This past winter, I had the opportunity to teach a Visual Studies workshop at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation entitled “Montage City: Filmmaking as Urban Observation.” The point of the workshop was to encourage students of architecture to engage with the collection and arrangement of moving images as an exercise in interpreting the existing conditions of urban space. As a formal strategy, cinematic montage — the juxtaposition of distinct moving images to form a cohesive whole — is uniquely suited to the study of urbanism, particularly for designers learning how to propose sensitive and sophisticated interventions in the landscape.

11 students went out and documented New York locales far and wide, from City Island to Roosevelt Island, from Willets Point to the Inwood Railyards. While the methodological framework of the workshop invoked site analysis, the sites in question were not bounded in the terms of a real or imagined architectural or urban design project. Rather, the focus was on a slightly larger scale: the scale of experience that corresponds roughly to the size of a small neighborhood; or, the scale at which New Yorkers are typically able to identify a particular look and feel for a particular place.

Students were encouraged to investigate these ineffable essences in repeated visits, by shooting video of people doing things (such as shoveling snow or fixing bait to a fishing pole), of people moving through space (such as commuting on the Roosevelt Island Gondola or driving over the Brooklyn Bridge), and of details of the built environment (such as housing stock or streetscape design). Some of the sites, like Willets Point, Coney Island or Admiral’s Row at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, are facing large-scale redevelopment; others, like City Island or 138th Street in Harlem, are buffeted by subtler and slower forces of urban change. All of the sites students chose to document are undergoing some form of transformation, yet these videos are less about preserving a moment in time than about interpreting what makes a place feel a certain way.

Check out three of the student videos below:

Coney Island by Julie Jira
Julie Jira’s exploration of Coney Island opens with a subway journey to the end of the line that literally and figuratively frames her gaze on a storied landscape defined by the interaction between natural and built components: gulls alighting on docks, fishermen preparing for a catch, children playing along the shoreline. The video manages to resist the visual clichés of Coney Island without abandoning careful observation of the neighborhood’s icons: the boardwalk, the rides, the beach.

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Willets Point by Andrew Kim
For his video, Andrew Kim lit out for Willets Point and captures a mundane task we can all relate to, digging a car out after heavy snow. In the Iron Triangle, however, with its concentration of auto body shops, scrapyards and potholes and its lack of sidewalks, sewers or the kind of stormwater drainage systems found elsewhere in the city, the rhythms of daily life are highly specific. With a subtle and consistent approach to sound as a formal element, this video sketches a brief portrait of a unique urban context and repeatedly refers to the neighborhood’s points of contact — trains entering, cars leaving, airplanes flying overhead — with the city and world beyond its borders.

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Brooklyn Bridge by Alok Shetty
In Alok Shetty’s paean to a beloved landmark, the architectural iconicity of the Brooklyn Bridge coexists with its functional role as a vital part of the city’s traffic system. By cleverly switching between these two modes of looking at the bridge, underscored by his use of timelapse videography and music, his video articulates both the crucial necessity and the timeless indeterminacy of infrastructure.

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These days, most use of moving images in architectural practice seems to prioritize illustrating a potential future: the proposed result of a design project as visualized by an animated fly-through or 3D massing diagram. “Montage City” was intended to get architecture students thinking about how to use the craft of nonfiction filmmaking to look closely at what’s there already and to represent aspects of urban form and experience that are not always captured in traditional site analysis: the actions and interactions of individuals; the relationship of light and shadow; the interplay of texture, shape, pattern and line; the inextricability of the social and physical attributes of the urban fabric.

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Cassim Shepard is the editor of Urban Omnibus. He makes non-fiction media, especially films and video, about architecture and urbanism. He lives in Brooklyn.

