Coworking: Flash in the Pants Or The Future Of Business?

The Dojo in New Orleans is a space anchored by WebDevrs, a mobile and web app development firm.

Gone are the days of working in a traditional office setting, where cubicles separate colleagues and the only social interactions occur around the water cooler.  The rise in coworking spaces around the world have left more people yearning for work environments that are collaborative, inspiring, and stimulating.  And, nothing sounds more uninspiring than working in a 6×6 foot box and convening around a water dispenser, as if it were an oracle that could explain the meaning of life, or, at the very least, prophesize the outcome of The Bachelor.

Coworking has witnessed a significant resurgence over the past few years with the increase of the contingent workers – professionals who work independently as freelancers, contractors, or solopreneurs. The current state of the economy has shaped the workforce, as well as where and how we work.

While people can no longer rely on their college degrees to manifest themselves into jobs, individuals have become more flexible and creative with their professions. They are starting businesses, creating jobs for themselves, and hustling for the next big opportunity. In fact, The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that by 2020, about 65 million Americans will be freelancers, temps, independent contractors and solopreneurs, making up about 40% of the workforce. Concurrently, workspaces are sprouting around the country in order to accommodate the growing number of nomadic workers.

“As the American workforce trends toward independent contracting, freelance, and temping, co-working spaces and the collaborative, connective environments they create become more and more important – from both a social and professional standpoint,” said Beau Button, Founder of WebDevrs and the Dojo in New Orleans. “No longer the exception, co-working spaces will be the rule.”

The Dojo is a digitally focused workspace in New Orleans anchored by mobile and web app development firm WebDevrs. Their mission is to create a place where developers, designers, programmers, and the creative alike can come together to harness their creative energy.

“Co-working spaces are melting pots of creativity,” added Button. “They generate a level of synergy that results from the proximity and collaboration of like-minded people. New relationships are developed. Ideas are challenged. Problems are solved.”

Today, coworking comes with benefits beyond just WiFi and unlimited coffee. Professional, personal, and social gains come as added bonuses that are more advantageous than working in a coffee shop or home office/living room/dining room. These environments are not only stimulating, inspiring, and fun, but also lead to new business development and collaborations, as well as increased levels of productivity and income as a result of being part of an expanding business network.

Proximity seems to be a factor in stimulating collaborations and innovation in the work environment.  According to a study that was recently conducted by a team at Harvard University, it has been concluded that geographic proximity is valuable in collaboration, despite living in an era dominated by the Internet, wireless communication, and e-mail. Findings in 35,000 academic papers showed that physical proximity mattered after concluding that correlations between the most cited papers and the close distances between authors led to more impactful publications. Although the study focused on innovation in science, the data proved that face-to-face communication was more impactful, leading to less agenda-driven and more fluid conversations, brainstorming, problem solving, and serendipitous accidents.

“Despite working in similar fields, people are not competitive in coworking environments,” explained Andrea Chen, executive director of PropellerIncubator. “Everyone finds their own niche and often encourage peer-to-peer learning and collaboration.”

Propeller is the only socially minded incubator in New Orleans, and one of the few that exists nationwide. (Photo credit: Rush Jagoe)

Chen’s incubator is the only socially minded incubator in New Orleans, and one of the few that exists nationwide. After opening the 10,000 square foot space in January, Propeller is almost at capacity with tenants that range from social entrepreneurs, professional service providers, and fellows from their accelerator program.

Chen also added that the collaborative environment has already fostered business partnerships and business development, as desk neighbors often become each others’ clients or business partners. In an example, two of the Propeller tenants, RapJab and FitLot, developed an app together called NOLAparks.com for the Super Bowl’sCodeMakrs Super Challenge, and won the competition’s innovation award. The app is currently being used internally by the City of New Orleans.

“People no longer want walls around them,” said Chen. “They want to make connections and feel connected in a day and age that is so tech minded and often disconnected.”

Isolation and feeling disconnected is a challenge that many of today’s professionals feel, whether it’s from the cubicle’s cork panel wall, late night coding at home, or a long day of becoming one with your laptop at the local coffee shop. In addition to the advent of social media sites like Twitter andFacebook FB +2.68%, today’s generation is constantly finding ways to connect, and yearn to find that kind of activity daily.

In an annual survey conducted by Deskmag, people who work in coworking spaces reported to be more productive, confident, and creative. Reports showed that 71% of people surveyed were more creative, 62% reported that their measure of work improved significantly, and 90% said they felt more confident when coworking. Additionally, 70% reported that they felt healthier than they did working in a traditional office setting. The statistics are the result of being part of a supportive and expanding network that offers flexibility in when you choose to work and whom you choose to work with. Aspects such as reduced stress also become a factor, as most people were able to minimize their commute time and were less likely to become victims of office politics.

It’s not just those who are self-employed that are benefiting. As coworking becomes the future of business, larger companies like AT&T T -0.64% and Zappos are starting to capitalize on this new shift, confirming that the benefits are real. And, while the workforce continues to shift, traditional office settings will become as obsolete as fax machines and dial up Internet.

 

The post Coworking: Flash in the Pants? appeared first on The Bourse – New Haven's Coworking Loft.

by Robert Orr, Contributor @ The Bourse – New Haven’s Coworking Loft

Providence Waterfire

The small scale incrementalism of the “Providence Effect” can most definitely benefit Coworking. The synergy of individuals getting stuff done in shared workspace, AKA coworking, is the happy bedfellow of the synergy of bustling small scale incremental urbanism. Bustle is the small scale stuff where Taleb’s messy antifragile world of disordered relationships flourish. Most definitely, it’s not the silver bullet “project” stuff born out of the cash and fossil energy flush 1980s that still captivates so many planners and economic development officials grasping today at lost causes.

So then what’s hot in bustling American urbanism today? Do a search and you’ll find hot cities pop up: Austin, Portland, Charlotte, Denver, Atlanta, Oklahoma City… Why is there never anything in New England?

…but not so fast cowboy. There’s something called the “Providence Effect.” Under the radar the fertile beds of bustling synergy are busy taking root. Providence already shows spring buds pushing up to crowd out asphalt blight, and Hartford is about to launch the very same steps, with some of the very same instigators imported from Providence by the Governor Malloy administration. Kip Bergstrom, Thom Deller and other key players from the “Creative Capital” already hit the ground running in Hartford. The University of Hartford College of Engineering, Technology and Architecture (CETA) under the visionary leadership of Associate Dean Mike Crosbie, FAIA has been examining ways to introduce the prosperous incremental small scale vitality of Smart Growth to Hartford going on a decade now.

Surely there’s enough to share around. Every city in New England should open itself to infection from the “Providence Effect.”

Here’s a piece by Andrés Duany shedding light on why small scale incremental accomplishments by Providence actually outdistance all the accomplishments of “hot” cities across the nation. So what exactly is the “Providence effect?” Read on.

The “Providence Effect”

by Andrés Duany, August, 2012

Rhode Islanders are predisposed to modesty. I suppose this is natural, being the smallest state in the Union—and perhaps it is justified by the lousy economic experiences of the 20th century. At its best, it leads to a charming, self-effacing humor, but it’s maddening to me when it casts a pall on the true achievements of this small city. I propose that the people of Providence learn to overcome this modesty, somewhat at least, and begin to praise the tremendous accomplishments represented by Downcity.

In the field of urban revitalization, many supposedly “hot” cities congratulate themselves for what are, in effect, lesser achievements. Providence is also delusional, but in the opposite way, because it has done so much more than it acknowledges. What would it take for Providence to look around, remember how it was, celebrate, and brag about it to others? (Yes, I include the insufferably self-regarding Portland, Oregon, and Austin, Texas.)

