Our NYC based designer Ellen Hanson has a mention in the New York Times today. Look for the Home section, under the article “What Green Means in the Hamptons” (Page D7 in paper format), where photographs of her kitchen and dining area design are featured. We love the handcrafted table, made of pieces of lumber from the original house and sitting on steel legs made by a local blacksmith.
Just as our architects Surber Barber Choate & Hertlein have designed the building to meet Gold LEED criteria, Ellen Hanson is using a green lens in her selection of the hotel’s interior finishes and furnishings. Because there are no LEED-equivalent standards for interior furnishings, she has self-imposed such design criteria as specifying materials sourced from within a 500 mile radius and using local suppliers whenever possible.
Ellen is also the creator of the “Green Scene” on 1stdibs.com.
Friends of UGA’s Music Business Program, UGA Alumni, and friends of Hotel Indigo – Athens gathered on Saturday night to see Corey Smith perform at Chastain Park. Over one hundred people showed up at Rick and Jane Fine’s home for a cocktail party before heading over to the concert on a Fur Bus. Our crowd took over a whole section and danced the night away to tunes of “The Good Life”, “Every Dawg” and “Twenty-One.” Check out Corey’s website and have a listen: www.coreysmith.org/music.cfm
Also take a look at our slide show of pictures from the evening (link here)—they do a way better job of describing the fun we had. If you had as good a time as we did, please post your comments and/or send photos to rialtopp@gmail.com. Thanks to everyone who came out to support Athens’ musicians.
We have been exploring sustainable building materials this week, and we are overwhelmed by the number of green options out there. In flooring alone we have seen everything from recycled hardwood to “green” vinyl. Our fear of “green washing” kicks in and we feel compelled to do our homework.
We are learning that product life cycle information is hard to find, and that we have to trust our suppliers to provide truthful statistics. It seems that almost every manufacturing company is advertising a green advantage of some kind. But we are resolved to find products that go above and beyond meeting LEED standards, products that are exceptions to general claims of sustainability.
Here is an interesting twist on sustainability… This week Shaw introduced us to a “prison wood” line of Anderson flooring. It meets the usual criteria we look for in sustainable products (such as recycled content and responsible manufacturing), but there is also a story about the people behind its creation. The wood is hand crafted by inmates at a correctional institution in South Carolina, near Anderson’s headquarters. It is a voluntary job that pays above minimum wage; it helps inmates build skills and a work ethic; and it prepares them for re-entry into society. In return, Shaw/Anderson is able to deliver a beautiful, high quality product. It’s sustainable on all dimensions—a generative workforce using recycled product to create a distressed wood that designers love.
The site of our project is five blocks from “The Arch” at the corner of College Avenue and Broad Street. Yesterday morning we took a walking tour of the site and wandered up to campus. The heartbeat of Athens is centered around the university, and our hotel is just far enough away to feel like an oasis from the student activity.
We spent some time yesterday thinking about how to bring the heartbeat of Athens into the daily activity of the hotel. We see this coming to life through showcasing local talent in the arts. We became very excited by all the possibilities as we toured the new Lamar Dodd School of Art, housing everything from painting to printmaking. There is real potential for us to help promote student talent, not just in wall art, but in the public art realm—stay tuned for updates as we create a design competition for an outdoor sculpture on our property.
To see pictures from our July 3rd trip to Athens, link to our slideshow entitled “Site Photos & Athens Tour.”
