Hosted by Bellingham Urbanists as part of Bellingham Design Week

Bellingham's population is projected to double in less than 30 years and it's critical that our city grows in a way that's good for both people and planet. With that in mind, what will Bellingham look like in 2030, 2040 or 2050? Will backyard fences and car-centric development continue to drive the urban sprawl that eats away at our agricultural lands and wilderness areas? Or will we prioritize climate-positive, walkable urban villages where diversity and inclusion create thriving communities? As residents of Bellingham, it's up to us to work with our elected officials in creating the best possible future for our city, but first we must envision that future. So join us on Tuesday, May 14th for a fun and collaborative evening exploring the possibilities of what an urbanist future for Bellingham might look like.

The workshop will begin with a short introduction followed by an overview of potential projects that range from protected bike lanes to high speed rail and from alley revitalization to iconic skyline projects. Attendees will then select a project to work on and form into workgroups of 3-6 people. Once the groups are set, then it's time for each to dive into their respective projects for approximately 90 minutes. We'll wrap up the evening with workgroups sharing their results and with each presentation, the vision for what Bellingham's future might look like will come into focus a little more.

Please also RSVP on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/city-design-bellingham-a-visioning-workshop-for-our-urban-villages-tickets-61301877566

If you'd like to connect with other attendees on social media, you can find the event on Facebook at facebook.com/events/1243838945792092

Join us for an evening of short films and talks about affordable housing around the world! We heard that most people missed the screening of "How to Live in Vienna" back in April, so we're going to show that again, plus a couple of new shorter videos you haven't seen yet!

This is organized jointly with a new event series hosted by Bellingham Urbanists.

Schedule of screenings:

1. Video Ignite Talk: "Baugruppen: Communal Dwelling Sans Granola - Michael Eliason" (5 minutes)

2. "How to Live In Vienna" (50 minutes)

3. Video TED Talk: "How cohousing can make us happier (and live longer) - Grace Kim" (10 minutes)
   

[All videos have English closed-captioning]

Image: Work by Tricia Stackle

We are pleased to invite you to the September edition of Design Drinks + Talks featuring three artists from Skagit County. For this edition, we will be hearing from Sheila Klein, Tricia Stackle, and Jasmine Valandani.

Design Drinks + Talks takes place every other month at Localgroup Studio (https://localgroup.studio/) with short presentations by local designers, artists, architects, cartographers, programmers, writers, curators, and others engaged with and interested in design questions and problems. Presenters may share past work, explore design as a conceptual or practical concern, or pose a speculative question or idea. With each event, drinks and food will be served. This event is free and open to the public.

 BIOS

Sheila Klein is a visual artist whose work straddles the worlds of art and architecture. Her output occurs in the studio, on the street, and in art institutions. Exhibited widely at diverse organizations including P.S.1, Institute for Art and Urban Studies (New York), Memory and Lands of the 20th Century (Florence, Italy), Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh) Museum of Art and Design (New York), and La Foret Museum (Tokyo), Klein’s work has also appeared art publications and in the media such as the New York Times, Times of India, and National Public Radio. Klein first lived in the Skagit Valley in 1976 and returned in 1995, where she lives on a farm in Edison with her husband Ries Niemi.

Tricia Stackle is an artist/designer living and working in the Skagit Valley in Bow, WA. Inspired by simple geometric shapes, color, and tactile materials, she is both an artist and educator committed to rethinking the way people live with and relate to art and design. In 2010, she graduated from the Cranbrook Academy of Art with an MFA in Fiber and Material Studies and is one half of HillStack Studio, which she formed with her partner Ron Hemphill in 2013. Her work has appeared in the books Mobile Architecture, 500 Felt Objects, and Felt: The soft Revolution and in the magazines FiberArts, Surface Design, and Content.   

Jasmine Valandani works across disciplines and media to explore the margins of experience, drawing attention to the undervalued or overlooked through subtle re-imaginings of material and space. Her sculpture, installation, and works on paper have been exhibited in the U.S., Canada, and South Korea. She holds a BFA degree in printmaking from the University of San Francisco and an MFA in Fiber from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Jasmine lives on Samish Island where she finds inspiration cohabiting with the elements and other living things.