Top image: Row 1 (left to right): Ji-Hye Ham (Hunters Point), David Anderson (City Island) | Row 2: Julie Jira (Coney Island), Mary Calvani (Roosevelt Island), Cristina Nguyen (Admiral’s Row at the Brooklyn Navy Yard) | Row 3: Alok Shetty (Brooklyn Bridge), Kooho Jung (Inwood Railyards), Rachel Barnard (138th Street) | Row 4. Andrew Kim (Willets Point), Seungwon Song (Inwood Railyards), Irene Brisson (Columbia University Campus)

Man and the Machine | Click on any image to see more of Mallon’s work

Stephen Mallon is a photographer invested in capturing extraordinary moments in the industrial landscape and the surreal beauty of the machines and sites that populate it. But the projects Mallon documents aren’t your everyday construction sites. “Next Stop Atlantic” follows an MTA recycling program that uses retired subway cars, stripped and cleaned, to rebuild underwater reefs along the eastern seabed. “Brace for Impact: The Salvage of Flight 1549″ documents the recovery of the US Airways airbus, piloted by Captain “Sully” Sullenberger, that landed in the Hudson River in 2009 after a collision with a flock of geese resulted in engine failure. In “A Bridge Delivered,” one of his time-lapse projects, Mallon shows us the delivery and installation of the new Willis Avenue Bridge, crossing the Harlem River to connect Manhattan and the Bronx. Most recently, Mallon completed “Volare,” a series of images following the construction of a new roller coaster on Coney Island. We recently had an opportunity to talk to Mallon about his work, the underappreciated beauty of engineering and how photography can provoke contemplation of industry and our natural environment — and their unexpected convergences.

An exhibition of Mallon’s series “Next Stop Atlantic” will be presented at the Look3 Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville in June 2011, and will also be on display at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey later this summer. In spring 2012, “Brace for Impact: The Salvage of Flight 1549” will be exhibited at Webster University in St. Louis. “A Bridge Delivered” has been selected for inclusion in this summer’s Rooftop Films Summer Series here in New York City.

Volare, Coney Island | Click on any image to see more of Mallon’s work

How do you conceive of or identify your projects? What does it mean to you to be an “industrial photographer,” as you’ve described yourself in the past?

I am attracted to a lot of different subjects in the industrial world. I just finished a project documenting the construction of a new roller coaster for the Wall Street Journal. It’s the first new coaster in Coney Island in over 50 years. A few months ago, I was in Brazil on a commission to photograph on an offshore drilling platform for a series titled “Petrobras.”

I am hoping to be in a number of recycling plants over the coming months. I move from commission to commission, along with continuing my long term project “American Reclamation,” which is a series of images about material and space reuse in the 50 states.

But I am actually getting away from identifying myself as “an industrial photographer.” I realized, after framing my work that way, that people saw me as someone who was shooting only the box on a conveyor belt.

It seems that you have a particular interest in recycling and salvage. How did that interest develop?

I have been shooting industrial landscape work for almost all of my life. I got away from it during university, but in the late ’90s I started finding the antenna and the oil container really appealing again. After a meeting with a book agent to publish a collection of my work, I realized I needed a project to focus on. Recycling was a natural fit!

Next Stop Atlantic | Click on any image to see more of Mallon’s work

Tell us about “Next Stop Atlantic.” This series documents an MTA program that recycles retired subway cars by using them to create artificial reefs — “moments of violent recycling,” as you’ve described it. How did you find out about the project?

I was out scouting a location for a portrait in New Jersey when I recognized a barge loaded with subway cars sitting in a shipyard in Bayonne. The yard was owned by maritime contractor Weeks Marine. I sent them information about my recycling project, and the MTA and Weeks let me follow the subway cars out into the Atlantic Ocean. I spent just shy of three years going out on multiple trips.

The moment the car hits the water there’s this Titanic-esque moment when the water overtakes the car as it sinks. It’s incredibly fast — from the moment it’s picked up and thrown overboard for the fishes. The change from seeing steel lying on a barge out in the Atlantic to watching water rush in as it hits the ocean is quite dramatic.

Brace for Impact: The Salvage of Flight 1549 | Click on any image to see more of Mallon’s work

In a lot of your work, bodies of water play an important role. In your series “Flight 1549,” you document the recovery of the US Airways airbus that famously landed in the Hudson River in 2009 after a collision with a flock of geese caused its engines to fail. Are you particularly attracted to maritime industrial subject matter?

It just keeps calling my name. Similar to shooting objects placed on a white background or against the sky, water isolates the machine.

How did you get interested in creating “A Bridge Delivered,” your time-lapse video of the delivery and installation of the new Willis Avenue Bridge? Did you know immediately that you wanted to document it?

Weeks Marine has a construction division and they gave me a call last summer to see if I would want to come out to shoot it. I knew immediately that I wanted to document it!

