April 22, 2020 marks the 50th Anniversary of Earth day.

We’d like to share some books that have inspired our work at ASK* for a Better World. Hopefully, while you self-isolate or take pause from work, some of these works may inspire you! We know we still have a lot of work to do to become better stewards of planet Earth.

Books that Inspired our values, our life and our dreams.

Raynor Banham’s book on Architecture of the Well Tempered Environment made me think of building systems and their relationship to what human’s need: nature.

Slient Spring

Silent Spring was instrumental in showing the world the danger of unchecked industrial / chemical pollution through pesticides. It raised the question of integrity of marketing and advertising.

David Suzuki has always inspired me- from watching The Nature of Things with my Dad when I was young to his now f-bomb laden, passionate speeches of how we must change or die.

WIlliam McDonaugh and Michael Braungart’s book introduced me to the concept of waste = food. Form should follow nature.

Paul Hawken blew my mind when I saw him at an early Greenbuild conference- I think in Portland. His ideas have helped shape why we need to DEMAND a Better World.

Full disclosure: I love British high-tech architecture and the hopeful/optimistic idea that technology could make our lives better. When one of my high-tech heros wrote this, I was happy to see high-tech and ecology could work together for our world.

Jan Gehl came to Edmonton- and almost helped re-build our City and it’s connection to the river. I was lucky enough to hear him lecture on his ideas around how cities should be designed for people and walkability.

This book really hit home what Integrated Project Delivery could do for the design and construction industry. This is why we want to be deeply collaborative.

What are some of your favourite books? Or ones that nifluenced your life?

Take this time to read! And to revisit your process, reimagine your work and impact on our environment. Now is the time, while we reconfigure our new world, to engage us in helping you with Lean culture, training and readying your work/workplace for a more productive, effective and ecologically-sensitive future. We can show you how to reimagine design process, collaboration and architecture by going slow now, to go FAST. ASK* for a Better World.

BONUS: Check out what we found on our walk, just before Earth day! An amazing family of owls in Edmonton’s river valley.

Bonus OWLS