We can begin by saluting the tough ladies of the 1950s, Misses Dowling and Chace, who did for Providence what Jane Jacobs did for Manhattan’s East Village. The progressive duo

Urban Bustle Returns to the Creative Capital

stopped an urban renewal project that would have reamed out Benefit Street. Now renovated and gorgeous, let’s ask: where is a residential neighborhood in Portland or Austin as refined as Providence’s East Side? And, furthermore, that marvelous neighborhood is immediately adjacent to the Downcity, as Providence, unique among American cities, does not have a decrepit “inner ring.”

The East Side also boasts two of the most desirable educational institutions in the world, Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University, each with its own kind of perfect campus: the interspersed bohemian urbanity of the one and the staid Ivy League quadrangles of the other. The RISD library and dorms are now embedded in Downcity, and so too will be Brown’s medical school. With the University of Rhode Island and Johnson & Wales University, which have, in the past decade, [expanded] [embedded is used in previous sentence] into Downcity, there is now a virtual Oxbridge cluster of colleges.

Johnson & Wales’ new main campus was one of the projects that started the revitalization. [You refer derisively to “catalytic projects” at the end, so another term was needed here.] (The others, more conventionally, were the art institutions to be described later.) Compare its delicateness [scale] to the unpleasantly Texanic proportions of the Austin campus! And just where is that college gracing Portland?

Even if the campus expansions seem inevitable, the new riverfront was an act of will. The river—the foundational geographic fact of Providence—not long ago was covered up by a road and a parking lot. That was ripped out, and replaced with a civilized riverfront. This was the epic achievement of Bill Warner. By way of comparison, San Francisco gets a lot of credit for demolishing the Embarcadero Freeway, thereby restoring the waterfront for the city. Forgive me for pointing this out, but the Loma Prieta earthquake did that. The only vision that required was to not rebuild the hideous and unnecessary old thing. On the other hand, the daylighting of the river in Providence was a proactive vision, and the resulting urbanity has been superbly detailed.

South Main Street Park on the RISD side, now as good as any small park anywhere, used to be a sort of backyard not long ago—a disconnector to Downcity. Associated with the revitalization of this park is Waterfire, on the long, riverfront quay and an extraordinary multisensory experience. It is good, even when the flames aren’t lit! Most cities flaunt whatever water they manage to access—a wooden boardwalk will provide bragging rights—but in Providence, a truly large and complex vision was achieved. We have probably forgotten that reclaiming the riverfront included moving the railyard uphill, closer to the Capitol. Where, since the 1920s, has that been done? One aspect of that effort, the rebuilding of the fifth pavilion of the old rail station, was, in my opinion, a class act, because it was no more necessary than a little rose in the buttonhole of a suit. The matching set is now complete, and I admire that detail as much as the larger endeavors.

The new rail line, now uphill and underground, was equipped with a modern station surrounded by a sharp, dense neighborhood called the Capitol Center. That undertaking alone could make another city famous. But in Providence, there are gripes about this or that, and how long it took. Give yourselves a break! That land had been fallow for a century! And how about that fast train to Boston and New York? Anyone living in Downcity can now “walk” to these cities. Try that in Portland and Austin! What kind of world cities do their downtowns connect to? Providence is on the Masters-of-the- Universe axis of Boston, New York, and Washington! It was this generation that finally wove that Rhode Island capitol building back to the Downcity—a success where there had been failure for four generations. And it’s mixed-use, with offices and lots of retail in the Capitol Center, a development that could be a national model all by itself: a huge, multi-anchored mall—with movies to boot—that hides its parking and hosts the street with shops facing out. Ultra-cool Pasadena finally built one of those and makes sure everyone knows about it. Now anyone living or working in Downcity has access to abundant retail and entertainment offerings, without the humiliation of a mega-parking experience. The Capitol Center is a very complex development, and it is rarely done so well.

The new convention center connects the Capitol Center to Downcity. Such facilities are usually the beginning and end of what other self-satisfied cities crow about—even when they sit there like big lugs, interfering with circulation and killing the vitality of adjacent areas. But this one is artfully inserted into the urban fabric, its glazed lobby a lesson in connectivity with the rest of the city. And we should also admire how the two adjacent, slim, tall hotels are so well set on their shared forecourt.

Now, if the Providence Journal would just hurry and get out of its building, the juncture it controls could be rebuilt to complete the connectivity from Kennedy Plaza to the Capitol Center, which was a centerpiece of the original Downcity Plan.

All this, and much more, was done under the continuity of three or four mayors (depending on how you count) and Thom Deller, head of planning. In Ancient Rome (another self-regarding place), he would have been crowned with laurel leaves and brought into the city on a chariot. Hartford is doing that, and is lucky to get him. Capital of the wealthiest state (per capita) in the union, Hartford wants what Providence has. Consider that, and raise a toast to yourselves!

Now, let’s take a breather from all the praise to discuss one controversial decision: Some think it was a mistake to reconstruct Kennedy Plaza as the transit hub for the entire city. That could be correct, but the salient fact is that Providence implemented it. There is a pattern here: this city has a remarkable propensity to get things done, which is so very rare elsewhere. Providence’s plans—good or bad—do not gather dust on the shelves.

Staying on the topic of controversial decisions: there is that old pedestrian precinct at the Catholic Cathedral. This preceded the Downcity plan, and it is a useless place—as so many similar projects from that period were—but even then, congratulations! It was done! That moribund brick plaza will surely be ripped out someday; that isn’t nearly as hard as removing the pavement over the river or moving I-95.

Regarding taking down a highway, there is hardly any undertaking more difficult (absent an earthquake), yet an enormous length of elevated I-95 was ripped down and diverted. Imagine the prospects for Providence if that huge area of liberated land were to be properly designed to connect to the heart of Downcity and the Weybosset/Westminster area. Well … given past success, it is likely to happen.

Eddy Street Reborn

The area defined by those two streets is the most difficult project of all, because it does not respond to the grand gestures described above. This area requires skill, patience, and private-sector risk—bringing the people to inhabit downtown by revitalizing old buildings one by one. It is a chessboard with many pieces in motion: the renovated lofts, the complex parking, the street-level shops, the interspersed campuses of Johnson & Wales and URI, and the art scene. It is a step-by-step operation—earning the loudest applause from me—and it goes mainly to Buff and Johnnie Chace, who have done about as much as the private sector can do in America, which is a lot, and irreplaceable. Their downtown office, with its outlying architect friends and supporters, has been, in spirit, like the Progressive Movement of 1890 to 1920.

Regarding the arts, which now permeate this area, AS220, with the indefatigable Bert Crenca, has grown from its original cave to become a swarming creative arts scene. This is in addition to the formal institutions, the two big, classy theaters and the new RISD museum, which were expanded, refurbished, and programmed to be the envy of any city. Austin and Portland, granted, have a bar and bicycle scene (a motorcycle scene in Austin, actually), but I would not call that culture. People walking from bar to bar and café to café is not urbanism—that’s too much to claim, even by the standards of the boosterism I’m advocating.

Another aside is in order: Do not overlook the achievement of a new, large airport serviced by the best remaining economy airline. Airports are important; people who visit, as I do more than once a year, might make the same mental note I do: “Get yourself a loft in Downcity for the warm months.” Other cities are enticing, but Providence is the real thing, and it’s the most affordable. What a great life that would be! Miami Beach in the winter and Providence the rest of the year, connected by a non-stop airline. I mention this because I believe the regularity of my visits allows me to see the progress of Downcity.

