Being recognized by your peers never gets old – especially when it is for a bona fide project like a DesignBuildBLUFF home.

Just last week Hank Louis, along with several DBB students who worked on the Whitehorse home were honored for their design by the Utah Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

DBB received the Sustainable Design Excellence Award for the home that was constructed largely out of on-site materials including dirt, recycled telephone poles, recycled sheets of aluminum, shipping pallets, hand mixed plaster and various other sustainable materials.

An independent jury from outside of Utah selected three workplaces in addition to the off-the-grid Whitehorse home as award recipients. The purpose of the competition is to recognize the importance of sustainable design to improving quality of life and reducing our carbon footprint, uncover examples that can inform the profession and the public, and celebrate excellent work by Utah architects.

Two years of discussions between 88Bikes and DesignBuildBluff recently paid off for dozens of Navajo high school students.  This fall, volunteers from both non-profits converged at Whitehorse High School, where school leaders had pre-chosen

50 students to be the new owners of brand new mountain bikes.

Day one was spent building the bikes and educating the students on basic care and maintenance. The next day was set aside for the students’ inaugural ride.  Despite warm temperatures, and a handful of flat tires, students enjoyed their new mode of transportation, personalizing each bike with stencils provided by DBB volunteers.

88Bikes’ mission is to provide bicycles to young people in developing countries around the world, thus providing newfound independence and mobility to those in need.  The founder, Dan Austin, has long wanted to include the Navajo Reservation in this mission.  The synergy was perfect:  DBB students designed and built a mobile bike shop, and 88Bikes procured the bikes, helmets and mechanics to pull off the project.

Since we last met DesignBuildBluff held a fundraiser:  “Illuminate” was our most successful event to date, with lighting designs created by DBB alumni, local artists and friends. From hanging origami lamps, to shoes that glow, mannequins that shed a little light, and finely wrought wood creations–the designs were inspiring and delightful. We are still in awe.

The evening’s highlight was the auction of the services of DBB’s own “Starchitects”. The winners of this auction will have a structure designed and built by a team of our best and brightest, led by Hank Louis.

Thank you to all the sponsors and friends who made it possible for us to light the night up!

We couldn’t have done it without you.

Willard S. Eccles Foundation

Jim and Glenda Bradley of 15^th Street Gallery

Johna Brems

High West Distillery

Chai Cucina

3form

The Starchitects: Hank Louis, Atsushi Yamamoto, Hiroko Ogiso, Andrew Foster

The Artists:

Jesse Beacom

Mike Begue

Amy Beresford

Cindy Bithell

Cortland Wilson

Mike Bronn

Laura Hardy

Shawn Komlos

Lauren Stern

Bob Hart

Dominic Herrera

Brynn Bateman Louis

Whalen Louis

Bryan Markkanen

Bob Peek

Stacy Phillips

Mike Bronn

Bryan Rowe

Nikos Sawyer

Bob Sonntag

Rachel Tarr

Camille Wheatley

Justin Wheatley

Atsushi Yamamoto

Hiroko Ogiso

Marvel Comics had a very colorful president, CEO, and cartoonist: Stan Lee. Tucked somewhere in a non-profit blog Mr. Lee was reflecting on superheroes and storytelling–as the obvious path to a better society. He noted the journey of a superhero can be deconstructed into into five elements:

1.) Someone good, if naive, tries to do something good

2.) An inevitable appearance of insurmountable obstacles

3.) Conflict and troubled water

4.) Rising to the occasion to get out of a pickle

5.) After suffering, and a little blood, Victory

In my mind, #5 is a great place to be. But if you speak with our Founder, Hank Louis, he’d likely say the distance between #2 and #4 is where it’s at. The fun part. This is where the lessons become articulated, relationships forged and blisters form. It is the arena where the superhero gestures are honed, and, if we’re lucky (and we have been) our superhero friends show up.

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For DBB, the year of 2011 (using lexicon of Marvel Comics) could be the Year of the Cape. It stands alone as one of our most remarkable 12 months. Staggering challenges and brilliant progress. It has been a year of project growth and change and it has been a year of heroics. Thanks to you, our supporters, and a staff whose abilities and skills really do border on the miraculous, we’ve built more, done more, planned more, and solved more than we imagined. Donors, filmmakers, artists, designers, photographers, volunteers, interns, members, families we build for, have all generously swooped in and been part of the story.

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Without all of you, we’d never make it to #5. And we thank you.

It’s no small feat to grow exponentially, to change with each semester and to ride out the waves of the economy. But here we are, with your help, completing four homes for four inspiring families:

Harold and Helene and their teenage son will live on a homesite that has been in their family for over 200 years.

Lorraine, a scholar and writer, will have a home for her children, her extended family, and a home for her books.

Angie, a single parent of three, will reside near friends and neighbors, living independently in a safe and innovative home.

Don and Sharon are educators whose homesite overlooks Monument Valley, and marks our first experiment with prefabrication.

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30 more graduate students of architecture will have completed the DBB program- changing their perspectives not only about design and the built world, but about the experience of reciprocity.

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We are celebrating 2011 with a year-end membership drive–it will be action packed with opportunities to give and stories whose outcome depends on you. We ask you to open the emails, read the stories of families and students, and celebrate how your support has taken ideas and made them reality. Join us. There’s a cape waiting.

Ever play Jenga? The word is  Swahili for “to build” . The game is the ubiquitous Parker Brothers devise “of physical and mental skill”. Hours can be spent pulling wooden blocks from a tower and repositioning them to build a taller tower, using creative placement to attain trembling height. It’s really a game of repurposing resources. A game we at DBB (and most non-profits) play daily.

