As an interpretation assistant to Cindy Thomashaw I will be working on an exhibit at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens (CMBG), and as her teacher's assistant for the Environmental Citizen Arts of Exhibit course at Unity college. Catherine Van Amburgeh will also be working with us. I am very excited to working with these women and feel that it will be an exceptional creative team.
Today Catherine, Cindy and I met for breakfast and brainstormed for about two hours. Working with the "big idea", to imagine a building that is designed and constructed to function as efficiently as a plant, we came up with four concepts, or ideas that we want the exhibit to focus around. In doing so we used these six statements that begin with: if a plant designed a building...
1. It would shape its structure to fit the character of the bio region
2. It would function efficiently and add value to the ecosystem
3. It would generate the energy that it uses without a dependence on fossil fuels or toxic emissions
4. It would only produce waste that could be used by another
5. It would conserve water by on-site capture and cycling
6. It would adapt to changing environmental conditions like temperature and climate
The four concepts we came up with to cover these statements are: shaping, cycling, generating and conserving. We would also like to link these concepts throughout the rest of the gardens with signage so that other examples of the concepts may be seen and easily understood.
I really enjoyed having breakfast and hanging out with Cindy and Catherine and am looking forward to spending more time with them on the project and in the class.
On our own time Cindy would like Catherine and I to come up with some icons for the concepts and a list of things we might deal with under each.
