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INNOVATION and the WORKSHOP
something Food Truck
ISSUE #4 MAY 14, 2012
VIENNA CHORAL SOCIETY SUPPORTS THE ARTS
THETYSONSCORNER.COM PAGE 2
COVER PHOTO BY
AVRIL O’NEIL
INVENTORS WORKSHOP
ALL PHOTOGRAPHY AND
GRAPHICS WITHIN THIS
PUBLICATION RIGHTS
RESERVED TO THE ARTIST
PAGE 3
HIGH TECH
CORRIDORS AND
THE STATUS QUO PAGE 4
FOOD TRUCK WATCH
SOMETHING STUFFED PAGE 8
INNOVATION AND
THE WORKSHOP PAGE 9
VCS CONCERT FOR
FAIRFAX ARTS PAGE 6
WE ARE LOOKING
FOR WRITERS PAGE 6
THE INFLUENCE
OF WORK SPACE PAGE 13
AVOIDING
RETROFIT COSTS
OF URBAN
FARMING PAGE 16
THETYSONSCORNER.COM PAGE 4
This past week Richard
Florida wrote an interesting
article New York City: The
Nation’s Second Leading Tech
Hub which has some great
graphics on how New York
City is converting its
economy from a financial and
style economy to include
several multi-million dollar
startup tech firms. The story
concludes that this rebirth of
new industries is going to
lead to some much larger
industries for the city in the
decade to come. I have to
agree. While a vast majority
of these start-ups will lose
money, it only takes one
Facebook, Google, or Apple
to create an entire industry
for a region. The density and
total number of startups all
but ensures that a future
tech giant will come from the
field.
I’ve always considered the
Northern Virginia area to be
rich in knowledge in the High
Tech, IT, and computer
engineer field however our
technical prowess is starting
to be usurped by the creative
prowess of more innovative
cities. In other words we are
kind of stuck in a rut, and
might be taking for granted
the steady stream of federal
work.
HIGH TECH CORRIDORS
AND THE STATUS QUO
PAGE 5
This area is still considered one of the most
educated regions of the country. Silicon
valley is argued by most to be #1, and
Seattle/Takoma has some rights to the title
as well. I have always considered this region
to be the Silicon Valley of the east,
supported by the top tier institutions of
higher education as well as the best school
districts in the Country. This is backed by
our educational attainment in Fairfax where
55% of residents hold a bachelor’s degree,
and 25% hold a masters or greater. That
means almost 250,000 residents in this
county hold at least a masters degree. While
there are regions of the
country that have higher
percentages in higher
education, none of them
include a study area of nearly 1
million residents.
For example, Palo Alto, in the
heart of Silicon Valley has a
hugely educated population
where 74.4% of residents hold
a bachelor’s degree, and 43%
hold a masters or greater.
However, Palo Alto has a
population of 64,000 residents.
While impressive by
percentage, this means only
27,500 residents hold at least a
masters degree, one ninth of
Northern Virginia. When
compared with Santa Clara
County as a whole, the
bachelors percentage becomes
lower than NOVA with only
40.4% holding a bachelor’s
degree, and 16.4% at least a
masters degree.
When one considers the
population, and the
percentage of educated
residents, Fairfax County
demonstrates why so many
large firms find an employee
base unparalleled in the rest of
the nation.
What about our affluence?
While there is significant class
disparity in this region,
compared to the majority of
the country Northern Virginia
remains one of the most evenly
dispersed wealth bases. It isn’t
that we have a few select rich
residents (though there are a
few). It is that we all enjoy a
fairly consistent income
indicative of upper middle
class levels.
We have the overall wealth,
the highly educated populous,
and the overall diversity of
different knowledge/skills
from the amalgam of people.
These are huge indicators of
why this area has been
successful in drawing both
corporations and a steady
inflow of new residents.
Unfortunately, while we don’t
need to fear an end to the
good times, we are becoming
dangerously dependent on
maintaining this status quo.
