Colin Ellard - You Are Here

Resource positive design

I had a moment yesterday during an interview with Christy Clark where I lapsed into some mumbo-jumbo about losing our connections with the natural environment, being closed off by the walls of the built environment, and ending up thinking about nature as if it were something apart from cities where preserving it became some kind of dutiful imperative like making regular deposits in a bank account, rather than something that we were a part of.  Somewhere behind the miasma of confusion produced by extreme sleep deprivation and the lingering effects of a mild illness that now seems to be resolving, there was a rational thought, though you'd never know it from the answer I gave Christy.

So it delighted me today to learn of a short article written by a colleague of mine that captures some small inkling of what I was trying to say, but puts it into language that anyone could understand.  When we think about design (of essentially anything), we think in terms of sustainability.  It's become second nature for us to ask the right sustainability questions when we're thinking about the purchase of any kind of consumer good from a bottle opener to a hospital.  Or at least, it should be so.

But all signs suggest that we're getting on to this boat a bit too late.  Even if everything we made from this day forward adhered strictly to the standards of sustainable design, it would not be enough to right the ship.  So we could just throw up our hands and resign ourselves to living well for the last few years we've got left (which would likely take us well past the natural lifespan of anyone reading this, but possibly not beyond the lifespan of their grandchildren).  That seems to be the attitude of some.

OR

We could say that if we're going down, we're going down as we came up -- as the most magnificently intelligent and resourceful species to have ever walked the planet.  We could begin by thinking a little outside the box about design.  If sustainable design isn't good enough, can we go past sustainable to something else?  What's past sustainable?  What's past a zero impact design?  What about a positive impact design? What about design that not only doesn't take, but gives back?

That's what the Resource+ initiative, described here by Douglas MacLeod of the Okanagan Science and Technology Council is all about.  Inventing designs and design tools that allow us to re-build a planet together.  It's an incredibly exciting and optimistic idea.

This past summer, I had the privilege of sitting at a table with some of the engineers and architects whom Douglas mentions in the article.   I felt small, insignificant, completely out of my league among such a talented, creative and multidisciplinary group.  Nevertheless, we forged a plan, a proposal, a funding application to design a mechanism to move towards resource positive design.  I'm really excited about the potential role for social scientists in such a movement, but I'm much more excited than that to think that there are still women and men of action in our country who have not given up.  The odds often (mostly) look daunting.  But admitting defeat seems a lousy, cowardly option. 

Another winner

Well, I have to say that nobody knocked my socks off with stories of getting lost, so I'm not giving out any grand prizes, but there were some very nice entries.  This one, from Liam Brown, wins a book.  For some reason, it struck me as having the same kind of atmospherics as Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion.  But don't let it go to your head Liam.  It's just a book.  Thanks for playing.  We'll be in touch soon for the particulars.

"During the summer of 2002,  I decided that I'd squeeze one final summer of honest work out of myself.  Naturally, I decided that a steel mill would be the best locale for such pursuits.

Located in Hamilton, ON, Dofasco - now apart of the Arcelor Mittal parent company, and the last of Canada's steel mills to be bought out from an international company - was where my father worked.  It was easy enough to get a job there for a summer cutting samples off of the ends of galvanized steel coils (the kind that you see driving along the 400 series highways that look as though if they were to ever fall off would crush the most resilient of SUVs) in order to test the integrity of the batch.  The job went along fairly uneventfully through until July, but on Canada Day I wanted to see the celebrations so I decided that I would climb to one of the giant towers that the steel is pulled through in order to cool it off after emerging from the molten zinc.  I was on my break, and thought that the view would yield a beautiful vista of fireworks if I could get onto the roof.

Foolishly, I didn't mention to anyone where I was going and made my way to the elevator that leads to the roof and follows the same upward path as the steel (as a result it is a very uncomfortably warm ride).  I had been in the elevator once before to go up on the roof and the worker that had taken me told me of a time when it stopped mid floor and he was stranded there for three hours in the 42 degree heat while Dofasco's millwrights worked on the car to get it operating again.  It had worked smoothly that time, so I returned and used it again.  I walked into the car, pressed the button for the roof and to my surprise watched as I was encased in complete darkness as soon as the doors closed.  My feet got heavy as it lurched upwards and I began to feel really panicked and claustrophobic thinking that the lack of light was a sign of worse things to come.  Soon though, the doors opened to the top level where you could exit onto the roof.  Breathing a huge sigh of relief I clamoured up the catwalks and out into the cool night air.  The view was worth it, and fireworks had already begun to be fired into the sky.  I sat there for the duration of my break, forgetting about the elevator until I realized I had to go down again.

I pressed the button to call the lift, but when it came and the doors opened the light was still off inside.  At the top of the roof there was no external light outside the car, so I could not see the buttons enough to press the ground floor.  I was terrified that despite any correct directions it would not make it all the way down and I would be trapped in an unventilated box whose temperature would rise with my anxiety.  I decided I'd try climbing down the interweaving catwalks instead of the less enticing former option, despite this being a no-admittance area.

I made it down one level before being absolutely lost, in temperatures which as it turned out where much worse than what I had experienced in the elevator.

