Author: chakris@uoregon.edu

Access to nature in urban areas is key to healthier living

Posted on by chakris@uoregon.edu

Editorial Note: This story was originally published by Tech Times and Katrina Pascual.

Mental illnesses and mood disorders are more prevalent in urban areas partly due to reduced access to nature, according to a new study.

Researchers probed the rising tension between the critical role of urban areas and these cities’ debilitating aspects that disconnect people from nature – and even raise mental illnesses.

“There’s an enormous amount of disease largely tied to our removal from the natural environment,” warned study author Peter Kahn of University of Washington, citing that children in megacities grow up without seeing stars and achieving feelings of “awe, restoration and imaginative spark” from it.

In their perspective study, Kahn and Terry Hartig from Uppsala University in Sweden pointed to signs that cities can cause emotional and mental strain on their residents.

The little or no contact with nature is creating so-called “environmental generational amnesia,” coined by Kahn to describe how new generations are concocting new ideas of what is “environmentally normal” based on their childhood experiences.

Continue reading at Tech Times.

 

Student sustainable design projects win Top Ten national honors

Posted on by chakris@uoregon.edu

Editorial Note: This story was originally published by School of Architecture and Allied Arts.

A Portland building with zero net energy consumption and water waste along with a neighborhood restoration project in North Minneapolis are the two University of Oregon student designs selected in a national competition led by the American Institute of Architects’ Committee on the Environment (AIA COTE) and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture.

“Regenerating Water Avenue,” a design from UO undergraduate architecture students Lacey Aley, Alex Collins, and Addison Estrada, and graduate student Tim Schneider’s thesis design “TETHER” are among the projects honored in the competition.

The 2016 AIA COTE Top Ten for Students design competition recognized ten projects that integrate innovative, sustainable strategies within their designs; the projects were submitted from architecture schools across the country. The designs will be exhibited during the national AIA convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (May 19-21), and at the 10th Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture’ annual meeting in Detroit, Michigan (March 23-25, 2017).

This marks the second year that UO student designs have been selected for the AIA COTE competition. Last year, UO student projects also earned two honors from the inaugural AIA COTE competition. Students Gabrielle Steffel and Robert Larson won for their projects, “Centennial Mills recycled” and “Innovation Engine,” respectively.

Read the complete story in AAA.

National magazine features Urban Farm

Posted on by chakris@uoregon.edu

The UO’s Urban Farm Program was featured recently in Ruralite, a national magazine targeting Western readers in seven states. Writer Dianna Troyer interviewed Department of Landscape Architecture instructor Harper Keeler about how to maximize crops in a limited space. The Urban Farm is a model for alternative urban land use where people grow food, work together, take care of the land, and build community, all with a focus on sustainability.

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6th Annual EPIC-N Conference and Workshop

Posted on by chakris@uoregon.edu

The Educational Partnerships for Innovation in Communities (EPIC) framework is a unique, highly scaled university-community partnership program.

It takes advantage of the time and talent of universities to help communities accelerate and advance their own socially and environmentally forward-looking goals.  Originally developed at the University of Oregon, there are now over 25 EPIC programs, demonstrating the ability of this model to be adapted for different university and community contexts.

The 6th Annual EPIC-N Conference and Workshop is the signature workshop and training conference, combining those seeking to start a new program with representatives from existing EPIC programs sharing their insights and strategies to continuously improve the effectiveness of the EPIC approach. For new participants, the goal of the workshop is to help them leave with tangible action items, if not the beginnings of an actual partnership itself.

Information about the conference and the EPIC model can be found here: http://www.epicn.org/annualconference/ or here: http://sci.uoregon.edu/epicnmodel.