Jump back to late 2010. At an urban infill site on the south end of downtown Phoenix, designer and visionary Vincenz Saccento has just installed three multi-units of his shiny, silver, boxes:  called V100 Modboxes. Watch this 3-min video produced at the time. Be awed. Be inspired. Be proud of these inventive Phoenicians. Then keep reading.

Did you watch the video?

Now hear this: From Get Your PHX, I bring August 2013 news of what has not been publically known until this very moment…

In the video you saw, you learned that the V100 Modbox can be constructed in just few days by people with no technical training. Well, get this. In my conversation with designer Vincenz Saccento last week, he told me something not previously announced to the public:

A full modbox can now be constructed in just 7 hours, by a single person, with no tools, and zero prior building experience!

That’s right. Seven hours. Still with no nails, screwdrivers, or hammers required. No screws, nails, or wood.  This baby is high-tech structural, aviation and aerospace materials that a school teacher or college student could build. But wait, there’s more!

That’s right, folks. When the last article about V100 Modbox was published in 2010 by Blue Vertical Media, the 2010 material for the walls was 4″ thick.

That’s the thickness of the walls in which Vincenz lives, today. They exceed the standards for LEED Platinum certification (meaning that out of 100 possible points in categories of the sustainability of the site, water efficiency, energy & atmosphere, materials & resources, indoor environmental quality, and innovation in operations, the V100 Modbox far surpasses this rating).

So those 4″ walls are maybe an R35 insulation rating. He then showed me a piece of the wall for the next incarnation they’re building with today:

It’s 5/8 of one inch thick! Much less expensive. AND…

It’s like an R-zero rating. It could be 3000 degrees outside and that heat’s not getting through,” said Saccento.

The neighborhood in this hugely rundown area of town has been changing for the better since the V100 Modbox came here. Attitudes are changing. Neighbors are cleaning up outside their homes. Surprisingly, nobody has graffitied the Modboxes.

More of the same?

The “shimmery 10’x10‘x10’ boxes” are ready to go. Vincenz Saccento could have 100 of them ready in a month, if an order asked for them. But that’s not what he’s preparing to do next. He’s got his sites on a pop-up mall.

You go to an empty piece of land for 3-5 years and put in coffee, breakfast, lunch, bar, working/co-working space. Maybe it’s 40ft x 40ft x 20 ft.” ~ Vincenz

Get out of the summer heat. Join monOrchid gallery for their first ever annual Family Day!

Saturday
July 27
10 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Children of all ages invited!

This is an opportunity to celebrate the greatest gifts in our lives–our families– and the culture and community that sustain them. Fun and wonderful activities for all ages and cultural underpinnings that “elevate” to boot.  People in the know will bring their swimsuits too – there are persistent rumors of a kiddie pool in Dorina’s office 🙂  Show your love for your super extended Phoenix family and participate in making our city stronger. As the yogi says, “be here now.” ~ Wayne Rainey, owner of Monorchid

• Docent-lead tours of the exhibit.
• Live painting by local artist Jayme Blue from the Thermal PHX exhibit.
• Limited edition Thermal PHX Color sheet and drawing tables for children to create in the gallery.
• Hip Veggies will be creating awesome veggie art and debuting their new screen-printed canvas tote by artist Rafael Navarro.
• Yoga in the grass at “The Lot” (all ages, bring your mat): 10am to 11am.
• “Tales of a Tombstone, Arizona Tortoise” reading by authors Heather and Tad Smith.
• Performance by local musicians Andrew Waterhouse and Steven Totten (of Tres Lunas).
• Local treats from great Phoenix restaurants Carly’s Bistro and Pallets Food & Bar along, delicious cookies from Urban Cookies Bakeshop and Brilliant Sky Bakery.

The exhibition is meant to be a “thermal” for emerging local artists, helping them elevate their work by providing an exhibition opportunity in a major art space during our long, hot Phoenix summer. This wonderful exhibition offers a variety of art that will appeal to everyone. We hope you will join us for this very special event!

Did you know the largest reading room in North America is at Phoenix Burton Barr Central Library?

Get yourself over to the 43,000 square reading room on the fifth floor of the library and witness the precise moment of the summer solstice.

Folks, this is one of those “hidden secrets” of Phoenix that everybody should see at least once.

In fact, you can only see it once per year, on the summer solstice. And on that day, “The ceiling will seem to float and the columns glow like candles.”

The summer solstice is the day when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky, marking the longest day of the year.

The top floor roof structure of the library has the most to offer viewers of the indirect light. Blue skylights above each column illuminate the tips of the columns at noon on the summer solstice.

“Summer solstice reminds us that we are not just Arizonans, not just Americans, but we are children of the universe,” said Will Bruder, architect/designer of the library.

On Friday, June 21, Bruder will describe the unique features he designed to create a visual effect at solar noon on the summer solstice.

