Yestermorrow In The World: Bob O'Hara

Since serving as an intern in 2008, Bob O'Hara has made the pilgrimage back to Yestermorrow twice, once as an attendee of the Re-Inventing Small Business class, and once in attendance of Yestermorrow’s 30th Anniversary celebration.

After his internship, Bob returned to his (newly) native New Orleans to become a solar technician. In 2009, he formed an employee-owned cooperative solar integration firm with 3 other technicians. Currently, the small group has collectively installed around 200 kW of photovoltaics and nearly 100 solar thermal systems.

Additionally, Bob became an EPA Certified Lead Renovator, whose first remediation project was his childhood home in Petersburg, Illinois. After long hours in a “space suit,” laying down poly, sanding, vacuuming, cleaning, and painting, the historic house finally began to shine.

When not on the roof or working on an MBA in Sustainable Business and Renewable Energy, Bob is renovating a small New Orleans creole cottage for his parents, utilizing the comprehensive skills which he honed at Yestermorrow.

The goal of the project is to (re)build a small, smart family home, emphasizing energy efficiency, historic preservation, recycled materials, and renewable energy. The project has recently begun, if anyone in the Yestermorrow community wants to help, hurry on down to New Orleans, this project has to be done by late April (JAZZFEST!!!)

Where are Yestermorrow Students From?

Ever wonder where Yestermorrow students come from? We found this great tool where we can automatically create a Google map showing where our alumni are from. So far we've only loaded students from April 2007-January 2011 in North America, but we hope to expand it in the future.

Check it out! You will have to zoom in a bit to see the detail, since they aggregate the points together.

'Tis The Season ...

A few interns with shovels leave their message on the Yestermorrow lawn. The 2011 intern era has officially begun! For biographies of our full staff, including 7 new members, visit http://www.yestermorrow.org/staff-interns/

Yestermorrow Hires José Galarza as Director of Semester Programs

Yestermorrow Design/Build School has hired José Galarza as the school’s first Director of Semester Programs. This new position was created to help launch Yestermorrow’s Sustainable Design/Build Semester Program for undergraduates in Fall 2011 and a graduate-level Integrative Design/Build Semester in Spring 2012.

José Galarza is an architectural designer, builder, and educator who brings to Yestermorrow experience that spans design, planning, project management, information technology, and construction. José enjoys using advanced computer modeling coupled with a rigor towards craft; and, when at all possible, tries to apply systems-based thinking at the intersections of regenerative design, fine art, and equal opportunity.

Before starting his own practice he helped to design an assortment of iconic buildings for two well known and highly acclaimed firms in Europe and the United States. Previously he apprenticed as a fine woodworker producing high end custom pieces and received a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Texas in Austin. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature with minor studies in Art and Philosophy. José was the 2010 Program Director for Yestermorrow’s Natural Building Intensive, where he lead a group of ten students to build a house in Middlesex, VT, enabling a young couple to become first time homeowners. As Yestermorrow’s Community Outreach Coordinator through the VHCB AmeriCorps program, he coordinated class building projects with valuable community clients, including the Vermont Foodbank’s Kingsbury Farm. Currently he runs an architectural design studio based out of central Vermont called José Galarza Building Workshop.

Starting in fall 2011, Yestermorrow's Sustainable Design/Build Semester will give 15 undergraduate students from diverse schools and backgrounds a chance to immerse themselves in the hands-on process of collaboratively designing and building an architecturally innovative, high performance "green" building for a deserving community client. Students from a range of disciplines will work closely with Yestermorrow's renowned faculty of practitioner-teachers and community partners, while engaging with a rigorous, practical and inspiring curriculum offering up to 16 credits.

Starting in Spring 2012, Yestermorrow’s Integrative Design/Build Semester is an intensive semester-plus program for graduate students from varying disciplines related to the study and making of the built environment (architecture, engineering, building science, urban planning, art, environmental science, business and economics), who want to go beyond conceptual designs and abstract exercises to immerse themselves in the integrative process of making a building. Through guided research, lectures, field visits, seminar-style discussions, studio work, and active hands-on construction and management, students will collaborate on the design and construction of a light-footprint, high-performance shelter for a community client. The heart of the program is participants’ team-based work to weigh and balance a range of values, priorities and metrics - such as aesthetics, environmental sensitivity, building energy performance, durability, life-cycle materials analysis, cost, and social and natural ecology.

Yestermorrow Design/Build School is currently recruiting for the new positions of Lead Faculty and Lead Build Instructor for the Sustainable Design/Build Semester Program in Fall 2011. For more information, please visit http://www.yestermorrow.org/job-opportunities/. Anyone interested in learning more about these academic programs can contact José at jose@yestermorrow.org or 802-496-5545.

