Contacts for new sail fabric

Dimension Sailcloth Technology
78 Highland Drive
Putnam, CT 06260
Tom, 1-800-441-2424
http://www.dimension-polyant.com
3.8oz Dacron, $6.75 per yard
A roll is 55" x 10+yards

SailRite Enterprises, Inc.
4506 S. State Rd. 9
Churubusco, IN 46723
1-260-693-2242
http://www.sailrite.com
4oz Dacron, $9.5 per yard
A roll is 36" x Unsure yards

Contacts for donated sail fabric

Rachel Daugherty from Southern Yacht Club has been extremely helpful with locating donated sails.

John Strassman from Milwaukee is also helping to locate donated sails.

A special thanks to Chris from Quantum, who donated the sail we used for testing purposes.

FUNDING!

As I was leaving today, I dropped off the copies for Renee and Tom and was able to talk to Renee who said she would arrange, with Tom for $500 in funding for the project. The crowd cheers softly in the background. Although, while we have funding for the prototype, I am a strong believer in offering people the opportunity to do good, so we will continue to rigorously pursue donations. Then we can use the excess for the trip to the finals (he said with fingers tightly crossed).


Fundraising letters should appear here soon and as to a script when asking for funds, simply describe the project, point out the humanitarian nature of our work and ask if they can help with in kind (meaning material they normally sell) support. Below is one suggestion for text for the fundraising letter, taken from the proposal, that outlines the project well.

ARCHITECTURE 4284 | FOOD FOR GROWTH, NEW ORLEANS

College of Design, University of Minnesota, Spring Semester 2008

.

Following the catastrophic flooding of the city resulting from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Lower Ninth Ward was quickly recognized as one of the most heavily devastated areas. With home occupancy rates still at a fraction of pre-hurricane levels, the community faces the daunting task of rebuilding as a fully functional part of the city. The marked absence of supermarkets in the Lower Ninth for over three decades and the slow dissolution of small, family run grocery stores, has created a pressing need for a fresh food source. Currently, a handful of restaurants and gas stations act as inadequate stand-ins. The current redevelopment brings forth an opportunity not only to improve the quality of life, but also to build access to quality foods, which were previously scarce in the neighborhood. The proposed solution to this problem is the implementation of three projects developed by students in the School of Architecture in the College of Design at the University of Minnesota in collaboration with the Renaissance Project (a local 501(c)(3) non-profit organization) to put local food in the hands of residents: The Dunson Memorial Greenhouse for growing seedlings for local gardens and farmers markets, the Dunson Memorial Garden Structure (WaterShed) to serve community gardens, and the Downtown Neighborhood Market Consortium Furniture to allow growers to sell their produce at local farmers markets. In addition to providing the supply of produce, these projects will begin to mend the fractured neighborhood identity by laying a foundation for community interaction.

The first project the students are developing is a prototype for innovative, iconic market furniture. The design of the market place furniture was approached with a list of key goals. The design of the booths addresses the need to be light weight, affordable, and collapsible for storage while simultaneously being easy to assemble on and off site. Minimal labor and minimal waste is incorporated by using parts that are readily available and sustainable. In order to achieve a lightweight structure, materials such as aluminum poles, which are both light weight and recyclable, are used in the canopy frame and supports. A thin ½” sheet of plywood is used to create a sturdy table, that is light weight when broken down into its parts, but when pieced together on site is heavy enough to hold down the canopy in strong winds. The canopy is composed of used sail fabric that will most likely be acquired through donations; making use of fabric that would otherwise be disposed of while drawing on the symbolic nature of the sail in the coastal community. By using the entirety of a 4’ x 8’ sheet of plywood, and using full lengths of 8’ aluminum pipes waste is minimal. We are asking for in kind support for this humanitarian project.

Happy hunting!

Tom

Sustainable:Green:Change

http://noladaily.blogspot.com/

This is the latest addition to our family.  As far as access goes, whoever wishes to do the update on a particular day need only ask me for an email to gain it.  If no one volunteers on a particular day, I will complete the update.

Feedback from Enterprise

As the students move forward with their project proposal here is some additional feedback from the project abstract.