Fairfax which was known as a
small business hub and a high
tech start up corridor for year
has dwindled to a prototypical
corporate structure. Which is
fine, it helps keep our area
consistent. However there is
nothing that keeps these
corporations loyal to our area
except for the current
characteristics. There is no
guarantee in 20 years that they
will remain, and in this vacuum
we have not birthed any new
industries organically in the
same method that New York
City and Palo Alto have
accomplished. This region has
become too comfortable with
the steady good life to the
point that very few want to
take new risks and go for the
big home runs.
Menlo Park, the birth place of
American innovation and the
industrial workshop of Thomas
Edison, began after the late
19th century economic crisis in
central New Jersey. The land
became so undervalued that
Edison who had only $10,000
from the sale of his first
invention could purchase the
35 acre industrial park
outright.
It shows that the biggest
pushes forward in history found
genesis in moments of
collapse. Perhaps Defense and
Government contracts slowing
down is just the shock this area
needs, though I think
anticipating the benefits of
growing might avoid the birth
pangs that New Jersey
experienced.
The Tysons Corner is a
website in its infancy,
started in 2011, created
to discuss the local issues
specific to eastern Fairfax
including the regions of
Tysons Corner, Falls
Church, McLean, Vienna,
and Merrifield. Our goal is
to provide a deeper
analysis of progressive
topics centered around
the new urbanism
concepts of a 21st century
Northern Virginia. We
have seen the region grow
from a quiet suburban
community to a cultural
and economic contributor
of the east coast rivaling
other more established
cities. The area for many
years grew without
direction leaving a
disconnected community
of micro-developments
without any coordinated
design concept. Our goal
is to create a unified,
or cacophonous, voice of
residents and interested
parties to discuss what the
future vision for the
region could or should be.
We look to fill the
questions that many have
and provide the depth of
coverage that is difficult
for overall news
publications to provide.
We are currently
looking for interested
bloggers who are
looking for a forum to
discuss their ideas as a
writer for TTC. This
could be done as an
exclusive TTC format
or as a cross post with
other independent
blogs. If you are
interested in reaching
a large base of readers
specific to this region
think about joining.
Please feel free to contact us;
THETYSONSCORNER.COM PAGE 6
The Vienna Choral Society is
preparing for their Concert For A
Cause, May 19th, to support arts
education in Fairfax County. As
a product of the Fairfax County
arts program I believe that the
arts are a way of grounding the
youth and teaching them the
benefits of both analytic and
aesthetic thinking. Music is a
science and an art. While it is
physically defined by the
wavelengths of audible sound,
the measured tempos of a
cadence, and decibel volume
emitted it is more gutturally
experienced in the emotion that
sound can invoke. In movies,
while the acting and characters
engage the viewer in the story,
it is the music and soundtrack
that pulls you in to the fictional
world. It is important that we
provide the opportunity for the
next generation to continue this
legacy.
The Concert will perform a Tour
Through Musical History, From
Seikilos to U2. If you have a
child that may have an interest
in chorus or band or any
performing arts, this is a great
opportunity to show them the
role that a community can take.
The performance will be at the
UUCF in Vienna at 7:30pm on
Saturday and all are welcome.
Help support the future of our
arts programs by attending and
follow the Vienna Choral
Society’s blog for more
information VCS blog.
VIENNA CHORAL
SOCIETY
SUPPORTS THE ARTS
PAGE 7
Photo: Fiber Optic Toy,
By AudioTribe
THETYSONSCORNER.COM PAGE 8
FOOD TRUCK WATCH Something Stuffed Follow us on twitter for daily food truck alerts
The newest food truck to the Tysons Corner
lunch market appears to be a hit. Something
Stuffed brings a mix of asian and latin influences
to create some really unique eats. The menu is
dynamic and changes just about each time they
come out, but on this occasion I enjoyed a
Bulgogi Empanada and a Vietnamese pork
empanada.