It has been the incremental addition of so many solid, difficult, projects that has restored this great old city. The lesson that Providence delivers for 21st-century planning is that it is not Bilbao; Downcity has not relied on a single “catalytic project”—on planning by silver bullet. And what a scam that silver bullet, the “Bilbao” museum, has been. As it happens, Bilbao is the only city I love to visit as often as Providence, so I know Bilbao was great before Gehry’s “Bilbao.” I would propose that the reality of the “Bilbao Effect” is not what Gehry did for Bilbao—it is what that magnificent preexisting urbanism did for Gehry’s career! But there is one great lesson to be learned from him and other avantgarde promoters: how to beat your own drum. That is a skill Providence needs to learn.

The “Providence Effect” is much better suited for the limits of the 21st century, as it consists of incremental improvement through numerous projects. Why not publicize the Providence Effect by establishing Bilbao as a sister city? Both are similarly sized postindustrial cities on rivers. The “real” visionaries in both places would benefit from discussion with each other. Trust me: visitors from Bilbao would be as impressed by Providence as Providence would be by Bilbao. Both are the real thing. (And don’t forget to visit the Guggenheim. You shouldn’t skip it, even if it has about as much to do with the reality of life in Bilbao as the mansions of Newport do with Providence.)

For now, look around in Downcity. Try to remember what it was like 20 years ago. Be amazed, enjoy it, cheer up, and learn to praise and promote it. Every other city worth a damn does—and with much less reason than Providence has.

The post “Providence Effect” Bypasses New Haven appeared first on The Bourse – New Haven's Coworking Loft.

by Robert Orr, Contributor @ The Bourse – New Haven’s Coworking Loft

Economic Development seems a total mystery when it comes to American cities. For those who bring enthusiasm and energy, fresh ideas, and hard cash to sorely “wanting” urban blight, but end up bashing their heads against inscrutable, intransigent and impregnable municipal policies that leave no choice but to walk away licking one’s wounds and scratching one’s head, Aaron Renn offers a poignant diagnosis in his blog Urbanophile. Renn answers the question:

Do Cities Really Want Economic Development?

by Aaron Renn

Ask any civic leader the number one thing they want for their town and “jobs,” economic development, is what they will likely tell you. Yet when you look at the incredibly poor economic development track record across America, despite various untold billions of public dollars pumped into projects ostensibly designed to produce it, it’s enough to prompt one to question whether or not economic development is actually really wanted at all.

Jane Jacobs once said that “Economic development, no matter when or where it occurs, is profoundly subversive of the status quo.” This, in a nutshell, is why policies and programs that might actually move the needle and generate economic development are not implemented. The politicians, power brokers, businessmen, non-profit executives, etc. all at some level benefit from the status quo. Anything that disrupts the status quo is a threat to them.

I previously noted how it generally takes a critical mass of outsiders, enough to create a constituency for change in its own right, to drive real disruptive change in a community. These are the people who aren’t invested in the status quo. Absent that, getting reform that works will be a difficult challenge.

Economists have a concept called “revealed preference” that suggests that consumers reveal their true preferences through the actual purchasing decisions they make. Applying this to public policy, it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that the real preference of the powers that be in most places is the maintenance of the status quo, not disruptive economic development. It probably also explains why every city obsesses over “talent” publicly, but almost none of them undertake actions that might actually attract it for real.

The post Do Cities Really Want Economic Development appeared first on The Bourse – New Haven's Coworking Loft.

In these blogs, we have often drawn comparisons between coworking and the cities within which coworking is located. Here is another post inspired by the decline and regeneration of Rome, back from ashes. Rome’s experience as a city in decline for centuries, then sudden regeneration can offer lessons to modern American cities still struggling in decline on how they too can come back from ashes.

Back from Ashes – “Coworking” Glimmer in the Decline of Rome

One can draw parallels between the decline of American cities, such as New Haven (the largest city in Connecticut until 1935), brought on by the insidious cancer of automobiles in the 20^th century to the decline of European cities, such as Rome, brought on by the insidious cancer of the Black Death in the 14^th century. In both cases what were once shining examples of the highest forms of civilization and culture were brought to their knees by deadly forces that “leaked” in without anyone knowing. In both cases, the decline wrought long lasting paralysis. In both cases, the greatness of enterprise and creativity lies dormant beneath the ashes, awaiting regeneration.

Rome in Decline

By 1400 A.D., Florence was the leading city on the Italian peninsula, Rome’s population had declined from over a million people at the height of the Empire to a mere 20,000 people.

“In the early 1400s the Eternal City must have been, in most respects, a wretchedly uninspiring sight, a parent that the Florentines may well have wished to disown. A million people had dwelled in Rome during the height of the Empire, but now the city’s population was less than that of Florence. The Black Death of 1348 had reduced numbers to 20,000, from which, over the next fifty years, they rose only slightly. Rome had shrunk into a tiny area inside its ancient walls, retreating from the seven hills to huddle among a few streets on the bank of the Tiber across from St. Peter’s, whose walls were in danger of collapse. Foxes and beggars roamed the filthy streets. Livestock grazed in the Forum now known as il Campo Vaccino, ‘the Field of Cows.’

“Other monuments had suffered even worse fates. The Temple of Jupiter was a dunghill, and both the Theater of Pompey and the Mausoleum of Augustus had become quarries from which the ancient masonry was scavenged, some of it for buildings as far away as Westminster Abbey. Many ancient statues lay in shards, half buried, while others had been burned in kilns to make quicklime or else fertilizer for the feeble crops. Still others were mangers for asses and oxen. The funerary monument of Agrippina the Elder, the mother of Caligula, had been turned into a measure for grain and salt.

“Rome was a dangerous and unappealing place. There were earthquakes, fevers, and endless wars, the latest of which, the War of the Eight Saints, witnessed English mercenaries laying waste to the city. There was no trade or industry apart from the pilgrims who arrived from all over Europe, clutching copies of Mirabilia urbis romae (The Wonders of Rome), which told them which relics to see during their stay. This guidebook directed them to such holy sights as the finger bone of St. Thomas in Santa Croce, in Gerusalemme, the arm of St. Anne and the head of the Samaritan woman converted by Christ in San Paolo fuori le Mura, or the crib of the infant Savior in Santa Maria Maggiore. There was a hucksterish atmosphere to the city: pardoners sold indulgences from stalls in the street, and churches advertised confessions that were supposedly good for a remission of infernal torture for a grand total of 8,000 years.

“The Mirabilia urbis romae did not direct the attention of the pilgrims to the Roman remains that surrounded them. To such pious Christians these ancient ruins were so much heathen idolatry. Worse, they were stained with the blood of Christian martyrs. The Baths of Diocletian, for example, were built with the forced labor of early Christians, many of whom had died during the construction. Antique images that had survived a millennium of earthquakes, erosion, and neglect were therefore deliberately trampled underfoot, spat on, or thrown to the ground and smashed to pieces.”

Back from Ashes – “Coworking” Glimmer in the Decline of New Haven

New Haven in Decline

One can fill in modern day stand-ins for Roman landmarks in the detritus of New Haven, stand-ins for the Forum, the Temple of Jupiter, the Theater of Pompey, the Mausoleum of Augustus, and the funerary monument of Agrippina the Elder, not to mention earthquakes, fevers, and the War of the Eight Saints. All lay waste in decline, detritus from earlier days now barely worthy of the wrecking ball. At best, their bits and pieces, their spolio, secrete away over time to undisclosed collections under the cloak of darkness. But Rome’s back from ashes example proves that the eternalness of a city can withstand the battering of poor behavior. The forgotten and buried phoenix can be reborn stronger than before.

