January 2008 – February 2008: French Quarter Vignettes
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
Client(s): Michael Love

Description:
A magazine devoted to promoting, showcasing and advertising the talents of New Orleans-based artists and writers.  It is a community-oriented publication, aiming to represent the voices of New Orleans in a local, honest, and creative way. This magazine is the inaugural publication of Glass Rhinoceros, a New Orleans-based media company.
Services Rendered:
Developing and writing the magazine's business plan, as well as participating in developing the magazine's operating plan

November 2007 – Ongoing: Jardin Derby (Derby Community Garden)
Location: Mid-City, New Orleans, Louisiana
Client(s): Grasshopper Mendoza and Steve Picou

Description:
Building a community garden on a vacant lot in a residential neighborhood near the New Orleans Fair Grounds, including handicapped accessible raised beds; incorporating a seed library for the preservation of heirloom and native plant species; and creating and utilizing existing community outreach programs
Services Rendered:
Design of garden layout; design of flora used for project, with an emphasis on heirloom species and vegetables that grow extremely well in Southeast Louisiana; setting up a composting system designed to accommodate multiple users; creating the pilot Seed Library for saving and distributing seeds; design of signage and fencing; assistance with creating community garden charter and bylaws

August 2007 – January 2008: Soul Avenger
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana and Kingston, Jamaica
Client(s): Ben E. Hunter

Description:
A New Orleans singer-songwriter's jazz-inspired Reggae album, Soul Avenger, recording and production to take place in Kingston, Jamaica, with a Jamaican backing and touring band. The artist's aim is to marry healing and soul between New Orleans and Jamaica, both recovering from hurricanes and both long-suffering and yet extremely joyful.
Services Rendered:
Developing and writing content for artist's promotional materials, including Soul Avenger's mission statement and artist bio, as well as website text

July 2007 – December 2007: Glass Rhinoceros
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
Client(s): Michael Love

Description:
New Orleans-based media company, serving as an umbrella organization for a film production unit, print publisher, and artist studio; also serving as a foundation to fund local up-and-coming artists, writers, and filmmakers.  This media company serves as the home of the magazine French Quarter Vignettes.
Services Rendered:
Developing and writing the company's business plan; participating in the development of the company's operating plan

January 2008 – January 2010: Schoolyard Beautifications
Location: Various elementary, secondary, and high schools; New Orleans, Louisiana
Client(s): Recovery School District, Care Force Louisiana

Description:
Designing and building schoolyard beautifications, based on the project at Reed Elementary School, for each of the 58 schools overseen by the Recovery School District.  Each project will be unique to the site, soil conditions, student and faculty needs, and community involvement; projects include wetlands, food-producing gardens, butterfly and native plant habitat, and semi-permanent plant installations that may move as the school moves.
Services Rendered:
Design of 58 schoolyard layouts; design of flora used for each of the 58 schools, with an emphasis on Louisiana native plants wherever possible; incorporating gardening and ecology lessons into curriculum requirements; oversight of construction; on-going troubleshooting and consultation

October 2007 – November 2007: Reed Elementary Wetlands
Location: Reed Elementary School, New Orleans East, Louisiana
Client(s): Care Force Louisiana

Description:
Building a wetland on the northeast quadrant of the school property, which is run by the Recovery School District, to help direct flow of storm water run-off; connecting constructed wetland to an existing bayou that runs behind the school; incorporating wetlands ecology into 5th grade science curriculum.  This project also serves as the prototype for an on-going school yard beautification project overseen by the Recovery School District.
Services Rendered:
Design of wetland layout; design of flora used for project, with an emphasis on Louisiana native wetland plants; working directly with the fifth grade science teacher to incorporate wetlands ecology lessons into the curriculum requirements for students entering middle school (sixth grade); oversight of construction; on-going troubleshooting and consultation

October 2006 – March 2007: Community Demonstration Garden Project
Location: Faubourg Marigny (prototype), New Orleans, Louisiana
Client(s): Various New Orleans non-profit organizations

Description:
A community space that is both a working food-producing garden and a learning/teaching project, which can be easily built in and serve neighborhoods throughout New Orleans.  The garden is intended to demonstrate organic gardening techniques, such as composting and bio-intensive use of space; provide an on-going source of food; and serve as a gathering place for groups to perform music and plays, and of course to eat!
Services Rendered:
Designing the prototype garden space; designing community outreach programs for school groups and weekend volunteer service opportunities; designing deliverables to facilitate multiple community demonstration gardens based on prototype (manuals, garden layout suggestions, charter and bylaw templates, etc)

March 2008: San Francisco Eco-City World Summit Design Charette
Location: San Francisco, California
Client(s): In-house Project

Description:
As environmental concerns are becoming more apparent, these design systems are solution-oriented: the Rooftop Solar and Water System is constructed to maximize the available roof space for solar panels while allowing space for rainwater catchment barrels, which provide water for the Food Farm below. Additionally the roof features xeriscape gardens, providing shade for the buildings, keeping them cooler in warm weather and insulated in cold weather. The Courtyard Food Farm takes advantage of an excellent resource: the common backyard space that multiple buildings have access to in the middle of the block. Once dividing fences are removed, the space becomes ample enough to feed everyone on the block, with extra food to be sold at markets or donated to the food bank. The Food Farm utilizes the Bio-intensive garden technique to maximize organic crop yield and keep the soil healthy and fertile.

To read the entire proposal, click here.

November 2007 – Ongoing: Seed Library
Location: World-wide; based in San Francisco, California
Client(s): In-house Project

Description:
In less than 100 years, crop varieties that meet 90% of the world's nutritional needs have been reduced from 1,500 to 30, mostly due to the efforts of agro-corporations.  Seed diversity is essential to ecological health.  There are dozens of small-scale seed saving efforts throughout the United States and the globe; consistency and communication between these groups makes the process of saving seeds empowering and more appealing to larger groups of people.  The project aims to catalogue existing groups undertaking this work, document effective characteristics and processes, and demonstrate methods for creating new seed saving efforts.  The resulting catalogue will also serve as the foundation for bio-regional seed exchange libraries, where information and seeds are easily accessed and free to the public.

August 2007 – Ongoing: Open Source Communications (Idea Salons)
Location: Nation-wide, based in San Francisco, California
Client(s): In-house Project

Description:
The Idea Salons bring people together at functions designed to inspire the free exchange of knowledge, ideas, and information.  These functions include parties, gallery openings, book readings, festivals, and live performances, amongst others, and each addresses a specific theme.  All of the goings-on in each Idea Salon are documented through film, sound recording, journalistic and creatively written reports, and so forth.  This documentation is then used as the basis for a magazine and website, which are essentially databases of creative thought.