A Bridge Delivered from stephen mallon on Vimeo.

Over 30,000 images comprise “A Bridge Delivered,” but in your still photographs the individual moments you capture are very precise. Did you think about these two projects very differently, or did your photographs suggest how best to portray the idea?

Yes, the process of telling a story in motion has been a change for me. I used to look for one or a few images to encapsulate the event. Now I am looking for clips, longer moments in time to keep the viewer engaged and the story running.

Practically speaking, how do you negotiate such immediate access to your subjects? How do you get as close as you do?

Having the existing body of work has made clients and locations much more comfortable. They see that other people have trusted and commissioned me in the past, which boosts their confidence.

American Reclamation | Click on any image to see more of Mallon’s work

How would like your photography to affect or inform the way your viewing public sees or considers the city and its infrastructure?

Some people are horrified about the artificial reef program, but I think it’s because they don’t know the details about how it is designed to help the environment. I am fortunate that I have been able to photograph these historical projects that are all tied to New York — my interest is in making unique images of historical moments. The response to these projects has been amazing and I am truly grateful.

What types of projects are you working on now?

I’m designing a remote camera that will let me shoot hi-res time-lapse footage from any location for an extended period of time — I’ll have more details soon! I am also conceptualizing my own proposal for an artificial reef. But that is going to take some time!

Man and the Machine | Click on any image to see more of Mallon’s work

All photos courtesy of and copyright Stephen Mallon

Most people look at work sites and machinery and see nothing more than concrete and steel. Stephen Mallon looks at them and sees both a surreal beauty and the wonder of their engineering. His work has been exhibited widely and featured on numerous websites, in print and on TV and radio, including National Public Radio, Flavorwire, The Atlantic, Fast Company, the Wall Street Journal, GQ, Wired, New York Magazine, NBC, Vanity Fair and CBS News. Stephen has traveled everywhere from Africa to Brazil, searching out artificial landscapes and industrial footprints. He has also been commissioned by a wide range of clients, including the Sunday London Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Publicis, Sudler & Hennessey, and MAYTAG. Mallon’s photos have been honored by Communication Arts 2008 and 2009, the New York Photo Festival 2009 and the Lucie Awards 2009. Since 2002, he has been a board member of the New York chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers and served as president from 2006 to 2009. He lives in New York with his wife and their young daughter.

Transit Efficiency
The watchdog group Citizens Budget Commission has released a report evaluating the MTA’s budget efficiencies, noting, surprisingly, that the subway system is one of the most efficient in the nation and offers the lowest cost per passenger trip. It’s not all good news for the agency — our bus and commuter rail systems seem to be two of the least efficient in the US. Second Ave. Sagas has more on the CBC’s findings, or you can download a PDF of the full report here.
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America's Great Waters | via nwf.org

City Harbor: Officially Great
This week we spoke with two of people responsible for keeping our local waterways safe and functioning. It looks like they’re doing a good job — the New York/New Jersey Harbor has been designated one of “America’s Great Waters” by the America’s Great Waters Coalition, an alliance of national, regional, state and local water-related organizations. The coalition seeks to restore natural glory to selected bodies of water and, by elevating the profile of each individual ecosystem, to advance regional priorities in the national political spotlight. Other great waters include the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River, the Everglades and the Chesapeake Bay, all with active remediation strategies.
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City Council Passes Roof Efficiency Bills
The New York City Council just passed three new Green Building bills developed by the Green Codes Task Force to encourage more energy efficient roofs in NYC, as part of a larger effort to remove bureaucratic obstacles to green development in the city. Starting in 2012, the first bill will require that all newly constructed buildings and renovations to older buildings’ roof materials (where more than 50 percent or 500 square feet is being replaced) will be more reflective to absorb less heat in summer months and more emissive in cooler weather. Taking effect immediately, the second bill changes the building code to exclude rooftop solar installations from buildings’ height limitations. And the third adds heat and power systems to the list of allowable rooftop structures.
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Coney Island Boardwalk | Photo by Flickr user blhphotography

