Agency’s #StayatHome Playlist: Sharing What’s Inspiring Us in This Hard Moment
The close collaboration and meaningful relationships we have with each other (as a studio), with our clients (as partners), our teammates (as collaborators) and with our communities (as inspiration) have been harder to recreate in these challenging times. We wanted to write a quick note to acknowledge that we miss seeing you all and lament the struggle this health crisis presents to our communities most of all, as well as to the plans and designs that we believe still matter. We are reminded, more than ever, that we can’t do our work without all of you.
But, ever optimists, we know that bright spots of light always find their way through darkness. So here, we offer ten ideas and initiatives that have inspired and connected us during these times of isolation. We are:
- Celebrating our fellow equality advocate and public realm activist, Jonathan Geels, and his launch of ‘Field Camp’, a weekly online “camp” to expose girls to landscape architecture during this pause. Gina joined in!
- Reading a welcomed list of solutions from Interface Studio’s small business brainstorm
- Dancing for our story-telling hero, John Prine
- High-fiving our other heroes Chanceé and Veronica at Nspiregreen, whose email reply messages acknowledge what we all know: working from home = working while caregiving
- Feeling grateful for a project that gives us both cheerful new master plan signs and John Kett’s purple home office
- Digging deeply with the late great Bill Withers who gave us “license to own [our] pain, and thus own the joy that comes with the dawn”
- Applauding our parks and recreation friends who have stepped up to keep their communities healthy, and are sharing challenges and ideas through the City Parks Alliance
- Keeping our reading list going thanks to Chris Naumann (who invited us to devour Soft City and Happy City) and a series of critics contextualizing the value of design, public space and community engagement amidst this crisis
- Smiling at the finely-coiffed Eamonn Hutton sharing the tips and tricks we have learned to work remotely effectively
- Learning how to teach online with our students and our wonderful collaborators: Dan, Kathy, and Carole at Harvard, and Maggie at UT
Please feel free to share with us your favorite discoveries and inventions. You can tweet at us (@agency_lp), email us (info@agencylp.com) or tag us in an instagram story (@agency_landplan).
And please, stay well and help keep others well.