Preaching to the Choir

This week's newspaper column: Read it in the Hattiesburg American.

Last Monday night, maestro Gregory Fuller – armed with baton and resolute determination - purposed a confident downbeat unleashing a powerful torrent of cultural sustainability. The music: An American Requiem. The venue: Carnegie Hall.

Straight-away in the second balcony sat the composer, Edwin Penhorwood, listening as selections of his seventeen-movement opus were performed on stage for the very first time by three hundred talented individuals working together as a whole to produce a singular work of art. The piece was commissioned by the School of Music at the University of Southern Mississippi as a memorial to victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Most of the works for chorus and orchestra performed in the United States today have European origins. And why not? Bach, Mozart, Beethoven – all musical geniuses – along with fellow over-the-ponders gave us a rich tradition of music from which to draw. And in fact, preceding An American Requiem, conductor John Flanery led chorus and orchestra masterfully in Mozart’s Coronation Mass in C Major – how can you not like that?

But unique is the occasion when a contemporary work matches up with the musical standards that endure time. This was just such an occasion. Ed Penhorwood hit this one out of the park.

What’s so culturally significant about an original, contemporary piece of music?

Although we all seem to be on friendlier terms with the older classics, the cultural reflections embodied in those melodies are borrowed from another time and another place. Familiar and inviting as the classics may be, music written a few centuries ago and an ocean away serves as a time capsule of cultures past, like watching a good black-and-white movie, while contemporary compositions – at their best - tell us something about our common experiences as articulated by the sensitivities of the artist-composer.

And what is our “culture” if not the collection of common experiences unique to our time and place on this earth?

Between chorus, orchestra and soloists, the three hundred or so of us on stage made an agreement. We agreed that regardless of each other’s level of talent (some singers were masterful soloists in their own right; others, like me, have been told they have “a decidedly choral voice”), we would work together in a singular effort for the good of the whole. No one piped up out of turn to draw attention away from the flow of the music. Everyone, whether soprano or baritone or violin or trombone, sang and played as directed to the best of their abilities to create a cohesive sound that, with great composing, moves and enriches the soul.

For those who did not make the Carnegie Hall concert, fear not. The Meistersingers will join the Hattiesburg Choral union and the USM Symphony to perform An American Requiem in its entirety in Hattiesburg on April 8th. Mark the date, get your tickets, and prepare to hear the resonant sound of your own culture.

EcoLecture at Southern Miss

Tuesday (March 24th) at noon, as part of the University of Southern Mississippi's monthly EcoLecture series, I will present a slide show entitled "The Greening of Southern Miss."

If you are on this quadrant of the planet, please feel free to drop in to this free event sponsored by the university's Office of Sustainability.

I'll talk about green buildings and infrastructure, zero-energy buildings, and sustainable connections to the surrounding community.

Location: (see campus map)

Stout Hall B, University of Southern Mississippi
Hattiesburg, Mississippi, USA

Directions:
From Highway 49 or Interstate 59, take Hardy Street to Campus. Turn north at East Memorial Drive (at the light) and proceed to the guard house for a parking pass. Park as directed and walk to Stout Hall along the brick pedestrian plaza.

Contact:
Larry Lee, Office of Sustainability
601-266-5687
green@usm.edu
http://www.usm.edu/green/index.php

Green Campus Movement

Did you know that many US college presidents are working in a concerted effort to green our nations campuses?

Signatories of the American College and University President's Climate Commitment agree to institute proactive measures to cut campus emissions and waste. The document specifies several areas of action including a commitment to design new buildings to meet or exceed the US Green Building Council's LEED silver designation.

FYI: LEED has four levels of certification - certified, silver, gold, and platinum. The lowest level, Certified, indicates that some measures have been taken to minimize the building's carbon footprint. A Platinum designation is meted out for an A++ in sustainability; not many currently exist. Silver and Gold are somewhere in between.

President Martha Dunagin Saunders of the University of Southern Mississippi (where I am teaching a sustainability seminar this spring) signed the document when she was chancelor of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and then again as president of USM.

To view the commitment - it's only two pages, go for it - click here:

http://www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org/html/commitment.pdf

And check to see if the leader of your institution of higher learning is a signatory.

http://www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org/html/signatories.php

Higher Learning meets Higher Purpose

I sat down with Larry Lee a few days ago to talk about sustainability on college campuses. Lee is the head of the University of Southern Mississippi's new office of sustainability and he is making great headway in raising awareness of green issues with the student and faculty population.

One his first actions was to implement a comprehensive campus-wide recycling program. He started a student bike-share program and he's bringing in environmental speakers on a regular basis. And, the university has made a commitment to only build sustainable buildings from here on out.

