IIDA Leaders Breakfast 2010

The IIDA Leaders Breakfast is back for its 21st year, featuring speakers, business and design innovators and interior design leaders.

Enjoy:
Alison Levine: Team Captain of the First American Women’s Everest Expedition, ‘Team No Boundaries’ and Groundbreaking Polar Adventurer.

Alison Levine was born with a life-threatening heart condition that precluded her from participating in most demanding physical activities as a child; but, after she had surgery as a teenager, she discovered a passion for mountain climbing. Levine served as the team captain of the first American Women's Everest Expedition, skied across the Arctic Circle to the geographic North Pole, and in January 2008, made history as the first American to complete a 600-mile traverse from west Antarctica to the South Pole.

Celebrate:
Shane’s Inspiration: To Eliminate Bias against Children with Disabilities

In 1997, Catherine Curry-Williams and Scott Williams lost their son, Shane Alexander, to Spinal Muscular Atrophy only a few weeks after his birth. Had Shane lived, he would have spent his life in a wheelchair. This tragedy resulted in the creation of Shane's Inspiration, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of children with disabilities.

The Fourth Annual USC Symposium on BIM Analytics

The USC School of Architecture (Prof. Karen Kensek) is hosting a BIM + SYMPOSIUM on Wednesday, August 4th, 2010. Building on the success of previous years’ symposiums on BIM and Sustainable Design and BIM + Construction and Fabrication, there will be a one-day event with 12 speakers, each with about 30 minutes to speak, who are loosely organized into 4 panels. The topic is BIM Analytics: Performance Based Design.

Los Angeles Civic Park Conceived As Urban Core

Rios Clementi Hale Studios’ design for the new Los Angeles Civic Park will result in a transformational urban space in the tradition of the world’s great city parks. Unifying a 12-acre linear site across four blocks in the heart of downtown Los Angeles’ civic and cultural centre, Civic Park is envisioned as an iconic destination celebrating the city’s multicultural and horticultural diversity. It is part of the larger Grand Avenue Plan to revitalise the entire area. The project broke ground on July 15, 2010. 

Read more about it here.

New Transit Hub at Bob Hope Airport

A large $120-million transit center that would combine bus, train and rental car traffic into one hub at Bob Hope Airport took a step closer to reality Tuesday after the Burbank City Council voted 4 to 1 to settle a number of land-use issues. The council asked officials to come back with more fine-tuned landscaping proposals and a tighter agreement requiring that the land be used only for a transit center. Airport representatives said it represented a major step forward for the massive project.

The project includes room for 14 buses with a transit lounge and a new parking structure for airport patrons, an elevated pedestrian bridge over Empire Avenue to connect to the parking lot, a new paved parking lot currently used by airport employees and patrons that will have more spaces, and solar panels covering the soon-to-be facility to not only supplement the center's energy consumption, but eventually contribute to the city's power grid.

Read more about it here.

Mosstika: Living Wall

Succulent Living Wall in Green Spaces, Brooklyn 2009Mosstika is the studio of Edina Tokodi, a hungarian artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York who
creates artwork from plants. As the name suggests Mosstika works with the green plant material known as moss. For her artwork, Tokodi uses the growing material to create silhouettes and other designs that she often installs on the street. Her latest project moves in a new direction, integrating a wood frame and irrigation system to create a living wall. The project was installed in Brooklyn and features a large wooden frame that is layered over a field of green succulent plants. The effect creates an image of a woman when viewed from afar. Up close, you can see the plant material, which is ideal for growing on a vertical surface.

[via designboom]