The City of the North

Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, is a city of promise. Located midway between Tokyo + NYC, we are situated to capture the untapped potential of this position to become a leading city in the future. Nowadays, we are all virtually and globally connected. In Alaska, you can start your day working in the east coast and close it out in Asian markets. Anchorage is a city with modern creature comforts yet surrounded by an unparalleled natural environment. It is adjacent to world class parks with miles of trails to explore. Anchorage should claim its latent identity as “The City of the North.”

Anchorage’s current motto is “Big Wild Life” and our nickname is “The City of Lights and Flowers.” Our other slogans are “Los Anchorage” and “15 minutes from Alaska.” A historic nickname is “Green Apple of the Arctic.” While these have all helped define our past, none really rings true for our future. Anchorage is home to the world’s fourth busiest airport for cargo. The reason we are a critical hub is also the key to our future. We bridge the Asian and US markets. We provide a live-work balance close to outdoor play. Our future is not oil. Our future is in becoming The City of the North.

To capture the potential all around us we need to do a few key things. First, we need to realize what our strengths are and double down on them. Then, we need to identify our weaknesses and put the smartest teams together to tackle those vulnerabilities. For example, the Port of Anchorage processes ~95% of all consumables for Alaska – if that fails, we are in trouble.

Anchorage is facing many challenges. We have members of our community that are experiencing homelessness. We have major deficits in our housing stock. We can’t compete as a modern city without downtown living or alluring housing for new residents. We should have options to keep our current residents as they age. Alaska functions as an island, acutely in times of emergencies, so we need to boost our self-sufficiency. Our days when we could afford to be lackadaisical are over, we need to think strategically to diversify our lines of revenue.

Anchorage - The City of the North - needs to be activated in both ephemeral and permanent ways. A city has a heartbeat – it breathes and fluctuates over the course of a day and the seasons. Currently, we are flat-lining due to the pandemic, but even before it we were at risk of requiring resuscitation. We need a clear vision of our future to decide how to solve the problems of our present.

I had the privilege to hear Maya Angelou speak at university, where she said, “When you know better, do better.” Let’s be brave when we make choices that define our collective future. We live in the Last Frontier - a land of promise - so let’s embrace it and reclaim our pioneer spirits. In future PSAs, I will provide ideas on how we make this happen.

North to the Future

I have always read our state motto as a definitive statement, one deserving of a finite period after it, as in “North to the Future.” Period. There were never any ifs, ands, or buts about it. Lately, I wonder if there should be a question mark after our state motto, or whether or not we should put “Future” in quotation marks. Perhaps, we should do both?

“Future” refers to time that is still to come – the time right after you read this. It always refers to something that has yet to happen. “North to the Future” alludes to one heading north – making the brave trek up the Alcan to embark on an adventurous new life in the 49th state. Our state motto, adopted in 1967, is meant to represent Alaska as a land of promise.

While we firmly hold onto the first part of our motto, “North,” the latter part is a bit nebulous. “Future” is not nostalgic. As a human race we have to look forward, which is a fundamentally optimistic proposition. As we go about our daily lives, our progress in the present should perpetually make life easier, safer, and brighter for subsequent generations.

In 2020, the road ahead for our beloved state has never been more precarious. Our way forward was unstable before the pandemic hit. We cannot, as we all know, rely on proceeds from oil to fund our state. While this is a scary position, it doesn’t need to be. As a state we get to – rather we have to – decide how to proceed. We have the opportunity to choose, define, and implement our own future. We get to dream – collectively.

What is “Alaska” when it can’t fall back on a bucket of oil money? What does Alaska represent now? What is going to define us? Are we still brave? Are we still pioneers? Can we claim and live up to our state motto? What about our other slogan; The Last Frontier? Generally, this refers to our late addition to the lower 48 as a vast untouched land full of natural splendors. But, what if “The Last Frontier” also meant something else? What if it meant something more?

What if our nickname alluded to one of our latent Super Strengths? What if we used it to recapture the full potential of our state motto? What if “The Last Frontier” represented Alaska as a place of continued exploration? As a place where we push the boundaries of what we assume are givens? What if we used the extremes of our natural environment as catalysts to further the exploration of our built environment? What if we used these givens as tools to further design? What if we became leaders in new fields of study? What if we embodied the untapped potential all around us and capitalized on it to blaze a new trail forward for our state? What if we polished our slightly tarnished allure to regain our position as a state where people bravely relocated looking for opportunity?

