WHAT’S IN A BRIDGE ABUTMENT?

 

Keep a bridge abutment without the bridge…why? A pile of rocks or a concentration of feng shui? That’s the question the Cleveland Landmark Commission will consider TOMORROW: should the remaining  Central Viaduct bridge abutment in front of the Broadway Mills Building be committed to the historic register?

 

 

For so many reasons, University Circle and its institutions and the surrounding neighborhood are core to what I value in NEO, and I look forward to seeing all that continually expand in significance to me, the region and world. But, University Circle is a small geographic domain, which must be optimized for 21 organizational stakeholders, and their 1,000,000s of stakeholders, including everyone associated with Case, University Hospitals, the VA, CIA, Cleveland Museum(s), Institute of Music, Orchestra, etc., and all others in the community.

In visioning for a better region and future here, consider a broader interpretation of University Circle from the small cultural, healthcare and university center of Cleveland to the center of the entire University Community of NEO.

 

The NY Times featured an interesting editorial on "Aging in Place", published 04/22/06, raises many issues to address in NEO right now. The editorial is promoting "reverse mortgages" to allow older homeowners to tap into the equity in their homes to pay for their living costs, ideally until the end. It is very sad the end costs to live and die now eclipse the lifetime wealth and accrued assets of most Americans, who will hope at best to die without major financial hardships - increasingly, dying at home. There are many reasons for these irreversible trends, from the disproportionately aging population (also causing SS crisis) and exploding healthcare expectations and costs to overall longer lifespans.

   

As we launch multimillion dollar building projects around Cleveland, from the Art Museum to MOCA, to a reworked freeway and “signature bridge”, to new developments in the Flats, Cleveland might learn something about sustainable development by checking out the award winners of the first construction competition held by The Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction

Now it is pretty easy – and sort of sporting fun -  to be critical of what we think are other people’s hair brained schemes and plans, but  every now and then, to balance out one’s cynicism, one needs to come up with a radical plan to supply a target for every other sporting cynic.   This is the dynamic that creates the basis for stimulating conversation.  And it is how bold ideas get shaken out. So one of the past posts on this blog  concerned architect Gehry and the extent to which his designs were or were not “moral”.  While I was sniping at Gehry and his clients for the extremely high cost of the Gehry buildings, I hadn’t proffered any alternative designs which were visually interesting and novel, and which might be able to expand the “shelter” envelope more than Gehry’s twisting and turning the facades of office and school buildings.

Here goes: 

Sustain-a-palooza - April 18 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Adelbert Gym – will highlight what Case and others in Cleveland are doing to create a more sustainable environment on campus and in the area. A central component of the event will be spotlighting faculty and student work and research. Bring your old cell phones, ink jet cartridges and eyeglasses for recycling, and enjoy food, entertainment and door prizes. Those interested in volunteering should contact susan [dot] woolf [at] case [dot] edu or call 368-4330 by the end of today.

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With a prayor and the promise "this is not some kind of a trick", East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer fulfilled a promise to his citizens, this Saturday, April 8, 2006, and organized a community day to help residents of his city who have criminal records to move forward with success in life. Around 200 citizens turned out to learn how to clean up their records, as much as possible, and find jobs in a world that largely views ex-offenders as unemployable.

Peter Garforth at The City Club of Cleveland

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Northeast Ohio is about to see an explosive, high profile, living, learning and enlightening force hit the scene and landscape, as area filmmakers, learning institutions and the public come together to create NEO Central - a bleeding-edge collaborative media arts center for NEO now and the future.The center will be based on like-minded initiatives around the world, and will provide shared film/media education, incubation, production, distribution, business and technology resources, and facilities, which are currently located in the historic landmark Gillota Building at 300 Central Viaduct (Carnegie) and will be expanded significantly as part of an area economic development plan. More on all of this is found in the links below, which will grow...

Here's a posting from a friend at Tribe.net interested in green roof development, and I wonder how hard can this really be, and how much of this goes on in NEO?   From Georgie's Tribe blog...http://people.tribe.net/terraverde:    ...I'm helping James Kalin prototype the Green Roof on the LBOW (LEEDS Building On Wheels) project. In my system, run-off water will fall into the Slow Sand Filter. I'll have to check with a structural engineer to make sure I can support the additional weight. James showed me the GreenGrid (www.greengridroofs.com) trays going on the LBOW roof. It's basically a recycled-content HDPE tray that holds your plantings.

The manufacturer highlights the following benefits:
• Reduced Energy Costs
• Reduced Urban "Heat Island" Effect
• Sound Insulation
• Extended Roof Life
• Stormwater Management

This is a good primer on GreenRoofs:
www.damonfarber.com/Green_Ro...0Roof.pdf

JOHN SIBLEY BUTLER, Ph.D, is a University of Texas Professor, who will be the keynote speaker at the Butler Jones Dinner Lecture, Thursday, April 6, 2006, at 6 pm, at the CSU Wolstein Center.