Season's Greetings from Yestermorrow

p.s. this amazing stone arch was created on the Yestermorrow campus by Thea Alvin's class the Art of Stone, which is coming up again in May 2011. Photo by Tonia Sing Chi.

Happy Holidays from the Super Yester Crew

The Super Yestermorrow staff and interns gathered to celebrate the holidays and send off our departing interns Annie, Tonia, Lylee and Lindley. We'll miss you ladies!
(also missing from the group photo: Heidi, Lisa and Lisette)

Sprucing up the campus!

The new studio floor- a beautiful burgundy. Check this out because it will probably be a very long time before the studio is this clean again!

New netting and rope railing in the treehouse helps to prevent people from falling out!

Tonia painted her room in the Chalet using a natural wheat paste paint inspired and informed by the Natural Paints and Finishes class.

Simple and sweet! New handrail for the strawbale cabin.

Holiday Wish List

What's Santa bringing you this year for the holidays? As you're thinking about your gift list this year, please keep Yestermorrow in mind. You know how sometimes it's the little things that can make a huge difference? We've put a few things on our Wish List that we think would really improve the student experience here at Yestermorrow, but which just aren't in the budget this year. To make it easy for you, we've created an online Wish List on Amazon.com where you can order items and have them shipped directly to Yestermorrow.

Here are a few of the things on our Wish List:
LCD Projector
120" Projector screen
Wireless pointer/controller for presenters
Refrigerator for kitchen
Solar lanterns for cabins
Webcam and microphone (to enable one of our computers for Skype)
Solar landscape spotlight to illuminate entry sign
Solar wall lights (for cabins)
Solar lights for camping area/trail
Solar motion detector light for parking lot
Postage scale for the office
Labeler
Folding Chair Cart for the studio
Whisperwall fan for Chalet bathroom
Alarm clocks and reading lights for the dorm rooms

You can see a complete wish list of items also on the Donate page of our website:
http://www.yestermorrow.org/wish-list/

Thanks Santa for thinking of us!
The Yestermorrow team

Art Auction a Huge Success!

The 6th Annual Art Auction held on December 4th was a great success, raising over $6,000 for Yestermorrow's Scholarship Fund and bringing together 150 of Yestermorrow's supporters for a fun evening of art appreciation, networking and money-raising. The winner of the Kayak Raffle was drawn - congratulations to Carol Baringer for buying the winning ticket! And many thanks go to Dave Sellers, our auctioneer, who entertained the crowd with many stories about the featured artists, the artists and donors who contributed items to the auction, and the staff, interns and volunteers of Yestermorrow who pulled off a great event. In case you missed the event you can check out a slideshow of images taken by our current intern Tonia Chi.

Semester Programs Update

Here at Yestermorrow we are ramping up to launch our new Semester Programs, offering both an undergraduate 16-week Sustainable Design/Build Semester Program in Fall 2011 as well as a 6-month graduate level program in Integrative Design/Build in the spring/summer of 2012. This major initiative is the result of many years of dreaming, planning and strategic thinking about the future direction of Yestermorrow and how to create more in-depth learning opportunities and broaden our reach.

While we’re still working out many of the details, and will not officially launch the program until January, I am excited to announce two exciting developments:

1) We have hired José Galarza as our new Director of Semester Programs. Many of you have gotten to know José over the past year and a half in his roles as our Community Outreach Coordinator and 2010 Natural Building Intensive Program Director. José will take on this new full time staff role starting in January and will be responsible for overseeing the development, content, and performance of the school’s semester programs, managing faculty members, and providing student support services.

2) We are currently soliciting applications for the two lead faculty positions for the Fall 2011 undergraduate Sustainable Design/Build Semester Program:

a. Lead Faculty (6 month full time position)

b. Lead Build Instructor (2 month full time position)

For more information on both of these positions, please visit our website for full job descriptions. Applications will be accepted through February 15^th. Please help us spread the word about these exciting new opportunities, and consider throwing your hat in the ring if it sounds like it would be a good fit.

We are also in the midst of finalizing academic partnerships to grant college credit for these programs, so stay tuned for details on that in the next month or two. We are also looking for any personal contacts you may have at different colleges and universities that we can tap into as we start outreach and marketing for these programs in January. Please email me with contact information (name, college, position, address, email, phone) for anyone you think would be able to put up a poster at a college, help arrange a campus visit, or just put the word out to students.

Things are really coming together and while we continue to stay focused on maintaining the excellence of our current short courses and certificate programs, I also believe these new semester programs will really push Yestermorrow to the next level in terms of impact, providing an immersion in the design/build approach that’s available nowhere else in the world.