First we were pleased to see that the project was:
Located in recovery zone
Reasonable cost of project
Would put surplus land to use

Here are some additional questions/comments that should be addressed in the final proposal
What will be the real impact?
Possible revenues?
Need to measure real community interest. Is it too much work from neighbors given their situation
Is there a national trend to create similar projects

Greenhouse

Here are some basic connection details for polycarbonate panels for wood framing. Does this sound useful to anyone?

https://www.sundancesupply.com/index2.html

Good Article on the NOLA Markets

http://blog.nola.com/judywalker/2007/08/urban_agriculture_the_fruits_v.html

The site for the Chase competition is below. Scroll to the bottom to see past winning submissions.

http://www.enterprisecommunity.org/local_work/gulf_coast/chase_competition.asp

Neighborhood Scale Information

Hello again,

This web site will be helpful as we move down in scale. It contains neighborhood planning pre-Katrina and plans for post-Katrina. Just go to the Your Neighborhood link on the left of the screen.

http://www.nolanrp.com/

A few links to community gardens in NOLA

These links I found while looking for green space connections in the city. The white boot brigade is a good example of local efforts towards food production and sustainability. The parkway-partners site has a list of community gardens that are up and running and has a link to an interesting video of the Holy Angels farmers market in the upper ninth ward.

http://www.whitebootbrigade.org/

http://www.parkwaypartnersnola.org/

Website that contains district reports and maps

http://www.unifiedneworleansplan.com/home3/choose/

Historic Development of New Orleans at the Delta Scale

Heres a link to a flash presentation of the historic development of New Orleans and the delta region from 6,000 years ago to 20 years into the future.

http://www.nola.com/speced/lastchance/multimedia/flash.ssf?flashlandloss1.swf

New Project, New Partner

OK
As often happens, everything has changed. Below are links to a few sites to get us going looking at Urban Gardens, Urban Markets etc. as well as where there is food now. Also a link to info on bio-remediation, which will probably be a factor.

http://nolafoodmap.com/

http://dnmc.org/

http://www.therenaissanceproject.la/

http://www.bionewsonline.com/w/what_is_bioremediation.htm

Bring New Orleans Back, Jan '06 City Plan

This multi-page document contains a variety of maps that fall into many of our study categories, as well as future plans and maps for New Orleans initially set by the city in January 2006

http://www.asla.org/land/nocityplan.pdf

Another Helpful Site...

This site has a wealth of links and data concerning pre and post Katrina in the Gulf area.

Hurricane Katrina Information Guide

some links that may be useful

New Orleans:

City Planning Commission of New Orleans

New Orleans Housing Authroity

New Orleans Preservation Resource Center

New Orleans Tourist Information

Topography of New Orleans via NASA

Seniors Resource Guide to New Orleans


Projects Taking Place in the Lower 9th & the Surrounding Areas-
Historic Green

Make It Right

Holy Cross Neighborhood Happenings


Affordable & Low Income Housing:

The Affordable Housing Design Advisor (Developed by: The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development)

Affordable Housing Institute

National Low Income Housing Coalition

Historical Atlas of Louisiana

The Historical Atlas of Louisiana is a great resource for some of our mapping topics.
The book is available online through www.netlibrary.com. In order to access the ebook, you must visit the site, and type "Historical Atlas of Louisiana" in the search engine. It should be the first result; hope this helps!

Book Info:
Title: Historical Atlas of Louisiana
Author: Goins, Charles Robert.; Caldwell, John Michael
Publication: Norman, Okla. University of Oklahoma Press, 1995.

Another great resource:
http://atlas.lsu.edu/explorela.htm

I:Am:Awesome

Here is a very graphic intensive set of sources as the url's would suggest:

http://www.nola.com/katrina/graphics/
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/2005_HURRICANEKATRINA_GRAPHIC/
http://www.gnocdc.org/ (bottom left corner)

For Monday Feb. 4th

In studio Monday, we will share the digested reports on Community Land Trusts, Lease Purchase Affordable Housing and the like. We will also begin (or further) the mapping project, look at and have a brief conversation about the Noli Map and talk about Edward Tufte's ideas about visual communication. I have high hopes for the mapping project and hope that it can provide the kind of clarity and understanding that the causality diagrams from previous studios gave. I also hope that we will produce some objects of beauty with the maps. The studio will be an odd combination of working with the mundane and the divine, as should be the process of design.

We have a blog

OK, we have a blog. This is a place to share info, links, etc. It cannot handle huge files, but should be a good way to keep track of information as it develops.