DVGBC Emerging Professionals Committee Earth Day of Service At the Paul Robeson House

On Saturday, April 24 DVGBC's first-ever Earth Day of Service took place. With the help of Hanson General Contracting and volunteers from the Emerging Professionals Committee, we had a great day working to restore some elements of the Paul Robeson House at 50th and Walnut in West Philadelphia.

The idea came from Hanson General Contracting, their experience in helping New Orleans prompted them to want to do similar work here in Philadelphia. In their words:

The idea for this project came after one of our members from Hanson General Contracting participated in an event to make sustainable improvements to historic houses in parts of New Orleans devastated by hurricanes Katrina and Rita; we realized that we don't have to travel to New Orleans to make historic houses more sustainable when we're surrounded by them here in Philadelphia. We teamed up with the Robeson House and West Philadelphia Cultural Alliance because their work to provide access to the arts for the citizens of West Philadelphia, market and support the development of local artists, and serve as an advocate for the power of the arts to promote social change and economic development is in concert with the goals of DVGBC's strategic plan.

Work for the day included some obvious sustainable initiatives, like replacing light bulbs and plumbing fixtures to reduce resource consumption, as well as some not-so-obvious ones, like installing an insulated roof hatch to permit easy repair of the roof in the future, reducing the number of leaks and the associated materials needed to repair them, an installing rain barrels for storage and landscaping use. All work was done in consultation with the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia to ensure that we made only historically appropriate repairs to this building where Paul Robeson, scholar, athlete, performer and human rights activist, lived in the final years of his life.

The DVGBC posted photos from the event on Facebook, I'm copying over a few here:

Good Read: Top 10 tips to flourish in the current economic climate

A recently discovered, and now new favorite design blog is that of BUILD LLC. While reading some of their past posts, I came across their Top 10 tips for not only staying alive but attempting to flourish in the current economic climate. This is worth sharing, so here's the list:

1. Diversify: and we’re not talking about doing hand renderings in addition to being a CAD monkey. We’re speaking of real diversity; learn how to engineer a simple wood structure, sign up for a welding class, take on some construction management. The age of specificity and spending every day comfortably designing a certain type of project is over. We’ve learned enough engineering over the years to do a structural package for simple projects and remodels. It’s rewarding, brings the engineering cost down a bit for clients, and puts more work on our plates. We’ve also taken on our own finished photography and we’re never going back.

2. Get Scrappy: get your hands dirty, make something. There is always a market for sensible, useful products. In our case we opened a cabinet shop and we’re in the process of designing and manufacturing a pre-fab re-usable Christmas tree for the next holiday season.

3. Get humble: we don’t particularly care where you got your degree from and what your masters thesis was about. In the new economy, if you can’t do something useful then you won’t be needed. Each of us here at BUILD (partners included) have put in some elbow grease at the SPD shop refreshing and upgrading our knowledge of craft and putting quality together, physically. This includes sanding, sweeping floors and making dump runs too.

4. Time is always valuable: the extra time you have now is not “free-time”, it’s a valuable commodity to be spent in different places like marketing, networking and blogging. We’ve made time to rework the BUILD website and have established a design blog full of valuable content.

5. Become part of the new social network: if you’re not running a blog you need to become part of one. Tribes are being formed in the digital realm based on beliefs, philosophies and the trading of significant information; it’s also where the important conversations are happening. These tribes are banding together, promoting each other and helping each other tackle things like a tough economy. All it takes is seeking out some blogs that speak to you, following along and getting involved in the discussion – so hit that comments button. Most magazines are slow, static and have politically correct agendas to abide by; the blogging world is fast, fluid and can be brutally honest.

6. Eject the distractions like a virus: what you spend your time and effort on is more important than ever. Down economies are victim to marketing seminars, round-table lunch discussions and walk-in-without-an-appointment cold callers. Entire industries are set up to take advantage of the fact that you’ve got more “free-time” than before (refer to #4). If they are not directly and substantially useful, eject them. God help the unfortunate sales people that walk into our office with their optimistic smiles and binders full of irrelevant things.

