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Christopher K. Travis
- Male
- Round Top, Texas
- United States
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- Blog Posts (6)
- Discussions (1)
- Events
- Groups (6)
- Photos (18)
- Photo Albums (2)
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Christopher K. Travis's Groups
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Architecture for Humanit…
16 members
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Design Build Alliance
49 members
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Austin Community Design…
37 members
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AIA DESIGN_VOICE
73 members
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Green Doors
14 members
Christopher K. Travis's Page
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Latest Activity
AfH Austin works to improve the built environment in under funded and struggling communities by promoting good design, organizing devoted volunteers, and teaching others about the building process.
Laura,
We specifically use Truehome with Realtors - so overall the process can be adapted for real estate professionals who want to reduce showings per sale, enhance client retention and referrals etc. - but you are right that is not the particular…
Profile Information
- What do you want to get from Real Community? (Do you want to volunteer, get volunteers, connect with like minded people?) Feel free to expand.
- All of the above, but my main responsibility is founding the Healing Homes initiative. For that project I am interested in finding not just volunteers but like minded leaders - particularly people who are interested in "human centered" design. They could be designers or mental health professionals or people like me who have a leg in both worlds.
- What do you do?
- I am the Managing Partner of Sentient Architecture, LLC - a full service architecture firm with offices in Austin and South Central Texas.
I am the CEO of Nidiant Corporation, a start-up Internet technology company that has developed a web-based software tool that helps consumers and professionals - again architects, interior designers, Realtors etc. - collaborate with both clients and mental health professionals to identify criteria for creating homes that truly fit who people are.
We are out to create healing environments. We have used a manual version of that process in our architecture firm with great success for over a decade. The website - still in beta - is at http://www.truehome.net
I am the publisher of the Round Top Register. I am also a writer. I blog at http://architecture-of-life.blogspot.com.
I lead workshops and seminars for both consumers and design and mental health professionals called the Truehome Workshop. I also offer the same training as a consultant. Part of the benefit of volunteering in the Healing Homes projects is that you get free training in using our programming process.
I also do "identify design" and organizational consulting and offer my human factors based programming services as a consultant to other architecture firms and in business settings.
- What does 'community' mean to you?
- My wife, my children, my extended family, my small town, Austin, Texas, the United States, North America, the Western Hemisphere, the planet earth.
All living things share this planet - so all life is my community.
- Favorite Austin Activities?
- Listening to my kids' band - Dear Henry. Hanging out with smart people and pushing the edge of intellectual discourse - particularly related to big questions like:
What is human?
What is home?
What is the environment?
We paddle a bit too. We have slowed down lately but for many years we were serious canoeists. We pack up and paddle long distances. We have been out 8-10 days+ over ten times in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and in Canada and have paddled most of the rivers in Texas and many other streams around the nation.
I like being the kind of person who make a difference. I have founded or co-founded several non-profits, a library, hunger intiatives and the like. I like hanging out in "black church." I am often the only "pale faced" guy in those African-American congregations. I love gospel and the vitality in that space. I know a lot of the preachers in the rural area in which I live. One of my best friends is a 104 year old African-American Deacon.
I like listening to good music of all kinds, good movies, nature, playing with my grandchildren and coaching people in ways that empower them to make a difference. It is very intimate. That is what is so rewarding about the way I work with clients. I get deep into who they are...and that is a great honor.
- Speak your mind...
- I no longer live in a world with a collapsing economy. I am creating a new one.
In 2009 I am creating a conversation that is more powerful, more fulfilling and more workable. I am creating hope and abundance. I am creating a world in which anything is possible, a world in which people all over the planet make the impossible possible every day. I am creating a life for me and my family in the new paradigm I see building all around me.
You may think I am a pie in the sky idealist, but I argue I am a pragmatist. Think about it. How is that negative story working for you? How do you feel when you wake up in the morning? How do you feel after you finish watching the news? Is something good happening in your life because you are so sure things are bad? I doubt it. Why don’t you give my story a try? It might make you feel better.
The tale I am telling is that the changes going on in our world are the collapse of a tired old way of being and the genesis of a new one that will transform our lives for the better. I am creating a conversation about a new "bottom up" economy in which all are included, one already being built all over the planet by the young and the visionary. I am creating it with my words a system of exchange and value that recognizes our interdependence, that is endlessly and systemically innovative, an economy of infinite possibility, of sufficiency and abundance…an economy that works for everyone.
