Last week, your faithful design professional traveled over 1,000 miles between Washington DC and Detroit Michigan; one trip celebrated life and friendship in a city thriving on opportunity for the entrepreneurial young while the other honored death and family in a city famed for collapse under unsustainable industrial expectations...
The following images highlight O4d's perspective on community, identity, and the impact of environment on individuals....the journey begins chronologically within Washington DC...
Yes, your faithful designer took this photograph at the entrance to the West Wing of the White House...a previous life embedded in AAU Women's Basketball forged a friendship with the now Human Resources Assistant Director of the White House (amazing isn't?!?)... although cameras weren't allowed inside, I was able to veer into the Oval Office and glimpse at the Big Board...
My journey was one of pedestrian thoroughfare throughout DC...yet, Mother Nature with her record snowfall thwarted the ease of pedestrian accessibility in favor of vehicular routing ...
I was not dissuaded, however, venturing further from Dupont through Georgetown...to discover amazing vantages of adaptive reuse...
Residing in Dupont Circle I was pleased to find myself among signs of protest as well as a Sunday morning farmer's market boasting locally produced wares...
...there's nothin' short of dyin', half as lonesome as the sound, on the sleepin' city sidewalks, Sunday mornin' comin' down...
..Yet, the political junkie within paved the way for yours truly to wander about 600 Watergate...the famed residence of politicos, artists, and thieves alike...
...then 48 hours later, I found myself in Detroit for the funeral of my Great Uncle George...
...my uncle was one who forged a living from the very industry that would usher in the city's collapse..more unforeseeable the collapse of a national economy... the city was an unrecognizable shell upon the decorated World War II veteran's death and my unexpected arrival...
Media images of the Motor City do not serve justice to the harsh realities greeting visitors traveling along the waterfront parallel to the proud nation's boundary; one can only testify personally to the vast discrepancy in fortune...or the lack thereof...
...the lures of past decadence were promised by misguided Randian misanthropes...today reality is shuttered and shadowed by the harsh greed of overextended credit and the ease of liquored delusions...
Yet, hope still exists for the prospertiy of both metropolitan areas despite traditional conceptions of urban design...populations will continue to shift, employable demographics will continue to change...
Success will be determined by the ability of local politicos to embrace change while anticipating greater change...effective planning, through the use of technology and intuitive, ecologically responsive design will be the catalyst for regional re-branding and survival..
...Origin4Desin is positioning itself to be an effective component in the process of redevelopment through an innate understanding and interpretation of art and nature...
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