Christmas 2011
With pencil in hand, Lyanne leads discussion at WildCare
Architect Lyanne Schuster was recently honored for her volunteer work at wildlife rescue organization WildCare. Based in San Rafael, WildCare helps care for injured and orphaned wildlife and supports nature education programs that show people how to live well with wildlife so wildlife can live well with us. A volunteer since 2004, Lyanne donates her Sunday mornings to WildCare and is deeply committed to animals and wildlife. When an opportunity arose for WildCare to consider a facility expansion Lyanne asked QKA to consider supporting the process through a pro bono effort. Working with Mark Quattrocchi, Lyanne assisted in the creation of a Programming document that will help guide Wildcare’s planning for the new facility.
We’re a firm of nearly 50, yet we truly have a family atmosphere here at QKA. There have been many times I’ve felt honored to be amongst this group of people. Last Monday was one of those moments. Organized by fellow QKA’er Carol, the bus from the Blood Bank of the Redwoods parked in front of our office for a blood drive. Carol reached out to our staff, consultants, local businesses and friends to honor our colleague Spencer and support his fight against cancer. There was a line going out the bus door. FORTY FOUR people gave blood and it would have been more if there had been more time. Carol said it best in an office-wide email; “In addition to honoring Spencer, his supremely positive spirit and his fight against this cancer, we saved lives today and THAT, my friends, is no small thing.”
They both love bicycles and metalwork, and Janelle has a welder, so they figured they could probably work something out. Inspired by Willy Wonka’s car, Dr Seuss, and jellyfish, the two built their handcar at night and on weekends on Janelle’s back patio in the West End, with painting, building and general morale-boosting help from friends. The handcar, called Big Giant, was almost entirely constructed from recycled materials: old bike frames from the dump and Community Bikes cut up and welded together, part of a chair found by the side of the road, pipes from a car purchased at a garage sale, a friend’s torn curtains, fake leather from Jeff’s defunct couch, thrift store kitchen items, etc.
They constructed wheel guides out of bike tubing and rollerblade wheels to stay on the tracks. The first race was fantastic: they stayed on the tracks all the way to the finish line and actually won, amid wild cheering from the crowd! However, they started falling off the tracks during the second and third races as the forces on the wheel guides proved too great and they bent too much to keep the handcar on the tracks. The crowd cheered anyway as they ran alongside and pushed the handcar to the finish line.
Schuyler and Janelle rode Big Giant to the office a few days after the Regatta and gave Sara a ride around the block! They’ll be riding it around town…as they think about next year’s handcar. (**Click each photo for a closer look).
We’re proud to announce that QKA Associate Aaron Jobson was selected as a Top 40 Under 40 professional in the A/E/C industry by national publication Building Design + Construction. Aaron is in good company–BD+C refers to this group of 40 professionals as “some of the brightest stars in the AEC universe”. This commendation follows Aaron’s previous award as Top 40 Under 40 by the North Bay Business Journal. Congrats Aaron!
On Tuesday members of the QKA Local team for the Open Architecture Classroom Challenge (Chad, Tony and myself) visited the Americorps tutoring and after school program at Meadowview Elementary School in Santa Rosa. We will be working with them to find ways to better use their portable classroom for their literacy tutoring and after school programs. As you can see by these pictures, we have our work cut out for us. Check back later for what our ideas are.
My fellow QKA’er Laura C. works in our Construction Administration department. Her daughter Aryana was in the office for a couple hours recently and had this to say; “Mom, everyone here is like family..isn’t there someone here that is not nice or that you don’t like??? AND you get FREE hot chocolate!!”. Laura says that if a 9 year old can get this from a few moments at QKA—then we must be doing something right!
