VisionQuest with John Foster: LENSES Carrying, Front Range Passionista by PlanetShifter.com Networks

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VisionQuest with John Foster: LENSES Carrying, Front Range Passionista by PlanetShifter.com Networks

Please download the LENSES VisionBook 2010 located at the end of the post. Authors: Brian Dunbar, Stephanie Hodgin, Josie Plaut and a caring and committed Steering Committee.

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“The world is waking up. In the face of imminent threats to our quality of life and our planet, humanity is beginning to change. We are moving away from means and methods that deplete our resources, deteriorate our systems, and erode our quality of life towards a more balanced and life-sustaining model. From the local food and green building movements, to the adoption of renewable energy, to third world micro financing, individuals, industries and governments are striving for appropriate and life-sustaining solutions for regional and global challenges.

In recent years, the green building industry has introduced a myriad of new resources, tools, products, and standards that help to reduce environmental impacts and improve occupant well-being. Good steps indeed. Steps that have taken the building industry toward more sustainable practices, but that have also led us to a realization: being less bad isn’t good enough. If we are to solve the looming environmental and social crises in time, we must adopt an inspiring vision and develop tools and methods to realize that vision.

We must look beyond incremental change.” LENSES

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Willi, just back from our LENSES Workshop #2 at our retreat center just North of Fort Collins. It was a fantastic day filled with fun, sun and great insights and wisdom for how to build more regenerative spaces in our environment. We had over 40 people from all walks of life gather in teams focused on 4 aspects of the built environment; Water, Transportation, Materials and Land. The end result was a comprehensive set of metric descriptions on a range from Degenerative, Sustainable and Regenerative Practices that inform and guide the phases of design, construction and operation of the structure/space.

What is the green revolution up to - there?

Fort Collins is very proud to be seen and published as Green Revolutionists and Green Entrepreneur culture and community!

A few sound bites for what Fort Collins/CSU is up to:

• Rocky Mountain Innovation Initiative (Ft.Collins has a strong and successful entrepreneurial incubator group RMI2)
  
• School of Global Environmental Sustainability at CSU
  
• Highly educated workforce, 48.2% of population have a four year degree or higher (I read that 78.9% of all statistics are made up on the spot)
  
• Creative class (ah yes, the creative class...)
  
• A patents rate of 11.45 per 10,000 residents, one of the highest ratios in the nation and world (this is actually true!)

A few areas for Fort Collins and Northern Colorado include:

1. Local Ag - Be Local

2. Alternative Energy - New Energy Economy, Fort ZED, Energy Labs-spun out of CSU

3. Affordable/sustainable homes - Merten Homes, Stanford Apartments

4. Water - Clean Water Cluster (new startup in progress - Recently the City and Colorado State University chartered The Clean Water Cluster as a key addition to the City’s Targeted Industry Clusters. By academic and regional heritage, the City arguably contains one of the largest concentrations of water professionals in the US. Collaboration within this new Industry Cluster will allow Fort Collins to take a solid leadership role in water sustainability as a whole, and also within the water/energy nexus.)

5. Zero Waste - Zero Hero

6. Transportation - Mason Corridor

7. Communication - Cisco Smart+Connected Communities

8. CSU, PSD, Beet Street, Be Spoke and Education and the Arts

9. Wellness - PVH, Fit City designation

I hear that Ft. Collins is a burgeoning hot bed of semi-urban, left of the dial poetry drinkers and two big wheelers! What do you do for fun?

We are definitely into our bicycles! I wouldn’t say we are all left of the dial but we appreciate quality of life as opposed to the quest for the all mighty dollar. We enjoy, invest in and take care of our natural resources that surround or regional home. As a "Ft. Fun" native and after 20 years in other places, a recent returnee, I've observed that our community loves to have smart, witty and two wheeled fun around Old Town. Lots of local events mixing CSU students with business professionals and with two local brewery's (New Belgium and O'Dells) that support sporting events such as Mountain Bike and Running races and other family based fun. Our local bike trails and proximity to the mountains, the Poudre River, including our 3 mile long Horsetooth reservoir provide plenty of recreational opportunities.

As for me, I love to participate in all of the above as well as get on my motorcycle and head out to the Southwest of the State and Northern New Mexico for hot springs, chewing the fat and drinking beer at local diners, cafes and seeking out soul cleansing vistas.

Pick out one of your recent regenerative designs and predict how it could morph in 10 years?

While we are still in the development stage of the LENSES framework and process guide, I would offer up a vision of how a LENSES project or story might look...
Imagine a structure or space connected by trails or rails close to a town center that was designed and built by concerned and connected community stakeholders and interdisciplinary experts. This structure could look very futuristic, organic or perhaps even traditional, however there is something a bit different to even the casual observer as they approach. Probably the first thing you see is a sense of setting... the "space" has been framed in its environment in a way that creates an inquisitive observer.

