Filed under: architecture, travel | Tags: Boat Street Cafe, Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle, tom douglas
I’ve been working in Seattle for the past couple of weeks and thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was my first time to visit, so I was anxious to explore all the city has to offer. Alas, I couldn’t skip work during the day, so most of my site seeing was done in the dark or quickly over an hour lunch break, but I still managed fairly well. It’s cold there and those that know me well, know I’m not a fan of that, but the temperature plus all the christmas lights helped get me in a much more festive mood.
Here are just a couple of the highlights:
The Boat Street Cafe– my favorite restaurant that I visited, and I’ve been eating well, so that’s saying a lot. It’s a little gem kind of tucked away off the beaten path. The ambiance was amazing and the food was delicious!
The Seattle Library:
Obviously a must see in the city. It’s by Rem Koolhaas and it opened in 2004. Last year it was named one of the 150 best structures in the US by the AIA (American Institute of Architects).
The Olympic Sculpture Park:
Unfortunately, I only saw this briefly in the rain & cold, so I don’t think I really got to experience how wonderful it is, but I’m definitely planning a trip back during the summer months and this will have to be my first stop. It just opened last year. It covers 9 acres and was a brownfield site occupied by oil and gas companies until the Seattle Art Museum had converted into a public park.
Tom Douglas restaurants:
I’d never heard of Tom Douglas before, but based on a recommendation, I tried one of his restaurants and afterwards made it a goal to try as many of the rest of them as I could during my stay. I tried Lola, The Dahlia Lounge, and Serious Pie. They were all amazing!!! Potato Leek Ravioli with carmelized onions, truffle oil, and a little creme fraiche on top… Need I say more?
I’m obviously barely scratching the surface here. There’s so much to do and many neighborhoods to explore. If it weren’t for the weather, I’d seriously consider moving.
Rebecca _SF
Filed under: architecture, san francisco, travel | Tags: Dominus, Herzog & de Meuron
offices on the 2nd floor
Rebecca_SF
I’m about to start a new project designing a hostel/hotel in SF and to get some ideas forming, I started going through some of my favorite travel quotes that I’ve gathered over the years. All of them had me dying to plan my next trip. See what you think.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, & narrow-mindedness.”- Mark Twain
“The world is a book & those who do not travel read only one page. “- St. Augustine
“When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.” -Paulo Coelho
“Adventure is a path. Real adventure- self-determined, self-motivated, often risky- forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the Earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness & bottomless cruelty of human kind- and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black and white.” – Mark Jennings
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do, than by the ones you did do. So, throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” -Mark Twain
“A nomad I will remain for life, in love with distant and uncharted places.” – Isabelle Iberhardt
Rebecca_SF
Filed under: Photos, travel | Tags: Jeff Koons, New York City, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
We’ve been light on the posts these past few weeks since Jackie is on a break with her beautiful baby Cade and Alison and I are busy studying for our Interior Design license exam. The test is this Friday and Saturday so, this week is cram time. Wish us luck.
I thought I’d leave you with some pictures of my recent trip to The Met in NYC in the mean time. The whole trip was amazing! I’m ready to go back already!
view from the roof
Jeff Koons exhibit
Rebecca_SF
Filed under: travel | Tags: architecture, eMi, great photos, India, leprosy parentage, mission projects, school, volunteer
Our good friend Jill returned to the U.S. 1 year ago from India after interning there for a consecutive 317 days working on architecture and city planning as well as experiencing the culture and not to mention shooting amazing photos!
Just recently Jill got asked to go back to India by an organization called eMi who is in need of an architect for a campus plan & school design to serve orphans and children of leprosy parentage. I have to mention that she was a little hesitant at first because this is strictly volunteer work and she didn’t think she would be able to afford it. It wasn’t until a light bulb turned on in her head, she thought she would try to raise enough money by selling her previous photos to make the trip and donate any extra funds to the building. So, on September 6th Jill plans on returning to India to help with the program and take another round of outstanding photographs!
Please visit www.jillmlcom to view and purchase her photos from the past in the effort to not only make this amazing opportunity happen for her, but also to help the children!
Kelsey – Vail, CO
Filed under: design, environmental issues, travel | Tags: Green Guru Designs, Jeremy Collins, Recycled Art, Recycled Bags, Teva Mountain Games, Vail
Every year I can always tell summer has finally come when the Teva Mountain Games come to Vail. I had the opportunity to join in the festivities a couple weeks ago and I couldn’t believe how popular it was this year…it was flooded with people! To give you a little background…the Teva Games is basically a celebration of all mountain sports. Locals and athletes from around the world come to compete in events such as kayaking, rock climbing, mountain biking, trail running, fly fishing and even dog jumping. Aside from the sports, tons of tents are lined up throughout the village where the events take place. If I had to guess, the tents consisted of approximately 40% outdoor gear, 30% health foods, 30% anything “green”… aka lots of great shwag!
Not only am I recommending that everyone check out the Teva Games, but I wanted to share with you all some of my favorite finds.
Green Guru Gear – Located out of Boulder, CO and is an “innovative eco-conscious line of bags and soft goods developed for people who want tough, dependable, functional gear, yet do not want it at the expense of the environment”. All products are made of billboards, car/bike intertubes, climbing ropes, bamboo, hemp, and organic cotton. They make anything from messenger bags, to wallets, bracelets, clothing, goggle straps and even surf and snowboard bags.
