DIALOGUE Archives - Page 4 of 9

A Pledge for Sustainable & Healthy Materials

It used to be that selecting environmentally responsible materials meant using local and recycled content, sustainably harvested wood and low VOC paint. Today, the architecture and design community recognizes that we can do even more through our material choices to impact human health, climate, environment and society. Until recently, though, we didn’t have the information we needed to avoid harmful materials.

This is changing.

Designers and manufacturers are now engaged in a movement to advance content disclosure of architectural building products so designers can understand the environmental and social impact of the materials they specify. With this knowledge, we hope to drive the development of healthier material and product options through increased demand.

Mayer/Reed is one of the 114 design firms that signed the (Portland initiated) Materials Transparency Pledge. We pledge to support the efforts of the Living Product 50 manufacturers to share the responsibility required to make materials transparency work. For those manufactures that have taken the lead by supplying HPDs, EPDs, Declare, Cradle to Cradle, Green Guard Certifications, thank you for your investment to supply this information. To complete the loop, as designers we pledge to:

Support Human Health by preferring products that support and foster life and seek to eliminate the use of hazardous substances.

Support Climate Health by preferring products that reduce carbon emissions and ultimately sequester more carbon than emitted.

Support Ecosystem Health by preferring products that support and regenerate healthy air, water, and biological cycles through thoughtful supply chain management and restorative company practices.

Support Social Health and Equity by preferring products from manufacturers who secure human rights in their operations and supply chains.

Support a Circular Economy by reusing buildings and materials; and by designing for material efficiency, long life and perpetual cycling.

We’re in an exciting time for design, with opportunities to create places that push past the old benchmarks for sustainability. But a system change will only find success when individual designers, owners and manufacturers change their patterns. Will you join the movement?

To read the full pledge or join the signatories: www.pmtc-pdx.org/about.html

Reflections for the New Year

Kaleidoscopic:
– Changing form, pattern, color, etc.
– Continually shifting from one set of relations to another; rapidly changing

We welcome the new year with appreciation for the kaleidoscopic beauty found in shifting, adapting and evolving our perspectives. While we experienced disruption in ways we could not have predicted last year, it is our wish that these challenges catalyze positive change in our studio, community and world. We wish you a happy and healthy 2021.

Juneau Wayfinding with art by Rico Worl

Honoring diverse and minority voices, stories and art is important to authentic placemaking for every community. We are committed, through our work and in our personal lives, to collaborating with, supporting and elevating BIPOC artists and community members.

Portland Winter Light Festival 2021

Outdoor events with creative formats and social distancing will continue to be key to connections within our community in 2021. This year’s Portland Winter Light Festival, deemed a (non)Festival, will be dispersed, yet filled with color, joy, wonder and delight. Light installations will pop up all over town including Mayer/Reed’s entry at Oaks Park called, Kaleidoscopic Canopy. Check it out February 5-6 & 12-13.

Creston Park Playground

The importance of investment in parks and access to nature and the public realm has become increasingly clear this past year as more and more people turn to parks and open spaces for solace, mental health, exercise and recreation. As landscape architects, designers and planners, we must redouble our efforts to create parks, walkable streets and public spaces where everyone can feel a sense of community and belonging.

Curious about the places behind the Kaleidoscopes? Mayer/Reed projects, Juneau Wayfinding & Interpretive Elements and Creston Park Playground, were completed in 2020. The Portland Winter Light Festival concept (center) will become reality in February 2021.

BLACK LIVES MATTER
We Stand in Solidarity

The power of these words only scratches the surface of the pain and disturbing injustices that Black communities have endured for centuries. We must address the many complicated and layered challenges to erode systemic racism in our society.

As designers of the built environment, we acknowledge our responsibility to serve the community through equitable and inclusive design. We must do better to ensure that Black and other marginalized people have the access and respect they deserve.

Mayer/Reed has paused our outward messaging in the month of June to make an action plan for the work we must do internally to become allies and effective agents of change. We do not have the answers; yet we are committed to an evolving process and long term effort. In a gesture of transparency, we offer an outline of the first steps we are taking:

• Establish an internal diversity, equity and inclusion advocacy committee to support learning to identify and address implicit bias and systemic racism in design and the design process. Our committee will begin by creating a multi-faceted action plan for this essential work.

• Invest in diversity, equity, inclusion and anti-oppression training for all employees and leadership.

• Examine our human resources procedures and create an action plan to increase equitable practices in our studio and opportunities for marginalized people.

• Evaluate our pro bono, sponsorship and donation commitments to better support organizations that are committed to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion.

• Perform post-occupancy case studies of select Mayer/Reed projects to learn from the successes and inadequacies of past work and processes.

• Strengthen our internal and external commitment to educational, internship and mentor programs that strive to eliminate barriers facing people of color in their career pursuits in landscape architecture, interior design and experiential graphic design.

• As stewards of natural and urban environments, redouble our commitment to designing spaces that foster inclusion and equal access to health, safety and well-being.

More Reflections from Portland during Landscape Architecture Month

On this last day of Landscape Architecture Month in the year 2020, we are continuing to respond to the challenges of extended stay at home directives. We are also trying to imagine what a return to “normalcy” will look like in our households, neighborhoods, public spaces and larger communities.

We, as landscape architects and designers, are looking beyond our own backyards to further consider how shared outdoor spaces will function. We long for our accustomed physical and social connections; yet it remains difficult to grasp the large and small steps to regain what suddenly has gone missing. Will these spaces be more profoundly valued as social sanctuaries and essential to peoples’ lives?This experience of imagining adaptations to life beyond the mandates of COVID-19 reminds me of the difficult reckoning with our shock and vulnerabilities after the 911 attacks in 2001. The threat was different, but the feeling of fear was impactful. I recall how the opening of the newly christened Vera Katz Eastbank Esplanade was transformed into a sacred space for those who gathered. Rather than the planned gala celebration of the Eastbank, city staff and event sponsors came together to organize the Illuminata, a nighttime candle-light vigil. It was held in solidarity with the many people across the nation who were deeply affected by the crisis. A procession formed a continuous ribbon of humans and light along the east and west banks. The ribbon spanned across two bridges of the Willamette River. Its mirrored procession was reflected on the surface of the river. Public participation in the Illuminata was far greater than we ever expected. I still think about the impact, peace and beauty of coming together in that moment: a powerful, emotional, shared experience that was all about hope. For many of us, we were able to move forward, in part, from that point.

Now, as we stay home, our expressions of hope and solidarity are experienced very differently. We realize it’s unrealistic to think that any single point in time will acknowledge the end of a world pandemic. Unlike declaring an end to a war, there will be no exact moment that helps us attain closure. How will we gain a post-pandemic perspective, given the effects of the human tragedy and disruption that we are currently experiencing? Collectively and individually, we will all remain profoundly shaped by this experience.

Over time, we will resume family and friend gatherings, sports, festivals, farmers markets, parades and concerts, the “normal” activities in the spaces that we once took for granted. It is my hope that we reflect upon and recognize the value of our shared spaces. Will they, in an entirely new way, begin to feel sacred?