Instead of turning back, I continued, following the path that the steel takes as it ends up at my work station, where my boss was covering me for break.  It got hotter and I got more confused, as the steel would disappear for a time before reappearing somewhere in the distance that did not have a direct route for me to walk along with it.  I was sweating buckets, and had taken my construction hat off to stop me from banging it on the low hanging pipes above me.  I made it down another level before coming to a black man hole with a ladder disappearing into it - there was hot air coming from the hole like passing your hand over the spout of a kettle.  This was enough.  I decided to turn back and take my chances with the elevator. 

On the way back I went over a different catwalk that takes you away from the steel's hot course. I was starting to get overwhelmed by the temperature and decided a different direction might yield better results.  This time, I was right except that the path led me directly down into the middle of the steel line, in front of both my boss and fellow summer students.  Manic and drenched in sweat I explained why I had just emerged bedraggled from a no-admittance zone of the steel mill.  Unflinching, my boss led me back to the elevator and showed me the light switch that I had missed on the inside of the panel wall; I had never heard of an elevator with a manual light."

Contest update

Other than a brief flurry of activity last night at our unofficial family book launch (which consisted of a feast of tacos followed by an alarming rapid-pace series of tequila shots and then a jaunt to a local church basement to drink beer and listen to a klezmer band -- another sentence I never thought I'd write), I've been confining myself to rest and quiet -- inasmuch as such as thing is possible in the insane asylum I call my house so that I can get over a nasty cold in time for a couple of interviews on Tuesday.

I'm now starting to feel as though if I don't soon get out of this big fat comfy chair and seek out some grand isovists, though, I'm going to expire.  So I'm taking my little dog off to the park or something.  He and I are going to hash out some ideas for book 2 (and no it's not another dog obedience book -- I've a colleague who has this territory covered nicely and he can keep it!).  Now that you have all the news you don't need, here's a bit of news you may care slightly more about.

First, the results from the last quiz.  Following complaints from some players that I was making life too easy, I did my best to do something a bit more challenging.  The quiz began with a bit of strange looking text:

The text is a string of Klingon which, when translated, will take you here.  Some people, feeling quite pleased with themselves for getting this far (including one great fan and player who, with the help of her extremely handsome and intelligent 10 year old son, solved the puzzle using some string analysis without even knowing it was Klingon!), were quite put off by the fact that they had no clue who was pictured, nor why he had a number hanging from his lower lip.  Much chasing down blind alleys for actors who had been connected in any way with the Klingon empire, including some fascinating coincidences involving lives and deaths in the year 1986.  But very few players kept in mind the fact that the answer would likely be a PLACE rather than a person and that the gameplay would have something to do with the themes of my book.  Some guessed as well that the person might be a writer, perhaps an architect.  Turns out he's both.  Witold Rybczinski wrote a book called "Home" in 1986.  It did pretty well, too.  It's a book that is close to my heart because, when I was writing my book, special agent Bukowski recommended that I take a look at Rybczinski's book as a model of how to write engaging literary non-fiction.  And it should be obvious that there are thematic connections between Rybczinski's book and mine.  But alas not quite home yet, because the puzzle is only a good one if it ties everything together.  What's the connection between the Klingon text and the book?  The correct answer to the quiz, and the only one to win a book, is Qo'nos, home planet of the Klingons.  The person who figured this out is not only already due for a free book, but his name is in the book as well -- acknowledging the interesting conversations we've had over the past few years: Justin Perdue.  So I'm not giving Justin a book (which means there are still lots to give away).  I'll give him something else instead. Haven't decided what yet.  Incidentally, when I was designing this puzzle, I was at one point thinking of adding a couple of extra steps, one of them involving translation of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and galactic coordinates to bring the chase to a particular location on the surface of Earth.  It was somewhere in Texas.  Maybe another time.

I've also selected a winner for the previous contest -- the one where I asked readers to submit stories about their having become lost.  But I need to go off to the park now.  Oh, and cough a bit as well.

Early reviews

It's been great to get some encouraging feedback on my book.  The trade rags first and now today in the Globe and Mail.  One of my biggest fears has been that people would think that my book was a research monograph or a textbook.  It's not.  It's something I wanted to make as accessible as possible so that readers could see both how interesting the research on the biology of space and place is, but also to see how the nature of our engagement with space permeates so many interesting aspects of our daily lives.  There are risks involved in trying to do this, one of the biggest ones being that some people may have difficulty pinning down the book.  One early sign that this is happening is that in a few stores my book has been spotted in some pretty strange places -- the history section (!) for example.  But it seemed a risk worth taking.  The implications of what I'm trying to explain really do extend from interior design to urban planning and beyond.

A couple of points about today's review in the newspaper -- it's truly great to get the national exposure for my book but there are some corrections to be made.  I'm going to assume that if you're reading here you're interested enough in what I'm doing that you'll want the real deal.  First, I'm at the University of Waterloo and not the University of Western Ontario.  No idea how that gaffe could have happened.  Nothing wrong with UWO -- in fact I did my PhD there with a fantastic supervisor who continues to make huge contributions to Canadian science.  But if you look for me there, you're really lost.

