Today begins a short series of guest writer appearances for cause of the week, each of whom has a role in the new book Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism. Published by Metropolis Books, they introduce the text as follows:

Expanding Architecture presents a new generation of creative design carried out in the service of the greater public and greater good. Questioning how design can improve daily lives, editors Bryan Bell and Katie Wakeford map an emerging geography of architectural activism that is rich in its diversity of approaches. More than thirty essays by practicing architects and designers, urban and community planners, landscape architects, environmental designers, and members of other fields present recent work from around the world that suggests the countless ways that design can address issues of social justice, allow individuals and communities to plan and celebrate their own lives, and serve a much larger percentage of the population than it has in the past.

Azure Magazine calls Expanding Architecture "the Barack Obama of books... a story about the change we need in the fields of architecture and urban design, professions that have lost their way, easily seduced by wealthy clients."

Co-editor Bryan Bell is our first guest to cause of the week. If you haven’t heard of Bryan you're probably not running in architecture circles or reading design magazines. He worked at the Rural Studio with Sambo Mockbee in the mid-80s, and has since led over a dozen of the design/build thesis projects including the Greensboro Children’s Center and the Mason’s Bend Community Center. He founded Design Corps in 1991 with the mission “to provide the benefits of architecture to those traditionally un-served by the profession.” He collaborates annually with a university or non-profit to produce the Structures for Inclusion conference which exposes new professionals to alternative forms of community-based and socially-conscious practice. SFI 9 will be in Dallas this March. (I worked with Bryan on SFI 7 in Charlotte). Finally, an interview with Bryan can be found by clicking here.

In addition to his entry that follows, Bryan suggests two courses of easy action.

1. Go to change.org and vote for his suggestions regarding sustainable policy (and to see a lot of other great activist work in progress).

and

2. Get the latest info on SFI 9 in Dallas and go to the conference to join the chorus of voices discussing progressive forms of conscientious practice.

And I will add a third, taken directly from his text that follows. Consider your vision of yourself, of how you practice in this world and what you hope that practice will contribute (and I mean 'practice' in the largest sense of the word). Lead as an activist and an advocate, regardless of your task at hand.

A big thank you to Bryan for kicking this off. Here is Bryan Bell's entry for cause of the week:

Architecture has so much unrealized potential.

The benefits of design could do so much more for so many more.

Design can play a role in addressing the most critical social, economic and environmental issues that we face.

Architects have been absorbed in what we can accomplish technically, structurally, and aesthetically. We have recently made great progress in what we can accomplish environmentally. Where we have failed, is to show what we can accomplish socially and economically.

The process of creating can allow communities and individuals to define and celebrate their lives. It can also help solve their struggles by reshaping their existence, recovering from disasters as well as meeting day-to-day challenges. This is an exciting time, not just for designers but for everyone who can potentially benefit from our greater role.

The expansion of design is a transformation of our identity, not just our vision of ourselves but a transformation in the collective consciousness of how design can make a positive difference in the world today.

This is not something proposed for the future, a master plan hatched in a few minds. It is already happening with real projects helping real people, face to face encounters on the streets and in the fields. Some are large and many are quite small. We have documented these In 30 essays, capturing a shared spirit and best practices while not limiting the richness of the great diversity of the work.

This expansion is happening in three ways:

• serving more of the public
• taking on a greater scope of issues
• offering a greater range of services

The first expansion –- serving a larger segment of the public -- has gained attention recently: that the current practice of design serves only the few, the elite, the wealthy and the powerful. I have used the statistic that 98% of new home buyers work without architects. Paul Pollack suggested the term the Cooper Hewitt used for it’s show that 90% of the world's designers focus on only 10% of the world’s population. But regardless of the statistic, the point is being made. That design could serve more.

The second expansion is design taking on a greater range of issues. Perhaps the worst limit we currently have is what is seen as design-related issues. We have limited ourselves by this narrow definition and we must ask the question again: what are design issues?

The third way this expansion is happening is in providing a wider range of services and approaches. As we embrace these new roles, we become activists engaging in action for the public good. And as the definition of activism suggests, we take intentional actions to bring about positive change. We can become activists in so many ways. I’d like to highlight a few of these mechanisms from examples in the book.

This work doesn’t have to be in another country, cost a lot, or take a major commitment. It can take place as equally through a guerrilla group of artists in Croatia or in a New York neighborhood. It can be a life-time commitment or a quick weekend project using salvaged materials. Lest anything here seem overwhelming, just remember that helping others through design is the goal and can be simple.

The concept of Expanding Architecture, of expanding all the design professions, is to move from our current limited role and realize our greater potential. We need to change our vision of ourselves first, in the goals we set for ourselves. Only then can we hope to change the public perception of what we can contribute. As these projects show, this is happening. The collective consciousness of designers role is changing, both for the professions and of the public, giving us not just an opportunity to do some good work, but to make a permanent change in our collective future.

