#openingup #ECHOLSTOCK EntreArchitect C&C w/ Katherine McPhail, R.A. or #whatididonmysummervacation 1
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| Graphic by James Polk |
Sooo.... I have taken a couple months off from blogging and interviewing... it seemed like it was a while, but in fact, it has only been two months... and i am back with the old school essay:
WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION...
And what I did on my summer vacation is:
I worked, painted part of the house, exterior and interior and, bought numerous items that have not been actually installed, saw my mother and stepfather for the first time in over two years in the Midwest, drove and visited old friends,
and planned and attended a conference
in person...
which will probably amaze and surprise all of you at this point because as you might have known
we have been in a global pandemic that we have never seen the likes of in all of our lives
and
we have only had mostly cancelled in person events.
So this conference was conceived on the EntreArchitect Facebook Live version of Context and Clarity hosted by Jeff Echol's that was started on April 6, 2020 as a way to find Context and Clarity in our lives as architects, and people, during the pandemic.
after several months, possibly a year, Jeff Echols, our fearless leader, along with architect Katherine McPhail as a co-host launched a Thursday Context and Clarity (C&C) that would be offered on other social media avenues like Facebook Live, LinkedIn, Twitch, so that people from outside of the private Facebook group of EntreArchitect could also join in. This platform has been an enormous success (as far as the other MiniMasterminders and I have sufficed) and it is the only one that I know of to be an interactive live show about architects and the professin of Architecture. I have seen a Facebook Live about Lancome cosmetics which is pretty entertaining and inclusive and Entrepreneur Facebook Live show that also incudes interactive comments.
So one of the ideas that was brought up was "who are the architects who show up every day at 4pm EST and how do we get to know them? " So, being that I have no qualms about being in the public eye
(OR DO I???)
President | echoEngagement
I volunteered that I would "show up" on the Context and Clarity Live show and talk with two other members about....
anything basically.
And talk we did. About Music and Music and Music and Instruments and Music and Frank Lloyd Wright and SUMMER CAMP FOR ARCHITECTS
So, James Polk, Jay Caroli and Katherine MacPhail and I all started a committee for what basically became what we now know as:
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| Stickers and Notebooks courtesy of Katherine MacPhail |
ECHOLSTOCK 2021: 3 days of context, music and clarity at Jay Peak Resort which many of us didn't know would be 5 minutes from the US Canadian border and at Caroli's Farm on the back roads of Vermont.
We had several Zoom meetings, numerous free verse FB messenger chat sessions and then posting in the EntreArchitect FB group, we opened for registration, required masks and vaccination cards and fun for all amidst our angst of the unknown.... We gathered in a windowless conference room and dreamed out loud of what we could do to make the world a better place with and by architects and architecture.
An interesting sub-fact was that the committee was half men and half women and the makeup of the conference attendees was also half men and half women. (Please note Conference Planners...)
We made our plane reservations if we needed to, had a carpool or invited friends who lived in the area and that was the carpool and I had a chance to see Boston, Mass and New England which in spite of growing up in Southwestern PA, had never been. And because I will probably never attend Harvard or MIT, I enjoyed taking a tour of the campus where my friend Ann's son goes to school and so did she!
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| MIT at midnight... |
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| Requisite Cappucino/ where I left my business debit card shot |
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| Robbins House |
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| Stamp your own Harriet Tubman $20 dollar bill |
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| Louisa May Alcott House |
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| one of the first #almostWFH locales |
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| John Fitzgerald Kennedy's dorm room was altered to accommodate ADA |
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| library that I will never be able to build because I have never worked in a corporate office (and I never want to...) |
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| truly food for all |
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| we followed this truck for 30 minutes |
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| I don't think we are in Kansas anymore... |
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| This is Vermont |
The Context and Clarity Session Topics varied from
Sustainability,
How do we engage people to consult or engage the services of an Architect when they might not have otherwise pursued them for a small project or a project that might not require an architect legally,
How do we better communicate with the people we consult with and employ?
ARDEMAS: a mutual aid non-profit that can help architects who might be going through a crisis and need help from other architects to help run their practices through a difficult time. Architects & Designers Mutual Aid Society (ARDEMAS)
Cognitive Architecture: how our minds perceive and process architectural spaces now that we have science and technology that can track and record what and how we do it?
How can we run the practice of architecture as a business?
How can we have practices that are not just architecture? like development, translators, marketing, SEO, etc?
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| At the top of Jay Peak, I did not go further up because I was not wearing the appropriate foot gear and actually almost fell which was not captured... |
Here is architect Jay Caroli's take on the event:
It was a better event than I could have imagined. I think people worry sometimes about meeting people in person that they’ve met online. I know I do. It seems that the people who we’ve met on C & C are their genuine selves. I can’t wait to meet the rest of the “usual suspects” (Jeff’s term?). Echolstock was a fabulous mix of Retreat and Conference. There were some wonderful personal moments having everyone together on my land and inspired moments sitting in the conference room discussing the topics selected and introduced by the folks in the room. The committee worked hard to match the spirit of C&C and I think we achieved that goal and created a model for what an architectural conference can and should be.
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The site of the future Caroli Residence
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| the structures that are here on the summer camp residence on the Caroli Farm |
And here is just a small example of James Polk's fantastic musical skills:
Katherine MacPhail and I first "met" virtually on EntreArchitect "Context and Clarity" and we are also members of other Facebook groups like Mothers in Architecture. She contacted me when we first started on C&C and had me as a guest on her podcast, "The House Maven" and I believe even though we had an entire hour together discussing residential architecture and the tips that we should give to homeowners who want to hire an architect to design theirs... we still did not realize that we had both been in the Westside of Los Angeles together and in fact only lived a few blocks away from each other and probably drank coffee tables away from each other at the now defunct Abbott's Habit without even knowing it... but we share many of the same life experiences, marriages to other architects, three children who are the typical spawn of architects and the playing a musical instrument, me, the flute, earlier in life and not very well and her later on, the fiddle, and excelling at most everything she does, but being very modest about it.
Interview w/ Katherine MacPhail, Architect: click here to listen
The weekend ended (at least as long as I stayed) with a wonderful gathering at Jay Caroli's Family Farm where they intend on building. We made twenty pizzas (with real pizza dough that Jay's wife raised) in an Ooni wood-fired outdoor pizza oven (which I intend on getting because it worked way faster than I thought the would cook. I do not have any photos of the pizzas as I was too busy making them with a few other people and Jay as the pizza oven extraordinaire. And then we climbed the hill to the site as I gathered wildflowers and we saw this incredible view where the house will be sited. And them picked various wild and domestic blueberries. How many architects does it take to pick blueberries??? And then we headed back to Boston where I learned that Paul Revere yelled
"the regulars are coming, the regulars are coming"
and he didn't even make it the whole way to warn the people, he was captured by the British and another man actually completed the task!
All in all, I had a great time and encourage you all to participate in next year's
ECHOLSTOCK 2022 (perhaps in Chicago)
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I enjoyed this blog. Thanks Michele :)
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