20070928. Last summer I stayed in Noah’s basement at an apartment complex near SE 20th and Ash Street. It is a six-unit property, with two buildings facing each other, each containing three units. There is a grass courtyard between the two properties. I remember being impressed that Noah had developed such close relationships with the other tenants. He only knew them because they lived in the same apartment complex. Sure, he’s a gregarious guy and makes friends easily, but his relationships with the other tenants went beyond just being good neighbors. These people looked out for each other, shared wireless Internet access, watched each other’s kids, played games together, and on and on. When someone fired up the grill, it went without saying that others were welcome to throw something on the coals. It reminded me of dorm living or my first experience living off campus in a communal house when I was an undergrad, except on Ash Street everyone had their own space, with their own kitchens and bathrooms, they could retreat to as they wished.
Noah told me it wasn’t that way when he first moved in. At first, everyone stayed in the zone of influence near their particular unit, as if there was an imaginary grid in the courtyard. Since the units face each other instead of the street, they kept running into each other in the courtyard and were forced to say hi. If the houses had been facing the street, it would have been much easier to maintain the detachment characteristic of most suburban developments. This spontaneous community would probably never have existed. However, the design of the property, in itself, created opportunities for tenants to interact with each other and to develop relationships based on their shared dwelling space. I believe the presence of communal space was integral to creation of the Ash Street community.
My experience last summer impressed upon me the value of communal space in a multi-unit dwelling. It is my intention to incorporate an indoor and an outdoor communal space in every development I undertake, and to introduce designs, where possible, that provide opportunities for strangers to develop the same sort of community I witnessed on Ash Street.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Opening Night at the Beast and the Facilitation of Instant Community
20070927. Tonight my business partner Noah and I went to the opening of Beast, which is the latest creation of our talented friend Naomi Pomeroy. The food was sublime, and the atmosphere was so charged with positive energy that it truly felt as if Naomi was cooking for us in her kitchen at home.
I am no food critic, so I won’t attempt to do justice to the culinary experience I had at Beast. I’ll link to a food review site if I can find one. I’ll just say it was great. I could taste the mindfulness and the love Naomi and the rest of the staff put into the food. I was delighted by the creative taste sensations I experienced, and am grateful to have been there on Beast’s first night.
From a theoretical perspective, the community atmosphere Naomi’s design choices created in the restaurant were inspiring to me. There are two long tables surrounded by chairs, the kitchen is entirely exposed and mere feet from the tables. The dining experience is, as a result, very intimate.
Noah and I sat right next to a delightful couple named Mischa and Holly, whom we had never met before. Sitting right next to strangers at a restaurant was a new experience for me. I am used to sitting at my own table, and do not usually interact much with other patrons. It is not because I am anti-social, but rather because it seems like each table is an island, and it would be rude to insert yourself into the conversation of another.
When you are seated at the same table with strangers, on the other hand, the dynamic changes entirely. The insular bubble of the individual table is pierced, and it becomes rude NOT to interact with the people seated next to you. As the meal progressed, we began to interact with our unexpected dinner companions on the common ground of the delicious food we were all experiencing. The conversation began to deepen as we grew more comfortable interacting, until it felt as though we were dining with two old friends. It was another manifestation of the idea that meaningful human interaction can be facilitated by intentional and conscientious design, and it made me think about new ways to create foundations for community building in the properties I develop.
Although this was my first experience with communal dining in a non-buffet style restaurant, Noah has reminded me that this idea is not new. It is integral to Naomi’s signature style of cooking, and it has been experimented with for many generations before Naomi’s contributions. It is as if her cooking is a meditation on the importance of community, and the ability for sharing a meal together to provide a catalyst for meaningful interaction between non-familiar people. For this, I am grateful to her, and look forward to learning more from the example she sets.
PS. I don’t see famous people very frequently, so, I thought it was very cool that we were sitting at the same table as Gus Van Sant. He was like five feet away, and seemed like a very pleasant fellow. I’m a pretty big fan of his work, but I honestly wouldn’t have noticed he was there if Noah hadn’t told me. I was still kind of skeptical it was him, but my skepticism abated at the end of the evening when he was complimenting Naomi and she referred to him as “Gus.”
All in all, it was quite a remarkable evening.
I am no food critic, so I won’t attempt to do justice to the culinary experience I had at Beast. I’ll link to a food review site if I can find one. I’ll just say it was great. I could taste the mindfulness and the love Naomi and the rest of the staff put into the food. I was delighted by the creative taste sensations I experienced, and am grateful to have been there on Beast’s first night.
From a theoretical perspective, the community atmosphere Naomi’s design choices created in the restaurant were inspiring to me. There are two long tables surrounded by chairs, the kitchen is entirely exposed and mere feet from the tables. The dining experience is, as a result, very intimate.
Noah and I sat right next to a delightful couple named Mischa and Holly, whom we had never met before. Sitting right next to strangers at a restaurant was a new experience for me. I am used to sitting at my own table, and do not usually interact much with other patrons. It is not because I am anti-social, but rather because it seems like each table is an island, and it would be rude to insert yourself into the conversation of another.
