Last weekend we participated in a 3-day permaculture workshop at Spirit Mountain Farm, with Chad Johnson. We practiced and discussed techniques invented by Sepp Holzer, a farmer from Austria who specializes in creative groundwater rehabilitation and recharge, and creating microclimates for plants.
The weather was great on Friday, but the weekend rain brought the class to Meteek & Co, where we studied Sepp's projects, diagrammed Hugels and discussed different projects and land parcels that participants were working with. It was a great weekend!
A fabulous time was had at Meteek & Co. welcoming in the summer. With the assistance of COGGS, the beautiful photography of Hansi Johnson, and the grooving tunes of Elysium Alps, many dinners were grilled and stories told until the sun went down.
We had a bumper crop of kids this year - between movies, food and biking around the shop, it looked like they were enjoying themselves.
Also a shout out to Steve at Thirsty Pagan, who donated beer -- thank you!
It's time again to get psyched for summer cycling! It's been a long winter, and a long spring, so let's get together to bring on some sunshine! We're getting together with COGGS on
Thursday May 22, 2014 at Meteek & Co, 5 - 9 pm.
We'll have the barbecue going, and provide condiments, salad and drinks--bring something to grill, bring your biking stories (and videos! we'll load them up and project them in the shop) and your enthusiasm!
Hansi Johnson will be showing his awesome photographs - his first photo show, if you can believe it. He will be selling prints and donating some of the proceeds to COGGS! And Elysium Alps will be rocking some tunes for us.
The atmosphere at Clyde Iron Works was one of excited anticipation as 33 UMN graduate Landscape Architecture and Architecture students presented their semester work to the public this week.
Working in teams of three, students presented 11 projects on diverse ideas for the future of Duluth, including smart manufacturing, an ecological stream lab, a hop production operation and neighborhood energy production. Each team collaborated with folks in Duluth, ranging from business owners to City staff to people representing various non-profits.
In town for the presentations were David Perkes and David Jurca, two experts in the field of Community Design. David Perkes founded the Gulf Coast Community Studio out of Mississippi State University in the wake of hurricane Katrina to provide design and research assistance to local communities and unique educational opportunities for students. David Jurca is the Associate Director of the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, which began in 1983 with similar goals of assisting communities in Northern Ohio and providing a platform for Kent State's outreach and public service. We are looking forward to conversations with both Davids as we look at how Design Duluth expands its offerings.
A fantastic crowd of Duluthians turned out to see the projects, give feedback on ideas, and discuss the future of Duluth with the students. It was a great day!
David Perkes and the home crowd take in the presentations.
David Jurca speaks with students after they presented their project.
Everyone's invited to the second annual presentation of Design Duluth graduate studio projects at Clyde Iron Works on Wednesday December 11, Noon - 2:30 pm.
This year thirty-three graduate Landscape Architecture and Architecture students worked with City officials, NGOs and other stakeholders to inform their ideas about resilient futures in Duluth. They toured Duluth as a class in September, hearing presentations and touring sites for three days. In October, they returned to get input on their ideas from various stakeholders, then worked in groups to come up with final design ideas for the semester.
Come on by on Wednesday to see how Duluth has inspired them, and to give them your feedback on their ideas! Light refreshments will be served. Wednesday Dec. 11, Clyde Iron Works, Noon - 2:30 pm
Photos below show the class tour in September.
TOP: This year's students meet community members at Meteek & Co. Projects from last year's Design Duluth hang on Meteek's gallery walls.
MIDDLE: Touring the Hawks Boots facility, designed by Salmela Architecht and headquarters of Loll Designs and Epicurean.
BELOW: Bob Bruce gives students a run-down on waterfront development in Duluth.
A perfect summer-is-coming evening materialized for our first annual COGGS and Meteek & Co. "Psyched for Summer Cycling" event. After a five-day "spring hurricane," it was magical to see the sun, sky, and the bright-green beginnings of leaf-out on the aspen trees.
Good fun, good food, Rolf Hagberg's great Motivity bike photography series and the excellent DJing of James Larson rounded out the perfection of the evening. See for yourself!
When I arrived at Meteek this morning, I walked around the side of the shop to greet the chickens but I was stopped in my tracks by a different sort of feathery creature. On the ground in front of the billboard-sized rolling door there was a pocket-sized songbird. Unfortunately, it seemed that it had met its end against the tall, clear panes of glass in the door. Upon reporting my discovery, nobody felt good about it and there were several ideas for marking the windows to prevent further losses.
