(nike)RED+CAP+52LTD=earthAWARE

our first public build event will be held this coming weekend, Saturday April 9 and Sunday April 10 at Portlands N. Williams and Shaver Streets from 10n till 4. come help us design and build 15 STORYpods for the project. See the invite

 

STORYpod at nike

today we ran our first "laceUP" event at the Nike World Headquarters with 300+ participants from the Nike Youth Forum.

As part of a current earthAWARE project in coordination with (nike)RED+Cascade AIDs Projeect+52LTD we have designed a multi dimensional sculpture composed of over 15 "STORYpods" each woven from NW wood branches. The pods will be distributed around Portland, Oregon over the next three weeks for "laceUP" events where attendees will write a message about their experience, understanding or message regarding HIV/AIDS onto a red tag and tie it onto the pod using a (nike)RED shoelace. We have 25,000 laces and hope to gather that amount of individual expression and participation in the project. Today we added over 300 tag/laces to the first STORYpod.

The STORYpods all come together at the Portland Memorial Coliseum on April 30th. The pods will be sewn together into a sculpture layered with stories and community oneness - generating goodness through collaborative creation.

 

goodbye LEFTBANK

as the new year comes with new opportunity so does our homebase. after just over a year and a half we are leaving our space at the Leftbank building and are working from multiple independent locations. we are doing more and more collaborative workshop projects across the globe where we assemble teams as needed from local resources. we have elected to make our footprint as small as possible so have decided to make our office virtual. as of February 1, 2011 our address will be virtual.

new year new opportunity

as we head into 2011 we look back on some amazing accomplishments completed in the year gone by. we also take this opportunity to recommit ourselves and our company to reducing our impact on this Earth. we will buy less, use items longer, support local and continue to offset all our travel as we teach and spread green ideas around the globe.

our travel schedule is already filling up. we just completed research and discussions on Oahu and Maui about recycling and teaching green awareness in schools. next we travel to India for an extended trip to run four earthAWARE workshops and further teach and listen on green design. back to Israel and a junket in Holland then later in the year is Singapore all the while providing carbon zero solutions for offices and homes in the usa and abroad... and that's just the beginning.

we wish that you will do all you can to unconsume in 2011 and that your year be filled with abundance!

Stanford dSchool

A+D museum director Tibbie Dunbar and Board member Jody Turner joined SOLIDCORE founder and Board member Owen William Fritts for a few hours yesterday with Bill Burnett the director of the Stanford dSchool in Palo Alto, California. We toured the facilities and chatted about design and earth impacts. Next steps include co-authoring a strategy to bring the dSchool students out into our communities to help teach design, creative process and sustainability. We also are working towards integrating earthAWARE into the Stanford design program...

solidcore founder to speak at Qi global summit in singapore

we are proud to announce that owen william fritts, founder of solidcore, will speak at ther eco-focused qi global summit in singapore in october of 2011. The conference is a gathering of the worlds top visionaries in sustainability and earth impact reduction. book your tickets now! learn more and read owens bio here

buckman school earthaware workshop for second graders

 

this December we will be leading the first Portland, Oregon earthaware workshop for the second graders at the Buckman School. we are gathering organic and reuse materials with the parents of the kids, getting volunteer transport for the materials to the school, then spending four days together with 27 kids to design then build three play structures based upon fort and igloo forms. next semester the school will add the resulting forms to the annual fundraising auction.

we have gathered interns and students from local universities to help in the teaching and guiding of our young design-builders. we endeavor to leave the kids with learnings of earth impact from daily decisions, team building and play. check back in mid December for more and images of the event.

solidcore earth considered creation and awareness projects

the solidcore team spent a good deal of summer 2010 working with openmotion on initiative based projects around the world focused on kids, health, earth, movement and design. working from those experiences we are now elevating our background of designing and creating collaborative community spaces to now engage those that will use the spaces by including them in the design and creation. in addition to the physical experience of co-creation while building we will raise awareness of earth issues and impacts in the participants. watch here for more as we roll into new projects.

next adventure

SOLIDCORE has been working with sister company OPENmotion to create play environments for kids that teach about design and earth impact awareness. we were recently commissioned to co-create an awning / entry structure for Portland, Oregon based wow and flutterville, a community activity zone and play space. stay tuned for more developments.

