Civic Leadership and Hybridization of the Design Profession

i meant to post, that by invitation, April 28th i headed down to Austin, TX to participate as a panelist in this symposium "Rethinking the City, Rethinking our Role" orchestrated by designer/educator rockstar Alex Gilliam and two of his equally talented colleagues Stephanie Perrone-Freeborg (who lives in the uber-cool UT solar decathalon house) and Doug Cambell at the UT School of Architecture. it was just the inspiration i needed to keep my morale high and not get discouraged by the mundane aspects of my gig and keep striving for innovation and transgression beyond the status quo.

the purpose of the symposium was to show the multitude of ways that people with architectural education are impacting society within and outside the traditional path of architecture. i of course always like to talk about the work i am doing to facilitate real life design, build and landscape opportunities through hands-on education...but it was a treat to learn about the work of others and get inspired. i shared the panel with Michael Gatto ACDDC (Austin Community Design & Development Center), Brent Brown of Building Community Workshop based in Dallas...of particular interest was their Congo Street Initiative , Chris Krager of KRDB, and Damon Rich founder of CUP(Center for Urban Pedagogy)

austin is pretty awesome. i need to go back there.