RSVP via the Meetup link, or on the Facebook event.

Join local community activists, professionals, representatives, and residents in a discussion on what a better housing future might look like and what lessons from Vienna might work in our region.

More info at https://localgroup.studio/the-vienna-model/

RSVP on Meetup or Facebook

A documentary about the design of cities, which looks at the issues and strategies behind urban design and features some of the world's foremost architects, planners, policymakers, builders, and thinkers.

About the film: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1701976/

More info about The Vienna Model exhibition at https://localgroup.studio/the-vienna-model/

RSVP on Meetup or Facebook

This 49 minute video essay gives an overview of Vienna's housing development from the late 19th century until today. The movie is produced as a cultural journey to selected housing projects showing their urban and social circumstances.

More info about The Vienna Model exhibition at https://localgroup.studio/the-vienna-model/

RSVP on Meetup or Facebook

Join local community activists, professionals, representatives, and residents in a discussion on Bellingham’s current housing crisis and what might be learned from The Vienna Model. Special guests include Sabine Bitter and Jeff Derksen, organizers of the Vancouver, BC iteration of The Vienna Model exhibition and members of the research collective Urban Subjects.

Agenda:

11am-11:15am

Acknowledgements, Opening Remarks, Introduction of the Project

11:20 am

The landscape, data, trends, comparing Bellingham to Vancouver & Vienna

11:30am-12:30pm

A panel of speakers impacted directly by the housing crisis and people who work closely with people who have experienced housing insecurity, to (1) share personal stories of their housing insecurity and/or advocacy, (2) highlight the weaknesses of the current affordable housing system in Bellingham and (3) speak to the benefits and successes of the current affordable housing system.

12:30pm-12:45pm

Coffee break

12:45-1:25pm

Presentations by Jeff Derksen & Sabine Bitter, organizers of the show in Vancouver and members of the Vancouver/Vienna research collective Urban Subjects.

1:25pm-2:10pm

Lunch

2:10 pm-2:55 pm

Panel of Speakers addressing the concept of what the “social” in social housing means.

3:15pm-4:00pm

Community Research: Community discussion of the day’s most important take-aways and questions in order to build a community demands list.

More info at https://localgroup.studio/the-vienna-model/

RSVP on Meetup or Facebook

Localgroup Studio and Bruna Press + Archive are pleased to present an exhibition featuring Vienna, Austria’s innovative approach to housing, architecture, and affordability, as well as urban, neighborhood, and community development.

More info at https://localgroup.studio/the-vienna-model

RSVP on Meetup or Facebook

 Join us for a special edition of Design Drinks + Talks featuring three Localgroup coworkers: Kim Do, Ron Hemphill, and Sky Hester

Design Drinks + Talks takes place every other month at Localgroup Studio (https://localgroup.studio/) with short presentations by local designers, artists, architects, cartographers, programmers, writers, curators, and others engaged with and interested in design questions and problems. Presenters may share past work, explore design as a conceptual or practical concern, or pose a speculative question or idea. With each event, drinks and food will be served. This event is free and open to the public.

Bios:

Kim Do is a content marketer who hails from the sleepy plains of Oklahoma. She used to teach English in Kyoto, Japan, while writing travel blogs and throwing salon parties in her tiny living room. Now she’s based in Berlin, Germany, where she gets to combine her love for stories and travel, all the while still struggling with when to use “der,” “die,” or “das”.

Ron Hemphill is a multi-disciplinary artist. Intuitively weaving digital and analog processes such as video editing, calligraphy, photography, animation and whittling. Ron often utilizes a “thing a day” process, enacting daily artistic procedures within a set framework for anywhere from 7 to 100 days. He creates emotionally layered images on themes of the pre-birth experience, refuse, longing, and the paranormal. Ron holds an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. He has had solo and group exhibitions in New York, Michigan, Washington, and California.

