Mark Lakeman and Marisha Auerbach Talk – this Wednesday

City Repair inspired intersection mural painting at Los Angeles Eco-Village, March 2011, photo by Yuki Kidokoro. Click for larger image and article.

Tomorrow night, 7:30pm on Wednesday September 28th 2011 L.A. Eco-Village is excited to host the return of Portland City Repair visionaries! Mark Lakeman is one of the most inspiring speakers I’ve ever heard. Tomorrow both he and Marisha Auerbach will give a presentation on how City Repair engages communities, makes great places, and transforms intersections into crossroads. I highly recommend this talk! Full details after the jump. 

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Intersection Mural Version 3.0

Volunteers painting the central bicycle-wheel design - photo by Yuki

A quick blog post to show off some photographs of last Saturday’s (March 12th 2011) intersection mural painting. This is the third time Eco-Village and our neighbors have painted this “intersection repair” mural. It’s inspired by the work of Portland’s City Repair. This weekend, we mostly freshened-up the mural painted in 2009 – covered here – while adding a few new twists. It was a great opportunity to bring people together. Lots of  kids and adults in our neighborhood helped make something beautiful we can all be proud of!

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Portland City Repair inspires L.A. Eco-Village Intersection Repair

Los Angeles Eco-Village’s intersection mural and adjacent bench-planters were inspired by the work of Portland’s City Repair. Thanks to Next American City, I came across the above video (and a short interview here) which gives a beautiful look into City Repair, and highlights one individual Michael Cook, who’s one of the leaders there.

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Intersection Repair Videos!

Portland City Repair’s Mark Lakeman will return to Eco-Village in two weeks. He’ll be speaking Friday September 11th at 7:30, then Saturday September 12th from 10am to 6pm he’ll be leading an intersection repair project here. For more event details, see this earlier post.

Lakeman is an excellent speaker – whom I highly recommend. His presentation expanded the way I think about public space. It also changed  my ideas about how to get things done in making changes locally. For many years I have been involved in excellent urban environmental non-profits that spend a lot of time pressing the city/county/state/etc. to do things. City Repair’s approach teaches us that social capital and taking things into our own hands can be much more effective – especially at a neighborhood scale.

I thought I would promote Lakeman’s L.A. appearances by running a couple of videos about intersection repair as it’s done all over Portland Oregon. Both videos include Mark Lakeman.

First up is a 10-minute documentary from StreetFilms (a phenomenal resource – part of the StreetsBlog family.) “It’s a great community event. It’s great for families and kids and just for creating a sense of place”

 

And here’s an 8-minute film that the Portland City Repair folks did themselves. “Design the city for people and lots of other things that are wonderful and healthy will happen”

And if that’s not enough, here’s a half-hour interview with Mark Lakeman on Permaculture in Urban Spaces.

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Mural Painting Street Party September 12th

Eco-Village intersection repair painting from a few years ago - the street was later repaved

Portland City Repair‘s Mark Lakeman is returning to Los Angeles in September. He’ll be speaking at eco-village on Friday September 11th then will lead an all-day intersection repair project on Saturday September 12th from 10am to dusk.

The first time I heard Lakeman speak it really changed my thinking about public space and ways that communities can work in a very guerilla do-it-yourself way to reclaim our space. I highly recommend that folks come hear his presentation. It’s Friday September 11th 2009 at 7:30pm at Los Angeles Eco-Village, 117 Bimini Place, L.A. 90004. There’s a suggested donation of $10, with noone turned away. Reservations are recommended, either call 213.738.1254 or email crsp [at] igc.org

Another shot of past eco-village intersection repair in process. The central design was based on a bicycle wheel.

On Saturday September 12th from 10am until dusk, we’ll be putting Friday night’s lessons into practice on the ground at the intersection of Bimini Place and White House Place. We’ll be painting a new intersection mural, and probably a few other projects. The Saturday event is free, all are welcome. Lots of hard-working volunteers needed. Wear clothes that you can get paint on, bring potluck food to share. We’re especially reaching out to families and kids in our neighborhood. There will be music, piñata, arts and crafts, face-painting, and much more!

Plan to participate on Saturday September 12th!

The neighborhood celebrates the nearly-completed mural!

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