Like Rome, the organic wisdom of New Haven’s well considered location and of the healthy livelihood once couched within a diversity of creativity and enterprise so broad that it guaranteed immunity to all the boom bust cycles that plagued most other American cities right up until the 1950s when New Haven, like others, chose to embrace the automobile and discharge creativity and enterprise. New Haven too can regenerate from its decline given the innate human ability sooner or later to recognize greatness within its grasp.

As for Rome in the Renaissance, regeneration may require the enlightenment of less blinkered outsiders capable of rediscovering New Haven’s treasures in Grand Tours making ready just over the horizon. But in our cyber-formed age of instant information where every man now can read his own tea leaves, it sure would be better if locals could get up and do what needs to be done.

All quotes from:

Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture, by Ross King

The post Back From Ashes appeared first on The Bourse – New Haven's Coworking Loft.

By Robert Orr, Master of Coworking New Haven @ The Bourse

Without Numbers, Try to Imagine This

On Los Angeles freeways as in the far reaches of the Louisiana Purchase “explorers” are quickly daunted by a sense that there’s no discernible order. All pathways and landmarks defy logic or categorization. But Angelenos and Lewis and Clark prescribe order from chaos through the use of numbers. For Angelenos it’s Freeway numbers, for Lewis and Clark it’s longitudes, latitudes, and temperatures.

But these numbers are not so much scientific determinants as they are circumscribing nomenclature. Just as aboriginals develop complex naming systems to organize the complexities of nature within their imaginations, as documented by Claude Lévi-Strauss in his The Savage Mind, the mapping numbers of freeways and river routes render instant visualization nomenclature that organizes the complexities of cartography within the human imagination. It’s numbers that calm nerves in the midst of otherwise slippery and unfathomable conditions; life’s persistent questions.

At The Bourse, New Haven’s Coworking Loft, collaborations amongst loosely connected coworkers on all sorts of projects develops similar numbering systems to sort seemingly chaotic disorder into comprehensible and useful patterns. But like cartography, the numbers are more to anchor and stimulate our imaginations than to offer definitive answers. Coworking is a chance to set your ideas on an epic journey through which they grow and expand just as our nation did in the days of Lewis and Clark’s exploration.

See It’s All in the Numbers.

The Complexity of Lewis and Clarks’s Un-organized Map

The post Science and Numbers appeared first on The Bourse – New Haven's Coworking Loft.

By Josh Allen, Contributor @ The Bourse – New Haven Coworking Loft

In our age of “Breaking News” about celebrities and a stream of second by second tweets about our world’s tragedies (one of which is perhaps 99% of the content of those tweets), quality longform journalism is becoming increasingly difficult to find. Stories such as “Falling Man” by Tom Junod, stand out and linger in your memory past all the white noise around us. Real, lasting stories, written by some of the most talented journalists give us a full-bodied, richly textured understanding of our world, so very far beyond what we gain from the major “news” websites, TV stations, and local papers. Increasingly our news sources are becoming “streamlined” and “optimized” for digital screens of every shape and size. As we translate our news into 140 character bites, we are complicit in an exodus from longform journalism. But do we wish to live in a world in which our information flow is solely linked to social media? If we are not careful, if we do not act to preserve real journalism, “Breaking News” may replace our lasting stories at the very core of our human actions and ideas. How can we continue longform journalism in our digital world in a meaningful and accessible way?

One answer is revealed in the recent redesign of The New Republic, a national magazine that has been around for 98 years. Editor-in-Chief and former Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes says, “We believe that our new hyper-information age is thrilling, but not entirely satisfying. We believe that there must remain space for journalism that takes time to produce and demands a longer attention span – writing that is at once nourishing and entertaining. We aim to tell the most important, timely stories about politics, culture, and big ideas that matter to you.” But they’re not ignoring the reality of the technology we rely on. Mashable tells us that with a traditional subscription to The New Republic magazine, you also gain access to all content via apps that link across platforms, so you won’t lose your place even if you start reading on your phone, switch to your tablet, or resume later in the day on your computer. So in theory, you can allow yourself to be absorbed in a real, in-depth story in the morning and pick it right back up on your train ride, in the supermarket line, or where ever your day takes you. Rather than just reading the one sentence “Breaking News” 15 times throughout the day, you could read a consciousness raising, mind-changing, life-altering piece of authentic journalism. Sounds pretty good, right?

That is, if you’re willing to subscribe for $34.97/year. But that includes 20 print editions, as well as access to all of the content digitally. That’s a pretty good deal, at least if you appreciate longform journalism and believe that The New Republic will live up to, as Chris Hughes puts it, its goal to “not simply tell interesting stories, but to always ask why these stories matter and tie their reporting back to our readers. We hope to discern the hidden patterns, to connect the disparate facts, and to find the deeper meaning, a layer of understanding beyond the daily headlines.” So there’s an attempt to bridge the gap between digital and print, or rather to merge them all together. I don’t think in-depth journalism will ever vanish – that would be too big a loss for everyone – but it will be interesting to see just what forms it may take in the coming years.

What do you think of longform journalism? Is it necessary in the age of twitter? Would you rather just read 140 characters to catch up with things, as opposed to spending an entire day reading a single story from one platform to another? Let us know in the comments!

The post Is Journalism Gone Digital Still Journalism? appeared first on The Bourse – New Haven's Coworking Loft.

by Josh Allen, Contributor @ The Bourse Coworking Loft – Coworking New Haven

A recent article from a blogger in Brussels, Belgium detailed the fascinating rise, success, but somewhat shocking, sudden recent closure in November of 2012 of a coworking space called The HUB Brussels. It’s part cautionary tale, part investigation into what exactly went wrong in a place where things seemed to be going right. The blogger, who goes by the name Anis, clearly details how management at The HUB Brussels focused its energy on creating a passionate community, but did not facilitate the necessary parameters to keep that community coming back and engaged with each other and the space. The space was noisy, distracting, and inhibitive of real work getting done, rather than centered around cultivating a highly focused and energetic working environment. Membership declined from month to month after an initial strong growth period because basic amenities, including WiFi, went unfixed for weeks at a time. Some people felt isolated or even unwelcome in the workspace because The HUB’s mission of promoting “sustainability” and “collaboration” was ambiguous at best. Work was strangely absent. Ultimately, without real work taking place in the shared workspace it is not surprising that members left and The HUB Brussels has closed down, at least for now.

Message Overload

The article got us thinking at The Bourse Coworking Loft in terms of what is special about our space here in downtown New Haven, and what allows us to feel positive about our shared workspace and business model. It comes down to how our coworking space allows for real work to get done.

Our members come here to work and work they do. I’m working right now at The Bourse and it’s cozy, it’s sociable, it’s friendly, but make no mistake – there isn’t a whole lot of time wasted. Unlike a corner coffee shop (Starbucks (2) on Chapel St., I am thinking of you) there isn’t overwhelming noise to distract you. You have space to set up your day, to figure out just what it is you want to accomplish, and attune to the focused atmosphere here to get it done. Sometimes I am so focused working at The Bourse that I completely forget to eat lunch. And for me that is rare, if not unfathomable working elsewhere.

All this should not seem scary, or intimidating, or limiting. If you wish to chat or share ideas you are more than welcome to do so. And we love hearing from you, and seeing our members interact. You can always cowork at The Bourse, but we also ensure that the atmosphere here is work-oriented and work-driving. There are members that work here every day, and some occasionally, but the main undercurrent, the main objective, and the commonality that we share is that we have interesting, creative, and exciting work to be doing.