We need to fix this idea into the collective consciousness of the general public. This is not going to happen by supernatural forces. It will only happen by many being activists; being advocates.
What we hope is that this is moving from the margins of practice to the mainstream of practice, where the needed resources and energy are available.

Our potential is waiting to be realized.

The need is undeniable.

The only thing stopping us, is us.

Now is the time to show what we can do.

USAService.org - Renew America Together.

Yes, some people may be sick of Obama hype (is it possible??), but as long as his vision and my vision keep colliding like magnetic balls (and probably even way past that), I'll be here spreading the good word. The latest effort from Obamaland is Monday's Day of Service. Hard to believe it took more than 40 years and a revolutionary election for our country as a whole to be ready to live up to this call in what I imagine will be record numbers. Of course, isn't this exactly why it was a revolutionary election in the first place? Because we have come to our common senses and recognized not just our hope, but our responsibility in creating it? Coretta must be smiling as the day she worked so hard to get on the calendar is finally growing to represent the mission of the man it was intended to remember. Once again, Obama central has used the internet to make it easy for us to both find and post events where we can make individual choices that contribute to the collective call. Click here and choose something within five miles of your house or fifty to devote your time to your choice of posted worthy causes. Thanks, OTeam, for doing the work on this one.

Next week we're staring a guest writer series that I'm super excited about. Stay tuned.

Yes PeCan! and A Good Hard Kick.

Sometimes a good cause is simply so good that it is effortless to take action. This one was brought to my attention through a facebook post (thanks, Marty!) and wins the creative capitalism prize for do-gooders and ice cream lovers. Reported by the Huffington Post, Ben & Jerry's will donate the proceeds from every scoop of 'Yes PeCan' ice cream sold in the month of January to the Common Cause Education Fund. And if that isn't enough, if you join common cause or donate a dollar to the Common Cause Education Fund, they will match your dollar with a dollar of their own. See the Ben & Jerry's or the Common Cause website for more information.

And even if ice cream isn't your thing, Common Cause is worth checking out. It's a "nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy organization...committed to honest, open and accountable government, as well as encouraging citizen participation in democracy." In addition to a national coalition, they support 36 state organizations and several city-scale branches that organize local activities devoted to government accountability and ethics. Broadly, their causes include: election reform, government accountability (including 'watchdogging the bailout'!!), ethics in government, and media and democracy. Check out their website for the political cause that fits your personal activism, or just eat more ice cream. (As if I needed another excuse!)

Secondly, I have to mention that this week's People magazine (January 12th - 19th) has a fantastic five page article on Street Soccer USA, the homeless soccer league born in Charlotte by my friend Lawrence Cann. Some of you may know the 'converted soup-kitchen parking lot' they refer to in the article as our very own ARTPARK. If you're waiting in line at the grocery store with your cart full of Yes PeCan, be sure to pick it up and take a look, pages 50 to 54 (sandwiched like Oreo filling between Oprah's weight frustration and women now half their size!).

And, oh my gosh, congratulations to Robby Johnston for being the first of his cohort (and maybe the first of my former students?) to become a registered architect! I know you take into that heady responsibility a commitment to be a conscientious leader in forming a more beautiful, meaningful, and thought-provoking world. As you have always championed, life is too short and our worlds too small for mediocrity.

So much more to come in the next few weeks. Thanks for all the encouragement, and all of your own small actions. Happy 79 degrees and sunny in LA this January.

Design Resolutions

Last week the common cause was family. Sometimes that's all the work - and joy - we can each handle.

This week I'm acting as easy facilitator and passing on the annual update from one of the few architecture-based organizations borne of the dearth of design activism. An organization that was founded just under a decade ago, Architecture for Humanity continues to grow in size and influence by supporting branch chapters and global initiatives. December 27th - apparently a boxing day tradition - they posted their 'Year in Review'. Take a look at their latest accomplishments by clicking here. They also include the user friendly post 'Ten Ways to Give'. Though many of the ten are variations of a 'donate to AfH now' theme (a worthy cause), my favorite is #5, give your staff a sabbatical. If anything is true about architects, it's that we work too hard for too little money and often in the name of sacrifice and adoration of the art of making. So, regardless of your field, if you have yet to incorporate opportunities for volunteerism into the schedule of your staff, make 2009 the year to do so. If you are the staff, then maybe it's time for a grassroots suggestion. If you're willing to do a short term commitment sans salary, then you may also be donating a small bit to the survival of your own office. From all I have read, the reward in spirit revitalization and gratitude with a side effect of employee loyalty, heightened morale and new knowledge is well worth the perceivable inefficiency. It might be one day a month - time to paint a room or two, clean a park, build a ramp - or the chance to pool those days into weeks, even months, over the life of a single job. Imagine a client/office volunteer collaboration, where the way you really get to know their tastes and needs and earn their trust is through a tangible and shared commitment to a better environment. Six hours, or 6 months, no effort is wasted.