I wasn’t the only one who had to see what the
new truck had to offer, the line was well formed
before I got there. The chili was a popular item,
which you can get with two empanadas for 12
bucks, pretty solid deal. It appears the
Something Stuffed girls will be coming around
Tysons either once a week or twice a week, so if
you haven’t tried them out yet keep on the
lookout.
Photo: Pure Abstract, Digital Art,
© Ben Heine 2012
PAGE 9
In modern terms a workshop has taken
on a negative connotation as a factory
of human labor, but the original
concept had much nobler intent. In a
renaissance workshop craftsman and
artists would combine their skills to
better understand the physical and
optical world with mathematics and
its relation to our visual
representations. In the industrial era
workshops became a space for
innovators and inventors to create
new machines and processes creating
a better understanding of function
and user experience. In the post-
industrial era this concept faced
emerging technology as the creative
designs and concepts engaged with
the robotic factory.
THETYSONSCORNER.COM PAGE 10
In each of these shifts of design
method the scale of the problem
and solution grew. The
renaissance workshops focused
very much on individual studies,
the improvement of gears, tools
and processes for individual
applications and artisan
patronage. The industrial era
focused on creating mass
produced goods that would
reduce the costs of durables and
addressing an existing need. The
post-industrial era created
emerging markets through cutting
edge technology which would
become integral in the daily lives
of all humanity. The negative
impact of these shifts was the
disintegration of the
design/innovation process which
solved smaller complications in
lieu of the big home run solution.
Today we see the disintegration
in the form of junk technology
and true technology. Junk
technology being devices that are
trinket in form and often times
childish, and true technology
being solutions to massive world
wide problems. Innovation has
given way to small and large
invention. In many ways there has
become little incentive for large
companies to create more
efficient systems if they believe
that large scale invention will
make their original product
obsolete. While this is true with
some elements of the world
(telecommunication certainly
comes to mind) it is not true in
many physical sciences and
products which have lagged.
So why has technology been
defined as only “high tech”? It
begins with research and
development funding. A large
corporation could find hundreds
of small innovations that could
sell well but does not have
explosive growth potential.
Therefore they invest large funds
into fewer concepts in the hope
that one could create a complete
paradigm shift. The net result to
the public becomes a market in
which we can converse around
the world in a split second, but
systems in our own lives remain
inefficient (cheese on the bottom
of a toaster over, planter pots
that lose half of their water from
the bottom, etc).
There have been moments which
have proven that innovation
remains addressing market needs.
The creation of the
collapsible/briefcase bike,
vertical planting walls/seat walls,
and residential rain barrels are a
few that come to mind. These
have been widely celebrated as
concepts that were long overdue.
PAGE 11
This was the
best salad I have
ever eaten.
If this is the case, and these products have
become quite profitable for their creators,
why doesn’t this happen more often? The
world is corporatized, very few of us work
for independent and creative organizations,
and when we do it is in a very niche
concept. It is almost unheard of to see a
workplace with multiple, diverse knowledge
sets sitting together working on a problem.
It is even more rare for those people to be
in direct contact with a client or person who
sees a gap in the available solutions. When
we see the world through only one set of
possible answers, we view the problem with
horse blinders and become oblivious to
possible innovation by other means.
We are witnessing a new class of technology
rising in urban settings where the very
spatial layout of the cities are helping foster
discussions between various disciplines, and
at the convergence of the creative class
(inventors) and the technical class
(innovators) we are attaining products that
actually benefit everyday people. What
makes Apple and Google so brilliant is the
fact that they have understood this for a
long time. You must have technically
proficient, financially reasonable, and
aesthetically beautiful products to meet
what the market expects.
This provides an avenue and a reprieve from
the now traditional post-industrial process
via the virtual communication between
disciplines. By reducing the cost of owning a
physical facility to its bare essentials, think
tanks or crowd sources can now be utilized
to both gather problems and solve them.