When you are seated at the same table with strangers, on the other hand, the dynamic changes entirely. The insular bubble of the individual table is pierced, and it becomes rude NOT to interact with the people seated next to you. As the meal progressed, we began to interact with our unexpected dinner companions on the common ground of the delicious food we were all experiencing. The conversation began to deepen as we grew more comfortable interacting, until it felt as though we were dining with two old friends. It was another manifestation of the idea that meaningful human interaction can be facilitated by intentional and conscientious design, and it made me think about new ways to create foundations for community building in the properties I develop.
Although this was my first experience with communal dining in a non-buffet style restaurant, Noah has reminded me that this idea is not new. It is integral to Naomi’s signature style of cooking, and it has been experimented with for many generations before Naomi’s contributions. It is as if her cooking is a meditation on the importance of community, and the ability for sharing a meal together to provide a catalyst for meaningful interaction between non-familiar people. For this, I am grateful to her, and look forward to learning more from the example she sets.
PS. I don’t see famous people very frequently, so, I thought it was very cool that we were sitting at the same table as Gus Van Sant. He was like five feet away, and seemed like a very pleasant fellow. I’m a pretty big fan of his work, but I honestly wouldn’t have noticed he was there if Noah hadn’t told me. I was still kind of skeptical it was him, but my skepticism abated at the end of the evening when he was complimenting Naomi and she referred to him as “Gus.”
All in all, it was quite a remarkable evening.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
The Inaugural Enlightened Harmony Blog Post
Well, I'm finally here in Portland, about to start my new job. I'm really excited to start work as a real estate attorney, but I will miss all this extra free time. It has certainly been a summer of personal growth. More than once, I have referred to it as "the summer of my suspended disbelief." I feel like I have been through several "coming of age" experiences all over the last six months and have, at the ripe age of 33, finally transitioned from a post-adolescent into a man.
I plan on using this blog as a means to catalog and process through some of my experiences this summer, such as studying for the bar, relaxing and healing at Breitenbush Hot Springs, reconnecting with my wife, and evolving my interests in affordable studio condominiums (which I have begun to refer to as "micro-condos"), green development, and natural burials.
After I have told the story of my summer, I look forward to laying out some of my ideas about the work of Paolo Soleri. Since I'm in Portland, this is also a great opportunity for me to experiment with the idea of sustainable local urban living in a place that is very conducive to such a paradigm. I have been inspired many times over the last four days I've been out here.
My goal is purchase a four or five unit property here in the next year. My company, Enlightened Harmony LLC, will renovate the apartments using the ideas of miniaturization and compexity, which I have borrowed from Soleri. My wife and I will each occupy one of the "micro-condos," and rent the other units out. We also hope to include in the design both an indoor and outdoor communal space so tenants will be given a better opportunity to meet each other and form community within the building.
So, that means I have to pare down my stuff. I live a pretty spartan existence, but I am in no way ready to downsize to the same amount of stuff I took off to college. As such, I'm trying to brainstorm good ways for me to keep things without taking up as much space. For example, yesterday, I bought a folding bike called a "Tikit" (www.tikit2ride.com) to commute to work on. I wasn't planning on getting a folder until the 11th hour, but I am so glad I did. That's a post in and of itself. Another idea I have had is to get some external hard drives and a scanner, and use that as a means to get rid of most of my cds and a lot of paper memorabilia I don't absolutely need to keep but that I don't want to trash because of nostalgia value. Also, lofts are a great way to free up ground space, as are shelving running the perimeter of the ceiling. I'm hoping for comments from friends to help me live even more intentionally, ergonomically, and efficiently.
Cruelty-free existence is another idea I have been chasing down lately. My wife is a vegetarian, but what got me started down the path was slaughterhouse footage I have watched at websites like www.peta.org, and at the very end of the movie "Fast Food Nation" (a much better book than a movie, by the way). I came to the conclusin that I wasn't anti-meat eating. On the contrary, I have a weakness for Eastern NC chopped barbecue that I have indulged on many occasions during my 9 years in North Carolina. I decided I that what I was opposed to was the cruelty inherent to factory production of meat and dairy products. If the animals are treated humanely while they are being raised, and are slaughtered humanely (ideally, they had no idea it was coming), then I would consider it to be cruelty-free.
I aspire to living a cruelty free existence in as many areas of my life as possible, so I do not personally think eating non-cruelty-free meat is ethical. I feel the same way about dairy product and eggs. Ultimately, it is forcing me to be mindful of the origins of the food I am eating. I'll write more about this idea later, and as I find things out that I think would be useful to others, I'll share them here.
Reiki is another thing that has contributed to my coming-of-age-endless-summer. I have known about Reiki for many years, but had never really known any practitioners. My wife got her first-level attunement from our friend and Usui Reiki Master-Teacher Shaina in Chapel Hill. I had been exploring my wife's spiritual and New Age interests more over the summer as a way to deepen our common connection, so I decided to pay get attuned as well. I was skeptical, but I suspended my disbelief and tried to learn about how to heal others with Reiki energy. My wife and I got our second-level attunement about a month or so later, before I left for Oregon to take the Bar Exam. I was so busy at that point it was just another thing on my To-Do list, and I didn't really practice until after the Bar was over and we were at Breitenbush ("BNB").
