After many a long day (and night) of manual labor, Dan and I have finally finished the deck! Grounded Design Studio's first design/build job for some great clients in Columbus, OH. A big thanks to them for their patience and for picking us for the job. We also wanna say thanks to everybody who helped by lending some time, or some tools, to the job.
NORCROSS, GA – The Design Futures Council has selected a half-dozen professionals for its 2009 class of Emerging Leaders. These individuals will receive registration scholarships to attend the eighth annual Leadership Summit on Sustainable Design in Chicago September 30 – October 2.
The Design Futures Council is an interdisciplinary network of design, product, and construction leaders exploring global trends, challenges, and opportunities to advance innovation and shape the future of the industry and environment. Members include leading architecture and design firms, building product manufacturers, and service providers that take an active interest in their future.
One of the Design Futures Council's missions is to identify and recognize emerging leaders who are having—and will increasingly have—a profound impact on design practices, design professions, and the community. The Emerging Leaders scholarship program, now in its third year, addresses this goal by selecting individuals who represent the future of design practice in terms of its broadening scope, service to society, sustainable design, and technological innovation.
Two weekends ago Grounded Design hosted a Localvore Potluck at their studio. What's a localvore you might ask?Farmers' markets play a role in efforts to eat what is local.[6] Preserving food for those seasons when it is not available fresh from a local source is one approach some locavores include in their strategies. Living in a mild climate can make eating locally grown products very different from living where the winter is severe or where no rain falls during certain parts of the year.[7] Those in the movement generally seek to keep use of fossil fuels to a minimum, thereby releasing less carbon dioxide into the air and preventing greater global warming. Keeping energy use down and using food grown in heated greenhouses locally would be in conflict with each other, so there are decisions to be made by those seeking to follow this lifestyle. Many approaches can be developed, and they vary by locale.[8] Such foods as spices, chocolate, or coffee pose a challenge for some, so there are a variety of ways of adhering to the locavore ethic.[9]"
So ya, we at Grounded Design Studio decided to become localvores and invited our friends to join us. Guests were asked to bring anything farmed, fermented, produced, foraged, brewed locally. We got a great array of local beer, local wine, peaches, blueberries, peach compote, potato curry salad, blueberry ice cream, blueberry red wine sorbet, pizza with local ingredients, corn/bean/pepper salsa, potato and zucchini chips (who knew there are pink and purple potatoes), tomato/mozzarella/basil salad, mint tea, fudge, and cookies. Yum Yum to my tum tum! It was a great time, and we hope to continue the localvore potlucks in the near future. If you are interested in joining us or would like to host it at your house, let us know! Here are a few pictures of the food from the potluck. We unfortunately got so excited about the food that we forgot to take pictures of the actual people who came. Thanks so much to everyone who came!
Everybody's got kites -
