There by the grace of whatever diety we talk to at three in the morning go we. 

Libraries have always been safe haven for people who must needs live daily without shelter or support that is our right in this country. 

The challenge never lessens.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/a-library-is-often-the-safest-place-for-homeless-people-thats-why-this-one-hired-a-social-worker_us_56fbf43ee4b083f5c6063b0d

Zaha Hadid's death today caught me off guard and effected me at a level I wasn't expecting.

Hadid's Computer generated image for Stadium,2022 World Cup in Qatar. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

There she was, out there in the world building buildings that I had dreamed of making reality when I was in school. And here I am still, a mere mortal woman, only a year and some younger than she - no longer daring to dream my dreams.

I would have never met Ms. Hadid but if I had, I would have thanked her for showing me that buildings can be built in ways that I imagined years ago. And would have told her that she made me feel strong by being brave for dreamers like me who reveled in the sight of her buildings as they came into reality in my lifetime.

Thank you Zaha Hadid.

This little piece by Ruskin, that I think of as almost a prayer, hung as a plaque on my locker throughout architecture school. It's not in fashion and full of romantic idealism and not a little ego. I thought it could be true then then and I still do.

"When we build, let us think that we are building forever. 

Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for.

And let us think, as we lay stone upon stone,

that a time is to come when those stones will be sacred

because our hands have touched them."

ScrnGrb: OCLC Webjunction 2014

This 2014 "46-page OCLC Webjunction guide, Transforming Library Spaces for Community Engagement, includes sections to help libraries and library staff to:

Create a Community Vision: Recognize the role of community input in a space planning process, and access strategies for obtaining this input to guide your efforts and related communications with internal and external stakeholders.

Design Your Space: Gain familiarity with the intersecting technical and creative considerations for launching a space transformation, and how to implement those considerations at your library.

Sustain Your Space: Consider how community engagement in a space transformation can happen at every stage of the process, whether in the planning, in the design or in the implementation of services or programs in the space.

Space Planning in Action: Learn more about the space planning process from the unique perspectives of two libraries that have implemented transformations with their communities."

Transforming Library Spaces for Community Engagement

This is a very 'broad strokes' approach to planning your library or even a library space.

Talking about "Project Management Competencies" does not a Project Manager make not does it give you the real life perspective on what data to use, how data can work for you and what data to share with your designer. It can serve as a 'memory point' for reference and lead you to links.

Planning for your library building project and being recognised as the leader of the library project is a huge undertaking that involves more behind the scenes work than any 'guide' can prepare you for.

We complain about our operating hours and our funding and how to stay relevant in the 'information age' and this little one

cred:yourstory.com/

"Muskaan Ahirwar (who) lives in the slums of Arera Hills in Bhopal", India can put us all to shame just by being a 9 year old who doesn't know she can't do the unbelievable.

After school each day when she gets home, she reads to her friends who flock to hear her and feed their hunger for knowledge and delight.

‎The women who ran the war effort in factories and munitions plants, kept this country whole and functioning and contributed wholeheartedly to the Allied forces' success in WWll are just being officially recognised by the US now.

Both the scale and import of their efforts and our neglect to officially recognise them are unbelievable.

'Rosie the Riveters' Honored With Visit to Washington, from ABC News‎:
‎ http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/rosie-riveters-honored-flight-washington-37830959

ScreenGrabCred: ABC & FOX

We've watched artists in China paint names on a grain of rice... but this takes us to a new level of astonishment. 

An electron microscope as artist's carving tool is so very cool.‎ Beautiful, intelligent work by artist Vik Muniz ( @HighMuseumofArt ) and Marcelo Coelho at MIT.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/arts/design/at-mit-science-embraces-a-new-chaos-theory-art.html?login=email&referer=https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/arts/design/at-mit-science-embraces-a-new-chaos-theory-art.html?mabReward=CTM&src=rec&recp=8&_r=0

‎Both of these articles link to sites to help young women in the US gain access to enter and stay in, the sciences.

Marvel is doing a great thing here. Kudos. And, Marvel...you need to do a whole lot more. We are way, way past time to see women heroes save the universe preferably, for me at least, fully clothed in uniforms useful to their duties.

As a young woman in the 1970's I didn't even know there was a bias against women in the sciences. Had I known, it wouldn't have stopped me. I still read as much as I can to stay up to date on advances in all aspects of science from astrophysics to nanabiology. 

My love of science led me to architecture and the independence to lead the life I wanted to lead.

http://girltalkhq.com/marvel-helping-girls-become-superheroes-new-stem-program/

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/272365?utm_content=buffer64c4d&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

‎I include screen grabs of the one paragraph that particularly took my attention - practicality being one of my interests as much as elegance in design. I come from the 'make a solid foundation first and a waterproof roof and all the rest will follow'-school of thought, so his suggestion that the Port Authority wait a generation to put the topping on the cake to ensure the infrastructure is in place, sits well with me. "They will get the full measure of their personality." Indeed!

I shivered as I read the quote about the client getting the scale of project it wants perhaps but not what it deserves. ‎Sometimes you really do have to spend quality money to get the result you deserve. I have always believed that if you don't dream big then you most certainly will end up with some thing that is much smaller than your smallest dream (can you say Change Order anyone!?)

I have included the screen grab too of Ms. Mead's astute take on the possible psychological effect of the HUGE flag as it plays in the 'Time of Trump'. This is New York after all!

NOTE: 
•PATH is - Port Authority‎ Trans-Hudson. 
•West Side Highway is State Hwy9A the most westerly ‎traffic corridor that links up to the FDR Hwy on the East River as it rounds The Battery at the southernmost tip of Manhattan Island.

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-best-part-of-calatravas-oculus?intcid=popular ‎

Great structural engineers have always used the angles in folded structures ‎to add strength and enhance beautiful design.

These engineers are taking the practice to a new level...and beyond.

http://www.citylab.com/tech/2015/09/how-origami-is-informing-structural-engineering/405442/?utm_source=SFTwitter

If this country is going to compete in the Global economy that our next generation owns, this has to happen.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/03/09/fact-sheet-president-obama-announces-connectall-initiative

WIRED magazine hasn't been a stellar supporter for women in the tech industry. Seems that for #InternationalWomensDay though they've found a real hero and told her story.

This article is worth a close read. Ms. Hamilton's diligence and code saved the Apollo 8 Flight Mission.

http://www.wired.com/2015/10/margaret-hamilton-nasa-apollo/?mbid=social_twitter#slide-1