At BNB, I started reading Danielle's Reiki Manual "The Healing Touch" by William Lee Rand, and tried to get into the habit of using Reiki energy as much as possible, while massaging Danielle, to cleanse and energize our food while saying a prayer of gratitude, etc. I'll talk about my transition from Reiki skeptic to believer to Reiki Master-Teacher over the summer later, but for now suffice it to say that Reiki provided me with a very productive way to organize the spiritual beliefs I had evolved over my lifetime. This in itself was such a significant gift to me because, since I'm not an adherent to any particular religious tradition, I lacked a foundation on which
Green Development
Affordable Housing and Community Land Trusts
Natural Burial Grounds, Conservation Easements, and Land Conservancies.
Minister
Publishing
and I will occupy a micro-condo
I plan on using this blog as a means to catalog and process through some of my experiences this summer, such as studying for the bar, relaxing and healing at Breitenbush Hot Springs, reconnecting with my wife, and evolving my interests in affordable studio condominiums (which I have begun to refer to as "micro-condos"), green development, and natural burials.
After I have told the story of my summer, I look forward to laying out some of my ideas about the work of Paolo Soleri. Since I'm in Portland, this is also a great opportunity for me to experiment with the idea of sustainable local urban living in a place that is very conducive to such a paradigm. I have been inspired many times over the last four days I've been out here.
My goal is purchase a four or five unit property here in the next year. My company, Enlightened Harmony LLC, will renovate the apartments using the ideas of miniaturization and compexity, which I have borrowed from Soleri. My wife and I will each occupy one of the "micro-condos," and rent the other units out. We also hope to include in the design both an indoor and outdoor communal space so tenants will be given a better opportunity to meet each other and form community within the building.
So, that means I have to pare down my stuff. I live a pretty spartan existence, but I am in no way ready to downsize to the same amount of stuff I took off to college. As such, I'm trying to brainstorm good ways for me to keep things without taking up as much space. For example, yesterday, I bought a folding bike called a "Tikit" (www.tikit2ride.com) to commute to work on. I wasn't planning on getting a folder until the 11th hour, but I am so glad I did. That's a post in and of itself. Another idea I have had is to get some external hard drives and a scanner, and use that as a means to get rid of most of my cds and a lot of paper memorabilia I don't absolutely need to keep but that I don't want to trash because of nostalgia value. Also, lofts are a great way to free up ground space, as are shelving running the perimeter of the ceiling. I'm hoping for comments from friends to help me live even more intentionally, ergonomically, and efficiently.
Cruelty-free existence is another idea I have been chasing down lately. My wife is a vegetarian, but what got me started down the path was slaughterhouse footage I have watched at websites like www.peta.org, and at the very end of the movie "Fast Food Nation" (a much better book than a movie, by the way). I came to the conclusin that I wasn't anti-meat eating. On the contrary, I have a weakness for Eastern NC chopped barbecue that I have indulged on many occasions during my 9 years in North Carolina. I decided I that what I was opposed to was the cruelty inherent to factory production of meat and dairy products. If the animals are treated humanely while they are being raised, and are slaughtered humanely (ideally, they had no idea it was coming), then I would consider it to be cruelty-free.
I aspire to living a cruelty free existence in as many areas of my life as possible, so I do not personally think eating non-cruelty-free meat is ethical. I feel the same way about dairy product and eggs. Ultimately, it is forcing me to be mindful of the origins of the food I am eating. I'll write more about this idea later, and as I find things out that I think would be useful to others, I'll share them here.
Reiki is another thing that has contributed to my coming-of-age-endless-summer. I have known about Reiki for many years, but had never really known any practitioners. My wife got her first-level attunement from our friend and Usui Reiki Master-Teacher Shaina in Chapel Hill. I had been exploring my wife's spiritual and New Age interests more over the summer as a way to deepen our common connection, so I decided to pay get attuned as well. I was skeptical, but I suspended my disbelief and tried to learn about how to heal others with Reiki energy. My wife and I got our second-level attunement about a month or so later, before I left for Oregon to take the Bar Exam. I was so busy at that point it was just another thing on my To-Do list, and I didn't really practice until after the Bar was over and we were at Breitenbush ("BNB").
At BNB, I started reading Danielle's Reiki Manual "The Healing Touch" by William Lee Rand, and tried to get into the habit of using Reiki energy as much as possible, while massaging Danielle, to cleanse and energize our food while saying a prayer of gratitude, etc. I'll talk about my transition from Reiki skeptic to believer to Reiki Master-Teacher over the summer later, but for now suffice it to say that Reiki provided me with a very productive way to organize the spiritual beliefs I had evolved over my lifetime. This in itself was such a significant gift to me because, since I'm not an adherent to any particular religious tradition, I lacked a foundation on which
Green Development
Affordable Housing and Community Land Trusts
Natural Burial Grounds, Conservation Easements, and Land Conservancies.
Minister
Publishing
and I will occupy a micro-condo
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