Re-Art – Artist Jeremy Collins along with a couple other artists created amazing art on site. All of their pieces contained only materials found in junk yards and were auctioned off at the events. I was astounded by how great the “trash” art turned out and am now regretting not bidding on anything. The best part is that Collins is from my home town Kansas City and his studio is in the Crossroads district!! If you check out his website, it looks like he uses all types of media in his art. Unfortunately he doesn’t have any of his recycled art shown on his website, but I’m hoping that is was such a hit that he starts producing more.
There is so much more that I could share with you, but I don’t want to spoil you all in one day. I hope you find as much enjoyment in the above as I did!
Kelsey – Vail, CO
Filed under: business, design, environmental issues, travel | Tags: Dennis Quaintance, Green Day at Hohspitality Design Expo, LEED for hospitality, Proximity Hotel, USGBC
I had the privilege of attending the Green Day portion of the Hospitality Design Expo in Vegas last Wednesday. I think it was a great success! One of the highlights for me included hearing from Dennis Quaintance who owns Proximity Hotel-slated to be the first LEED platinum hotel in the US. He brought a very capitalistic view to the discussion with a focus on return on investment. He also said while he should be proud to be the first platinum certified hotel in the nation, instead he was really embarrassed at how easy it was to reach that level and how little it added to the overall cost of the project. To address Kelsey’s post from last week, there were quite a few developers and brand represenatives present and I know they were all listening carefully to his part of the lecture in particular. We’re starting to see a shift in the market and as consumers demand more eco-friendly properties, the owners will have no choice, but to respond. The business aspect of it makes sense as well. You can lower your operations costs, you can increase interest in your hotel/resort, and get higher occupancy rates. These are proven facts.
The best part of the day, though, was the roundtable discussion set up by the USGBC to discuss a LEED for Hospitality category. They explained a bit about how they decide what new categories need to be introduced. Since time is critical, they want to pick the building types that will have the largest impact on society and will educate the most people. Hotels do meet that criteria since there are so many and they have a unique opportunity to reach more people than your average office building.
After those initial questions are answered, the USGBC begins a needs assesment. They assemble an advisory group made up of industry leaders to look at what changes need to be made to the existing checklists. They said they would most likely keep about 80% of the points the same and adjust the other 20% to be industry specific. They also set up public sessions (like the one at this conference) and will send out a survey for anyone who’s interested in sharing their comments. If you’d like to have some input you can email leedinfo@usgbc.org to be included in the survey. After that, they go through an internal staff analysis & set up a timeline. Then, they present the assesment to the LEED steering committee for approval. If they still see the need for the new category then they’ll go through a technical advisory group review, 2 public comment phases (that take 5-6 months), a member ballot, and finally resource development. I had no idea it was such a long process! If LEED for Hospitality gets the go ahead, it will still be at least another year in the making.
The part that we played was analyzing the existing checklist and discussing what changes needed to be made. Each table addressed a different issue, took notes, and the notes are now being compiled by the USGBC and integrated into the assesment. The table that I led focused on resorts. There was some great discussion and I was excited to be a part of the process.
Sorry for the long post. I had a lot to share and I still feel like I barely scratched the surface!
Rebecca _San Francisco
Filed under: environmental issues, travel | Tags: Crowne Plaza, eco tourism, green hotels, Holiday Inn, Innovation Hotel Project, Intercontinental Hotels Group, LEED for hospitality
As I’ve said in previous posts, green hotels and eco-tourism are becoming hot topics these days and I’m excited about all of the possibilities. Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) has launched a new site showcasing all of the green features that they would like to implement in their hotels over the next couple of years. For those of you who don’t know, IHG owns Holiday Inn, Candlewood Suites, Crowne Plaza, and a few others. They are obviously a very prominent brand and people will pay attention to what they’re doing. Check out the site here. There’s an interactive tour through the fictious property that gives a little blurb about each green feature. Some of those details include:
A green roof
Solar Panels on the roof
Rainwater harvesting
energy efficient lighting
low flow plumbing fixtures
and more…
The concepts are all pretty simple and straight forward. It’s the possibilites that are really exciting. We have yet to see a huge hotel brand like this truly embrace sustainability company wide. It would mean a big shift in how they do business. They’re asking for feedback from people on the various strategies listed on the website. They want you to tell them what they’re doing right and what they can do better. It’s an excellent PR campaign. It could be all talk, but if you go to this much trouble, people are going to hold you accountable for it. I expect to start seeing at least basic changes like adding recycling bins immediately. We shall see.
In other green hotel news, I’ll be attending Green Day (not sure who was in charge of naming this event…) in conjunction with the Hospitality Design Show in Vegas this week. I’m pretty excited about it. The whole afternoon is dedicated to the discussion of new standards for a possible LEED for Hospitality category and I get to lead one of the roundtable discussions during it. Each table will be in charge of a different topic and they’ll compile all the notes from each topic at the end. I’m sure I’ll have a lot to share next week when I get back!
Rebecca… San Francisco
Savvy Lifestyle 
