier this Fall, and I was interested in learning more about APOC. A couple of weeks ago, I went to two places that have APOC pieces – the Starbucks at Fairmount Blvd./Cedar Rd., and Nighttown on Cedar Rd.

At Starbucks, the counters and wooden tables were APOC pieces. The tables ranged in size, and fit 2 to 10 people. The tables looked like typical cafe tables, but the woodgrain and staining of the wood looked unique from other cafes. Each table was subtly branded with the woodburned APOC logo – either under the table, or on the edge.

The Re-birth certificate on the wall at Starbucks listed the materials source as being from 2036 E. 71^st St. and Stanard School. The certificate states, “ The Standard School buildings sat empty for 25 years fell into such disrepair that it could not be saved. In 2008, The City of Cleveland decided to deconstruct the structure and to recycle the historic buildings. APOC was asked to assist in the coordination and recycling of these structures…The lot where Stanard school once stood will return to its agricultural roots, and will become a farm with youth programming, local produce, and become a attractive looking property.”

I went to Nighttown, just down the road on Cedar Rd., and talked to the Brendan Ring, owner of Nighttown, about the APOC tables. He showed me an experimental piece in the back, an outdoor table, that APOC is trying out and is in the corner of the patio, to see how it will weather. The larger rooms at Nighttown have darker oak tables that have been there for a number of years. The Moose room has some newer tables made from heart pine in the Moose room.

The heart pine tables have a unique look to them since they are made of the actual heartwood of the pine tree. Since pine trees used to be quite large when it was logged some hundred years ago, the pine trees were able to grow large enough to develop heartwood. Now that is not the case, as pine trees do not grow as big because they are harvested at an earlier age.

The Re-birth certificate stated, “Antique Heart Pine Tables for Nighttown, Material Source: Stanard School, 5360 Stanard Ave. Cleveland. “ The re-birth certificate had some facts about the school which included, “On June 3^rd, 1964, Stanard School was hit by lighting and 350 students were evacuated from the building when the chimney fell. Kind neighbors invited entire classes into their homes.” The certificate also said that the school is reputed (but not confirmed) to be the site of the beginning of four-square. I did some search on the web – and did not find any confirmation of this.

Ring told me about how great it is to work with APOC, and that there was a deconstruction project by the City of Cleveland and APOC off of Euclid Avenue near Eddy Rd. I drove over to the location and watched as a truck pulled off the site filled with stacks of wood.

If you want to see some of APOC pieces – you can check out images of pieces on their site, or check out the interactive map on their blog, which indicates locations of their work around Cleveland. The map has been recently updated, and you can check out if a Piece of Cleveland is near you in Cleveland. It might be at the coffee shop that you visit regularly.

Links:

http://apieceofcleveland.com/

APOC Sitings – Interactive Map

Occupy Design – Building a Visual Language for the 99 Percent

Posted on November 28, 2011November 28, 2011 by Kbaumlier

Occupy Design is a grassroots project that connects designers with demonstrators in the Occupy Together movement. The goal of the project is to create freely available visual graphics around a common graphic language to unite the 99%. A common set of used universal icons, logistical signs, and infographics can help support the communication of the movement’s messages and the data surrounding them across the world.

The Occupy Design site has a gallery of existing designs, a how-to guide for demonstrators, a graphic toolkit for designer who want to contribute graphics for the project and a interactive form for the community to suggest ideas for designers.

The project was created in less than 24 hours in October by a team of designers, programmers, artists, and demonstrators in San Francisco as part of three concurrent creative hackathons across the country to support Occupy Together. During the planning process, the team spoke with demonstrators who described their needs. The three main areas of the project are infographic protest signs, logistical signs, and visual icons around social justice themes. The focus on infographics is to support bringing graphic representation of statistical evidence to the front and center on the ground – rather than just on computer screens.