Coney Island’s Concrete- and Plastic-walk
Coney Island’s iconic boardwalk has come under threat by a recent Parks Department proposal to replace a third of the wooden boardwalk with recycled plastic lumber. On March 21st, Community Board 13 voted against that proposal, which was an alternative to an even more extreme plan to convert all 3 miles of the boardwalk into concrete. The City is basing their concrete-leaning stance on cost benefits and the need for car-ready surfaces along the boardwalk. Coney Island’s community board will receive another revised plan next month to deliberate further.
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City Chickens
With urban farming on the rise in the city, Just Food has taken their City Chicken program to another level by offering community groups live chickens for egg production. The program builds coops for the groups and provides 3-20 chickens for them to raise in community gardens or other spaces across the city. Aspiring backyard chicken farmers take note: this year’s deadline for City Chicken applications is April 15th.
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Coming Up
The Center for Architecture is hosting their monthly Oculus Book Talk this Monday, April 11th from 6-8pm, with Witold Rybczynski, author of Makeshift Metropolis: Ideas about Cities, to discuss the evolution of urban planning theory and practice today from the twentieth century.

Also on Monday night, Pete’s Candy Store is hosting a talk on “The Once and Future Squatter,” with the Lower East Side Squatter Homesteader Archive Project, Matt Metzgar (Director) and Peter Spagnulo (Co-founder). The evening will address current efforts by squatters and homesteaders to create a research archive “from the ground up” — collecting, preserving and organizing the evidence of an underground, insurgent movement — as well as the significance such a collection may have for scholars and the public.

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Click the image above to launch a slideshow of "Coney Island." All photos copyright Jeff Goldberg/Esto.

I have been making paper sculpture since 2006. I was influenced by the dollhouses that I watched my aunt and uncle create when I returned home to Japan on vacation. They made me realize a love of miniature worlds.

I am from Osaka. My miniature worlds are patterned after Japan and New York, but also an imaginary place.

I fold and glue pieces of colored paper to create 3D sculpture with a special focus on small details. That is the most interesting part for me to work on.

The concept of my work could be expressed as “Feel as if you are here.” I hope to provide small happiness and kindness to people through my art work.

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The views expressed here are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.

Union Square is the latest stretch of Broadway that might soon become another one of Bloomberg’s “signature open-air concrete parks,” pedestrianized and plaza-ified like Times Square and Herald Square. The proposal will be presented on Monday to the local community board, and the NYC Transportation Department is currently considering the plan’s proposal to ban vehicular traffic along Broadway between 17th and 18th streets and to “reshuffle traffic patterns” around the square.

The New York times reports on the recent release of the New York City Transit’s yearly station-by-station breakdown of subway ridership. They’ve embedded the statistics into a pretty awesome interactive subway map – when you slide your cursor over a particular subway stop, the map displays the average number of daily riders in 2009 and the percent change since 2008. While transit officials attribute the decline to construction, economists tend to identify unemployment as the real issue.

Amongst the sea of thousands of smart phone applications available today, architecture-related app’s remain difficult to track down. So, Architectural Record has the run-down on the growing number of apps for architects, including “Project Photo”, which connects your iPhone photos of buildings with their architectural plans; “Concrete Calc”, which calculates the amount of concrete necessary for a project; and “EcoFlash”, which provides flash cards for LEED exam test-prep. “Dual Level” even turns your iPhone into a construction tool — it allows your phone to act as a level and measure when a surface is horizontal.

NY1 has featured the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center’s online software modeling system that offers a 4-D model of the World Trade Center redevelopment. The modeling software allows viewers to see 3-D renderings of the project’s estimated future progress at various points in time (the fourth dimension!) While the software was developed primarily for construction coordination, the LMDD is currently incorporating the 4-D modeling system into their website, which will allow residents to plan their lives around the development.

If you want to learn more about the World Trade Center redevelopment and other megaprojects, check out the New School’s summer course, “The Politics of Urban Megadevelopment.”  The urban planning class — that Curbed describes as “Development Battles become Homework” – will be based on some of the city’s most controversial megaprojects and will examine Atlantic Yards, the World Trade Center rebuilding, and the Jets Stadium/Hudson Yards proposal, among others.

Coney Island Dream from Joshua Brown on Vimeo.

