What is New?
archived
October 15, 2001 through January 26, 2005 |
A Taylor environment @ DAVOS | DAVOWEF - Wednesday Morning 2005 | WEF - Thursday Morning 2005 | | MG Taylor deployed a 5,000 square foot RDS [link] to the World Economic Forum Meeting at DAVOS for the January Annual Meeting [link]. The purpose of this environment is to bring enhanced interaction and collaboration between the AM participants and to facilitate, with America Speaks [link], the creation of a Global Agenda - the first in DAVOS history. | | This is the first RDS with full Armature [link] with built in lighting and media capability [link]. As an example of rapid prototying [link], RDS was designed, engineered, fabracated, shipped and installed in three months [link]. | | |
|  | |  | | As 2004 ends, MG Taylor is engaged in a number of challenging projects. These all lead to what will be our busiest first quarter, since 1997, when we built the Cambridge Center over the 96 holidays and did four January DesignShops there in as many weeks. In the first three months of 2005, we are scheduled for six events in four countries - three of them involving an RDS deployments - with two using our new RDS - the first with an Armature system. All of these are being done in concert with nine other architectural projects that are under way. In total, 15 Taylor environments are on the drawing boards or in the shop. To put this in context, these will add more nodes to the network of Taylor designed and built environments than were accomplished over the last decade. This network is connected, of course, to the 20 plus Capgemini built environments we have licensed. | click on the icons for detail |  | This link takes you to an electronic poster that describes 20 years of Taylor environments. This is a brief yet comprehensive tour of what we have built and why we build what we do. Our basic philosophy is outlined and many links are provided that go into greater detail. | | | This link takes you to the INDEX of RDS materials covering the development of this concept from 1982 to the present. Not only are we building, for the World Economic Forum and the Club of Madrid deployments, the most complete and complex RDS in our history, we are now seeing the RDS put to the kind of use it was conceived for and is most expressive of our corporate mission [link]. These RDS pages will be added to over the next 30 days as we prepare for the WEF and Club of Madrid deployments and introduce the concept to potential Sponsors. If you think you would like to be part of the RDS ValueWeb contact me [link]. | |  | This link is to my notes for a talk I gave recently on the subject of green architecture. I was asked to do this because the community that sponsored the talk has a relationship with the King of Spain. They were intrigued by the RDS concept and its application to the Club of Madrid meeting. It took me awhile to see how I could tie this back to green architecture which was their focus until I realized that the WEF and the Club of Madrid events represented one of the first deliberate attempts to design and promote a Global Agenda. The ability to do so is a prerequisite to dealing with the fact that we humans are creating a planetary scale architecture by default. My talk articulated this fact, outlined the Taylor mission, our approach to building environments which support transformation, the idea of deployable environments (the RDS), noted the emergence of a Global Agenda, and presented, for the first time in public, the Master Planning and Gaia Projects as examples of how issues of planetary scale can be worked. | | | For those of you who have been closely following my postings on this web site, you know that I have been working toward two objectives for some time. The first is to come to closure with the autobiographical focus of this site (1938 - 2004) and turn to the publication of the products resulting from 48 years of work. The second goal has been to facilitate the transformation of MG Taylor from a company to a ValueWeb. While there is much of a personal nature yet to fill in - and I will continue to do so - starting in 05, I will turn my attention to the formal publication of papers, projects and completed works. The autobiography focus will end with 2004 - at least for now. The synthesis of personal history with the story of the work as it developed was necessary as I believe that one’s art and life cannot be separated. The point has been well demonstrated and there is no need to carry it further. The composite glyph of ValueWeb, Stages of an Enterprise, 3 Cat Model and the MGT Logo is an appropriate link to the description of the next stage of MG Taylor Corporation - it takes you to the MG Taylor Gateway; once there, follow the link to iteration6. In our 25 years history, we have been an R&D lab not only for the products and services we have incubated and brought to market - we have been a deliberate (and sometimes painful) experiment in organizational governance. We have been through many iterations of organizational form as we have developed the idea of a 21st Century enterprise. Over the next 6 months we will have the opportunity to evolve to what I believe will be the first true organizational expression of our ideals. | | | So... What is new? No thing and every thing. The work we are now experiencing is significantly different in scope, scale and kind than that of the recent past. There was much to enjoy about the 90s, however, many aspects of that agenda contained negative long term consequences. There is much to be concerned about in our present era, however, there is no question that many TRANSITION MANAGERS [link] are stepping up to the task of creating a new Global Agenda. An agenda aimed at creating a more just and sustainable world. | click on graphic for my personal reflextions on iteration6 | | |
