Every Monday morning, team members in the Philadelphia and Princeton offices gather together via video-conference to discuss firm news and upcoming events and projects. Since 2003, founding partner Allan Kehrt, FAIA, has delivered his Monday Morning Musings, weekly slices of personal insight into the design profession, to the firm. To comment on any of his posts, send an email to us. We look forward to hearing from you. |
| May 29, 2007 We We are a firm of individuals, but we practice collaboration. We take a great deal of pride in being part of a team of talent all working toward a single goal. We try hard to avoid being a group of egos, vying for attention. When we speak of ourselves to our clients we speak of we:
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| May 21, 2007 Capital Most people who know of Paul Hawken recognize him as the Hawken in Smith and Hawken stores and catalogs that sell those wonderful garden supplies and furniture. But Paul Hawken is also one of the leading environmentalists in the world and someone who is trying to transform the way business is done all over the planet. In 1999 he authored his fifth book on the subject of business and the environment entitled, Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution. In the eight years since its publication it has pointed toward a way of continuing our capitalistic way of life, but in a sustainable manner. What he tries to do is none other than the transformation of the way we think about and conduct commerce. He defines the three types of capital historically recognized as necessary components of capitalism:
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| May 14, 2007 Suzuki David Suzuki is a Canadian biologist who is currently an Emeritus Professor at the University of Alberta. He is an international force in environmental science and education and has for many years been known not only for the thirty-three books he has written on the subject, but for various documentaries he has produced for public television. At the AIA Convention he made an impassioned plea for sustainable development. To quote him directly: "Nature is our home. And just as we take care of our house, we also must take care of nature. But nature takes care of us, too. Nature cleans our air and water, makes the soil that grows our food and provides the resources to make all our material goods. Unfortunately, with six billion of us now living under one roof, we are gradually eroding the services nature provides-even though we depend on them for our quality of life and our future." His talk was inspiring and frightening. To give people a way to do something as a start towards helping out the environment in which we live, he suggested ten easy things for all of us to do immediately:
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| May 7, 2007 Gore Former Vice President Al Gore presented a virtually note-free, one and a half hour lecture at the AIA Convention the other day on the subject he definitely calls his own: global warming. Most of us who heard it considered it to be one of the finest speeches they have ever experienced. It was not his "An Inconvenient Truth" presentation, but one aimed straight at his architect audience and it was surprisingly powerful. He did review his global warming facts and observations but couched it in the positive view that of all the professions, architects have perhaps the greatest challenges as well as the greatest opportunities of any in this troubling time, and that a large responsibility for the final outcome of this issue will be ours. He concluded with the statement that the next few generations - our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will find themselves in the position of asking one of either two questions of us. The first, "How could your generation have been so myopic, so stupid, and so self centered that you failed our generation and destroyed so much of what was wonderful on the only home we have, that we must now live in world diminished and disfigured from the one that you inhabited?" Or the second, "How could you have found the moral courage, tenacity and strength to triumph in the face of overwhelming odds and resistance, and to have fought and won the future for all to enjoy this wonderful world as you did?" We all need to ask ourselves how we wish to be remembered by our planetary heirs. |
