Sequoia Park Zoo Hires Architect: Concept Designs for River Otter, Salmon, and Bald Eagle Underway

The Sequoia Park Zoo Foundation announced the selection of Studio-Hanson Roberts (SHR) to serve as the lead architect for its new Watershed Heroes exhibit. This project will bring river otter, bald eagle and salmon habitats to Sequoia Park Zoo in Eureka, in addition to building a new learning lab classroom.

Greenway, serving as the Foundation’s Project Manager and Owner’s Representative on this project, led Zoo and Foundation representatives through the processes of refining design concepts for the project and recruiting and selecting zoo design professionals. Greenway will continue in this role through design and construction phases, seeing the project to completion sometime in 2014.

Studies of how people learn are increasingly pointing to the importance of a learner’s emotional state, or affect, in fostering strong learning outcomes. The brain operates in some ways like a big filter, letting in bits and pieces of the vast sea of information that constantly bombards it. For learning something new, the goal is to open the filters to the extent possible and to repeatedly present new information so as to build new neural pathways. It’s a bit like doing a three-times-a-week weight lifting session, except that you are exercising your brain.

Greenway principal David Narum recently spent three days at Herman Miller Company’s Marigold Lodge in western Michigan with a group of 12 creativity researchers from across the globe. The group, organized by the Washington, D.C.-based Learning Spaces Collaboratory, met to discuss the effect of physical space on creativity, with a focus on formal and informal learning environments. The cozy autumn lakeside setting helped the group feel comfortable together. A sense of camaraderie and “creative resonance” developed between individuals and the group.

Right now, the future is an idea. And as someone once said, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

The fact is that a lot of people have ideas, but not everyone does something with them. Making the entrepreneurial leap to go beyond daydreaming, beyond sitting on a couch saying “someone should do something about that, or someone should come up with a product that . . . .” takes a lot of guts.

“No business plan survives ‘first contact’ with a customer”-Steve Blank

As you have read in previous blog posts in this series, the LINK, a project of Greenway Partners, is a place for new entrepreneurs to work through the challenges of startups, with the support of mentors, business experts and peers engaged in a similar journey.

As the 44th annual Kinetic Grand Championship bears down upon us we pause to consider where this is going. For those of you unfamiliar with the event; it is a 3-day, 42-mile race over land, sand, and water using human-powered machines/sculptures.

"Hookah and Ladder" Kinetic Sculpture - 2010 (Photo: Robert Ashcraft)

Many refer to the race as the “Triathlon of the Art World.” The contestants pour thousands of hours of blood, sweat and tears into the engineering and art required to qualify. Then they spend three days pedaling their creations between Arcata and Ferndale. It’s all “For the Glory”.