AfH also asks for your Design Resolutions. Reading the list is both inspiring and dispiriting. So many designers are stifled by the limitations of low expectations. I send good karma to everyone who is vowing to inject design back into their lives and the lives of their clients, family, friends, and unsuspecting strangers. The latter is my Design Resolution, to be produced and implemented through my course this semester at Otis College of Art & Design. This week, this year, how do you design a better world?

We don't hire people to make brownies, we make brownies to hire people.

It's the Sunday before Christmas, and it's the first night of Chanukah, and I have to say just the idea of giving gifts out of necessity is something that has always made me queasy. In our relatively gluttonous society, and in this particular economic uncertainty, the very last thing we all need to be doing is spending money we don't have on things we definitely don't need and very possibly don't even want. Luckily, though, creative capitalism has meant that it is easier than ever for an altruistic company to do good while also doing well (as said by many more famous and prolific than I). The RED campaign is one example, where the Gap and other well-known retailers create a single red product whose profits partially go towards fighting AIDS in Africa. Or Tom's shoes, where for every pair of shoes we buy here, another pair is donated to a needy child. This strategy directly ties profits with philanthropy, making the process cyclical and interdependent. The greater the business's economic success, the greater its ability to do good; the more good it does, the more good it can do.

For some companies, though, they have not just adopted this premise but are founded on it. In other words, they were invented to do good, not the other way around. Greyston Bakery is probably my favorite of those, and it's partially because they make all of the brownies for all the Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Their founding motto is, "We don't hire people to make brownies, we make brownies to hire people." In particular, people who other companies might consider too risky, Greyston hires, mentors, promotes, and supports. Much of their profits go into the Greyston Mandala Foundation, which also goes back into the community through contributions to local needs like low income housing or providing public space for positive social interaction. In addition, they promote their business as a model to be emulated, therefore contributing exponentially to the landscape of good deed capitalism. All that, and you get good brownies, too. At their website you can order 12 or 48 at a time. Click here. Or, buy them locally at these locations (Park Slope Co-op, anyone?)

In a recent email from KCRW, my local NPR station, they mentioned the yellow bird project. Another cool altruism meets consumerism effort, where famous musicians design unique t-shirts sold for $25 each. The profits from each shirt are then donated to the musician's charity of choice, from Bon Iver's selection of a women's shelter in Toronto to The Shins' selection of the Nature Conservancy. Yellow Bird gets to give money to good causes while promoting musical artists they think are both creative and conscientious. All that, and you get a t-shirt too. Click here.


So, don't give people crap they don't want this year. Make something together, give thoughtful deeds, or buy brownies and t-shirts and get a great two for one. Choose well, and choose good, skip the relegation to the attic, and let your gift count twice, and maybe then some.

REPLATE

First of all, if you missed last week's post, please scroll down and take a look. Coming up on December 20th (this Saturday!), 27th, and 28th, the Los Angles Poverty Department (LAPD) will be presenting a fascinating and free piece of theater written by Ron Allen. I had a brief preview of one of the monologues over some very tasty Chinese food last week, and I can tell you it looks like it will be quite entertaining. I'm planning on going to the show on the 20th if anyone else wants to join me.

What I have learned in the first few months of this adventure in spreading change is that a lot of causes need a lot of money, and particularly right now, forking over our own limited cash is harder than it was even a year ago. In addition, to be honest, it starts to seem like giving money is somehow a substitute for action. Don't get me wrong - sometimes money is the best answer, or the one most appropriate and generous for you or the cause at hand, but what I'm hoping to put into the public eye here are ways we can ACT that will make a difference. Some efforts really are clear actions, some are variations on current actions, and some might be considered 'awarenesses'. I'm still figuring this all out.

This week I heard a story on KCRW's Good Food program about food waste, which we all know, particularly post-Thanksgiving, is rampant in this simultaneously ambitious and generally lazy society (oh, I'll buy greens and squash and fish and make soup and grill and... zzzzzzzzzz). A movement called REPLATE is emerging out of San Francisco. The gist is this: rather than taking home our own leftovers to quite possibly squander them in an already abundant fridge, or dumping them in the trash when you realize you're too lazy to carry them, why not leave them - fully wrapped and ready to be eaten - on TOP of the street table we often call a trash can so someone else might reap the benefits of your much appreciated fullness. REPLATE's catch phrase - you might already be an activist - takes an easy action and makes it matter. So, give it a try yourself (we actually DID pass on a selection of leftovers from that LAPD meeting) and then spread the word.