Alaska portrays a place filled with potential; a place of dreams; a place for dreamers. It represents a place with a rich indigenous culture. Alaska has boatloads of potential, but no one wants to live in a state with a motto, “North to the ‘Future’?” Let’s choose, as Alaskans, to live in a state with a motto, “North to the Future.” Period. Definitively, without hesitation, let’s look up, let’s look forward, and let’s dream again.

Keep Anchorage Beige

What is beige? Beige is defined as a pale sandy yellowish brown color. 

Synonyms include fawn, buff, khaki, biscuit, sand, café au lait, ecru and taupe. Google dictionary defines a color as the property possessed by an object producing different sensations on the eye - as a result of the way an object reflects or emits light. 

Anchorage, the main city in Alaska, is anchored by a foundation of beige buildings. An argument could be made that a more appropriate name for our city is Anchorbeige. It is by default the Unofficial Color of the Last Frontier. There isn’t anything fundamentally wrong being a city of beige – it’s just when it becomes our uncontrolled default that it may become troublesome. Minimally it elicits curiosity. 

How did we get here? How did we come to live in Beige-land? Was it intentional? Was it accidental?  

Did someone in the Lower 48 accidentally mix up a huge order of paint and then in a panic dump it on Alaska to consume? Did a container full of premixed exterior paint arrive in the Port of Anchorage as a gift from a mysterious donor? Did a developer lose an arm wrestling match or a hand of poker late one night in a bar and get stuck with a boatload of beige paint? Was it handed down to an unsuspecting public through a back room handshake deal?

Does beige possess a technical superior power? Could it possibly adhere more firmly to its substrate? Is it cheaper to make? Is there less pigment in beige paint? Is it lighter weight and therefore less expensive to transport? Does it last longer when battling the elements? Are we trying to blend in with dirty snow and dusty break-up? Were too many of our frontier buildings peed on? Did drunkards throw beer on the side of our walls? Do we assume that white will only get dirty so we might as well start off with a dirty white? Are we afraid we would go snow blind if buildings were white? Would we become disoriented and lose our way in a winter wonderland? 

Did that initial beige move get painted all around town so that our neighbors felt like that was the safe route to take? Just paint it beige - everyone is doing it. Are we trying to hide so tourists don’t fall in love with Anchorage and want to move here? Are we trying to weed out potential residents? Are we (the self-sufficient badass Alaskans) - are we really the lot to play it safe? Did we lose our soul? Our will to live? Are we trying to kill ourselves softly? What happened to our guts? Our brave pioneer blood?!

What defines a “good” color? What about a “safe” one? Or an audacious one? 

Beige is technically a color. But is it also more? Does it represent a place, a feeling, a state of mind? As a color, does it affect our mood? Does it reflect our collective soul? Does it illuminate the ideals of our community? How did we become a city of beige? Is it not curious? Are we not curious? How did we arrive at this status quo? Is beige the least offensive neutral non-color color? Is a developers neighborhood in move in ready beige – is that what we want? Or is that just what was bestowed upon us? If everyone is playing by the same set of safe rules, how do we allow for our differences?  

Technically speaking white is the safest non-color “color” out there. It is achromatic (having no hue) because it fully reflects and scatters all visible wavelengths of light. Due to this inherent trait, it is continually changing according to the natural world around us. It looks different depending on the time of day and changes not only with the course of a day but also with the seasonal changes over the course of a year.

Through our affinity for beige are we trying to hark back to simpler times when we started out as a tent city full of canvas? The frontier tents were quite beautiful in their simplicity and authenticity of materials. There is something exquisite about materials in their natural raw state such as canvas, wood and leather - all in the family of original beige.  

The word beige originated to describe materials in their natural state such as raw untreated wool and leather. In Anchorage, are we naturally beige or are we artificially beige? Is there a difference? Is one better than the other? Does it even matter in the Last Frontier of Beige? Is it safety in beige because when we walk like the neighbors we must be doing something right? 