Second, the person referred to in the review as Christopher Nold is actually Christian Nold.  To my mind, this is a more concerning error because Christian is doing incredible work and the reader who wanted to follow up might have some difficulty finding him without his proper name.  I can't tell you how many times I've mentioned him at meetings, in talks and a description of his biomapping project always elicits strong interest.  If you read my book, you'll see a few more details and opinions, but better yet would be to go take a look at his very comprehensive website.  I hope that someday we find a way to do something together.  We've exchanged a couple of emails but life is bouncing along very quickly for both of us.  It's quite a ride.

The game is still on.

Just because the midnight deadline for the bonus prize has passed (so I'll be eating lunch alone today -- fries and coffee at the mall no doubt), it doesn't mean the contest is closed. If you can dig up the answer, I'll still send you a signed copy of the book and a chocolate bar. Some of you have gotten past the first hurdle and fewer of you are thinking about this the right way.  But I'll admit it's not easy.  You have to know your stuff (and your faces).

In other news, I got a nice writeup in the Globe and Mail today.  It was fun to talk to a journalist who really "got" what I was trying to say.

New quiz

But you'll have to go to my Twitter to get started.  The clock is running.

New contest round pending

Thanks for your patience on the next round of the book giveaway contest.  Pesky day-job has been far too exciting, heating up book business has been eating into my time so much that, half the time, I don't even know where I am (ha).  So here's what I know:

1.  I am working on a new quiz.  I've had several complaints that previous quizzes have been far too easy.  I'm building an enigma machine in my basement to try to rectify this.

2.  I'm still getting some lovely stories getting lost stories from people, including one from Ben McNally himself, which I could write down for you if I hadn't been reeling from a surfeit of delicious eggs florentine at the book brunch yesterday.  Plus, Ben doesn't need any free books.  He still has a few copies, freshly signed, awaiting new adoptive parents at his fantastic store.

But although I'm getting stories, I'm going to continue holding off on that particular award as I really, really think that you've got more to give.  And I've had a couple of promissory notes from people who still need to come through with the goods.  I know you're out there.  I just don't know where.

Keep checking here -- new quiz soon.  And if I get a few minutes, I'll share a couple of juicy platial tidbits with you as well.

By the way

You might have noticed a crazy sidebar suggesting that I'm stuck somewhere beside the highway near London, Ontario, and have been there since about Friday.  That's not where I am, so don't come looking for me.  It's an experiment in getting a bit more location awareness to my site.  Because my cell phone and my website are having a bit of a lover's quarrel right now, some part of my essence is holed up beside one of those great big hay bales doing a bit of a sulk.  I'm leaving it there because it makes me laugh every time I log in.

There's some beautiful stuff coming in.  Getting lost isn't always a bad thing, it seems.  We humans have a knack for getting lost in some lovely places.  But also some frightening ones.  Keep sending.  I'll announce a winner when someone stops me in my tracks and then I'll post the best of the best.

Nobody's won yet.

I'm going to bed without declaring a winner.  I've had some great entries, but I'm not convinced I've got a real sample yet.  I may keep this particular quiz going for a little while as I dream up the next nasty code for you to crack.  I didn't expect this to be nearly as much fun as it has been so far.  In fact, I was so jazzed by that chase through virtual Dublin that I booked a visit to the real place in June for Bloomsday.  Too bad about those internet travel brokers and thank dog for no pre-set spending limit.  I'd better not set any codes in Antarctica.  It's also pretty high on my wish list.

Quiz 3

Third installment of my contest.  The prize is a signed copy of my book "Where Am I?".  This time, I'd like to try something a little different -- audience participation.  I can hear the groans all the way from here -- the death of distance indeed.  But here's the thing:  one of the reasons I wanted to put a QR code on the jacket of my book was to encourage readers to think that they could quickly and easily spark up a link with me.  I have all kinds of reasons for wanting to do this other than prurient curiosity about who's reading my book (though, yeah, I've got some of that).  Mainly, I want to hear your stories to try to understand what it is about us that makes us so darned hopeless at finding our way from place to place (I know, I know....I just wrote a book about something like this and so you'd think I'd have some answers already.  And I do.  Promise.  But there's always more to be learned.).

So here's the deal.  Send me your best story about being lost.  Is there some Bermuda Triangle where you always lose your way?  For me, it's the area around Elora, Ontario.  But this isn't about me.  Is there a particularly hateful building that just doesn't work for you?  Ever missed a flight because you couldn't find your way through the airport?  Ever lost a girlfriend?  Wait, no.  That's different.  I mean unless you really lost her. Tell me a story.  Send a picture if you like (I'd love to see pictures of particularly nasty wayfinding labyrinths).  The best story (and here I'm judge, jury and executioner -- though I may recruit a little help from my son, who's so infatuated by this whole thing that he's made a promotional YouTube video for me) wins a free signed book.  And if you really knock my socks off, I'll throw in something special.  I'm not sure what yet.  Maybe my compass if I can find it.  Email, blog comment, Pony Express, whatever you want.  And if you want me to keep your name off the airwaves, just let me know.  I'm waiting to hear from you.  These books are cluttering up the hallways.