Debates surrounding the future of Coney Island have raged for years, and many have voiced their concerns about the area’s demise. BoingBoing features photographer Joshua Brown’s beautiful and eerie short film that presents a wintery and seemingly-abandoned Coney Island. Scouting New York recently posted “Abandoned Coney Island,” a photo essay that ventures inside the now derelict Bank of Coney Island building. Those worried about the decline of amusements in the area might enjoy this animated virtual tour of Luna Park, the new amusement park set to open this Memorial Day. Located on 6.9 acres of land that the city bought from developer Joe Sitt for over $95 million, the park will feature 19 new rides, including a “Wild River” ride inspired by the original park’s ride, “Shoot the Chutes,” which you can see in all its 1903 glory below:

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Proposed designs for the Kosciuszko Bridge, via NYTimes.com, c. NYSDOT

For all the Pecha Kucha fans out there — or for anyone interested in stepping out for a good cause — Global Pecha Kucha Day for Haiti is tomorrow, Saturday, February 20th. Pecha Kucha events will be taking place in 200 cities worldwide, in the hopes of raising one million dollars, all of which will go to Architecture for Humanity’s rebuilding efforts in and around Port-au-Prince. New York has an impressive line-up of presenters, including Steven Holl, Iwan Baan, Stefan Sagmeister, Craig Dykers, and more, all of whom will be presenting in standard PK style: 20 slides for 20 seconds each. Not in New York? Check out the list of other participating cities and see who is on the roster for your local event.

New York City is one step closer to its first new bridge since the Verrazano. The NYSDOT has released four conceptual designs for the new Kosciuszko Bridge, complete with video simulation, and is asking the public to vote on their favorite. Comments and votes are being accepted through the project’s website, via email, and during public review sessions (one more is scheduled for next Wednesday).

Popular Science has jumped on the ever popular how-to-fix-our-totally-broken-infrastructure bandwagon with a new feature essay. The article, which describes new technological developments, is cleanly divided into five different problem areas: transport, water, power, telecom and sewage. Nifty inventions include a scanner that attaches to the bottom of taxis that relays information on road condition back to a city database, a new paving technique that could apparently reduce accidents by 70% in inclement weather, and water laced with non-threatening bacteria that glows to indicate toxins. Some cities are making efforts to combat the recession through civic spending on the very problems Popular Science addresses. The Dirt reports that the city council of Portland, Oregon has just announced $613 million in funding for future bike infrastructure investment to their city over the next 20 years. The article also notes that Los Angeles is said to be seriously considering a huge new fund to expand self-propelled transport.

Luna Park Entrance, via nyc.gov

The Mayor’s office unveiled new plans for three parcels of land in Coney Island this week: Luna Park and the Scream Zone. The city, in conjunction with Central Amusement International, plans on opening Luna Park by Memorial Day of this year and the Scream Zone by summer 2011. Bloomberg has promised 330 new jobs, an emphasis on local hiring, and significant infrastructure investments — and a human slingshot. (Speaking of dangerous-sounding Coney Island rides, Boing Boing uncovered a 1931 article about the safety mechanisms implemented in classic Coney rides.) Then, for international amusement park news, check out Treehugger’s profile of the Ghost Train Park in Lima, Peru, a repurposed public space designed by Basurama using an abandoned electric train line and reused or recycled materials.

If anyone has trouble believing that the way we construct our built environment has significant impact on a large scale, take a look at this report by The Ecological Society of America. Québécois biologist André Desrochers has found that landscape changes caused by humans have altered the wing shapes of songbirds in the northeastern region North America in only the past hundred years. Apparently this is consistent with the “habitat isolation hypothesis.”  In other words, the patterns of human settlement have directly caused songbird evolution in a biological attempt to mitigate the negative effects of habitat change. Ponder that over the weekend.

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The city has been abuzz with news of the Bloomberg administration’s $95.6 million deal with Thor Equities for 6.9 acres in Coney Island. Read about the details in the city’s press release or the New York Times, and then check out the land in question from a bird’s-eye view (toy helicopter’s-eye view, actually) in this lovely video tour of Coney by Jason Lam (embedded above, via Gothamist). Now that the announcement has been made, the city is charging forward – requests for proposals are already going out.

Things aren’t quite as busy everywhere – Brownstoner tells us that the Department of Buildings’ stalled construction site count is continuing to climb. The latest report lists 527 dormant lots across the five boroughs.

Coney Island isn’t the only competing plan Bloomberg has been advocating for. The mayor is also fiercely defending his plan to clean up the Gowanus without the need for Superfund designation. Matt Chaban at the Architect’s Newspaper breaks down the city’s plan and looks at what it might mean for the city.