SCRAP

we were recently introduced to Kelley Carmichael Casey of SCRAP in Portland, OR. It is an amazing oranization that she runs where people divert useful materials from the landfill into a warehouse-like space for resale. The materials are organized, priced and offered to the local community. they become fodder for art projects, crafts, kids experiments and just about anything that one could dream up. SCRAP is growing nationally and seeing increased interest from people of all walks. we admire the work of SCRAP and support all they do.

meet Project OPENmotion

Introducing Project OPENmotion: ?the partnering of SOLIDCORE's sustainability principles with Michelle Ricker's company New and You adding the visionary focus on change in nutrition, movement and health.  The OPENmotion series of projects merge green design with kids to create play structures where activity, learning and fun happens.  OPENmotion creates movement oriented environments that encourage active use and participation by children, parents and communities. The vision is to achieve a future where people and the earth are healthy. 

Recently, OPENmotion went to Jerusalem, Israel to work with the Hand in Hand bilingual school, where Jewish and Arab children are taught side by side in Hebrew and Arabic, the first and only integrated school of its kind in Israel. 

OPENmotion selects relevant projects each year, looking for the greatest positive impact on kids' health and green design.  Next up are play environments in Portland OR, Austin TX, New York City, and back in Israel.

To learn more about the latest projects in merging design with health visit: projectopenmotion.com

one Gulf Oil Containment idea

Encircle the leak by using hundreds of US Naval ships, battleships, aircraft carriers, destroyers and subs plus hundreds of oil tankers to maintain a 10K perimeter with a 10 layer tyvex and steel cable shroud anchored by the largest circular anchor ring ever assembled (10k+ tonnes) then begin harvesting the contained area into the tankers until the leak has drained itself out so the pipe can be replaced and a cap can be placed... next challenge: capture all the methane being released. 

israel lectures and OPENmotion projects

just back from eleven amazing days in Israel where we delivered two Green Design Lectures, one hosted by Nekuda Design Management and coordinated by our good friend Omer Kotzer for the Israeli Industries Leadership Summit of 300 top businesses which was held at the beautiful Musictecka in the City of Holon, just south of Tel Aviv. The other was for the Bezalel Academy Graduate Design School in Jerusalem set high atop Mt. Scopus and coordinated by Elad Perov.

We also spent four days working with over fifty K-12 kids from the Jerusalem Bilingual School and twelve design graduate students from the Bezalel Academy to create five OPENmotion play structures. OPENmotion is a project-based collaboration of SOLIDCORE and NewandYou to create motion oriented, green play environments for kids. For the Jerusalem project we directed the teams of students while they designed thier own solutions then built them from materials we reclaimed at the municipal recycling facility. The results were outstanding and the process brought together people of many ages and cultures.

Off to Israel

SOLIDCORE is thrilled and honored to be part of the Nekuda lecture series, "How to Create a Practical Magical Future."  

Our founder and designer, William Fritts will be focusing on upcoming trends and designing sustainably and simply.   Fritts will also discuss the use of organic environments, using examples of past projects we have completed for smiley media and wieden + kennedy. 

He will also be introducing a collaboration with Michelle Ricker, RD to create an OPENmotion environment in Jerusalem.

 

burning sticks

we recently completed the creation of a collaborative meeting environment for Smiley Media in Austin, Texas. the space is encircled by a nest like woven enclosure of Texas Cedar sticks and branches. as part of getting approval to build the structure from the Austin Fire Department we were required to build a smaller version, have it treated with no-burn fire retardent and have it torched by the Fire Department. we complied and here are the results. this video is compressed from 45v minutes of attempts to get a fire started in the sticks no no avail.

 

big bamboo

this year we will create numerous organic environments around the world crafted from locally found materials and utilizing volunteer labor. we have playgrounds, experience lounges and storefront facades in the works. we are always searching for others utilizing the age old processes of weaving and assemblage, today we found these folks using bamboo to build this huge structure. watch the construction here

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/sustainable-art-the-star

thank you mother earth

 

on this the 40th anniversary of earth day we at solidcore want to send our most sincere thanks to our mother: our planet. we strive every day here to minimize our impact on our mother and to restore what has been taken or damaged by ourselves and others. we wish for all people everywhere to take the challenge to make every day of the year an earth day!