Currently the magazine/website GOOD has partnered with Occupy Design to encourage designers to create a design, icon, or infographic that shares the unifying spirit of the Occupy movement. Individuals and organizations can participate.

All submitted designs will be voted on by the online community. $750 from the GOOD Fund will be used to support Occupy Design to print and distribute the winning design, and the winner will receive their design printed on a vinyl weatherproof sign, several 11×17 prints, and get an Occupy Design t-shirt.

In addition, you can download the Occupy Design Design Toolkit which includes digital templates, logos, and fonts.

Are you a designer and part of the 99%? Take some time today and get working on a graphic for Occupy Design today.

Image Source:
Occupy Design

Links:

Occupy Guide for Designers

Occupy Design

Call to Design: The GOOD + Occupy Design Challenge

Occupy Together

A Subversive Plot?… Plant a Garden

Posted on November 27, 2011November 27, 2011 by Kbaumlier

Roger Doiron is founder and director of Kitchen Gardeners International (KGI), a Maine-based nonprofit network of over 20,000 individuals from 100 countries who are taking a (dirty) hands-on approach to relocalizing the food supply. The group is a network of gardeners and good food advocates who work to make local foods even more “local” and broader.

In 2008, Doiron and KGI worked to campaign to have “high impact gardens” put in high profile places in order to promote growing food. What is a better place for this than the U.S. White House – a location that ohad been a edible landscape both for animals and people years ago. The idea of a food garden at the white house had been proposed by Michael Polland And Alice Waters – but the efforts had never resulted in a garden being planted.

Doiron and KGI led a successful proposal and petition campaign to replant a kitchen garden at the White House which gathered over 100,000 signatures and international media coverage. Together, gardeners and good food advocates pitched in on March 20, 2009 – to help White House and the Obamas plant a healthy kitchen garden on the White House lawn.

KGI is working to get gardeners around the world to work together on feeding a growing population which has a degrading natural resource base and changing global climate.

There are currently over 1 billion hungry people in the world and that number is set to rise as the global population rises from 6.7 billion to over 9 billion in 2050. Doiron and the KGI promote the idea that planting more kitchen gardens – behind homes, schools, and in vacant urban lots – will be part of the solution

In his TED talk given in Spring of 2011, Doiron gave a humorous talk called, “A Subversive Plot – How to Grow a Revolution in Your Own Backyard.” Doiron starts out talking about how food is a food of energy and power, and how when we encourage people to grow their own food – we are encouraging them to get power over their food, health, and money.

If you have not seen this talk yet- I recommend checking it out – and starting now to plan your plot in your yard for Spring of 2012.

Links:

TED Talk – Roger Doiron – “A Subversive Plot – How to Grow a Revolution in Your Own Backyard.”

Kitchen Gardeners

Video about the Petition of the Garden on the Whitehouse Petition

Ice Drawings: Jim Denevan and the Largest Piece of Art

Posted on November 26, 2011November 26, 2011 by Kbaumlier

The Anthropologist is a project and platform created by the clothing store Anthropologie to show the process of creation and to create relationships with artists. The main platform for this is the Anthropologiest website and various publications that share selected projects and art as a way to promote creativity.

Last year The Anthropologist commissioned land artist Jim Denevan to draw on the frozen surface of Lake Baikal in Siberia. Lake Baikal is the oldest and deepest lakes in the worldand is over 30 million years old. Denevan proposed to make the largest piece of art on the surface of the ice of the lake.

Denevan (who is from Santa Cruz), and his team made marks on nine square miles of ice by making large circles baced on the Fibonacci sequence. To do the project, the artist and his team had to work in sub-zero temperatures and in strong winds to make the work.

You can see sketches, in-progress images, and film of the project on the site. There is also a book and DVD about the piece that you can buy at Anthropologie.com.

Is it the largest piece of art? That’s depends on what you call art – but it sure looks big to me.

Image Source:

The Anthropologist

Links:

The Anthropologist – Jim Denevan Project

Jim Denevan- Artist Site