WHAT: The grand opening of GenerousArt.org will raise money for Amala Foundation, Art Alliance Austin, Austin Child Guidance Center, Austin Creative Alliance, Austin School of Film, Big Medium, Cancer Connection, Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, Communities in Schools of Central Texas, Emancipet, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Meals on Wheels and More, Mental Health America of Texas, Open Door Preschools, SafePlace, SIMS Foundation, Sustainable Food Center, and Texas RioGrande Legal Aid.

Featured artists include Stella Alesi, Jennifer Balkan, Jennifer Chenoweth, Virginia Fleck, Carol Hayman, Melanie Hickerson, Carolyn Kimball, Suzanne Lewis, Karen Maness, Richard Mansfield, Wells Mason, Emily Moores, L. Renee Nunez, Andrea Pramuk, Judith Simonds, Annie Simpson, Jade Walker, Sydney Yeager and more.

Listen to live music by the Robert Kraft Jazz Trio, while browsing and buying one-of-a-kind works of art. Come meet global design firm Gensler and tour their new offices in the W Hotel. Refreshments will be served.

WHEN: Thursday, September 29, 2011 from 5:30 p.m. until 8:30 p.m.

WHERE: Gensler
W Hotel, 3rd Floor
212 Lavaca Street, Suite 390
Austin, TX 78701

ENTRY: The event is free and open to the public.

ABOUT GENEROUS ART: The online art gallery is dedicated to donating 40% of sales to local nonprofits, and gives 40% to local artists, seamlessly supporting the Austin community.

ABOUT GENSLER: Gensler is an international group of architects, designers, planners and consultants dedicated to the transformational power of design in improving the quality of life in the communities it serves.

For more information, visit http://www.generousart.org
Contact: Jennifer Chenoweth
Email: generousarttexas@gmail.com
Phone: 512-482-0747

Editor of Metropolis Magazine Susan Szenasy interviewed CMPBS co-directors Gail Vittori and Pliny Fisk in “Q&A: Pliny Fisk II and Gail Vittori.” Gail and Pliny discussed the mission and goals of our organization, the some of the organization’s accomplishments in our 35+ years and the recent release of our compendium, “CMPBS: 35 Years of Serious Commotion.”

Visit the Metropolis website to read the article.

Order CMPBS: 35 Years of Serious Commotion!

CMPBS Co-Director Gail Vittori contributed the article “Greening of healthcare: Location and design of facilities are essential to the mission of health” to Modern Healthcare Magazine’s online edition. In the article Gail discusses the motivation for and development of the LEED for Healthcare rating system, released by the US Green Building Council in April of this year.

The full article is available on the Modern healthcare website.

CMPBS is proud to announce its participation in Generous Art. “Generous Art envisions art purchases as community-oriented transactions — rejecting the idea that art collection is a selfish endeavor or an isolated event. Generous Art replaces time-consuming auction fundraisers with a purchase process that simultaneously funds the artist, a nonprofit and the mission of Generous Art.”

40% of the purchase price of art purchased on GenerousArt.org goes directly to the participating organization of your choice. It is an excellent way to support CMPBS and the Austin artist community.

Visit GenerousArt.org for more information and to purchase art today!

Thank you to all of you who joined us for Bill Roley’s lecture, “Regenerative Design Strategies for Urban Living” on Friday, May 27. We hope you enjoyed learning about Permaculture and the work of the Permaculture Institute of Southern California.

CMPBS would like to extend a very warm thank you to Whole Food Market for their generous donation of snacks and refreshments.

We hope you will continue to check our website calendar for information on upcoming events or join our mailing list below!

The new W Austin Hotel and Residences was honored by Envision Central Texas as one of seven recipients of the Community Stewardship Award. CMPBS serves as the LEED and Sustainability consultant for the W Austin development.

The awards were judged by leading experts in planning, transportation and green space. Fellow recipients include the CAMPO 2035 Regional Transportation Plan, Hutto Lake Park Project, Chestnut Master Plan, and the Austin Strategic Mobility Plan. The award winners were announced at a luncheon ceremony on Friday, May 6, 2011 in Austin. More information is available here.

We are proud to deliver even more praise for our recent publication “Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems: 35 Years of Serious Commotion.” Bill Walsh, Executive Director of the Healthy Building Network use the following kind words to describe the book:

 An inspiring chronicle of how a small group of visionaries can change the world.  A lively historical account that also signals the the future for high performance, highly sustainable building.

- Bill Walsh, Executive Director, Healthy Building Network

Copies of the book are still available for purchase on our book page!

Want to help The Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems and offset your carbon footprint at the same time? Reliant Energy and EarthShare of Texas have launched The Reliant EcoShareSM, a program that allows Reliant customers to support EarthShare of Texas and its participating organizations and help reduce the customers’ carbon footprints through the purchase of carbon offsets.