The new workshop creates an opportunity to
integrate telecommunication and crowd
sourcing into this gathering and solution
process, and it allows the technical design
to focus on the creation itself. Because of
the reduction in the space necessary and
the limited partnership of the community
through incentives not salary, the scale of
operations is far smaller and could
theoretically occur on a grass roots level.
The few instances of innovation we are
encountering could be indicators that we
are standing at a watershed in a true
renaissance of technology and the design
process.
Photo: Yamaguchi Frame Building School,
By Dancing Weapon of Mass Destruction
THETYSONSCORNER.COM PAGE 12
THE INFLUENCE OF CROWD SOURCING ON THE DESIGN PROCESS
The modern cubicle form office
has been an effective method of
reducing the space allotment for
employees and reducing the costs
of operations, but employees
routinely complain about the
confining nature of the layout.
Studies have shown that the very
arrangement while being efficient
decreases the productivity and
quality of work created. Some
corporations which promote
original thought and
communication have evolved to
the use of open and free flowing
spaces, clustered project teams,
and integrated disciplines to
analyze problems through multiple
points of view.
The benefits of this new concept
of office layout has been reviewed
for decades and the empirical data
generally shows that employees
are happier and more productive.
However beneficial this has been
to the commercial world,
innovation in mechanical and
design processes have lagged. The
problem has become a separation
between the creative and
technical perspective.
Designers have become
increasingly unaware of practical
applications and manufacturing
processes have become increasing
reliant on exact specifications.
This works well when research and
development funding can support
several iterations of quality
control, but when a solution is
needed for smaller constraints this
method becomes inefficient.
It is rare to find a designer who
can build or a builder who can
design to proficient levels. So what
will the office layout become in
order to address this trend?
PAGE 13
THE INFLUENCE
OF
WORK SPACE
THETYSONSCORNER.COM PAGE 14
OFFICE LAYOUT CONSTRAINTS
• MOST DISCIPLINES ARE
SEPARATED BY FLOORS OR
ROOMS
• WORK SPACE IS EXPENSIVE,
FORCING CONSERVATION OF
OPEN/COMMON AREAS
• PHYSICAL MATERIALS AND
OBJECTS ARE UNAVAILABLE
TO DESIGNERS AND REPLACED
WITH COMPUTERS
• LACK OF PRODUCTION SPACE
TO PHYSICALLY TEST DESIGN
CONCEPTS
SOLUTIONS MUST HAVE
• TECHNICAL RESOURCES AND
PHYSICAL RESOURCES
• 20 OFFICE SPACES
• 8 WORKSHOP SPACES
• MAXIMUM OF 2500 SQUARE
FEET
• ANY UNIQUE FURNITURE
SHOULD INCLUDE AN
EXAMPLE IMAGE
We’d love to see your
concepts of what an office
that meets these needs
would look like?
Sketch it, put it in cad, or
render it up. All we care
about is the concept not the graphics.
PAGE 15
DEFINING THE SPACE
WE SPEND
1/3 OF OUR LIVES
My experience in land development has taught
me a lot about planning, developers, and the
economics of a project but one thing I have
always questioned is why more clients would
throw away money that could be available to
them with proper design. I saw projects that
would excavate 200,000 cubic foot ponds, but
for the same cost could have implemented a
rainwater cistern that has an equivalent cost,
achieves permitting requirements, and
reduces the potable water usage required for
functions such as irrigation. I watched as they
constructed 5 foot wide parking islands with
plants that everyone knew would die shortly
there after instead of providing adequate
space and saving money in the long run by
losing 1 parking space. Recently I have seen a
new asset that most developers and planners
haven’t opened their eyes to, roofs.
When LEED was introduced to the construction
field by the U.S. Green Building Council a lot
of developers first reactions were, how do we
skirt the requirements to get the most points
possible and make our building more
marketable? One of the first elements that
almost every project introduced was a green
roof. It is exactly what it sounds like. Roofs
are designed to incorporate small ground
cover form landscaping (grasses, flowerbeds,
small shrubs) which helps reduce the runoff
which is generated from rain storms. The
concept actually does work pretty well as long
as the plants are appropriately installed and
once in a while someone checks on it.