He will discuss “Lessons of Black Success from Business and Military
Organizations.”

THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 2006, 6PM (dinner lecture); 5PM (cocktail hour)
CSU WOLSTEIN CENTER (2000 Prospect Ave, 4th Floor). For ticket information, please call 216-687-4500. (tickets are $50, with proceeds benefiting the Butler Jones Endowed Lecture Series)

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Come together with leaders of the fight for public health, at the start of National Public Health Week - "Designing Healthy Communities - Raising Healthy Kids", for a globally important program at the City Club, April 4th, featuring Dr. Bruce Lanphear, who will review new data on the adverse health effects of childhood lead exposure. Considering the criticality of lead poisoning in our community, and the huge implications in NEO of the sudden escalation of legal activity around lead poisoning nationwide, it is time to become as informed as possible on this subject. Dr. Lanphear is a world expert on many aspects of this topic, and the City Club will be the place Tuesday for the cutting edge insight on raising healthy kids in NEO.

Greater Cleveland has a higher percentage of elevated blood level children than the national average, and many neighborhoods have significant lead poison problems. This book shares insight generated in the effort to eradicate lead poisoning in NEO, including initiative of the Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council... GCLAC.

The EPA will rule by June 12th on whether diesel fuel is a hazardous air pollutant. On that day, check the price at the pump. Hopefully, that pump will be a biodiesel blend like E.55th and Payne.

I've thought for some time about the issues facing East Cleveland, and thought deeply about the potential we have to uplift an underprivileged community by applying a concerted eco-development strategy.  Here I outline some of my core thoughts as framed by our six-sphere model:

I'm pleased to say the 03.21.2006 Excellence Roundtable featuring Steven Fong gave PD Architecture Critic Steven Litt a chance to catch up with Dean Fong, and be the first to learn huge news for this region... See http://www.cleveland.com/weblogs/entertainment/

KSU dean wants architecture grad program moved to Cleveland
Kent State University will move its entire graduate program in architecture to Cleveland "as soon as possible."

So says Steven Fong, the new dean of KSU's College of Architecture and Environmental Design.

Fong, who assumed the post at KSU in December, described his plans publicly for the first time Tuesday in an interview following a public forum at the university's Urban Design Collaborative in Cleveland.

March 21, 2006, REALNEO and the Kent State University Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative (CUDC)  hosted a wonderful open-house and Excellence Roundtable featuring, Steven Fong, the Charter Dean of the KSU School of Architecture and Environmental Design, which is based in Kent, Ohio, of which CUDC is part. In prime roundtable form, the attendees were as diverse and remarkeable as is Steven, driving a fascinating hour and half brainstorm through Steven's world of fantastic projects that he's worked on around the world, down to today's reality of NEO, viewed from 30,000 feet down to the streets.

Please come together at the Charter One Global Enterprise Center for a very special Excellence Roundtable with a specific purpose - Closing Constant Systems.

For this proactive lunchtime discussion, Constant Systems' Aiden Audouy and Diane Brown will demonstrate their technology and explore with us the factors influencing whether their company will locate valuable business operations in NEO, or Research Triangle. By being at this Roundtable, you can help them determine NEO is the best location in the nation and prove that to their CEO.

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Tuesday, April 04, 2006 12:00 PM Low-Level Lead Toxicity: The Ongoing Search for a Threshold Bruce P. Lanphear, MD, MPH Sloan Prof. of Children's Environmental Health & Dir., Cincinnati Children's Environmental Health Ct Reservation

Lead poisoning is still one of the most serious public health concerns facing children in Cuyahoga County. Rates of childhood lead poisoning are well above 20% in many Cleveland neighborhoods and East Cleveland. Cleveland’s rate is in the top five nationally, with the current U.S. overall rate at under 2%.

Dr. Bruce Lanphear, The Sloan Professor of Children's Environmental Health and the Director of the Cincinnati Children's Environmental Health Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati, will review new data on the adverse health effects of childhood lead exposure, review the major sources of childhood lead exposure and discuss the regulations and tools necessary to shift our focus toward primary prevention.

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Now posting to realneo... photos from the 2006 St. Patrick's Day St. Baldrick's shave-in at A.J. Rocco's, which will raise over $150,000 this year for Childhood Cancer research... perhaps much more, with your continuing support.... and yes, there is a TEAM NEO and that has Sudhir and Norm of "REALNEO gone bald".

 

Join Steven Fong, the charter Dean of the Kent State College of Architecture and Environmental Design, for a March 21, 2006 Excellence Roundtable at their Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative (CUDC - http://www.cudc.kent.edu/index.html). Steven will share his vision on his college, CUDC, Cleveland, NEO, and urban and regional planning here - we shall discuss the future of planning NEO's future.

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Entrepreneurs for Sustainability (E4S)
Connecting People, Planet and Prosperity
 

Design : Transform : Sustainability

Presenting Sponsor - Great Lakes Brewing Company

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