I linked to this stuff in my last post, but because it’s all just so amazing, I think these design ideas deserve a post all their own:
and another bright idea:
Filed under: I'On Group, Mixson, Urban Sustainability on July 25th, 2008 | No Comments »
Critical Mass is a world-wide bicycling movement that started in San Francisco in 1992, in which bicyclists gather together regularly for community rides around their cities. We’re lucky enough to have one here in Charleston, SC, which meets the last Friday of every month at 5:30 in Cannon Park, downtown (at Calhoun and Rutledge Streets). Join the ride to remind Charlestonians that bicyclists are part of the traffic community too - not to mention, for the thrill of getting around carbon emission-free!
Two Wheels One Love - Critical Mass in Charleston, SC from ReallyFastPictures on Vimeo.
Filed under: Events, I'On Group, I'On Village, Mixson, Morris Square, Urban Sustainability, Videos & Photos on July 18th, 2008 | No Comments »
The Upper King Street newsletter tells me that Bret Lott will be signing copies of his new novel Ancient Highway from 1-3pm at Blue Bicycle Books this Saturday, July 19. Stop in and support an excellent local author. For more info, read the original post.
Filed under: I'On Group, Morris Square on July 15th, 2008 | No Comments »
We just thought we’d help spread the word - we’ve heard from a couple of Park Circle residents who would love to get a Whole Foods store in the neighborhood (although Earthfare might be a better bet, since it’s far more local - based in Asheville, NC!). If you’d like to have your say, e-mail the stores through their websites: Whole Foods here and Earthfare here. And let us know which way the consensus is going by posting a comment on this blog!
Filed under: Charleston SC Green Living, I'On Group, Mixson on July 15th, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Treehugger has had several posts in the last month or so about the latest Disney Innoventions Dream Home - none of them good. The home opened on June 17, 2008 in Disneyland, and to many, it’s a far cry from a dream. This house of the future, at 5,000 square feet, contains, among other things (according to the “Fun Facts” page of the dream home website): 73 digital picture frames, a 100-inch digital screen in the Family Room, a solid cherry wood pirate ship in the son’s room (sustainable? Hmmm), a couple of robots, an LCD kitchen island, and a mirror that maps your body and lets you try on clothes virtually. Any guesses as to how much the fictional family who lives here spends on their energy bills? Yeah, I don’t want to know either.
The house of the future - at least for 0.1% of the world’s population who will, by the looks of it, own 98% of the wealth
From what I’ve read - I haven’t been to the home myself - the home makes zero concessions to the limitations on the way we live that we as human beings, and as Americans in particular, can no longer ignore. Even fashion magazines, car companies, and most ironically of all, oil companies are touting sustainability nowadays, however solid or empty the claims may be. So how is it that Disney so completely missed the boat? In the course of the company’s epic money-grasping of the past ten years or so, have the decision-makers lost the ability to even catch a glimpse of what’s real? Or - and this is much more frightening - do the majority of people actually LIKE this thing?
At this incredible, long-awaited moment, when environmentalism has made it into the mainstream, and is no longer a word associated solely with hippies and backpackers, the Disney Dream Home comes as a slap in the face. In the scheme of things, its impact will be little; yet, with such an opportunity to advance our growing awareness of what we’ve done to our planet, and what we must now do if we want to survive, how could a company with so much potential influence for good decide, instead, to take us backwards? Why not, instead of a 5,000 square foot house, build a 950 square foot home outfitted with all of the coolest small living pieces they could find? (And believe me, there is no shortage of cool small living home furnishings.)
First two pictures are Casulo mobile furniture; third is Matroshka. Pics courtesy of Treehugger.com
On a happier note, I’m glad to report that David Rakoff of the New York Times shared many of these concerns; he wrote an excellent article on his visit to the Dream Home called “The Future Knocks Again.” I’ve excerpted my favorite part below.
“‘The optimistic view of the future is, ‘we’ll solve these problems and we’ll learn to design around them,’ he [Tom Zofrea, one of the designers of the home] explained. Mr. Atkins put it differently: “We’re in Southern California — we think this way,” he said, spreading his hands wide. The Dream Home, therefore, exists in an unspecified time when the challenges of fossil fuels and sprawl have been vanquished, although how exactly is never mentioned.
In a strange coincidence, the very week that the Dream Home opened, at the other end of the Disney corporation’s spectrum, Pixar had just released the dystopian “Wall-E” — a film premised on a world choked by garbage and waste, and made uninhabitable, at least in part, by things like gargantuan homes that make little or no concession to the limited resources out there and our heedless lack of stewardship.”
I’ll never understand how the Dream Home is “optimistic.” Out of touch, arrogant, and ridiculously self-assured? Absolutely. My only hope is that it will make more people consider making conscious efforts to downsize their lifestyles - beginning with their living spaces.
Filed under: Charleston SC Green Living, I'On Group, Mixson, Morris Square, Urban Sustainability on July 11th, 2008 | No Comments »
Have you seen the new series in the Post and Courier this week? It’s called “The Great Train Debate” and it addresses, naturally, the question of light rail in Charleston, as opposed to widening I-26. (Has anyone else ever noticed that by the time the road widening is finished, it almost always needs to be widened again? My most notable example of this is the horrendous Woodruff Rd. in Greenville, SC. Now that Greenville has come so far with its downtown area, I’m hopeful that Woodruff Rd. will soon be improved as well. You can check out the city’s traffic study of the area here.) Look at Atlanta: Peachtree Road in some places is what, 8 lanes wide? And it comes as no surprise that it’s still abominably congested nearly all the time.
There’s no question that a light rail system is expensive to create; however, with gas prices looking the way they do, it seems pretty certain that public transportation ridership will only increase in the next few years. Charlotte’s LYNX system has enjoyed great success in the eight months that it’s been operating, exceeding ridership predictions from the start. And I, for one, would gladly never drive my car again if I could.