This response struck me as quite conscientious, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized how thoughtfulness is a part of Meteek’s idea of best practice. I began to thinking about more examples of this and it dawned on me there was one literally right under my nose. The boards I was staining for a current decking project were made of thermally modified wood.
Thermal modification is one of several ways to process wood so it can withstand the elements and be used for exterior structures such as decks. The basic idea is to introduce the wood to heat so as to change its molecular structure—in layman’s terms, to “cook” the wood. In the last few decades this old technique, possibly used by ancient hunters to harden spear handles and also instrument builders to strengthen guitars, has been paired with computerized technology. According to Wood Magazine, “The technology has been employed for years in Europe but is only recently making its way into North American retail markets.”
Thermally modified wood is a thoughtful product choice because it achieves a weathered finish while being easier on the environment. Transforming the cell structure renders anything in the wood that might be tasty to wood-munching insects inedible and makes it less susceptible to decay while remaining structurally stable and resistant to warping. The end result weighs less which makes shipping more efficient. Of course, these energy savings may be offset by the energy needed to heat the ovens.
However, the most significant environmental payoff comes from not using chemicals to preserve the wood, the more common method in use. The chemical preservatives in pressure washed wood include arsenic, and other harmful substances. “Cooked” wood avoids any harmful chemical side-effects and functions just as well as pressure-treated wood.
Whether it is a thoughtful gesture toward the other living beings affected by the Meteek world, or making smart product choices, thoughtfulness is part of the day-to-day at Meteek.
Join us and COGGS this Wednesday May 22 at Meteek & Co for a season kick-off potluck! Psyched for Summer Cycling Kick-Off Potluck Wednesday May 22, 2013 5:00 - 9:00 pm
Pot Luck! Bring something to grill
we provide condiments, green salad, and stuff to drink
bike movies
live DJ music by MAR
bike photography by Rolf Hagberg
contact John Morrison for pre-event ride morjo@me.com
Peter Witzig is with Meteek & Co. again after a year away at college. He will be blogging for Meteek - this is his first post! Welcome Peter!
I haven’t been a blogger in the past. Coming from a twenty year-old that might be a surprise because in our Digital Age it seems like every one under thirty, and their brother, is blowing up the “blogosphere”—if that’s what the kids are calling it these days. Again, I’m not a blogger. I wouldn’t know.
However, from time to time, I have pretended that I am a poet (it makes me feel good; try it some time, it might be soothing). As a Bard I have always admired and tried to live by Tennyson’s old lines “ ’Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all,” so, for Alfred’s sake, I am applying them to the twenty-first century: ‘Tis better to have blogged and failed, than never to have blogged at all. So, here I am, writing my first entry and, in the interest of a fair warning, here you are, reading it. Don’t worry, I’ll be quick.
I’ve just completed my first year of university in Atlanta and have rejoined the Meteek team as the snow finally has melted in Duluth. I could go on and on about what it means to return home, to slide into old relationships—family, friends, professional—and how all of that reminds me that nothing in the past seems to be irretrievably lost, but then I would have to break my promise to be quick.
Instead, I want to focus on one moment in the Porcupine Mountains and how I felt it connected to Meteek. Hoping for some early-season solitude, my older brother and I made the trek out to the Upper Peninsula (the UP, eh?) this past weekend despite the cold and threats of snow. On Saturday, as we hiked off a ridge down into a wide valley, it began to snow gently.
Tucked under a stand of old-growth balsam firs—like a huge sitting room—my brother and I perched on a rock and silently munched good-old-raisins-and-peanuts. Those beautiful minutes of quietness, camaraderie, and reflection were made possible by the sense of space the forest provided. In the same way, I sense that one part of what Meteek does is capture the essence of the spaces that create these moments for people, and incorporate it into their living space. It’s about making a house, a home.
You are cordially envited to the next Meteek & Co event, "Local Producers" on Thursday February 21, 2013, 5:00 - 8:00 pm!
What do bikes, fish, plants, bees, chickens, teaching and food have in common? "Local Producers" will address those questions and more, featuring local food producers Theresa Koenig of 5th Avenue Farms and Francois Medion of the Duluth Grill farm, and photographer Rolf Hagberg's series "Motivity" on motion, energy and bike riding.
Doors open at 5:00. Rolf will be giving some remarks and answering questions about his images at 6:00 pm, and Theresa and Francois will discuss current projects and lead a dialogue on local production at 6:30. Local DJ MAR will provide a sonic landscape.
Come by to view, eat, drink, dialoge listen and make merry!
