CEC WEEKLY TIES – Active civic participation in Denmark

Culturally Enriched Communities

Dear colleagues,  Every semester, I ask students in my class, “How many of you read the news daily?” Three or four hands go up from a cohort of about 40 students. Caring and being connected to the neighborhoods, cities, and the world in which one lives is instrumental to the creation of Culturally Enriched Communities,…

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The Welfare State 2.0 : Co-creating a new citizen-driven future

Culturally Enriched Communities

Bo Christiansen. Architect MAA (Member of Architects Association), Founder of Scaledenmark I have the fondest memories as a young child in the 1960s, visiting and vacationing at my grandparents’ dairy farm at a beautiful white-chalked farmhouse outside the coastal town of Løkken in north-western Denmark (Figure 1). My grandfather was deeply engaged in the local community, and…

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CEC WEEKLY TIES – Quarantine spaces and basements

Culturally Enriched Communities

Dear colleagues,  People’s ingenuity in creating spaces for quarantine and self-isolation struck me while collecting design interventions from around the world for www.cec-design.com/covid-19 – from treehouses to separated bedrooms and bathrooms that kept elders and other family members safely protected. Basements also emerged as suitable spaces for quarantine, the most famous one probably being Chris Cuomo‘s who continued reporting from his basement for CNN…

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CEC WEEKLY TIES – Returning to the office

Culturally Enriched Communities

Dear colleagues,  This Harvard Business Review article on “The Implications of Working Without an Office” reveals the opportunities that lie ahead as we rethink what work and workplaces can mean in our lives. After surveying over 600 U.S.-based white-collar employees, the study concluded that “most white-collar employees we studied made the transition to virtual work well; in fact,…

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CEC WEEKLY TIES – Humility and architecture

Culturally Enriched Communities

Dear colleagues,  What we do matters, but how and why we do it matters even more. The challenge, as Solon declared around 550BC, is unlearning old habits. Hundreds of cancer patients‘ treatments have been impacted by the pandemic, including mine. Breast cancer came into my life at a pivotal point in my career, right before I was promoted to Full Professor. With three…

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