Tell tale signs of this unique structure include how the "entrance" educates its inhabitants with an intuitive appreciation of the integration of beauty, wisdom and accessibility that the designers and builders used to create this space. As the visitor/inhabitant/participant continues to explore this space, they are informed along the way by a combination of symbology. The seen and the unseen come together in a variety of communication tools; signage and "embedded language" that tells of the site and structure's history, creation, intended uses, its design qualities, technologies, ties to nature, community, and how it was/is funded/invested in. As the "visitor" continues to explore the building, there is a flowing sense of the building being a part of the site and environment. The typical idea of "inside and outside" space is blended as light and sky has been beautifully framed.

The air inside the space seems to be fresh and almost embodying an outdoor breeze... Ideas and creativity seem to flow easily as the calming nature of the space. This should give you a glimpse of the types of spaces we seek to provide wisdom to the various stages of designing, constructing and operating a structure or space.

Do you like to work online or offline in a team process?

That is an interesting question: since we are still working out the LENSES framework and process, we really require face to face interaction/collaboration. There is also a component of ensuring the “heart centered” connection/interactions are created at the beginning and reinforced along the way… on-line seems to work great for status updates, generating new ideas and planning for workshops.

What is your favorite online green community? Can you fulfill your social equity mandate there?

I have been so overwhelmed by the amount of great sites out there! I would say I started with Treehugger and Christopher Alexander’s not so well designed but very useful info and have since found the PlanetShifter site to be very informing and inspiring of the work being done out there toward this end.

Your Unified Field Bank is no raw peanut butter collective food coop! What’s with the shareholders, anyway? Do you invest in good things for us?

Since I am still in the early stages of developing an outreach program for UFB, I'd like to pass on this topic for now... basically my interest in UFB is that they focus on sustainable and green entrepreneurs and a range of finance options from micro loans to commercial loans with full transparency and education to support its customers.

Do you barter? Online? For what types of things?

Being raised on a farm and worked on a cattle ranch, I have naturally used the bartering system... I love finding something on sale and then furthering a conversation with the salesperson to "barter" or find equitable way to create a win/win for the three parties initially involved (me, sales person, store) As for on-line bartering, many times I trade my networking insights and connections for like, services such as coaching and consulting input, etc. I'd love to learn how you have been successful in this area!

What was www.livingenvironmentsproject.org modeled after? Talk about the foundation principles and values.

The institute for the Built Environment was originally focused on the LEED certification process and helping builders and developers get their LEED certification. As they successfully helped created over 80 buildings in the Silver and Gold ratings, they noticed gaps in the process. Nature and Social Equity were the biggest missing links in design thinking. This started the students and professionals down a path of integrated design thought that covered a 360 view of what it meant to build not just a sustainable building or structure but one that actually could "repair" the environment it was placed into.

(I'll refer to our LENSES Vision book language)

[+ ] Shifting Mindsets
The paramount step is to foster a mindset that shifts away from incremental improvements (less energy, less water, less toxins) to buildings, cities, products, and processes that are purely regenerative and healthy (clean energy, clean water, healthy products, etc.) There are exciting examples of living, regenerative products and processes emerging in various places around the world. Each shining example is accompanied by minds focused on mimicking processes seen throughout nature. This shift of perspective is key to actually restoring and creating living systems, rather than just addressing symptoms.

[+ ] Discovering Interconnectedness
Part of the shift in perspectives comes from renewed exploration of connections between people and places. In order to envision a future state of well-being it is necessary to look beyond general causes and effects and form a profound understanding of place – the associations between the local and unique ecological, economical, and social systems.

[+ ] Developing Value
New thinking and greater understanding of interconnectedness will lead to new solutions. This requires a set of quantitative and qualitative metrics that places value on relationships — with each other and with the land. These metrics will allow us to replace outdated gauges of success with measures that fully represent the quality of our communities and the function of our ecosystems.

How do you describe "transformation" tools and programs to a nine year old?

Leaving the hard questions for last eh? So, I've tried the following on a 12 and 14 year old (my daughter Emma and her cousin Elliot); LENSES is a way to design buildings on our planet to be "Super Green" and "Super Fun" to live in for many years until they need to be recycled again!

Moving up the education/verbiage scale a bit;

"LENSES is a holistic way of thinking and feeling that generates the highest levels of connectedness and informed wisdom for designing, building and using structures in our environment."

Is sustainability like a new religion?

Yikes! I'm hoping it doesn't come to that, rather, I think sustainability is likened to a new healthy lifestyle choice like going organic... It'll all should just make good sense at a certain point.

Connections –

John Foster
www.maestrogroup.org
c- 720-308-4032
john.b.foster at gmail.com