Archive for September, 2012

Tracy Metz in Minneapolis!

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Tracy Metz is a writer, cultural critic, US-expat in Amsterdam, Harvard Loeb Fellow, world citizen, engaging and generous person, and a friend of Meteek & Co.

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This Monday, October 1 at 6:00 pm in Rapson Hall on the University of Minnesota Minneapolis campus, Tracy Metz will give a lecture about her book, "Sweet&Salt: Water and the Dutch." There will be a reception and book signing afterwards.

"Sweet&Salt", co-authored with Maartje van den Huevel and published by NAi, is a combination of inspiring essays and dramatic pieces of art from the history and future of the Dutch relationship to water.Her lecture is part of the "Next Generation of Parks" series supported by the Minneapolis Parks Foundation, ASLA-MN and the Walker Art Center. These partners, along with the University of Minnesota's Landscape Architecture program and Meteek & Co., have gotten together to sponsor Tracy's lecture and visit.

Here are some pages from the book:

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Go to the lecture Monday night in Minneapolis, or let someone there know about it who would be interested!

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Below are a bunch of links to more information and a book review:

Announcements:
https://events.umn.edu/Sweet-and-Salt-Water-and-the-Dutch-021698.htm

http://mplsparksfoundation.org/2012/09/26/design-qa-preview-mondays-sweet-sal...

Design Q&A:
http://mplsparksfoundation.org/2012/09/11/event-next-generation-of-parks-mond...

Book Review:
http://blogs.gsd.harvard.edu/loeb-fellows/water-is-their-frenemy/

Duluth Graduate Design Studio

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How does Duluth create more resilient physical, economic and social infrastructures? What might Duluth need in the next 20, 50 or 100 years? These are a few of the complex questions a group of graduate students from the UMN Minneapolis campus will address this semsester as they use Duluth as their design focus.

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We hosted the group of 36 students and three instructors from Landscape Architecture and Architecture during their three-day visit of the city and environs. They toured the landscape and structure of the city, and heard presentations from the Port Authority, city officials including Mayor Don Ness, UMD campus planning, and about the underlying geomorphology of the area.

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The students have much to think about for their upcoming analysis of Duluth. This information will then be used in teams on selected projects and sites within Duluth, culminating in design presentations at the end of the semester. We are looking forward to seeing what they create!

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Thanks to all the presenters and folks who assisted in organizing the visit. At the City: Mayor Don Ness, Jessica Tillman, Chris Kleist, DyAnn Andybur, Chuck Froseth, Steven Robertson, Pakou Ly. At the Port Authority, Ron Johnson and Adele Yorde. At UMD, John Rashid, John Green, Erik Brown and Christine Strom.

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Circle Touring

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We were excited to host three cyclists from Western Michigan on day 7 of their Lake Superior Circle Tour. Tara, Jill and Emma are braving the chilly autumn temperatures of the North Shore and plan to complete their trip in a couple more weeks.

Duluth is conveniently located at the "corner" of Lake Superior, where the South Shore (sandy and flat) and the North Shore (rocky and hilly) meet. Having started in Marquette, Michigan, they will be trading headwinds for hills as they ride up Highway 61 towards Thunder Bay and beyond. For Jill and Tara, this is their second lake circle tour--they rode around Lake Michigan last year, and plan to do Ontario next. After all the Great Lakes, they plan to ride the Continental Divide trail--a very impressive itinerary.

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Stay superstrengthified and power to the pedal! Good luck and ride safe!

The bike shop where Jill works:  http://www.adabike.com/

The bike shop where Tara works:  http://centraldcyclery.com/
and updates about their trip:  http://www.facebook.com/centraldcyclery

Emma writes for this magazine:  http://www.grmag.com/home.htm

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The Chickens Have Landed

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People say that in Duluth everyone knows everyone. Sometimes even everyone knows that you need chickens.

Andrea and Jim, local chicken enablers, stopped by Meteek today to drop off a couple of chickens for us. They hatched an extra rooster and knew they wouldn't keep him, and since he was such good friends with Matilde, they came as a pair.

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We didn't know Andrea and Jim were bringing them over. We didn't know they had an extra rooster. We didn't even know that Andrea and Jim kept chickens. But they heard we had been thinking about getting chickens. Someday. And someday is today.

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We also found out that not only do chickens eat tomatoes, they also eat mice. We put Kazoo and Matilde out in the meadow in the chicken tractor that Andrea and Jim conveniently brought over for us. Kazoo found a mouse, Matilde took it from him and body-bocked him for about five minutes, then Kazoo got it back. Two pecks and a gulp, and it was down the gullet. Perhaps this is why the CSI shows are so popular--not enough people have their own chickens to watch.

[wpvideo RmiGZkqs]

https://vimeo.com/49477331

DuluthTraverse at Clyde Iron

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COGGS (Cyclists of Gitchee Gumee Shores) hosted a great event at Clyde Iron tonight about the Duluth Traverse trail system.

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The meeting was an update on the project, opened by Mayor Ness on a rousing note. COGGS chair Adam Sundberg, Environmental Scientist Kit Grayson, IMBA representative Hansi Johnson and Duluth coordinator of trees, trails, and volunteers Judy Gibbs presented some great information on the background of the project, the current state of funding, state of the environmental assessment process, and a construction schedule for next year. It was a great use of the event space at Clyde Iron, and their huge screen.

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The Duluth Traverse is an awesome vison of a all-levels multi-use connecting trail ranging from Jay Cooke State Park to the Lester River. Other bike and multi-use trails will be constructed within the system, and potentially, other municipalities will link in to the system later on.

It is obvious that thousands of hours have gone into brining the project to this point. Nice work to all who have co-created this vision and are bringing it into reality! Can't wait to use it, and assist in maintaining the trail system!

Gravity Wins

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Back in October last year, we installed a new sign in front of the shop with a technique that printed on a sustrate that was then bonded to glass. We heard great things about the technique so thought we'd try it out in Duluth.

A couple months into the test, we noticed some discoloration in the white areas of the sign. Some browning was happening, but structurally it looked o.k.

This Spring we noticed some areas starting to delaminate, where the printed substrate was pulling away from the glass. Last week the sign disappeared--clear glass was all you could see. The printed substrate had completely separated from the glass. Gravity wins!

We will be looking for more robust methods of printing on glass when we travel next month to Glasstec, the biannual global trade show for all things glass in Düsseldorf, Germany.

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