In the spirit of play, how can we piece together and repurpose the way folks think about donating? Maybe if we design-build playful ways to give, our tower gains some height and stability as well. So, we’re creating some new opportunities to make that move and we’re calling it DesignBuild..Buy.

In Jenga-like intersects we are joining with partners in our community and giving you, dear reader, an assortment of pleasurable ways to stack another building block up for DesignBuildBluff.

For the summer months every week will have a different location donating proceeds of sales to DBB. A Commerce of Caring. So, it might be new summer stilleto’s at Mary Janes, an iced latte at Park City Coffee Roasters, or a fondue at High West Distillery. We’ll let you know with a weekly emails and online updates where your indulgence can be best spent. The weeks of nifty purchases will be topped off with a neighborhood wide “Shop Hop”: a one-day shop, dine, and entertainment extravaganza, as a thank-you for your support.

Our founder, Hank Louis, invited us into this game of experimentation understanding that at times the tower would look shakey, other times stable, but constantly changing. The spark of the game is exploring the nooks and crannies of creativity and then having the chance to see where it leads. Hank has created the space for this to happen, and we are happy participants. Just take a look at the home being craned in at Westwater, and the looks on the faces of the children who will live in it, and it all comes together. It is a compelling game to be a part of.

We invite you to join us.

Ginger Tolman

Executive Director

The honors continue: DesignBuildBLUFF recently recieved several awards from the AIA.We are delighted  to be selected for this prestigious acknowledgment of our work.

* The Windcatcher house (2010)

2011 AIA Colorado Young Architect Award for BUILT ARCHITECTURE

2011 AIA Colorado Young Architect Award for PEOPLE’S CHOICE

* The Whitehorse (2009)

AIA Utah Sustainable Design Excellence Awards 2011 Citation Award

We are thrilled to announce two of our homes have been selected for the DesignArts Utah 2011 Competition. The Whitehorse home of 2009, and the Yanito home of 2010. Take a moment and stop by the exhibition at Rio Gallery to see these and many other notable participants:

300 South Rio Grande, Salt Lake City, Utah.

The exhibition will be held from June 17th to July 28th, 2011.

Please visit Arts&Museums Website to see the details of the exhibition.

http://artsandmuseums.utah.gov/funding/competitions/design_arts/index.html

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Construction continues on both the Monument Valley and Westwater projects.  Design Build Bluff attempted an unprecedented two prefab homes this past semester with both nearing completion.  The semester came to a close with the trucking and craning of the Westwater home, perhaps DBB’s greatest three day feat.  Seeing the Westwater house aloft tethered to the crane and finally resting on its impressive foundation lifted the spirits of both groups and gave closure to another successful semester.  Despite the valiant effort, more work is needed before the families are able to move in, a scenario that is often reality after only four months of construction.

Last spring Design Build Bluff partnered with a fellow non-profit foundation known as 88bikes to collaborate on what will be Design Build Bluff’s first Bluff-based community project, a mobile bike shop. 88bikes is a foundation focused on providing sustainable transportation to developing countries including Ghana, India, Nepal and Vietnam.  For the first time they will be donating bikes within the US to Whitehorse High located in Montezuma Creek, Utah just west of Bluff.  As a non-profit local to the area, Design Build Bluff has joined forces with 88bikes to act as the local liaison between Whitehorse High School and 88bikes, which is based out of Seattle, Washington. Dan Austin, founder of 88bikes, has successfully received 50 deeply discounted bikes from KONA to donate to all students willing to participate in a weeklong bike maintenance course. At the start of the course each student will be given his or her unassembled bike and, with the help of community volunteers they will learn how to assemble their bike.

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The Design Build Bluff team has designed a mobile bike shop to be constructed and completed this summer. The bike shop will assist the students in the maintenance of their new bikes. It will be a small mobile shop built up from an existing flatbed trailer. The decision to make the shop mobile comes from the reality that most locations and people on the Reservation are spread miles and miles apart making in difficult to commute.  The overall concept of the bike shop is to help clean up the Reservation by using discarded car hoods gathered from the Reservation. The cars hoods will be become the exterior cladding of the shop. The goal of the shop is to be as sustainable as possible while promoting the usability of bikes. Other features include interior shelving and tables, an exterior fold up canopy and an exterior wall that will open down to provide an exterior working platform to optimize usable space.

SARAH LUTHER- MISS NAVAJO 1966-67 AS COMMENTATOR

Conceived as a “celebration of womanhood” by filmmaker Billy Luther—whose mother, Sarah Johnson Luther, is Miss Navajo Nation 1966–67.MISS NAVAJO offers a different take on what it means to be beautiful, exploring tradition in Diné, or Navajo, culture through one woman’s quest for the Miss Navajo Nation crown.

Billy Luther belongs to the Navajo, Hopi and Laguna Pueblo tribes and directed the award winning documentary, MISS NAVAJO premiering at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and nationally on PBS’ Independent Lens. Billy os part of Sundance Institute’s Native Initiative/Ford Foundation Fellowship and the Tribeca Film Institute’s All Access Connects program. We will screen MISS NAVAJO  with a Q&A session to follow. We are honored to have Billy’s mother, Sarah Luther, present to introduce the film and head the Q&A session to follow. Sarah is pivotal in the film itself, and will share her experiences of filmmaking as well as cultural traditions of the Navajo. Join us for an inspiring and entertaining evening.

“Miss Navajo” Trailer

Click here to see more details of the move

“Miss Navajo” A film by Billy Luther

Commentary by Sarah Luther- Miss Navajo 1966-67

April 29

7pm

Bluff Community Center; Mulberry Street and 3rd East