When you investigate what the larger coworking movement is about you will find many ambiguous phrases and loose ideas thrown around. For instance, a glance at the coworking wiki declares “Coworking spaces are about community-building and sustainability.”  The Bourse is always looking to add events and help our community flourish through social interactions and idea sharing. For example, this winter we are thrilled to be hosting French classes for adults and children, which enriches our community and the greater area around us.

The main wikipedia entry for coworking adds that “Coworking offers a solution to the problem of isolation that many freelancers experience while working at home, while at the same time letting them escape the distractions of home.” Coworking is centered around collaboration, social innovation, professional networking, start-up businesses, entrepreneurial endeavors, and so on. But at The Bourse we never forget for a moment that the main reason coworking is viable and functional is that spaces such as ours allow for real work to be done without the addition of alarming amounts of noise or distractions that happen at Starbucks or at home.

Tons of Interest, Lots of Fun, Great Ideas, but Can You Work There?

Here are a few additional highlights of the blog post discussing the demise of The HUB in Brussels and how The Bourse Coworking Loft strives to be different:

“HUB Brussels is a great place to meet people, to have a chat, share a bite at the weekly “sexy salad” but it is not an optimal place to work. A member once told me ‘I feel that the HUB is a good place for the soul, but I doubt it is the right place for my company’”

Take note: At The Bourse, we insist we are the right place for your company, or for you to get work done. We love salad, too, but our core is our work and enabling you to work successfully each day.

“A lot of members have difficulties concentrating and have been quite often disturbed by noise while doing their work, which led ultimately to their departure. Close to a hundred members [of the HUB Brussels] cancelled their membership in 2011 alone, a key statistic to consider. A careholder once said, “among the HUB Brussels membership, those who work and create leave, the others, stay.”

This is something that  is not a concern at The Bourse. We are quiet workers and collaborators, with an incredible atmosphere of focus.

“This segregation in language and in practice created some kind of a blur in the identity of the community, who is welcome and who is not. If the intent with the HUB Brussels was to create a space for social innovators, it is legitimate to ask ourselves: how many in the community were indeed social innovators?”

Everyone is welcome at The Bourse Coworking Loft. Single individual, small groups, start-ups, established professionals, writers, bloggers, journalists, artists – everyone interested in pursuing work in a positive atmosphere should consider us the very best place to be.

“Without a reliable internet connection or phones, many members had no choice but to leave since they couldn’t do what they were at the HUB for: WORK. despite this situation, most of them were gutted to have to leave.”

We make sure our resources at The Bourse are reliable and operational at all times so that you don’t have to worry about that part – ever.

You can read “Why The HUB Brussels Is No More” to see how coworking can be tricky to get right, and to understand why it is so important to us at The Bourse Coworking Loft to help you find that perfect working environment.

The post Work Gets Done at The Bourse Coworking Loft appeared first on The Bourse – New Haven's Coworking Loft.

Rapid Growth For Your Business is at The Bourse, New Haven’s Coworking Loft

By Robert Orr, Master of Coworking New Haven @ The Bourse

These days, where can you find office space where you never have to worry about all those hidden charges on top of “rent” that crash any business plan. You know, all the bills for electric, heat, janitorial services, coffee (and all the related refrigerators, sinks, grinders, espresso machines, stocking coffee/tea varieties, microwaves, etc.), common area management (CAM) fees, building insurance, faxing/data plan, wireless services, printing, toilet paper, staples, rubber bands, etc., etc., etc. They never seem to stop. All month. Every month. All year. And how about the responsibility of finishing a term lease if business heads south, not to mention the hefty deposit up front?

Going it alone can be risky AND expensive!

Wouldn’t it be great to forget about all those risks and hidden expenses? Well, you can. Consider the shared workspace AKA coworking option, such as at The Bourse, New Haven’s Coworking Loft. Instead of rent and a lease, you pay a fixed amount for services every month. Month to month with no lease, no hidden charges, risk free. If business heads south, or if the weather gets to you and YOU want to head south to sunny climes for a bit, you just interrupt the the whole service like you might for paper delivery back home.

If you’re a Start-Up all the extra expenses can mean the difference of success or failure, and none of the success or failure would have anything to do with the viability of your concept. You could have a brilliant idea killed by toilet paper. Doesn’t make much sense does it. Get hold of yourself. Right now click here and find out the total cost of services here at The Bourse, New Haven’s Coworking Loft. You can thank us later, but start off by trying us out free for three days with no obligation and see what you think.

On this subject, here’s a repost from the New York Times about how Start-Ups find peace and tranquility at shared workspace, like The Bourse, New Haven’s Coworking Loft, but in Brooklyn, NY, written by Vivian Lee.

North Brooklyn Start-Ups Find Office Space Is Scarce

Mallory Blair, center, and Bianca Caampued, right, started their own public relations firm and work out of a shared office in Williamsburg. Photo by Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times.

At Secret Clubhouse, a communal working space near Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, the co-founders of the digital marketing company Small Girls PR never have to worry about paying the electric bill. They did not have to buy the long white desks they share with other young entrepreneurs. If they want coffee, the machine downstairs is always stocked. And there is always someone else to talk to.

For the founders, Mallory Blair, 24, and Bianca Caampued, 28, working at Secret Clubhouse — one of several communal, or “co-working,” spaces that house the budding technology and new media community in north Brooklyn — has freed them to expand their business. But with four part-time employees and more on the way, they are starting to think about finding a space of their own.

“We want to stay in this area for sure,” said Ms. Blair, who like Ms. Caampued also lives in the neighborhood. “We could be anywhere, but we choose to be in Brooklyn because that’s where everything’s happening.”

They may find the search for a bigger office rough going. Though there are plenty of start-ups that favor Williamsburg and Greenpoint, developers, local officials and real estate brokers say there is a dearth of office space. Most landlords, lured by the promise of building lucrative apartments in the increasingly popular residential area, are reluctant to devote space to commercial tenants who can pay little and might wither as quickly as they bloom.

For some longtime residents and younger champions of north Brooklyn, the shortage raises the specter of a creative, economically diverse neighborhood turning into just another bedroom community. Will entrepreneurs follow the lead of Kickstarter, which is renovating an old factory in Greenpoint to serve as its long-term headquarters, or will the area’s booming residential market squeeze out everything but wealthy commuters?

“Ultimately, it’s another 100,000 people on the Bedford L train, and are these people contributing to the culture and community of Williamsburg in a way that a start-up like Kickstarter will contribute to the culture and community of the neighborhood?” asked Andy Smith, the events and curriculum coordinator at the Yard, a co-working space on the border of Greenpoint and Williamsburg. “It’s a really interesting time. I see it leaning one way, and I get a little worried.”

When Will It Stop?

Although many buildings have retail space on the first floor, upper-floor offices are hard to come by, according to several people who have recently looked; one broker, Drew Conner of the commercial real estate company Cushman & Wakefield, said he had had three start-up clients turn to Dumbo or Lower Manhattan in the past year.

There is space, of course. But not much of it meets the needs of fast-changing start-ups, which typically cannot afford to outfit raw industrial rooms with wiring, lighting and carpeting, and require flexible leases and reliable Internet and telephone service.

Filling that gap, for now, are communal offices. Rick Webb, the proprietor of Secret Clubhouse, opened the space last summer after hearing from several friends and acquaintances that they needed desks. He and a broker scoured the neighborhood for four months, finally locating a storefront that landlords were not looking to fill with a bar or a restaurant.

Politicians have begun to take note. Assemblyman Joseph R. Lentol, a Democrat from Brooklyn, is trying to attract support for a bill that would establish a creative economic zone in north Brooklyn, with incentives for mixed-use developments and a mentorship program for young entrepreneurs.

