Reno-Tahoe thinking Green: the Black Rock Design Institute, and more…
Last night I went to this great talk sponsored by the Black Rock Design Institute. The BRDI was formed a few years ago by three Reno architects over some brews at the original Silver Peak Brewery (no wonder the brilliance of the idea). It’s now a cultural nonprofit with an impressive following. Anyway, last night’s speaker was Robert L. Thayer, Emeritus Professor of Landscape Architecture and the founder of the Landscape Architecture Program at the University of California, Davis. He’s currently the Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at the College of Environmental Design, at UC Berkeley. The BRDI’s talks are always held in the Nevada Museum of Art’s fabulous theatre – I love sitting in there. The sound is amazing and the Venetian-plastered walls give the space a one-of-a-kind look. So everyone in the audience – and it was packed – was thinking this was going to be about landscape architecture – cool. But it was so much more. His talk focused on the current tug-of-war between the expansion and globalization of the world due to communications (IT) and the simultaneous shrinking of the world due to the Oil Peak – not the end of oil; but the end of cheap oil. Up until now, the history of the world has been all about becoming more global. Wow. The world is going to be a different place after the climax of the age of oil. Imagine shipping being a modern version of sailing – he showed images of giant sail ships with solar panels! Global warming may be a moot point when Oil Peak hits. His talk touched on the topics of nano-bio-computers, the works of Aldo Leopold, Norbert Weiner and M.K. Hubbert. The audience got so much more than landscape architecture. Now that both Peak Oil and global warming have asserted themselves we are beyond an entropic stage. But chaos is good, right? We now have the chance to reorganize into a higher structure – right? I hear there’s a Green Summit at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center next Thursday. I’m definitely checking this out. Reno, Nevada is poised to do something great right now in terms of the current green movement. Did you know that Great Britain has recently voted in parliament that any food product delivered by jet can NOT be sold or classified as an organic food product – even if it was grown organically! I love it!
Artemisia