Master’s Collaboration Studio Opens | | Master’s Academy and College opened the doors of its Collaboration Studio, a MG Taylor licensed NavCenter, on September 22nd in Calgary, Canada. This is the first NavCenter in a school. The first use [link] was with 5th graders designing a program in response to a National Geographic grant. The Master’s board previewed the space that evening. On the 24th Master’s teaching staff had a development day in the environment. On September 27th through the 29th Master’s conducted its first three day DesignShop with 52 designers to create the School of the Future, start the development process on their new campus and to conceive the ValueWeb organization to take education innovations global. The participants included teachers, school administrators, students, parents, architects, contractors, manufacturers, business leaders, consultants, including significant representation from Apple Computer and Hayworth. | | |
| EcoSphere is looking for a few good ValueWeb members to engage in a rapid prototyping project that explores many architectural options: form-factor, mobility, energy alternatives, food self sustainability, green materials, design-build-use methods, life-work style integration and new enterprise building models. The objective is to place the prototype in Calgary, Canada as a test bed for a larger, multi-year project. | link: EcoSphere Program Statement
link: EcoSphere Business Model
link: postUsonian Project public BLOG
link: postUsonian Project Index | | |
| AI [link] has developed a new line of WorkWalls to be produced in 2004. These are the same size and stability of the traditional AI WorkWalls at the same time they are lighter and present a more sreamlined and transparent look than before. The scale of this product is designed to fit better in the comtemporay architectural workplace particularly that found in Europe. The Design is by Bill Blackburn with fabracation development by Brian Ross. Pictures taken at the VCBH Innovation Center [link]. | |
SFIA Architects - Master Builders Poster
[link] | by Scott Arenz and Matt Fulvio | | In April, reluctantly, we shut the Palo Alto knOwhere Store due to the ongoing slowdown in business in Silicon Valley. With recent changes in the US economy, our work has shifted to the East and Mid-West. I have been getting back to Palo Alto only a few days a month for the past year - the knOwhere Store became a wonderful facility in the wrong place with virtually no business for two years and no local economic turn-around in sight. The knOwhere Store will reinvent itself and become an online portal to the goods and services produced by the MG Taylor ValueWeb. I still believe in the idea, now is not the time to continue the pursuit. | | There were several successful incubations out of knOwhere in the last three years and they are doing well despite the slowdown in venture capital investment. I will profile them at a later date. | | Our own ValueWeb of enterprises took an almost 2/3rds drop in revenue in early 2001 and stayed that way until the second quarter of this year. Recently, a great deal of work is showing up indicating the early phases of a resurgent economy if traditional patterns hold. We have seen this in past recessions when, at last, organizations decide that the solution to their economic problems is not to hunker down but to reinvent themselves. We are seeing high level conceptual work again - and boldness for the first time in several years. | | This new work is largely with large Universities, corporations, governments and, on the other extreme of size, innovative community groups - in other words, institutional scale enterprises with the resources and the focus to transform and small networks of individuals willing to rebuild from the bottom up. This new work involves our entire scope from architecture to NavCenter environments and the transfer of our process. It is highly exciting and stimulating - and, a great deal of hard work. There is no question, however, that a new phase of social enterprise is starting to be born. | | PA knOwhere 1997-2003 - we will miss you |
The May Issue of Confort Interior Magazine No.55 published in Japan printed a four page article on the Palo Alto knOwhere Store. | It was written by Takashi Kiriyama who is a Professor at the Stanford Design School. His wife took the photos. Takashi helped me prepare for my trip to Japan a year ago January. He is spending the majority of his time, over the next 6 months, in Japan consulting with a number of Japanese Corporations on advanced work environments. | | This is the first publication by an architectural/interiors magazine on our design work. We are awaiting the translation to see what aspects of our work Takashi wrote about. The physical copy of the magazine is high quality and the publication tastefully covers a wide range of domestic and workplace architecture. | | | ECIFFO, another Japanese architectural magazine, also published an extensive article in early 2003
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An Office for the Joseki Group | | | Plan view of Offices for the Joseki Group in Menlo Park, California. | | This is an exercise in FasTracking design/build with the total project time being less than a month from idea to completion and the total time to move-in a little over a week. | The progress is being documented real time - follow this link for comments and photos of the evolving design and the realization of it. | | This project is one of three that - although very different in purpose, scale and scope - have many elements in common not the least of which is a minimal time to move in requirement. | | |
April 11, 2002 Designing a Performing Arts Center | | Belmont - Redwood Shores School District @knOwhere A humorous skit
on a very serious subject | | Mind Meld
“February 28, 2002 - a day unlike any other. Fifty people gathered in Palo Alto at an amazing place called knOwhere to brainstorm...”