The idea was hatched after Mr. Lentol’s office interviewed young business owners involved in music, film production, technology and media, who said they wanted to be able to both live and work in the neighborhood.

“Our goal is to stimulate a live-work, idea-driven economy in north Brooklyn,” Mr. Lentol said.

That idea has also found a champion in William Harvey, an artist and designer who moved to Greenpoint in the mid-1980s. “There’s the presumption, ‘Oh, Williamsburg, that’s where all the cool stuff is going to happen,’ and it should be,” he said. “But if we just look forward in terms of how things will be built, it’ll be very difficult to have a sustainable new economy here.”

Part of the problem is zoning: though parts of Williamsburg and Greenpoint are zoned for mixed commercial and residential use, the zoning tilts residential. The bigger issue is supply, or as developers might see it, demand.

“The retail market’s been incredibly strong, the residential market’s been incredibly strong, so unless the site is restricted from doing residential, it’s not a good economic deal to build an office building,” said Jeremiah Kane, a senior adviser to Rubenstein Partners, a commercial real estate investment firm, who said he saw enough companies looking for space in the area to make it a priority for the firm.

Don’t Be This Guy

He said it was not uncommon for the owners of old factories or warehouses — the kind of industrial building every developer wants — to refuse to sell because they are holding out for their properties to be rezoned for residential use.

“For a lot of tech start-ups, so much of it is about recruiting the right people,” he said, “and as those right people live over in Brooklyn or live over in Williamsburg, being close to them is a real advantage.”At last count, 87 percent of the tenants of the Yard — a sleek co-working space overlooking McCarren Park — lived within a mile of the office.

“The companies that are in Williamsburg are cool — a lot of the ones I know hug the intersection of art and music and technology,” said Cody Brown, 24, who helped create scroll kit, an application that allows those with no coding skills to create Web sites, in a Bushwick apartment where he and his co-founder, Kate Ray, still live. With a round of financing under their belt, Mr. Brown and Ms. Ray, 25, decided they had outgrown their living room. Finding nothing suitable in Williamsburg, their first choice, they landed in a co-working space in SoHo. They said they hoped to come back to Brooklyn.

By VIVIAN YEE

Published: January 20, 2013

The post Bourse Coworking = No Bills For You! appeared first on The Bourse – New Haven's Coworking Loft.

Posted by Robert Orr, Master of Coworking New Haven @ The Bourse Coworking Loft

Frequent posts on The Bourse Coworking Loft blog address issues of urbanism since urbanism is considered a key component of Coworking. Coworking is based on the fact that enterprise and imagination find far greater productivity in the company of like-minded people, just like the success of enterprise and imagination of people living in the thickly settled environment of cities.

New Urbanism, as a movement, has been a 30-year unearthing of those qualities which contribute to successful urbanism. Successful urbanism is simply those places that make it really worth it to be human.

Although architects initiated the New Urbanist movement thirty years ago, and architects succeeded in attracting a host of other professions to the principles of New Urbanism over the decades, today the profession with the largest suspicion of New Urbanism is architects.

Architects’ suspicion of New Urbanism comes from the observation that a majority of buildings constructed in New Urbanist coded projects evoke traditional styles rather than modern. Even though the traditional styles are not required by New Urbanist codes, and even though architectural style is consistently cited by New Urbanists as having low priority when compared to their main agendas, the style issue alone has been enough for most architects to dismiss the entire New Urbanist effort to resuscitate human-centric urban places.

Below is a post by New Urbanism founder Andrés Duany with colleague Sandy Sorlien, which addresses the architectural debate over New Urbanism.

THE ARCHITECTURAL DEBATE

By Andrés Duany with Sandy Sorlien

The most intractable criticism of the New Urbanism is that its associated architecture is traditional in syntax. To the actual urban propositions as presented by the Charter, there is usually little objection. But the modernist establishment is not inclined to compromise on anything as important as style, and so anathema has descended from the academies on everything New Urbanist.

It need not be so. It is easy to explain what New Urbanist architecture is meant to be by quoting the applicable principles of the Charter:

19. A primary task of all urban architecture and landscape design is the physical definition of streets and public spaces as places of shared use.

20. Individual architectural projects should be seamlessly linked to their surroundings. This issue transcends style.

25. Civic buildings and public gathering places require important sites to reinforce community identity and the culture of democracy. They deserve distinctive form, because their role is different from that of other buildings and places that constitute the fabric of the city.

26. All buildings should provide their inhabitants with a clear sense of location, weather and time. Natural methods of heating and cooling can be more resource-efficient than mechanical systems.

Admittedly, these principles do establish standards that curtail absolute freedom of expression, though none precludes modernist architecture, as Principle 20 makes explicit.

Why then, does traditional architecture predominate? There are several reasons: it offers a more cost-effective environmental performance (the “original green” argument); its conventional construction is more durable, mutable, forgiving, inexpensive, and easily obtained; it is culturally associated with most places that support pedestrian activity. But none of those are the main reason: traditional architecture pervades New Urbanism because regular folk prefer it—and those folk constitute the middle class, of which there are currently 430 million worldwide and set to double each coming decade. It is they who drive around for everything, live large on the land, and entertain themselves with consumption in a public realm entirely dedicated to shopping. This lifestyle is the principal cause of climate change, so it is not a trivial issue.

The preference for traditional architecture was apparent from the inception, when Seaside’s modernist buildings (yes, they exist) ended up as a small minority, a proportion that has recurred in most subsequent New Urbanist settlements. The preference manifests itself wherever choice is available, and, in the United States at least, the middle class has choice. Unlike the constrained markets of Europe, where the regular folk (and even the special folk) are pleased to secure any dwelling near their preferred location, in North America when someone does not like a particular design, there is another one readily available. This may be disheartening to modernist architects, but it cannot be for New Urbanists. However appealing it is to cultivate savvy upper-class patrons, or help out unquestioning underclass victims, those of us concerned with urbanism must deal with pesky customers. An urbanist does not have the opportunity to meet these customers—and to bring them along, like architects do clients by personal charm, intimidation, and other wiles, to an adequate level of sophistication. With customers, a building which does not “connect” will have them looking elsewhere soon enough. To operate, the New Urbanists cannot hold these middle class folk “outside the discourse” as the academy does.

The New Urbanism is an urban reform movement—and that is quite ambitious enough. It has not taken on an agenda for architectural reform, and so modernists have not forgiven this failure to care desperately about what is most important to them. But it wasn’t always that way. It is now usually forgotten that the first generation of New Urbanists were educated as modernists, and some of us were pretty good at it. Only when the urban agenda took over did modernism have to give way. Even after architecture became a secondary concern, the New Urbanists were accepted by the academy in the early years as interesting and insurgent outsiders (the record of teaching, awards and publication is evidence). Only later, when the movement began to prevail, becoming the source of many architectural commissions, were the New Urbanists said to lack sophistication and perhaps solidarity by not directing the available work to modernists.

But we did so direct as much as was tolerated by the market. At Seaside alone there are modernist buildings by Walter Chatham, Deborah Berke, and Alex Gorlin (about ten by these three), as well as buildings by Sam Mockbee, Victoria Casasco, Scott Merrill, Machado and Silvetti, Aldo Rossi, and even Steve Holl’s first large building. Many of these are first-rate (albeit “of their time,” and so slightly musty today), and all were permitted within the Seaside code—that satanic instrument of Southern fascism.

The reason there are not more modernist buildings is simple: the customers did not want any more of them. Well before the confrontation at the sales office, the preference of the people becomes very clear in the charrette process when some firms present excellent renderings of modernist buildings. Unless they are mid-rise, they don’t survive scrutiny. The house, it seems, must be traditional—and the house constitutes the great majority of North American urban fabric, even in those “urban” stalwarts Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Vancouver, Washington, New York, and Toronto. Manhattan, as usual, is the blinding exception.