Sky Hester is an applied mathematician and experimental thinker living in Bellingham with his partner Natasha Donovan and their dog Luna Dog Donovan-Hester. His time will focus on the painfully exciting world of correspondence forensics; in particular, reconstructing interaction networks from bodies of email.

Facebook event link is here: https://www.facebook.com/events/340667499751840/

With presentations by:

Ola El-Khalidi + Diala Khasawnih

Amy Glasser + Sonny Meehan

Barbara L. Miller + Dimitri C. Katsaros

A very special edition of Design Drinks + Talks takes place this October with presentations by couples who collaborate.

Bios

Ola El-Khalidi + Diala Khasawnih have worked together for many years on many projects including Makan art space in Amman, Jordan and currently The Rocca Family (a traveling project). Their practice includes but is not limited to art making, curating, writing, performance, publishing, cooking, feeding, drinking, smoking, collaborating, DJ’ing, etc… https://www.roccafamily.org/

Amy Glasser + Sonny Meehan have taken photographs together throughout their travels. Although now based in Bellingham, they previously lived in the Netherlands from which they traveled around Europe taking portraits of the people they met along the way.

Barbara L. Miller + Dimitri C. Katsaros are Bellingham-based artists who have been collaborating since 2005 and have exhibited their art work at the Western Gallery, the Whatcom Museum, and the Museum of Northwest Art. For their talk at Design Drinks, they will be sharing recent work in photography. http://www.millerkatsaros.com/

RSVP either on Meetup or Facebook.

Design Drinks (+ No Talks) takes place every other month at Localgroup Studio as an open and informal gathering of designers and other creative people living and working in the Bellingham area. Designers, artists, architects, cartographers, programmers, writers, curators, and any others engaged with and interested in design questions and problems are all welcome to meet with one another, exchange ideas, and develop connections. This series is related to Design Drinks + Talks at Localgroup Studio, but takes place without presentations.

For the month of September, we are scheduling the social right after our first Intro to Data Visualization class so that attendees (some are coming from Seattle and Vancouver) can meet and mingle with local design-minded folks.

RSVP on our Facebook or Meetup pages. 

Design Drinks (+ No Talks)

Design Drinks (No Talks) takes place every other month at Localgroup Studio as an open and informal gathering of designers and other creative people living and working in the Bellingham area. Designers, artists, architects, cartographers, programmers, writers, curators, and any others engaged with and interested in design questions and problems are all welcome to meet with one another, exchange ideas, and develop connections. This series is related to Design Drinks + Talks at Localgroup Studio, but takes place without presentations.

RSVP on our Facebook or Meetup event pages.

Design Drinks + Talks 

With presentations by

Sarah Brownsberger + Rhys Faler + Nathan Matsushima

Design Drinks + Talks takes place every other month at Localgroup Studio with short presentations by local designers, artists, architects, cartographers, programmers, writers, curators, and others engaged with and interested in design questions and problems. Presenters may share past work, explore design as a conceptual or practical concern, or pose a speculative question or idea. With each event, drinks and food will be served.

Bios

Poised for an academic literary career, Sarah Brownsberger took a sharp turn by crossing the Atlantic to Iceland where she studied its literary culture under rapid modernization, specifically looking at the transition from oral-poetic traditions to print. After living and studying in Iceland, she began graduate work at Harvard to learn more about her own socio-economic context. She has since pursued a life of art that mirrors small-farming: labor-intensive, community-oriented, laced with plenty of nourishing shift-work, less aimed at high-yield than at maximally-flavorful, sustainable produce. Sarah’s poems have appeared in The Hudson Review, Field, OnEarth, Poetry East, Alaska Quarterly, Salamander, and other publications. Her research has been published in The Cambridge Quarterly and her essays have been published in Morgunblaðið, Iceland’s largest daily, and other venues. She has also been active as a translator of Icelandic and English, translating many books, art-critical essays, and excerpts by distinguished Icelandic authors for the UNESCO Reykjavik Literary City. She has recently completed her second novel and hopes to publish both novels “soon.”