Here’s how it works: The Reliant EcoShareSM program gives customers the option of two pricing levels:

• For a flat monthly cost of $3.95, a $1 donation is made each month to EarthShare of Texas, and 500 pounds of carbon offsets are purchased.
• Or for a flat monthly cost of $5.95, a $2 donation is made each month to EarthShare of Texas, and 1,000 pounds of carbon offsets are purchased.

CMPBS benefits, because as one of EarthShare of Texas’ participating organizations, a portion of the Reliant donation is shared with us.

Carbon offsets for the Reliant EcoShareSM program meet approved standards to ensure that they represent real, verifiable reductions in greenhouse gases.

The Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems is proud to announce the release of Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems: 35 Years of Serious Commotion. The Limited Edition Compendium chronicles the Protocols, Policies, and Prototypes that emerged from the nation’s oldest sustainable design non-profit organization.To celebrate the release of the book CMPBS will host a panel of four of our favorite alumni who are continuing to work toward a more sustainable future in Central Texas and beyond.

Event Information:

When: Thursday, April 14, 2011
6:30 - 9:00 PM
7 - 8 PM: Panel Discussion
8 - 9:00: Reception and Book Signing

Where: CMPBS
8604 FM 969
Austin, 78724

Drinks and light refreshments will be provided.

This is an outdoor event. CMPBS is a smoke free environment.

$15 Suggested Donation

RSVP to Center@cmpbs.org

Book for Purchase: $100 plus tax (Cash/Check/Credit)

PANEL:

Lucia Athens, ASLA, LEED AP: Chief Sustainability Officer, City of Austin
Lucia Athens has served as a leader in the green building movement for two decades. Recognized internationally as an authority on green practices, she is a licensed landscape architect as well as author of the book, Building an Emerald City: A Guide to Creating Green Building Policies, published in 2010 by Island Press. She began her career on the development team for the City of Austin’s Green Builder program, the first such program in the United States. Since then, she has served on many prestigious and policy-making boards including the U.S. Green Building Council and the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems.

Michael Gatto: Co-Founder and Executive Director, Austin Community Design and Development Center
Michael Gatto is co-founder and Executive Director of the Austin Community Design and Development Center (ACDDC), a 501(c)3 non-profit whose mission is to improve the quality of life for all by providing sustainable design, planning, and development services to low and moderate income individuals, families, and neighborhoods. Prior to founding ACDDC, Michael was intern architect and project manager at Foundation Communities, a regional affordable housing provider, where he completed his architectural internship during his Rose Architectural Fellowship, and was Design Associate at the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems.

Richard MacMath: Sustainable Design Project Manager, HDR Architecture
With over three decades in the architecture profession, Richard has extensive experience in the fields of sustainable architecture, green building, and community sustainability planning. Areas of expertise include climatic design, renewable energy, zero-energy homes, commercial and residential green building, life cycle analysis of green building products, and municipal sustainability plans. Before joining HDR’s Austin office, he served as a Conservation Specialist Sr. with Austin Energy Green Building for over five years. Prior to that, he was the Architect of Record at the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems in Austin for ten years. He began his career in 1974 as co-founder and principal of Sunstructures Architects in Ann Arbor, MI.

Jim Walker: Director of Sustainability, University of Texas at Austin
Jim Walker was appointed the Director of Sustainability for the University of Texas at Austin in April, 2009. The appointment furthers UT’s commitment to a greener campus and to integrating sustainable practices into daily operations, academics and the University’s role within the broader Austin urban area. Before UT, Jim was the Executive Director of the Central Texas Sustainability Indicators Project. Jim worked at the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems from 1993 - 1995 in various construction and digital design roles.

Praise for Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems: 35 Years of Serious Commotion:

“CMPBS’s 35 Years of Serious Commotion is a magnificent oeuvre. I hope it finds many pathways into the minds and hearts of those who want to transform the world and to those who do not understand how transformable the possibilities truly are. “
Paul Hawken - Author, The Ecology of Commerce

“A wonderful book, which chronicles the many contributions of Fisk, Vittori, and CMPBS since 1975. The scale and scope of those contributions are breathtaking. They have undertaken projects from Austin to Haiti and China and beyond to the whole planet. These amazing projects have fundamentally changed how we design with nature.”
Frederick R. Steiner - Dean, University of Texas at Austin, School of Architecture

A very warm thank you to Sim Van der Ryn, President of EcoDesign Collaborative, for his kind words about CMPBS and our commemorative book: “CMPBS: 35 Years  of Serious Commotion”

“This book and the people who created it -Pliny Fisk and Gail Vittori, and thirty five years of work by them and their team, is simply a Work of Nature arriving just in time to provide the planet with the handbook it needs to survive and thrive. Bucky Fuller wrote the first Operating Manual for Planet Earth. CMPBS exceeds our prescient optimist heros’ wildest dreams. Go Planet!”

- Sim Van der Ryn, President, EcoDesign Collaborative

Copies of the book are still available! Visit our book page to purchase your copy today or join us for our Discussion Panel and Book Signing on April 14, 2011!