We’ll be keeping an eye on how this debate goes - if Charleston’s able to find a dependable funding source, light rail just might work out. And if it does, Mixson residents, you’ll all have yet another reason to love your homes: you’ll be located near a very good site for a rail station. We thought about this, you see.
Filed under: Charleston SC Green Living, I'On Group, Urban Sustainability on July 10th, 2008 | No Comments »
Robert Behre had some wonderful things to say about Morris Square in a Post and Courier article on Monday, July 7 - Behre highlighted, among other things, the emphasis on public space that is such a vibrant element of the Morris Square project. Simonton Park, the plaza, and even the streets are designed to make people feel comfortable walking, biking, relaxing - in general, just being outdoors. Like all of the I’On Group’s projects, Morris Square is a New Urbanist development, offering higher density and more plentiful and accessible public space than most contemporary neighborhoods. If you haven’t seen Morris Square yet, stop by - it’s in the wonderful Upper King district, at the corner of Morris and Smith Streets. The park and piazza are there to be enjoyed, and are open to all!
Filed under: I'On Group, Morris Square on July 8th, 2008 | No Comments »
Christopher Hitchens wrote a wonderful article for the July issue of Vanity Fair called “Last Call, Bohemia,” a paen to, and appeal for, that preserve of artists, musicians, social misfits, and rebels that becomes responsible for the progression and evolution of a nation’s culture. And yet, Hitchens doesn’t beg for more independent bookstores and all-night coffee shops, or cheaper rents and studio space. Instead, he comes at this alarming problem, the loss of space dedicated to Bohemia and bohemians, from an angle dear to us here at the I’On Group: the built environment.
Hitchens eloquently makes a case for preserving the iconic, quirky, and older buildings that give pockets of bohemia like Greenwich Village, the Left Bank in Paris, and Soho in London, their distinctive personality. In Greenwich Village (currently under attack by bigger-is-better developers), for example, the human scale St. Vincent Hospital’s O’Toole Building is being threatened with demolition; if that effort succeeds, it will be to make way for a new hospital building, all of the designs for which “look like a plan made by Donald Trump’s people on an especially uninspired day.” Not an encouraging statement.
So what does any of this have to do with Mixson? Well, if you’ve been to any of the North Charleston art events - Metamorphosis, Evolution, Kulture Klash - then you’ve glimpsed the bohemian group that North Charleston, and the Park Circle area especially, shelters. If you’re not yet familiar with the North Chuck scene, then surprise! You’re living in close proximity to a vibrant, artistic, and under-appreciated community that hosts events like the Big Lebowski Celebration (at Madra Rua Irish Pub) and live graffiti on temporary plywood walls.
Part of what fosters this bohemian community is, of course, affordable, interesting, and, more and more, sustainable housing choices. We hope that Mixson will only add to North Charleston’s availability of this sort of housing, and that as a whole our growing neighborhood will become a strong participant in what makes the city’s bohemian community thrive.
And to close, there is nothing better than Hitchens’ own final sentence from “Last Call, Bohemia.”
“Those who don’t live in such threatened districts nonetheless have a stake in this quarrel and some skin in this game, because on the day when everywhere looks like everywhere else we shall all be very much impoverished, and not only that but—more impoverishingly still—we will be unable to express or even understand or depict what we have lost.”
Filed under: I'On Group, Mixson, Urban Sustainability on July 7th, 2008 | No Comments »
With gas costs rising steadily, urban planning is enjoying some long-overdue attention. This Wall Street Journal article is about how Sacramento, currently undergoing some of the worst that the bad housing market has to offer, is starting to build according to smart growth principles. This video accompanies the article:
Filed under: Urban Sustainability, Videos & Photos on July 7th, 2008 | No Comments »
This morning’s Post and Courier (Wednesday, July 2) ran an encouraging article about the continued sustainable redevelopment going on North Charleston: Cottage Living magazine recently ranked the city’s Noisette area - 3,000 acres around the old Navy base, which includes Mixson and Park Circle - as one of their top ten reuse neighborhoods in the country! It’s lovely to see North Charleston in such a good category, and with the way things are going for Charleston’s northern sister, I think we’ll be seeing this happen more and more. And, as you can read in the article, Cottage Living was so impressed with Mixson in particular that they’re considering building a show house (or “Idea House” as they call it) in the community next year!
In honor of this national recognition, Mayor Summey of North Charleston held a press conference today to discuss the ranking and what it means for the city. Alys Campaigne, the I’On Group’s VP of Marketing and Mixson champion extraordinaire, also spoke at the conference, expressing our excitement at being recognized so highly, months before the first homeowners move in.
Cottage Living’s criteria for the ranking, according to the Post and Courier article, included “styles of home with unifying design elements and walkable streets, the people who live there and work to change the area, the concepts behind the changes, and the uniqueness of the homes.” On the Cottage Living website, the criteria are broken down into: Homes - 30%; People - 30%; Bright Idea - 30% (in other words, innovations that spur positive changes); and Cottage Twist - 10% (that’s “something unique that brings a smile”).
With all the press that Park Circle and North Charleston have been getting, it’s safe to say that most of the Charleston community knows what a great spot the Park Circle area is; but, if you still haven’t been up to check it out, GO! You can have a coffee, buy gorgeous flowers, get your hair cut, do your banking, bar-hop, restaurant-hop, play Frisbee golf, and with Mixson right there, LIVE in about a one-mile area. So go, have fun - and when you come back, let us know what your favorite part is!
Filed under: Charleston SC Green Living, I'On Group, Mixson, Urban Sustainability on July 2nd, 2008 | No Comments »
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