Young people with caring adults create a more ecological environment in their school-yard, neighborhood, and community. Life Frames, Inc. & A Living Library's have always been working towards teaching integrated hands-on knowledge to K-12 students about real-world challenges including climate change, sustainable development, flood mitigation, and rainwater harvesting. (more…)
Continuing with our earlier post on Transformation of Seneca Avenue Streetscape in San Francisco, we want to share more updates on the progress of this unique urban greening project by Life Frames, Inc. & A Living Library. Seneca Avenue, between San Jose and Cayuga Avenues in the Islais Creek Watershed, has long been a wide, barren, long hill, contributing greatly to overflowing sewers and flooding in the Cayuga Valley and Islais Creek Watershed.
After cutting and removing tons of concrete from the site, the transformation of this former heat island into lush CA Native Rain Gardens has finally begun. Over 200 students from Leadership High School, as well as other community members, have actively participated in planting California native trees and understory plants on the site. Shown here are a few pictures documenting the dedicated hard work of the youth and adults in transforming this previously desolate space, into fertile, blue/green, multifunctional native landscapes. (more…)
A generous grant awarded to Life Frames, Inc. in January 2018 by the California Natural Resources Agency under Proposition 1 – California Urban Rivers Grant Program – is helping the ecological transformation of Seneca Avenue between San Jose and Cayuga Avenues in the Islais Creek Watershed. As planned by Bonnie Ora Sherk and Life Frames, Inc. in conjunction with hydrogeologists from Ramboll, the long, wide, currently barren street of Seneca Avenue will be developed into a series of Rain Gardens to help address climate changes and mitigate flooding in the Cayuga Valley from storm water overflows in the sewer system and the historic, flooding, Islais Creek under Balboa High School and along Cayuga Avenue.
This Seneca transformation will also expand the OMI/Excelsior Living Library & Think Park at the campuses of the local schools, by planting hundreds of California native trees and understory plants. This work will also expand the A.L.L. Nature Walk linking schools, parks, public housing, streets, and other open spaces in the Islais Creek Watershed, the largest Watershed in San Francisco.
From September 28, 2018 to June 15, 2019, the de Saisset Museum in Santa Clara University is hosting the exhibition Radical Velocity, curated by Lauren Baines, showing the power of the human body to impact our sense of place. Several images from Bonnie Ora Sherk‘s Sitting Still Series (1970), a powerful and pioneering, environmental performance installation series, are being featured in the Exhibition. The Sitting Still Series highlights how a seated human figure can very simply transform an environment. Seated in an armchair in diverse urban places – Army Street/101 Freeway Interchange Construction Zone, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Financial District including Bank of America Plaza, and various indoor/ outdoor cages in the San Francisco Zoo, Bonnie Ora Sherk transformed dead spaces into new and interesting environments that changed our perceptions about possibilities.
Summer is going to end soon ! Before green leaves turn dry brown and red, here is an update about the work A Living Library accomplished through the summer season in our Gardens in New York and San Francisco.
In the Roosevelt Island Living Library & Think Park Gardens in New York City, students from Roosevelt Island School Beacon (PS/ IS 217) enjoyed various garden activities while learning about science and ecology during their after-school classes. Here are a few pictures capturing their enthusiasm in the RI Living Library Gardens:
(more…)A Living Library, Life Frame, Think Park, & A.L.L. are registered trademarks
Follow us