Is it too painful for architects already reeling from the concept of “customer” to propose that the New Urbanism might have conscripted traditional architecture in support of its urban reform agenda? But before I discuss that cynical possibility, I should make my own perhaps naïve reasoning explicit. I practice New Urbanism as a means to increase the sum of human happiness (the best blended metric) and I believe happiness is self-defined. It seems cruel to impose my architectural preference on the lives of others. If people prefer a certain style for their dear homes, I will argue their right to have it. This position is not unusual in the United States as it flows directly from the “right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” which happens to be the greatest marketing slogan ever devised. Other New Urbanists, I should make clear, practice with a preference for other agendas, among them the reduction of atmospheric pollution, responsible land use, social equity, better allocation of public funds, and so on.

Now, back to the reality of implementing urbanism: traditional architecture is sometimes deployed by New Urbanists as camouflage. Its familiarity (aka “revolting nostalgia”) serves to ease the passage of such scary urban techniques as connected street networks, declensions of density, public transit, interspersed socioeconomic diversity, and commerce adjacent to dwellings. New Urbanists cannot deny themselves this powerful political tool for the sake of imposing an architecture that has for 80 years failed to become popular. We will not carry that old water bucket for the modernists.

But what of the well-intentioned ecological architects who are also modernists? Does that ethic not trump style? Again, to take climate change seriously, modernists cannot avoid the middle class. The critical problem is not, as the Landscape Urbanists pretend, the hydrology of the land, to be salved by the application of an ornamental biophilia—the problem of climate change emanates from the hydrocarbon of the cars, and that is the concern of the New Urbanists. The academy’s preferred client, the patron, may have a large carbon footprint individually, but there are too few, even in the aggregate, to matter. The academy’s other clients, the hapless poor, already have minimal carbon footprints. There is no avoiding that it is the middle class in its overwhelming numbers that is causing the world’s environmental crises. Any supposedly “green” architect who is unable to engage them will achieve next to nothing.

To overcome this division, we have in the past offered strategies for a rapprochement. One, by John Massengale, proposes a critical assessment that takes account of good, better, and best potential outcomes, explicitly acknowledging that the architectural playing field is not level, that buildings are to be judged within the limits of their circumstances. But if even the official AIA periodical, presumably representing all architects, is too snobbish to accept that distinction, imagine how it goes down with the elitists of the academy!

In the end it is not rational; it is a problem of simple prejudice. Modernist architecture no longer exists as a common set of positivistic propositions (that notion finally expired after the Case Study Houses). Rather, it is defined as the residue after the application of an arbitrary set of proscriptions: arches, columns with tops, moldings, symmetrically pitched roofs, brick, clapboard, latex paint, muntins, sash windows, and a few other perfectly harmless architectural elements are categorically banned! All else is allowed (think about this). This amounts to a suicide pact with society because it is precisely these banned elements which most easily connect with the middle class. And, really, what is the harm?

But never mind that! There is perhaps another strategy available: to develop a tendenza. A tendenza emerges when architects convene to resolve and agree on issues, resulting in shared syntax—enough so that the middle class can evolve a connoisseurship. It is not that the regular folk are terminally against modernism; it is just that they cannot be expected to understand the personal proposition of one architect and then be robust enough to withstand the whiplash of another’s radically different conception. Where tendenzas have emerged, evidence shows that modernist architecture becomes locally popular. They have developed in Miami Beach in the 1930s, Southern California in the 1950s, Ticino in the 1960s, the Sea Ranch Coast in the 1970s, and in Austin during the 1990s. If such regional tendenzas were to again be consciously fostered, modernist architects might develop a middle class patronage and thereby engage the campaign against suburban sprawl.

One more thing: Why does it behoove the New Urbanists to support modernists, when they are already so well served by traditional architects?[i] Why bother carrying this bucket now? Because it is now clear that the anathema of the academies is undermining the dissemination of our work. It cannot be that class after class of young, talented, and idealistic architects are deflected from their heroic destiny in ecology and taught instead to perform for the fickle opinion of a very few, possibly corrupt, critics.

The proposal made here, therefore, is that the rupture between the academy and the New Urbanism, based on a matter so trivial as the look of a building, can surely be overcome by method and by forbearance. A tendenza is one such method. One way to induce a tendenza is the local discussion of these propositions:

GENERAL AGREEMENT ON ARCHITECTURE

In response to a global environment that can be seriously affected by the pattern of human settlement, we agree that:

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Good, plain, practical buildings must again become commonplace.

While architecture can express conditions, drawing critical attention to them, it can also improve them directly. To improve conditions directly is by far the more effective design strategy.

Contemporary buildings should be denied all implied dispensations. They should be held to as high a standard as were their predecessors. The means available today, after all, are not less.

It is irresponsible to impose untested or experimental housing designs on the poor. The likelihood of failure in such cases has proven to be very great, and the poor are powerless to escape its consequences. Architects should experiment, if at all, on conscious patrons of the art.

Observation of the current situation should not result in the conclusion that the regular folk will accept only mediocrity.

Architects should participate in the political arena, guiding the built environment at the largest scale. It is risking failure to determine urban policy in the absence of those with knowledge of design.

Architects should participate in urbanism, which would otherwise be abandoned to the abstractions of zoning codes, traffic, and finance.

Architects, like attorneys, should dedicate a portion of their time without compensation to those who do not otherwise have access to design services.

Architects should harness those systems that make the best design available to the greatest number. Only what is produced in quantity is consequential.

Architects should engage the producers of manufactured housing, open-source products, and plan books, as these are the most efficient methods for achieving affordable housing. Their low quality is the result of being shunned by architects.

COMPOSITION

Architectural expression should assimilate cultural and climatic context no less than the will to form of the architect.

Buildings should respond to their context. If an existing context is not suitable, then it is proper to inaugurate one that is. While buildings should engage the character of their place, influence can travel along cultural and climatic belts to positive effect.

Private buildings should be visually recessive and collectively harmonious, lending themselves to the definition of the urban space. Civic buildings, however, should be individually expressive of the aspiration of the institutions they embody, and the inspiration of their architects.

Architecture should be responsive to the imperatives of economics and marketing while not being dominated by them. It is the role of architecture to civilize commerce.

Architects should also be gardeners and urbanists.

Architecture should engage engineering and sociology, though only as supporting disciplines.

Architecture is independent of politics. Buildings should be able to transcend their inaugural condition to become useful and beloved in subsequent circumstances. It is a falsification of history to consider a style intrinsic to this or that hegemony or liberation.

Graphic techniques should not determine the design of buildings. Computers should remain as labor-saving devices and not become determinants of form. Because something can be depicted does not mean that it should be constructed.

Buildings should incorporate authentic technical progress, but not for the sake of innovation. Mass production should affect the process of building, but it is not necessary that it determine the form.

Each building should be coherently composed. A building’s visual complexity cannot be the surrogate of an absent urbanism. Authentic urban diversity results only from multiple buildings by many designers working in sequence.

Design controlled by known rules is preferable to the subjective opinions of review boards. Contrary to myth, without rules, the default setting in North America is not innovation and excellence; it is kitsch.

COMMUNICATION

The language of architecture should be in continual evolution, but not under the thrall of short fashion cycles. Architecture is not a consumer item.

Participation in a perennial avant-garde is an untenable pursuit that consumes those who attempt it and results in architects at the peak of their abilities being marginalized merely because their time of fame has passed.