The world’s urban population is growing quickly and unfortunately the way that we currently build cities is unhealthy for both the people that live in them as well as our planet. To address this problem, Rhys Faler founded the Arcology Institute in 2016 and has been steadily growing the firm ever since. He draws on years of experience as an entrepreneur, urban planner, and systems thinker to bring a fresh perspective to the built environment. In addition to his work with the Arcology Institute, Rhys is the driving force behind Bellingham Entrepreneurs, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering and growing the early-stage entrepreneurial community in the Bellingham area.

Nathan Matsushima was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii as a "Hapa". He left the Hawaiian islands in 2002 to attend the University of California, Davis where he graduated with a B.S. in Community and Regional Development. He has since worked as a consultant for tech companies in Silicon Valley, and currently works for an Australia-based tech company that creates project management, collaboration, and team focused solutions. Nathan has made many discoveries through his travels and taking photographs. This past summer he embarked on a 3-month road trip camping out of his vehicle with his wife and dog, visiting National Parks and documenting their experiences. To him, photography is an intimate experience in documenting and interpreting moments, experiences, places, people, and things. It brings together community, has its own creative process, and can vividly color the human condition.

Design Drinks (+ No Talks)

Design Drinks (No Talks) takes place every other month at Localgroup Studio as an open and informal gathering of designers and other creative people living and working in the Bellingham area. Designers, artists, architects, cartographers, programmers, writers, curators, and any others engaged with and interested in design questions and problems are all welcome to meet with one another, exchange ideas, and develop connections. This series is related to Design Drinks + Talks at Localgroup Studio, but takes place without presentations.

Design Drinks + Talks 

With presentations by

Jay Atherton + Kristina Lee Podesva + Alan McConchie

Design Drinks + Talks takes place every other month at Localgroup Studio with short presentations by local designers, artists, architects, cartographers, programmers, writers, curators, and others engaged with and interested in design questions and problems. Presenters may share past work, explore design as a conceptual or practical concern, or pose a speculative question or idea. With each event, drinks and food will be served.

Bios

Jay Atherton produces work in art and architecture that explores the perceptual edges of the ordinary and is informed by the conditions of site in situ (i.e., weather, space, memory, absence, something, nothing, and so on). Jay received his M. Arch. from UC, Berkeley, where he has also taught in the Architecture department. He has worked for Studio Daniel Liebeskind, Berlin, Germany; Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, San Francisco, CA; and Will Bruder + Partners, Phoenix, AZ. And, his sculpture and installation work has appeared in exhibitions at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA), Scottsdale, AZ; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ; Stanlee & Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts, University of Texas, El Paso, TX; Suyama Space, Seattle, WA; and Tucson Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, AZ. His house, Meadowbrook Residence, co-designed with Cy Keener, was featured in dwell magazine.

Alan McConchie is the founder of Localgroup Studio. Born and raised in Bellingham, Alan has recently relocated to his hometown and is currently Lead Cartographer at Stamen Design, a mapping and data visualization studio in San Francisco. Alan has worked using online map making, visualization, and data science for clients such as Audubon Society, National Geographic, Facebook, and Pinterest. He has taught for Stamen at the World Health Organization, Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, and the California College of the Arts. He holds an undergraduate degree in Computer Science & Mathematics, and a master's degree in Geography from UBC. His work with Stamen has been shown at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and in the Istanbul Design Biennial.

Kristina Lee Podesva is Publisher and Editor of the newly formed bruna press + archive, an experimental, independent, artist-run publishing house and art library in Bellingham. Kristina was Editor of the art journal Fillip for ten years and has written in and edited books and texts in exhibition catalogues and art magazines. Her artwork has appeared at Artspeak (Vancouver), Darling Foundry (Montreal), Museum of Contemporary Art (Denver), No Soul for Sale at the Tate (London), Dorsky Gallery (Long Island City), the Power Plant (Toronto), and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), among other venues. She has taught at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, Emily Carr University in Vancouver, and the Malmö Art Academy at Lund University in Malmö, Sweden.