Unfortunately it ignores the potential of this
roof space. Luckily all it takes is a bit of
imagination to fix that.
A typical urban building roof can be anywhere
from a half acre to two acres of completely
under utilized space, outside of a few
mechanical and HVAC functions. Anywhere
except for on top of a building, this land
would be considered an asset, something that
could be rented or sold for some sort of rate.
For years this space was obviously devoid
of any marketable function, but with the
introduction of green roofs they became
prime land, well elevated, drained and in
direct sunlight perfect for agricultural
uses. Forget the fact that it is up in the
air and this would become a very
intriguing location for a small time farmer
or perhaps space for restaurants to grow
their own produce within an elevators
distance. Talk about farm to table.
Considering that the green roof is going in
place anyways, wouldn’t any return on
this be a vast improvement from the $0
revenue that they currently attain?
PAGE 16 THETYSONSCORNER.COM
PAGE 17
So what would an architect need to
incorporate if this was a design
criteria up front? One might
consider putting in a separate
freight elevator, though I would
argue that the regular freight
elevator could do the job, but the
best way might be the simplest. If
window washing apparati where
utilized to serve both functions it
would add no extra construction
cost and still provide for the needs
of a small time farmer. The client
could attain a marketable space
with a marginal and negligible
rise in cost. So what is
marketable? Well it’s nothing to
write home about, most large scale
farm rentals go for approximately
$100 dollars per acre per year. Why
is it so cheap? Because most farm
lands are measured in the
hundreds, if not thousands, of
acres. When you start renting out
at that scale you can still make a
good return even with a low cost
per acre average.
Clearly the market for this form of
farming will be high end urban
suppliers, ie restaurants,
independent grocers, and
individual farmers market vendors.
Providing this nearly no transport
cost agricultural land drastically
improves their profit margin. The
roof land would clearly favor
higher return cash crops that
industrially are not possible due to
labor needs. An entrepreneur could
see the profitability of these prime
locations, low rental rates, and the
fact that their small operation
would not be machine based for a
large part anyways and turn the
opportunity into a great source of
income.
So why even have the green roof?
Storm water runoff pollution is a
big problem for watersheds, and
caused serious problems to the
fisheries and wildlife of the
Chesapeake Bay in the middle part
of the last century. The regulations
in place are widely supported by
both political parties and are not
likely to be revoked in our lifetime,
therefore some form of control is
needed. When you are building
high density projects, where land is
at a premium, putting your storm
water management on a roof is still
the most cost effective, especially
when you consider ALL storm water
management practices require
extensive maintenance.
With a rate of $200 per year per
acre you could find a market. Heck
if you have a restaurant downstairs
you might be able to incorporate a
higher lease rate into that space if
it comes along with planting access
to the roof which could fetch an
increase in lease rates on the order
of $200 per month. Regardless,
let’s ignore the actual return, as
any return is greater than 0, and
focus on the cost saving. By
creating a passive maintenance
crew to the green roof, the
building management can avoid
costly annual maintenance when
some plants are left without
inspection. The leaser becomes a
zero cost partner in ensuring the
health of the green roof. How
much can this save? The
replacement or remediation of
green roofs can easily surpass
$10,000 per acre per year if not
properly maintained, which is a
bargain compared to contracting an
outside maintenance crew. The
passive inspection, regardless of
what the leaser pays, helps save
real money.
Every new project requires an
intensive cost analysis which is
performed on everything from
energy usage to marketability to
grounds keeping costs. When it
comes to multi-hundred million
dollar buildings everything is
checked ten times over to make
sure all assets are profitized.
Developers shouldn’t just stop at
the top floor though when they
could be making money and saving
a whole lot more up on the roof.