Happy December!
Kate Stephenson
Executive Director

p.s. We are extremely grateful to Jon Mingle, who as our Semester Program Coordinator over the past 8 months has helped “midwife” this initiative and who has done a stellar job juggling the many pieces to pull this together. He’ll be leaving us at the end of December to head back to India where he has worked over the years leading educational programs and helping to build communities in Ladakh.

Yestermorrow Art Auction December 4

Yestermorrow’s one night only 6th Annual Art Auction will take place Saturday, December 4 with doors opening to the public at 7pm and the live auction beginning at 8pm. Dave Sellers hailed as one of the world’s top 100 architects by Architectural Digest will serve as auctioneer. In addition to the live auction, the winner of the hand-built kayak raffle will be chosen. A silent auction will also be part of the festivities. All proceeds from the auction benefit Yestermorrow’s scholarship fund, which provides potential students who don’t have the financial capacity to attend the Yestermorrow’s diverse course offering with much-needed financial assistance. The 6th Annual Art Auction is free and the public is welcome to attend. Light refreshments will be served.

Yestermorrow’s annual event showcases artists associated with the School who come from the Mad River Valley, Montpelier, Burlington, and Northfield as well as artisans who reside in Maryland, Washington, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and New York. They represent the enormous talent found in the Yestermorrow community of faculty, staff, interns, students, and Board members.

Some highlights of the auction are a painting by New York artist Larissa Bates, whose work was called “a beautifully described world” by The New York Times; a pencil drawing by the famed New Yorker cartoonist Ed Koren; and an encaustic painting by Danville, Vermont resident Bill Peabody. The head of the Industrial Design department at the Rhode Island School of Design and Yestermorrow Board member Mickey Ackerman is represented by two oil paintings. A small painting by Montpelier-based artist Frank Woods will also be auctioned. Woods recently had a show in the Governor’s Office in Montpelier and has been called a “painter’s painter” by the Vermont State curator. Photographs by New York based Megan Tompkins Kelly, Warren’s own Amalia Elena Veralli, and Laura Hill Bermingham will be for sale, as will collages, mosaics, and a hand blown glass bowl courtesy of Mad River Glass.

The December 4 event at Yestermorrow also includes an extensive silent auction. Hand-made furniture, items crafted from wood, jewelry, gift certificates to performing arts events as well as to several New England inns will all be available, as will consultations on energy efficiency, landscape design, and a catered whole foods meal for four.

“The art auction gives Yestermorrow the chance to open its doors and to welcome everyone to come inside and take a look. See for yourself the incredible creativity and talent that is fostered within the Yestermorrow community. Whether it’s to support our scholarship fund, find some holiday cheer, or to purchase unique holiday gifts, please visit the school on December 4th. There’s something for everyone.” explained Kate Stephenson, Yestermorrow’s Executive Director.

The evening will conclude the raffle for an elegant hand-built skin-on-frame kayak. Tickets are still available and can be purchased online at http://www.yestermorrow.org/kayak-raffle/ or by calling (802) 496-5545 or visiting Yestermorrow. Tickets sell for $10 each or six for $50.

Yestermorrow’s fundraiser offers diverse collection of holiday gift items in a festive setting.

To learn more about any of the featured art pieces, click on the slideshow below.

Certified!

Today at Yestermorrow we graduated 12 Certified Renovators through the Lead Safety for Renovation, Repair and Painting program offered by the EPA. Did you know that if you are a contractor or carpenter in the U.S. working on a house built before 1978 you need to test for lead paint and follow strict guidelines for the containment and disposal of lead dust when doing any renovations? Did you know you need to be a Lead-Safe Certified Firm?

We were lucky to be able to partner with Vermont Technical College's Center for Sustainable Practices to offer twelve of our faculty, staff and interns this certification, with funding from the VTGreen program which supports green jobs training in Vermont. This 8-hour certification is critical for any contractor who work in older homes, even if they are adding on additions or doing small interior renovation projects.

We learned how to properly test for lead paint, and the proper procedures to follow for containment of dust and debris and clean-up. It's complicated stuff, but important to know in order to prevent lead poisoning (and major fines from the EPA). For more information on how to find a certified renovator RRP course near you, check out the EPA website.

Lecture Series Videos All Online

The last of the Yestermorrow summer lecture series videos are now up online at: www.yestermorrow.blip.tv

Check ‘em out!

Thea Alvin and Mac Rood: Masonry Restoration in Italy

David Hohenshau: Designing With A Crowd

Ace McArleton: Elemental Innovation in Action

John Wall: A Reflection on 40 Years of Collaborative Furniture Design Process at Wall Goldfinger