A note about transformation

What I've been doing for the last month...

My Future Basement

I haven't been posting much about biomimicry lately, for a good reason.  I've been spending all my spare time working on a pricing and construction set for my basement build out.  It's been really fun to dive back into the world of architecture, design, and even CAD and I'm excited to transform the concrete dungeon to a fun entertainment space for my family.  We'll likely start construction in a month and I'll post photos of things I find interesting, but for now back to biomimicry!

Upcoming Events!

Come hear about Biomimicry at the next Foresight Green Drinks in Chicago!  
November 16th at 5:30pm (panel starts around 6:30)!  I'll be on a panel with Lindsay James of InterfaceFLOR and Colin Rohlfing of HOK, facilitated by Peter Nicholson - all Biomimicry Chicago core group members!

Biomimicry, the practice of learning from nature to solve human design problems, is emerging as a powerful tool for creating more sustainable solutions. Applied at a variety of scales, from individual products to buildings to organizations, biomimcry brings nature's 3.8 billion years of innovation experience to the design table.  This month's panel examines this quickly evolving practice, reviewing what it is, how it is being applied, the tangible advancements it has already produced, and the powerful potential for the future. Of specific interest to designers, architects, entrepreneurs, biologists, and related others, the conversation will be wide ranging and inspiring to anyone with a concern for a more vibrant and resilient future. Come learn more about this exciting field, and the new emerging network, Biomimicry Chicago.

And if you are out in the Northeast Illinois region, check out a CEU level presentation I'll be giving on Biomimicry for the AIA NEI Committee on the Environment.  November 10th at Wight & Co in Darien, IL.  

Nature is inherently sustainable and has been for over 3.8 billion years.  While we have been designing our world on a mass scale for approximately 200 years, our evolutionary elders have found a way to fit in on this planet for millennia.  Perhaps they have something to teach us? The emerging practice of biomimicry brings nature’s problem solving solutions to the design table by studying the processes, products, and performance of life on earth and translating their lessons into the language of design. 

Biomimicry at Greendrinks Naperville!

Amy is bringing biomimicry to the western suburbs of Chicago at the next Greendrinks Naperville.  Come here what biomimicry is all about and how you can use it to inspire sustainable design!

Wednesday, August 31st, 7pm at Sugar Toad in the Hotel Arista.

ESFJ

ESFJ - "Seller". Most sociable of all types. Nurturer of harmony. Outstanding host or hostesses. 12.3% of total population.

Free Jung Personality Test (similar to Myers-Briggs/MBTI)

Biomimicry Cohort 2011 Bios

I just found out that my bio is up on the biomimicry website.  How exciting!  This is really going to happen in less than a month!

Working on a Logo...

this is pretty terrible.  i like the ideas, but not the execution.  i'll likely need to pay someone because my photoshop skills and graphic creativity are not up to par right now.

The Meaning of the Name "Liquid Triangle"

Liquid Triangle, based on the Golden Triangle

The name "Liquid Triangle" was born in 1994 during my Calculus 1 class at the University of Illinois.  I was sitting next to a friend who would later become my husband trying to decipher the hieroglyphics that our teacher was scribbling on the chalkboard.  Our professor wrote something that looked like "liquid triangle" on the board.  We didn't know what she was talking about, but we thought it would be a really cool name for a band.  Since neither of us played an instrument anymore, we thought - how about an architecture firm!  More than fifteen years later, that dream is still a work in progress, but we're getting closer.  My husband is no longer an architect; in fact he never practiced as one after getting his MBA; and I am in the process of a career transition that will take me to places yet unknown.  But we are both naturally inspired and we came upon by accident, or fate, a name that has great meaning for us. 

Bruce Rawles describes a "sacred geometry" that permeates the universe as geometric templates that reveal the nature of forms in the world.  These forms he says are, under it all, interconnected and inseparable.  The Golden Ratio, or the Fibonnaci ratio, (1.618 to infinity) is the ratio of growth where the ratio of the larger portion to the smaller portion is the same through multiple generations. This pattern of growth is seen as the pattern for reproduction in much of nature. 

• how limbs branch on trees
• how leaves radiate from a stem
• the arrangement of a pine cone
• sunflower and artichoke florets
• the family tree of the honeybees

I learned about the Golden Rectangle in architecture classes and studied how this geometry was the basis for much of early Greek and Roman architecture.  In fact, one of my masters design projects was a spirituality center, in which the progression to the sacred space followed the spiral that emerges from this geometry.  I have recently come across its relative, the Golden Triangle, from which a spiral emerges.  To me, this is the perfect representation of a liquid triangle:  growth in nature, introducing the fluid and organic to the built environment.

As my calculus classes can attest, I am not a mathematician, but I find the underlying geometries of growth and reproduction in nature to be inspiring.

Amy

References:
Sacred Geometry by Bruce Rawles
Wikipedia

Stories for my Grandchildren

What stories would you like your great grandchildren to know about you someday? 

i was recently asked this question on an essay application i submitted.  i think it speaks to my viewpoint on environmentalism and how vital it is to our survival.

I am an environmentalist because I’ve always felt at home in natural environments and destroying beauty is a tragedy.  Environmental catastrophes such as the Gulf oil spill bring to the forefront of my mind that our society of rampant consumption and short-term gratification cannot sustain itself.  I hope future generations know I was a woman who loved her family fiercely and worked to make the world a better place for them.  I would like the legacy I leave to be one where I worked with a network of like-minded individuals and groups to inspire others to make the hard changes that will be necessary to sustain our species.  I would like to succeed in that goal by working hard, continually learning and drawing inspiration from nature, and teaching others to work together to improve the world.  My grandfather always told his family to “live, learn, and pass it on.”  I hope they say that I fulfilled his wish.

Practical Sustainability

i've been doing a lot of thinking about what i want this blog to be: interesting, fun and interactive. i want it to help connect a community of similar interests. while my expertise is sustainable architecture, i want it to be more than that -

connecting people in practical sustainable lifestyles

i don't always live up to my ideals. i live in a large house in the suburbs of chicago. i bought this house so that my kids could go to great schools and i could have a yard to grow my own food. but because of these choices, some of the things i do are really just putting "lipstick on a pig." will my hybrid cars, rainbarrel and organic garden ever make up for the embodied energy to build this house that is really too large for my family of four? no, but we did join a walkable community where everything we need is within walking distance so we rarely use the cars. life is about compromise. we make choices that we feel will give ourselves and our families the best chance in life, and sometimes this does not agree with other principles we try to live by.

i think we all do the best we can with what we have. and that's what i'll try to showcase here. practical sustainability.