PacifiCAD and Autodesk Tag-Team with Eastern Washington University for e2 Design, Transportation, Energy Series

By Paul K. Haeder

PacifiCAD is opening up its cache of e2 DVDs for planning, design and other students at Eastern Washington Uninversity's Riverpoint and Cheney campuses. e2 is Autodesk's contribution to the planning, engineering, and architecture fields, to just mention a few of the covered disciplines, and the Fall 2009 quarter students at EWU will not only have the opportunity to view these half-hour episodes, but discussions and Q & A sessions will follow so active learning and big idea making unfold. Additionally, PacifiCAD is opening the blog, this one, to anyone who wants to generate discussion on one or all the respective e2 episodes to be shown.

Part of the deal is PacifiCAD picks up the tab for a few bites of food at one or several of the events. Supporting local restaurants and regional food sourcing, PacifiCAD sees this as an important step to show students, both undergraduate and graduate, that as members of the community, PacifiCAD employees and CEO Ron Reed are willing to invest in their futures.

Also, as the series airs at both campuses, I'll lead off the discussion with a question or two and some quick points tied to sustainability and climate change that dovetail from each episode as I see fit. This will be on the blog, and time permitting, I will be at one campus to help facilitate. I'll report back on the effectiveness and enthusiasm shown after the series concludes in Dec. My active blogging on each episode's major and minor themes might springboard participants and others to open up a discussion board like discourse.

Here's the tentative series schedule at Riverpoint's Spokane Academic Center (SAC) Room 147 from 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM.

6-Oct-09
The Green Apple

Design Season 1

13-Oct-09
Aviation
Transportation

20-Oct-09
The Green Machine
Design Season 1

27-Oct-09
Coal & Nuclear: Problem or Solution?
Energy

3-Nov-09
Affordable Green Housing
Design Season 2

10-Nov-09
Portland: A Sense of Place
Transportation

17-Nov-09
Architecture 2030
Design Season 2

24-Nov-09
State of Resolve
Energy

The Cheney campus e2 series shows will be posted soon.

The blog discussion will be posted soon as well.

Details will be posted.

Discussion of specific episdoes will also be posted.

What can be said now is that this series focuses on paradigm shift, innovation, and beyond-the-envelope thinking when it comes to considering urban-rural-natural environments; public space and communities' resolve to save it and build it; how private industry and governments work together to design, shape and implement alternative energy, net zero carbon building, LEED or beyond architecture, multi-modal transportation choices that may be considered part of any one movement or multiple movements in concert with each other: smart growth, living building, new urbanism, permaculture, retrofitting, post carbonizing, Natural Step/Second Nature and the like. The above schedule reflects a wide net of ideas that students at EWU would like to consider. We are still working out the final schedule, though, so email haederpaul@gmail.com for clarification.