You've heard the cliche "thinking outside the box"? Lee acknowledges that our planning decisions must be proactive, taking into consideration our trajectory into the future, not just current circumstances. Lee used a term that I really like; he speaks of "thinking outside the decade."

More sustainability plans are in the works, but already Larry Lee - with the full support of president Martha Saunders - is making a difference.

Stay tuned for more updates.

Walking: An Experience - Not An Afterthought

photo: Samantha Montague, Student Printz Newspaper


It is particularly rewarding to open a newspaper and see a photo of one of your designs taken by someone you don't know for the purpose of painting a beautiful picture of the character of a space.

A few years ago, I designed a pedestrian plaza in the center of campus at the University of Southern Mississippi. The idea was to define a critical series of spaces in the middle of campus transforming an automobile-scaled space into a human-scaled space while creating an area that, in spirit, would become the heart and soul of campus.

Ironically, this space was always a pedestrian thoroughfare. Between classes, students took over the streets as cars inched along narrowly avoiding running over crowds of students flocking to the next class. The experience of getting from here to there was 100 percent functional; there was no "there" between the there and there.

On any design project, I always spend a great deal of time on-site before putting pencil to paper taking in -watching, listening, feeling - the local conditions. Organic and sustainable design is very site specific. No matter how nice the design studio, there's really no substitute for "being there."

On one such observation session, as students flooded the streets, the image of a cattle drive came into mind. If not in person, you've seen this iconic image in Western movies. A sea of cattle mingle between the high-sitting cowboys. "Git along, little dogie."

The solution, in this case, was to bring the edges in. Cars were routed around the center campus to clarify the pedestrian flow. Formerly undefined roadway curbs became brick knee-walls carving out planted areas that sculpt a more intimate space for students to move through and gather. In addition to softening the space with seasonal foliage, these short walls serve as benches, set at sitting height with inviting curved tops, for the purpose of providing students multiple (and random) places to "hang-out" - and they do.

Brick, the predominant material, was woven in a herringbone pattern for warmth and texture. The fountain (in the distance) adds moving water to the mix and serves as a focal element. A clocktower, yet unbuilt, was designed to spring up from the middle of the fountain basin gushing water into the pool. (Anyone want to put their name on a clocktower? I'll get you the mailing address for your check. A million bucks will do in a pinch - two million is better.)

In keeping with the idea of user-friendliness, the walls of the fountain were also designed for sitting. Last summer, I witnessed the delightful sight of a group of highschool cheerleader-campers sitting around the fountain - face in - with bare feet splashing and giggling all 'round. That's what I call an inviting space.

Some have commented that "this is not really an architectural project" as there are no "buildings" involved, clocktower notwithstanding.

But I think it is Architecture. I believe design is about the quality of the space; the building form and detailing is secondary. It's about how that space interfaces with and facilitates the human conditon. Walls and roofs are just tools in the box for carving out spaces that resonate with the human spirit - not by any means an end in themselves.

When Good Neighborhoods Go Bad

Contiguous sidewalks are the lifeblood of a walkable neighborhood.

Any mode of transportation, including walking, must be thought of as a “system” and planned as such. Otherwise, viability and practicality is compromised.

According to Dictionary.com, “system” is defined as an assemblage or combination of things or parts forming a complex or unitary whole.

Think about other systems and how they work.

If the electrician does not connect the fixture to the switch, would you expect light?

If the carpenter decides to omit an exterior wall, would you expect your house to stay warm in winter?

If the plumber installs pipes randomly here and there with few connections, would you expect water to appear when you turned the faucet? Forget about flushing.

So why should it be different with sidewalks.

I took the first photo (above) in my neighborhood, 3 blocks from the university. Notice the conspicuous absence of sidewalks; walkers are forced by default to share the road with cars or walk on the occasional boggy lawn.

There is actually one sidewalk up ahead in between sidewalk-less blocks. A very good thing, but without being plugged into the system, it is rendered practically useless. A couple of weeks ago, a contractor parked his van right in the middle of that one lonely pedestrian consideration and left it there for the day. When I asked him if he had ever considered that he might be blocking pedestrian traffic, he told me to “walk around” and “nobody walks here anyway.”

“Who could?” I asked pointing to the van. Could have used a laugh track. Tough crowd.

The second photo is of a neighborhood in Baton Rouge. Again, here is a sidewalk - very nice. But wait! It ends abruptly as it “dies” into a brick pier. The same density of housing is just beyond this terminated sidewalk. Another disconnection.

This on again-off again patchwork frustrates and discourages walking even in very dense areas. The contractor was very observant when he indicated that nobody walks here.

And really, how could they?