Karrie Jacobs, who was kind enough to join in on the fun at last month’s Atlantic-Pacific meet-up, also has some ideas for the highway system. Read her editorial in the Times where she imagines “a kind of adaptive reuse” for the Interstate.

On Tuesday the 17th Transportation Alternatives kicks off its new campaign at BAMCinematek with Biking Rules PSA Film Festival, a night of films that promote safe, civic-minded cycling in NYC, with prizes for jury-selected winners and free beer from Brooklyn Brewery for all.

The Roundup keeps you up to date with topics we’ve featured and other things we think are worth knowing about.

So, Mayor Bloomberg will be mayor for a third term. What will this mean for the architecture, planning and urban design that have received more policy attention from his administration than from previous ones? Thoughts, opinions, predictions? Send them our way.

Some will undoubtedly answer that question by pointing to megaprojects, such as Hudson Yards or Atlantic Yards, which have proved to be one of the pressure points of urban policy in the last eight years. A city always looking for creative ways to leverage market forces to develop local economies? A city in hock to developers? A city always reinventing itself? A city in paralysis? These themes and others are sure to be discussed at a major symposium taking place tomorrow convened by the Institute for Urban Design and its inimitable executive director, Omni-advisor Olympia Kazi. Arrested Development: Do Megaprojects Have a Future? will take place Saturday, November 7th at the Great Hall at Cooper Union, from 9:30am to 4:30pm. The roster of speakers – including stimulus-critic and train station aficionado Vishaan Chakrabarti – is a huge draw.

Another meeting of the minds that is sure to appeal to those of you passionate about transit is taking place at Barnard next week. Rights of Way: A New Politics of Movement in New York City will “examine the issues surrounding bikes and pedestrianization, and will explore sustainability, finance, public health, and the ways in which the street can serve as a fulcrum in debates about public space and urban life.” Next Thursday, November 12th in the James Room on the 4th floor of Barnard Hall (Broadway at W. 117th). Free and open to the public.

We’re always on the lookout for newfangled technologies and ideas, especially as they start getting installed and tested. East Londoners are the guinea pigs this time, as Pavegen Systems has installed a panel of energy-generating pavement on a busy stretch of sidewalk. The claim is that “just five slabs spread over a lively sidewalk has the ability to generate enough energy to illuminate a bus stop throughout the night,” so you can imagine the potential applications. The folks at MIT first brought this idea to our attention with their work on Crowd Farming, and it seems like harvesting energy from human motion is an approach ripe with possibilities. You can get all kinds of piezoelectric by dancing, driving, commuting, or even by walking through a door.

For one high-visibility project that we’ve been following, Coney Island, the question has been whether it will stay a mega-playground or become a mega-mall. The City came closer to ensuring that some of Coney’s most iconic amusements will remain in perpetuity with the Economic Development Corporation’s bid for the Wonderwheel.

Another way to fuse the recreational, architectural and the political is to… have a slumber party? An Arkitektur, a Berlin-based group of design radicals, will be hosting a live-in conference on Oppositional Architecture from the 12th to the 21st of November at a loft in Dumbo (Gair Building No 6, 81 Front Street). The discussions (and dinner parties) that will emerge while the group is in residence all critique the politics and production of space in capitalist society, and we’re especially looking forward to a discussion between economist David Kotz and architect Teddy Cruz on Saturday, November 14th. We were tipped off to this by Bryan Bell, who knows what it means to practice design as activism.

We’ll leave you with some further reading: Geoff Manaugh has tackled the question: Who would want to be an architect?, in response to an article by the same name in the Times. The piece is worth reading in its entirety, but here’s a taste that might spark interest in the Omni-fans out there: “architecture is the imaginative production of future worlds even as it is the act of building houses for the urban poor or the obtaining of technical skills necessary for rationally subdividing office floorplates.” If you’re on our site, you probably agree, and would expand the definition even more. Curiosity about the complexity of the architecture and design fields, and the infinite ways that design affects the world around us, is what gets us out of bed in the morning. Geoff concluded with a call for discussion – go join in.

Photo by Flickr user Herschell Hershey. The Roundup keeps you up to date with topics we’ve featured and other things we think are worth knowing about.