EVENT DETAILS

Event: Summer Solstice Celebration
Registration: Not Required
Date: Fri, Jun. 21, 2013
Age Level: All
Time: 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM
Location: Burton Barr Central Library

Enjoy live music by Canyon Records recording artist Anthony Wakeman. Music begins at 11:30. (After the event, join the Hance Park Conservancy in the Fourth Floor Lecture Room for a preview of the Hance Park redesign.)

If you want to buy or sell, in fall, spring, winter, summer, or summer solstice, please give me a call at 602-456-9388 or email me at ken@getyourphx.com.

The 4^th annual Grand Avenue Festival is this Saturday, October 20^th
and community involvement is a huge component!

The focus for this year’s celebration is the vibrant culture, art, history and adaptive re-use of the Lower Grand Avenue Arts and Small Business District and adjoining neighborhoods.

Opportunities abound!

Coffee, Cookies & Crafts

Hanging Gardens & Woven Fences & Trashy Sculptures

Grand Trashy Hat Promenade

Bands on Grand Performances (free)

Food

Free tours of the Historic Commercial Building and Adaptive Reuse, begin at 8 am and continue hourly until 11 am, courtesy of the Phoenix Revitalization Corporation (PRC), followed by Free screenings of “The Greenest Building,” shown at the conclusion of the tour.

Check out the Festival on Facebook

Official Festival Flyer [download, print, share!]

With widespread attention and growing support for a trolley on the Grand Avenue Rail Project to boot and a Final Report from Greening America’s Capitals, Grand Avenue is poised to bust open in a big way this year…but we need community support…your support to make it happen!

Recent developments along Lower Grand Avenue reveal an emerging, grassroots effort to revitalize the area. In 1998, a federally funded Weed and Seed project, which aimed to reduce violent crime by “weeding” out offenders and “seeding” community services, kick-started a partnership between city, federal, and state agencies, as well as the local faith community, residents, businesses, and nonprofits. This partnership has led to a 40 percent reduction in violent crime over the last 10 years. Artists have colonized the street, taking advantage of inexpensive vacant and underused warehouse and shop spaces.” ~ Greening America’s Capitals

(Greening America’s Capitals selected Phoenix in 2011 as one of five nationwide cities.)

“[Phoenix] asked for assistance to improve the Lower Grand Avenue streetscape, making it more environmentally, pedestrian-, and bicycle-friendly while also maintaining the neighborhood’s artistic character. The EPA design team will explore options that use green infrastructure techniques suitable for arid climates to capture and treat stormwater runoff. Design options might also include improvements to pedestrian crossings, transit shelters, bicycle paths, and trolleys.”

The Grand Avenue Festival is sponsored in part by the Grand Avenue Merchants’ Assoc.; Phoenix Revitalization Corp.; Oasis on Grand; Glass Lab Metal Lab; Abromovitz Grand Avenue Partners, LLC; Arizona Pedal Cabs; Phoenix New Times; Dunlap & Magee Property Management.

The folks at Co+Hoots have been temporarily working out of monOrchid for a couple months while their new office digs are finished, further downtown.

We’ve had a great time together, but when they leave there will be a few coveted spaces open around here. This is a great place to work.

I should know, I work here. We have a coffee shop, inexpensive but urban-hip office space, access to specialists in all fields and other amenities.

Check out this PDF document with the expected upcoming vacancies and the prices.

Give me a call at 602-456-9388 for information.

From the “Cool Goings-on Desk”:

The Grand Avenue Arts & Small Business District is holding a logo design contest for the 4th Annual Grand Avenue Festival, scheduled for October 20, 2012.  The purpose of the contest is to create a unique logo representing the Grand Avenue Festival by letting artists show their creativity and style. The winning design will be featured on all promotional materials including; festival brochures, posters and a variety of community advertisements.  Additionally, the winning artist will receive their name or business entity acknowledged on the festival brochure as an in-kind sponsor.   

About the Festival:  The focus of the festival is to explore the history of Lower Grand and spotlight adaptive re-use projects and sustainability in the neighborhood. This celebration honors the local arts and small businesses, and encourages recycling and re-use so please be mindful of our mission when designing your submission. 

Eligibility: The contest is open to everyone 18 years of age and older, or with a parent’s consent for younger gifted individuals.

Submission Requirements: Preferred file type is .ai or a vector .eps (will accept .pdf, .jpg, .tif but they must be highquality, minimum of 300 dpi at a physical size of 3″ x 3″); all fonts must be converted to outlines; logo submissions must print well as both color or black & white

Entry Info and Deadline: Contest entries must be received no later than 5pm, August 3rd, 2012, for consideration.  The festival planning committee will notify the winner no later than August 10th, 2012. Contest entries should be sent to grandavelogo@gmail.com

Intellectual Property Rights: The winning designs submitted for this contest become the property of Grand Avenue Arts & Small Business District and the Grand Avenue Merchants Association (GAMA). By submitting the design, the entrant warrants that the work is original and free of all copyright or other encumbrances that would prevent its use by the Grand Avenue Arts & Small Business District and GAMA for any of the intended purposes.