The Frequently Asked Questions on the REPLATE site contribute also to the conversation about activism (is the bar too low?) as well as health and humanity. I would add, of course this kind of system works best when there are people on both sides who participate. And, please, if you have the flu, stay home in the first place. Here are their FAQs (see you on the corner):

We started this project because we noticed that people in West Coast cities and beyond were leaving their leftovers on top of (or next to) garbage cans when they couldn't find someone to give them to. We thought this behavior was worth talking about, so we gave it a name.

Now that it has a name, there's been a lot of good conversation.

Here are the issues that keep coming up:

Won't the food go bad and make people sick?
People are eating food out of the trash. They are digging into public trash cans, pulling out old, dirty food, and eating it. Surely food that's on top of the trash, and not mixed in with the muck, is less likely to make a person ill. Surely food that's in plain sight and easily accessible will be picked up sooner (and thus in a fresher state) than food that's hidden in the trash.

The idea of food left outdoors feels messy.
Some have worried that food will rot or that rats will get to it before hungry people do. This is a legitimate concern in small towns or sparsely populated areas, but certainly not in a town like San Francisco where, at any given moment, there are many people without enough to eat. [However, I have to add, this is not a mass excuse for litter or laziness. The heart of generosity is giving away something of value, something that you yourself might still want or use. In other words, your discarded pizza crusts are not equivalent to dinner. Keep in mind - litter is evil. More on that another time.]

Why not just eat your own leftovers?
Of course. Many of us do. But sometimes you just don't, for any number of reasons. Rather than toss 'em out, or go traipsing through the city looking for a hungry person, maybe the next best thing is to replate them.

Incompatible trash cans.
Apparently, New York City trash cans don't have hoods or ledges, so there's no horizontal surface on which to replate. This isn't as big a problem as some have suggested. If you want to give someone the food you're not going to eat, simply put it next to the trash can, or on a newspaper dispenser.

Evil people.
There's a strange paranoia in the conversation about evil people poisoning the food. Sure, it could happen. But you could also get pushed in front of the subway train. Or someone could put razor blades in your Halloween candy. People could betray your trust in any number of ways, but if you ride the subway, or eat Halloween candy, you know that the fear far outweighs the actual risk.

The City should officially get involved.
Some have suggested formalizing a leftovers drop-off point like a food bank, free dining room, or some city-sponsored receptacle. We think that's a great idea. Make it happen.

If replating your leftovers counts as activism, then the bar for activism is set way too low.
Maybe that's true, but though the first steps of activism (however you define it) are small ones, they form the foundation for the giant leaps to come. And replate is just the beginning of a conversation that we hope will inspire greater action.

And don't forget that this is an open-source movement. It's yours as much as anybody's, and you can build on it however you want. [I personally LOVE this sentiment, and feel it is the central and overriding cause of 'cause of the week']

So if you don't think it's activism yet. And if you want to make replate bigger and badder and more hardcore, we've got a hunch you'll get all the support you'll need.

If you have more questions or want to expand the conversation, email us at:

leftovers [at] replate [dot] org



To hear the whole show on Good Food, go here.

LOS ANGELES POVERTY DEPARTMENT PRESENTS
"MY EYES ARE THE CAGE IN MY HEAD"
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY RON ALLEN

"My Eyes Are The Cage In My Head" depicts the reality of a tethered humanity in search of itself through desire and self-destructive relationships. Ron Allen subverts language to teach and deconstruct social models and create visions of new worlds.

'Ron Allen's raw, ultra-poetic examination of the African American experience rips into its targets to locate the true nature of freedom within one archetypal black man's mind.' - LA WEEKLY



Three Performances at three locations
All performances are free!

Saturday Dec. 20 at 7 p.m. at The Box Gallery, 977 Chung King Road in Chinatown
Saturday Dec. 27 at 7 p.m. at the Church of the Nazarene, entrance on the corner of San Pedro and 6th Street, on Skid Row
Sunday Dec. 28, at 6:30 p.m. at the Industry Cafe & Jazz, 6039 Washington Blvd. in Culver City

Ron Allen is a poet, playwright and teacher who lives and works in Los Angeles. This project continues LAPD's relationship with Allen, building on the 2006 production of "Fried Poetry", presented at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center and Skid Row's James Wood Community Center. Allen also taught in LAPD 's 2007 summer changeXchange workshop.

LOS ANGELES POVERTY DEPARTMENT creates performance work that connects lived experience to the social forces that shape the lives and communities of people living in poverty. For more information, www.lapovertydept.org

LAPD's production of "my eyes are the cage in my head" is funded in part by the City of LA Cultural Affairs Department with the National Endowment for the Arts.