Archeworks' Mobile Food Collective has 14 Days to Raise $7000

Archeworks MFC Video for the Venice biennale from thirst/a design collaborative on Vimeo.

From Archeworks:

Developed through a collaborative process in the Archeworks design program, the MFC [Mobile Food Collective] has designed a fleet of mobile structures intended to act as a traveling cultural center, to encourage a return to heritage, ownership, exchange, and connection-in essence, to make food personal again. The MFC is many things: an education/exchange platform for planting, growing and cooking; demonstrations and distribution of seeds, soil, compost, and produce; a space activator within a community event; or the centerpiece of a harvest dinner. The MFC is also designed to facilitate a variety of educational programs, ranging from design thinking exercises to farm and gardening activities with youth and community members in urban neighborhoods.

Click here to learn more about the project.

Our team has had amazing response and support so far, including the opportunity to exhibit the Mobile Food Collective in the U.S. Pavilion at the 2010 Venice Biennale for Architecture. We are reaching out to ask for your support of our idea and to promote awareness of our movement. We are in need of further publicity and funding to assist in completing fabrication, building a food heritage archive, and hosting cultural exchange/design workshops during our time in Italy.

And in a strange coincidence, they have the same mission as my grandmother, the eating part anyways:
The Mobile Food Collective's mission is to bring people together around food, and to inspire a new food culture around growing, cooking, sharing and eating!

Note to Archeworks: if you need any help in Italy I've been practicing my Italian by talking with my hands more.

Help support our local team at the Biennale.

Infrastructures for Change Symposium 2010 - June 3rd

This second installment of the Infrastructures for Change Symposium focuses on the Chicago and Great Lakes Region. From the website, the symposium:

will focus on the design and planning of the next 100 years of Chicago, Lake Michigan, and the built urban environment within the Great Lakes Basin. Infrastructures for Change will initiate a new blueprint for action toward imagining and inventing a 21st Century Great Lakes Model for global city building.

The program begins at 8:30 am on June 3rd at the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning with introductions followed by an opening keynote by Cameron Davis, J.D., Senoir Advisor to the US EPA Administrator. More information on Archeworks' website.

Archeworks Summer 2010 Internship

Archeworks is seeking an intern for Summer 2010. The intern will work with the Archeworks Director to generate content for a new publication highlighting alternative urban design and architectural strategies for 21st Century cities. The intern will be responsible for creating graphic diagrams, editing lecture transcripts, soliciting quotes and project documentation, and synthesizing and distilling information from various sources, amongst other tasks. The intern must be motivated, self-sufficient, detail-oriented, and comfortable working with minimal supervision.

The ideal candidate has a strong writing background and is currently enrolled in an architecture, landscape architecture, or urban design graduate program or is a recent graduate. Successful candidates will have a keen understanding of urban and environmental issues and a passion for resourceful urban design as a means of enhancing quality of life in the contemporary American City. Proficiency with Adobe Creative Suite is necessary.

The internship will start in early to mid-May and end in early to mid-August. Exact dates to be determined. The intern will be based at the Archeworks studios in Chicago's River North neighborhood, with occasional flexibility to work remotely. Archeworks can provide a modest stipend for this position.

The application deadline is 5 p.m. CST on Monday, April 19, 2010.

Applicants should submit cover letter, resume, two short writing samples, and digital portfolio or work samples to Katie Vail, Archeworks Program Manager.

Questions can be directed to Katie Vail. No phone inquiries please.

Archeworks was founded in 1994 on the premise that good design should serve everyone. Over the past 16 years, Archeworks has completed over 40 community design projects addressing universal design, sustainability, urban agriculture and ecology, early childhood education, neighborhoods with limited resources, micro-enterprises for women and minorities, and other community-based needs in the urban environment.

Archeworks Exhibit and Open House

Winning Entry: CarbonTAP by PORT Architecture and Urbanism

Archeworks is hosting a presentation and panelist discussion as part of its exhibit, WPA 2.0: Working Public Architecture - Chicago Edition, on April 6th. This is the featured program of Archeworks' 2010 Spring Open House. The topic involves the recent Working Public Architecture (WPA) 2.0 competition by CityLAB of UCLA and will feature the work of several Chicago architects that participated, including UrbanLAB's entry, which was selected as a finalist of the first stage, and Port Architecture and Urbanism's entry which was selected as the winner.

Steven Pantazis Architecture: Highway Reclamation/Racial Reconciliation

As I am a Chicago architect and entered the competition I was asked to participate. I will be presenting my project titled Highway Reclamation/Racial Reconciliation. The event will be moderated by Greg Dreicer, Vice President of Exhibitions and Programs at the Chicago Architecture Foundation. The show starts at 6 and is free and open to the public. Seating is limited so RSVP online.

WPA 2.0: Working Public Architecture - Chicago Edition
April 6th at 6pm
Archeworks
625 N. Kingsbury (at Ontario)
Free Admission

Upcoming Lectures

Check out the much-neglected sidebar for some outstanding lectures over the next two weeks including some heavy-hitting theorists at UIC (I've noticed a recurring theme here). Don't forget Sergio Palleroni, not a theorist-a practicist? Well, he's certainly an activist. He'll be here Oct 20th. Tune in tomorrow for information about a symposium at IIT this weekend. I hope your Friday evening and Saturday is clear.

Lewis Mumford Awards Ceremony

Jamie Clark speaks after being elected to the board of ADPSR

Three remarkable community activists were awarded with a Lewis Mumford Award on saturday night at Archeworks. From the ADPSR Chicago press release,

In 1992, ADPSR instituted the annual Lewis Mumford Awards to honor people and organizations that exemplify ADPSR’s goals of peace, preservation of the natural and built environment, and socially responsible development. The awards were named after Lewis Mumford (1895-1990) an American historian of technology and science, noted for his study of cities and urban architecture. “Lewis Mumford’s writings continue to inspire and remind us that architecture, design, and planning must respond to human needs, harmonize with its surroundings, and reflect the aspirations and social context of our civilization,” says Lynne Elizabeth, President of ADPSR.

You can read the rest of the release as well as a description of the winning organizations here.

After the winners were presented their award they were given an opportunity to speak about their organizations. One of the things they shared in common that resonated with me was the social aspects that were being addressed in these communities. As architects we are often focused on improving the built environment. But impoverished communities are so often a target for many social vices like substance abuse and gangs. I've often thought it would be more of a fair fight against these vices with a strong social network of family and friends. We see this type of community activism on the news when communities get together for anti-violence marches.

Afterwords we were able to mingle with the award winners, their families, architects and designers with food, drink and a three piece jazz band to set the atmosphere. Many professionals who were involved with the Converge/Exchange Symposium back in March were there as well.

To find out more about the winners and their organizations check out their websites. After reading up on them you may want to lend a hand.

Growing Home for Outstanding Efforts in Peace.

Little Village Environmental Justice Organization for Environment

Fuller Park Community Development for Community Development