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The production of the Anaconda wall and the mini-RDS of which it is a part is an excellent example of how ValueWebs work. Bill has been wanting to build this wall for several years now, as well as, work on the problems associated with making our furniture lighter in weight and more portable without sacrificing stability of the look of our materials. Chris Allan, both an investor and user of our Enterprise has been an advocate of SOHO solutions and products requiring little specialized knowledge and tools on the part of the end-users. Brian Ross and the Glasgow Shop KreW took advantage of the 9/11 slowdown to do a little R&D. Pat Gibson, always on the alert for opportunity kept her eye on the enterprise bottom line. The result, a new product. Several actually. | |
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The HYPERCAR comes to knOwhere In 1998, we did a DesignShop exercise with the Rocky Mountain Institute and car industry innovators to facilitate the development of the HyperCar concept. A concept pioneered by Amory Lovins, the HyperCar is a super light, super slick, composite body, full-sized automobile that runs on fuel cells. Since the DesignShop event, a corporations has been formed and the first car - the REVOLUTION - designed. HyperCar, Inc. is now raising capital to build a fully functional production prototype. This can be accomplished in two years for $15,000,00. | | Photos by Scott Arenz - December 2001 |
October 17, 2001 | Our product offerings are expanding: books, tools, design services, critical supplies necessary to get your knowledge product built and delivered | | | | | Our process area is available for gatherings from three to 60. Meet, collaborate and “ship” your work. We offer a suite of support services: facilitation, documentation, research, web page and print publication | | | Besides office hotelling places for teams, we have many niches for a single knowledge worker to set up shop | | | | | Here you can get information and books on how to design and build your environment. Our ValueWeb members can consult, design with you or produce places, for work and living, turnkey | | | Our inside Patio leads out to a place to sit and work in the sun - spend some relaxing time, thinking, reading or in dialog with a friend | |  |  | | Multimedia documentation of all events and activities is a “built-in” feature of the knOwhere environment - do it yourself or the knOwhere KreW can do it for you | | knOwhere reconfiguration begins for our next phase | Since opening in November 1997, we have operated the Palo Alto knOwhere Store predominately as an environment to serve our own clients and customers. This was not the vision of knOwhere, however. The vision was to build a commons, a place for our entire ValueWeb network to work, meet, design together and exchange their intellectual and product goods. We are now starting phase two of our development. knOwhere is transforming into a hub - a node - in a global knowledge-based economy - the supply store for 21st Century workers. We are celebrating our 4th anniversary in Palo Alto and reopening on the 16th of November. Please join us. | |
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knOwhere Press is publishing Robert Grudin’s latest novel The Most Amazing Thing on December 1, 2001. On that date, the Palo Alto knOwhere Store will host a reception for the Author. Please come. | | |
| Platform: Cube-Office System with rolling base | | Size: Approximately, 12 feet long, 2 feet wide and 7 feet high | | | | Materials: Baltic Birch and Cherry | | Rolling Bookcase from AI - October 2001 | AI produced this rolling bookcase/wall for my use at the Palo Alto knOwhere Store. It will hold all the course materials, books and notebook materials/tools for my class in Architectural Practice and my ReBuilding the Future course. This bookcase is at the scale of a wall. The idea is that several components of this size can be built and designed to be “docked” together- disconnected and re-docked - in a new arrangement. Instant work area. PODS and WorkWalls can dock with this new version of the CubeOffice system making a comprehensive solution set for a wide variety of individual, group and large-team configurations. | | |
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