Privacy and Personal Data: Submissions are confidential until the completion of judging and until the announcement of the winner. Only the submissions of the winner will be disclosed and published. The designs and all personal data of all other submissions will be kept confidential, other than announcing the total number of submissions received. 

Questions: All artists and their suggestions are welcome! For more information, please contact grandavephoenix@gmail.com

Feel free to share this announcement !  Here’s a PDF of contest entry requirements or you can visit the Grand Avenue FB  Events page.

Photo by Stacy Champion

There is an interesting buzz around downtown, along the Roosevelt Row. Spaces are filling up along Roosevelt as the economy rebounds.

There’s the Concordia Eastridge Complex going up—slowly rising up to replace that empty dirt lot that used to greet you as you exited from off the I-10 exit on 3^rd street. As I pulled off that very exit this afternoon, I said to a friend, “Look at our new entrance to downtown Phoenix. No more greetings from a forty year old dirt lot. This is looking to be a proper welcoming. ”

And there’s the old Canvass location at 3rd Street and Roosevelt, which back in 2008 was all talk about the multitude of places going in, but which never materialized (see the link for an artist rendering and a list of venues planned, but not done) and which is now getting a bunch of new goodies: an ice cream parlor, a Vietnamese restaurant, an Italian restaurant, and a French restaurant (operated by Duc and Noelle Liao, chef-owners of Scratch Pastries). According to the Phoenix New times, four leases were signed last month so this isn’t just wishful thinking or hearsay.

Speaking of Scratch, there’s an interview with Duc and Noelle called, “The Sweet Life” in the July/August issue of Java Magazine. (The link is a little weird, it’s a photo scan of the magazine, so just click the little arrow at top middle to read the 2^nd page of the article).

They have had such great success with Scratch Scottsdale that they are opening a second location next fall….it will have a café and an adjoining pastry shop, and Noelle emphasizes that the new café’ will be much more than a coffee shop…the new Scratch will also have a full kitchen/full menu.” ~ Jenna Duncan (Java Magazine)

Don’t miss out on all the new opportunities coming to Roosevelt. I’ll update you on all the other  new places as I hear about them in the days ahead.

Of course, don’t forget that I now have a workspace here at monOrchid, next to the new Songbird Tea and Coffeehouse. See the story, here.

Many of you know the role that monOrchid played in the establishment of First Fridays over 13 years ago, back when people still hosted raves and Clinton was still President.

You could not do First Friday without stopping first at monOrchid.

The recession slowed business for a while, but owner Wayne Rainey powered through with a rag tag fleet of artists, architects, designers and the like. Now he is announcing new additions and new incentives to his “creative  co-lab.”

First, for the uninitiated, a creative co-lab is a space where you can have office space at a great price and access to other folks in your industry. While you don’t necessarily need to be an award winning photographer, for instance (I’m not and I’m in here!), being here gives you access to folks with whom you can collaborate, market and create new ideas.

You also have free access to the conference room, wireless and a kitchen. Soon to come is a media room where you can print, cut, copy and touch-up. You can also have access to the industry standard cyclorama and event space.

The folks over at Co-Hoots have proven recently that there is a huge market demand for this and we all share the same vision for a creative hub in downtown.

So, what is new? First, the Songbird Coffee and Teahouse plans to open by July 9th, which will greatly increase foot traffic and give you the much-needed caffeine to get through your busy day.

Second, a bunch of us are moving in to help make this dream a reality: Get Your PHX, Stacey Champion and Cesar Chaves Design are the most recent.

Third, the massive loft spaces, which can be broken up in to affordable creative stalls, are available with a new price structure.

Finally, if you sign a contract between now and August 30th, you will get 25% off event space and studio rental for a year.

This is your chance to get inexpensive bricks and mortar in a reinvigorated downtown establishment.

See this link for floor plans, availability and prices.

Please call me at 602-456-9388 or ken@getyourphx.com for more information.

16th Street Should Not Be Ignored

That is the message of Por Vida Gallery. Our January 2011 Get Your PHX was a celebration of 16th St. and we are going back to see what’s new.

Por Vida owners Pablo Luna, Thomas “Breeze” Marcus, and Lalo Cota have a foothold and a new statement that they want to share with you.

Lalo Cota tells us that 16th is the next logical step in art in Phoenix. First Friday, he says, can’t be about just 3rd and Roosevelt anymore. He tells us that space has become too much about food and artists are struggling. So it is time to expand.

Come see if the leading edge of art in Phoenix truly is making a move east and see Douglas Miles’ transfixing =Apacheria= show in which Miles challenges cliché images of Native American life through mixed media.

This will be the most engaging Get Your PHX that we’ve hosted for some time. So, don’t miss it!

Special sponsors to be announced soon!

Please join us and RSVP at our Facebook Fan Page.

March Get Your PHX
Thursday, March 22nd from 5:30 to 7:30pm.
2800 N. 16th St
Phoenix, AZ 85006 Map Here