The conversation I am promoting is that the old is falling away and the new is born. Winter must come before the flowers of Spring can bloom. I am telling the story of a butterfly just beginning to emerge from it chrysalis, its wings not even unfolded yet…a story of the glory of flight.
The tale I am creating is not one of airy-fairy mysticism or soft-hearted idealism. It lives in the material, in the brains and words of human beings. It is a story of hard science, corporate and political realities, a pragmatic evolution forged in technology and human cultural evolution that has been growing for many years. It is a new interpretation of reality that is available to everyone all the time. Real people can act on it in their lives at any moment. It is a conversation that makes things work where they do not, like all new technologies that have value
We are going home, home to our better selves, home to new relationships, new systems of behavior, new technologies and new societal and economic structures. Given the state of the world we have had in the past, that is a good thing.
But before we can move forward, we have to see the debilitating conversation that prevails around us for what it is. We must turn negativity into possibility. We must make our stands for a world that works and act upon them. The old must die before the new can prevail. We must quiet the cruel wind of fear that fills the tattered sails of the sinking ship of excess, failure, scarcity, corruption, partisanship, self-interest and greed that has plagued our country and our world.
We can do this by simply "changing the conversation" because each day, each of us creates his or her own reality.
(Note: This is an excerpt from a longer piece I wrote for my blog at http://architecture-of-life.blogspot.com)
Christopher K. Travis's Photos
Christopher K. Travis's Blog
Healing Homes Post on Architecture of Life
I posted about this project on my blog - Architecture of Life - today. If you want to know more, the url is http://architecture-of-life.blogspot.com/2009/02/designers-and-mental-health-pros-to.html
Posted on February 4, 2009 at 2:40pm —
Wonderful Concept Maps About the New Economy and Sustainability
Hi everyone,
I wanted to share some really wonderful concept maps created for the Davos economic summit that were created by an Indian member of one of the design and sustainability groups in which I participate on the Internet.
Here is the url to his blog where you can download the concept maps I am talking about.
http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2009/02/world-economic-forum-sustainability.html
Here is a link to one of the maps. These are very much worth viewing for anyone interested in… Continue
I wanted to share some really wonderful concept maps created for the Davos economic summit that were created by an Indian member of one of the design and sustainability groups in which I participate on the Internet.
Here is the url to his blog where you can download the concept maps I am talking about.
http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2009/02/world-economic-forum-sustainability.html
Here is a link to one of the maps. These are very much worth viewing for anyone interested in… Continue
Posted on February 2, 2009 at 5:05pm —
Home Is Where the Head Is - New York Times
Here's another article in the New York Times about what we are doing. You have to signup for the free Times to see it if you are not registered.
Posted on January 30, 2009 at 11:53am —
Article on Social and Behavioral Factors in Design at Texas A & M Architecture School
This is an article a lecture I gave at A & M. Sorry, I know that could be controversial in Austin. :) They have a program called the Center For Health Care and Design that does research on "evidence based design," which those of you who work in health care likely know about. I went with a bit of a chip on my shoulder - trying to "disrupt" the students view of architecture to move them more towards "human centered" design principles.
Posted on January 30, 2009 at 11:38am —
Home Is Where the Heart Is - Go Magazine
Here is an article in the In-flight magazine of AirTran Airways about the Truehome approach.
Posted on January 30, 2009 at 11:32am —
Comment Wall (4 comments)
- At 12:49pm on February 22, 2009,
Laura Olesen said… - Christopher, I wrote you a note somewhere else. I'm interested but don't have your phone number to try and call you at some point. If you could pop me an email at laura@urbanspacerealtors.com, I'd appreciate it!
- At 10:28pm on February 10, 2009,
andy schulz said… - Chris, just saw our note, I'll find you tomorrow at the VOICE meeting, if not i'll call you, thanks
- At 2:28pm on February 1, 2009,
andy schulz said…
- Hi Chris! keeping busy? I been doing a whole lot of web designing, miss my architecture design. Let me know if you need a design/interactive design/video/photo or any other cool project, thanks
andy
- At 1:30pm on January 31, 2009,
Eva Schone said… - Thanks so much, Christopher - I very much appreciate your kind words. I also enjoyed the kickoff very much and look forward to working with everyone! Until soon.
Eva
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