7. Re-appropriate your skills: take all the skills you’ve accumulated and find new avenues for them. One of our previous diversifications was developing our own projects. Given the lack of financing available, we’re pointing our property development expertise to start up new ventures outside of, but supplementary to, architecture. We’re currently in the development stages of some secret projects that we’ll release in a future blog post.

8. Get (stay) small: wear more hats and push your team to take on a wider spectrum of responsibilities and skill-sets. We’ve been a team of 4 for years now and we plan on staying lean. We’re each wearing so many hats these days that there’s hardly reason to add to our team, at the same time each team member is critical to the overall operation. At the project level, revisit previous clients to see what limited services you can provide. The risk of small projects is diminished when you perform them for highly trusted clients.

9. Sharpen the focus: it seems that there is more of a lackadaisical cultural shift we’re mired in currently. Our economy and our industry have been kicked squarely in the _____ (pick your favorite colorful term) and it seems like we’re more easily distracted than ever. As a profession, we’re sliding deeper into procrastination. Recognize this ‘slide’ into distraction and reset the focus. Make sure you do at least 5 important things a day. Just being busy is unacceptable; taking worthwhile and seemingly ‘hard’ steps to progress is all that matters.

10. Keep working hard: it’s important to be intentional and deliberate even if you’re not billing. There’s still an enormous amount of work to do, it’s just in a different arena now. One of preparation for work you’ll get later.

The recurring theme here is staying focused and get your hands dirty. I've had a hard time putting structure on how to keep myself moving in the right direction and a list like this is nice to read over to remember how to stay on track.

High Hopes For Marcellus Shale Drilling

A few weeks ago I took a trip home to Renovo. Located in central PA, Renovo is at the epicenter of the Marcellus Shale drilling. There seems to be a lot of optimism and hope surrounding the drilling and it's promises of jobs and economic growth. I can understand- I remember when I was younger, there was a rail repair industry as well as more restaurants and shops. Sadly, most of that is gone now. I've moved away with most of other college-educated friends. Small towns like this seem to be headed in the wrong direction though time.

So with the influx of business and money the drilling could possibly provide, communities like Renovo seem a bit starry-eyed about the benefits. This may encourage some decision-makers to overlook the risks associated with drilling in your own backyard. I previously touched upon this in my position paper, but let's drill further into this discussion.

From DEP Marcellus Shale FAQ

What is Marcellus Shale and why the sudden interest in it?
The Marcellus Shale is a rock formation that underlies much of Pennsylvania and portions of New York and West Virginia at a depth of 5,000 to 8,000 feet and is believed to hold trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. This formation has long been considered prohibitively expensive to access but recent advances in drilling technology and rising natural gas prices have attracted new interest in this previously untapped formation. The geology of the Marcellus formation suggests that areas in the northcentral and northeastern regions of Pennsylvania that have not traditionally seen much gas well drilling might be especially productive.

How is Marcellus Shale different from other natural gas extraction?
Extracting natural gas from the Marcellus Shale formation requires horizontal drilling and a process known as ‘hydraulic fracturing’ that uses far greater amounts of water than traditional natural gas exploration. Drillers pump large amounts of water mixed with sand and other proponents into the shale formation under high pressure to fracture the shale around the well, which allows the natural gas to flow freely. Once the hydraulic fracturing process is completed, the used water, often referred to as “frac fluid,” must be treated to remove chemicals and minerals.

Water Contamination is a huge risk to the surrounding communities.

From Duane Morris:

"…Two principal concerns about groundwater contamination have been expressed. The first is that the fracing process itself will cause fracing fluids and/or natural gas to contaminate drinking water aquifers. The second is that fracing fluid mismanagement or other aboveground activities at the drilling site could result in surface spills or other events that in turn will cause groundwater or surface water contamination."

Overlooking how this could affect the nearby communities would be ignorant. Cleanup could cost in the millions of dollars, and often the drilling companies are not held responsible. When they are, often the lawsuits can take years to settle. I'm hoping that for the sake of friends and family back home, the right steps are taken and no decisions are rushed, all in order to give a shot of adrenaline to a small town.