Architecture should be practiced as a collective endeavor and not always as a means of brand differentiation in pursuit of the attention of critics.

Architects should not perform for the opinion of a very small number of critics—critics who are empowered only because they are recognized as such by architects. Those who do not possess the experience of building should not be granted undue influence on the reputation of those who do.

Architects should develop a direct voice in the periodicals, explaining their work themselves. (Architects should effect this demand by canceling their subscriptions to those publications that do not agree.)

Architects should endeavor to disseminate their work in the most popular media. How else will the people learn?

Architects should convene regionally to attemptto clarify and converge their thinking. One reason many regular folks remain so ignorant is that the withering individualism of buildings prevents them from developing connoisseurship.

ECOLOGY

The architectural vernaculars of the world should be the subject of systematic study as a basis for ecological design.

The longevity of a building is crucial to its ecological performance. Construction technology should result in buildings that are both durable and mutable as required. This is usually achieved with conventional materials and time-tested detailing.

The assumption that only the high-tech offers green solutions is a fraud, as it results in unnecessary expense. The “original green” was exceptionally cost-effective, as in the past there was nothing to waste.

Old and new buildings should be assigned equal standing, as they provide parallel, persistent realities. Their evaluation should be pragmatic and not a function of chronology.

Additions and amendments to historic buildings must be allowed to be either harmonious or contrasting, as best determined by the architect.

EDUCATION

The design schools should accept the responsibility of teaching a body of knowledge, and not attempt to incite individualism. Students should be exposed to more than the few geniuses of each generation. Emulation of the exceptional does not provide an adequate model for professional training.

The wall between history and design must be torn down. The achievements of predecessors are the basis of all human progress.

Architectural history and theory should also include the masters of administration and development. Students who are not seduced by form-making might be inspired by such role models. Industry, government and finance are sorely in need of their design abilities.

Apprenticeship should again be an available alternative to academic instruction. There has been no more effective method of learning architecture. Most of the finest buildings of all time were the result of apprenticeship, while most of the worst have been the result of architecture curricula. There is a lesson in that.

The post The Architectural Debate Over New Urbanism appeared first on The Bourse – New Haven's Coworking Loft.

by Robert Orr, Master of Coworking New Haven @ The Bourse Coworking Loft

Coworking feeds off diversity. By bringing together people with diverse interests, backgrounds and perspectives Coworking offers the opportunity to grow enterprise and imagination in ways that individuals working alone can not. Diversity breeds prosperity. But what is diversity all about?

There’s an IBM ad that pops up on TV from time to time entitled, “Smarter Marketing: Seeing customers as individuals” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SbVnMMozY4&list=PL5DC1B85E4FEA6504). The video is brief but poignant in driving home the shortcomings of demographics. Demographics are the indicators that steer marketers. Demographics tend to paint people in standard groups, such as income level, marital status, race, religion, education, etc.

The IBM video reveals the leap in useful indicators gleaned from switching from “geographics to analytics,” painting people as unique individuals rather than as members of groups. As one might imagine, within demographic groups unique individuals think and consume in radically different ways.

The video flexes IBM’s cyber marketing muscle, but something else snagged my attention. In the video groups of identically clothed people shed their group clothing to reveal uniquely dressed individuals underneath.

The cover of sameness in clothing meant to symbolize the shallowness of demographic diversity made me rethink the high esteem for diversity held by progressive thinkers, the prevailing spirit of our age. The striptease of sameness clothing suggests a more tawdry view of diversity. Diversity turns out to be nothing more than a clever syllogism for sameness. Through IBM’s revelation, diversity turns out to be a striving to be equal, a striving to be treated the same by everyone, or as Voltaire would say, we all have “the same organs, the same sensations, the same perceptions.” Egalitarianism is great. Diversity are one.

But wait a minute. In one cheeky move, IBM succeeds in tossing out egalitarianism. When diversity sheds its egalitarian disguise, a plethora of sensations and perceptions of unique individuals jump out. A different diversity enters the stage, unrelated to race, creed or sex… unrelated to demographic groups. Sorry Voltaire.

The IBM introduction of a more legitimate diversity is so obvious you kind of feel dumb discovering it. So how did we get so far off the obvious?

Tracing back to where all this began finds a well worn path some three centuries long, which makes IBM’s little stunt all the more phenomenal.

The starting gate is commonly credited to 17c French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes. He is the first to question the forever-accepted complexity of individuality, to place the fig leaf over the naked particularism re-exposed in the IBM video. Descartes sought to simplify complexity into groupings of theoretical constructs. He rejected ends as a way to explain natural phenomena. With one left hook he knocked out the influence of the past and the hope for the future in favor of a neatly wrapped eternal present, summed up in his aphorism, ”Cogito ergo sum,” or “I think, therefore I am.”

Descartes’s Cartesian (the Latinized version of his name is Cartesius) coordinate system traded in complexity for clear thinking, viewing a point in space as just a set of numbers, and algebraic equations as just geometric shapes in two-dimensional systems.

But what does Descartes have to do with modern marketing demographics? Kind of a lot actually. Descartes’s we-are-one baton’s been handed off in the longest relay race ever run. Spinoza, Voltaire, and Franklin are just a few of the runners.

Economics were always lurking around Cartesian ateliers (La Bourse de Lyon, the world’s first accelerator, launched in 1540), but it’s the 19c Industrial Revolution that really gets things boiling by connecting Descartes to modern spending with the injection of progressivism. Progressivism is a kind of economic take on Descartes’s homogeneity, in which luxuries progressively turn into necessities, withering the distinction of class. Adam Smith’s “consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production” pulls consumption under the tent. Earnest Calkins’s “artificial obsolescence” dumps incendiaries on the consumption fire. John Maynard Keynes’s “prosperity lies in spending, not in saving” beckons the proletariat to come out from the cold and join the party (Keynes’s affection for the proletariat was curious for a man whose conscientious objector application during WWI was based solely on his belief he was above such things). And finally the 20c crescendo of debt removes the ticket booth altogether.

So the herding of complex individuality into collective demographics arrives at the IBM sound stage after centuries of steeping in the intoxicating brew of rationalism, progressivism and consumption. By now everyone is so woozy with addiction that, leaderless and self-propelled, every vocation of society, every ethnicity and sex, every nationality and creed charge with the frenzy of a Filene’s Running of the Brides (ROTB) to snatch sameness clothes and jam under the seam-splitting umbrella of “diversity,” which we now see is just a cynical indicator for consumption.

Under the circumstances, the concepts of  narcissism and entitlement take on whole new dimensions. They are not merely annoying forms of self-esteem, as so often derided. They are forms of respectable elitism, at least from a progressive point of view. They are proud badges heralding the hard won investiture in the upper reaches of one demographic group or another. They are bolder hues of sameness clothes.

Back in the ’20s German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies couldn’t have imagined better support for his “cold rational,” “masculine,” and “one large city” theories than the army of “unsentimental” droids that parse out every corner of the planet today. But the IBM clip suggests droids also might be Tönnies’s undoing. Omniscient and amoral, computing’s begun unpacking the the very diversity of individuality that’s been so obdurately concealed beneath the sameness shells of Tönnies’s prestidigitations. Now that chewy nuggets peek out from inner cores, computing artillery may be drawn to change coordinates just enough to unstick the control lever and kick-start the legitimate diversity conveyor belt of project civilization. After all, the civilization wiki depends on individuals doing their absolute best to add their unique contribution to the betterment of the whole. Hmmm… Let’s do our best to speed it along.

Robert Orr is an architect and planner in New Haven, Connecticut.

The post Computing Unveils the Truth about Diversity appeared first on The Bourse – New Haven's Coworking Loft.