Are we afraid to compete with our stunningly beautiful natural environment? Maybe the “founding pioneers” wanted the built environment to take an explicitly clear step back? Perhaps a color other than beige would be in direct competition with the natural world and not only distract us from our sunsets but also compete with Mother Nature? The man-made world ( design and architecture ) will never surpass the natural world so maybe we assume that the wisest role would be to concede the challenge before even attempting an appropriate response? Is the thinking that everybody else is doing it therefore it must be right? Beige must be the way forward? Did we unwittingly rewrite our state of Alaska motto from “North to the Future” to become “North to the Beige.” Did Alaska the Last Frontier accidentally become Alaska the Last Frontier in Beige? Is this the legacy that we want to stake our claim to? Is this the legacy we want to leave behind for our children? Is this the impression we want to leave with our visitors? 

Beige is one of the lowest common denominators of our built environment. It is ubiquitous to our manmade surroundings. It is neutral. It is safe. It is easy.  

Are we the Switzerland of the north? Do we stake no claim or are we staking our claim as a neutral play-it-safe city of the north? Does playing it safe and taking the neutral ground align with the pioneer spirit of our state? Do we miss our days as a raw canvas tent city? Are we concerned with the solar gain that would happen with a darker color? Is beige an environmentally friendly move made to save cooling costs in the summer? But what about in the winter when we might want more of a solar gain? 

To beige or not to beige, that seems to be our perpetual question in the Last Frontier.  

“Courage is knowing what not to fear.” Plato

Stay safe. Stay beige…  

Love, Agent 009 

Delivered for Anchorage’s Design Week September, the 15th 2018 by Agent Bond at the Anchorage Museum for Pecha Kucha hosted by the Alaska Design Forum.

Listen to Agent Bond deliver along with the accompanying slideshow on YouTube HERE.

On Atmosphere

The Body + The Senses:

We experience space through our body.

Our senses; sight, sound, touch, taste and smell help us mediate through our everyday. Our natural environment consists of a set of fundamental givens such as gravity, wind, light, rain, fire and earth. Our built environment employs a set of building blocks to mediate and control these natural givens in a way that hopefully helps define our everyday.

We all have bodies and senses - some more tuned in than others but regardless… it is common ground that unites us.

The Human Scale:

Architecture creates the built environment – of primary purpose to mediate between our bodies and the natural environment.

The experiential aspect of the built environment is fundamentally tied to the scale of the human body. We can refer to historical references like Leonardo Da Vinci’s the Vitruvian man or Le Corbusier’s Modular man. We can also just refer to our own personal experiences.

It’s a given of how we experience space as we can only do so by processing the surroundings through our own personal bodies.

Ephemeral Activation:

Our built environment is meant to house our human activities and elevate our experiences.

The underlying beauty of architecture is during the intersection of the natural with the built environment and the activation that occurs mediating between the two. Elements within the natural world are continually changing over the course of a day, the seasons, the weather and the community.

Since our built environment typically is interacting with our continually changing natural one and experience is tied to our individual bodies moving within a space – our true sensory experience is an ephemeral one. 

The Feeling of a Place:

A memorable atmosphere is one where the design elements activate all our senses. When our body and its senses are activated towards a mutual goal the experience becomes a harder to define emotional one rather than a scientific one.

The feeling of a place is tied into the atmosphere of that space. The rest of our senses kick in to help define the experiential atmosphere of a given place. A holistic well-defined space activates all our senses.

A cohesive sensory plan takes into account how light hits a material, how that material feels when you touch it, how that material might absorb or amplify sound, how the material smells. Maybe it’s cedar. Maybe it’s stone that smells a certain way when it gets wet. Maybe it’s a steam shower of unsealed stone that shows wet feet print and becomes heavy with scented steam while in use. Maybe it’s the sound of the steam being released into the air that cuts the heavy silence. Maybe it’s piped in music. Maybe it’s a light mist from a rain shower that sets the background noise or maybe it’s muffled footsteps in the distance. Maybe it’s watching the light dance and try to cut its way through the thick steam.

Maybe it’s all of these things together that define the experience.

Let There Be Light:

Light is the most easily evident continually changing element. Both natural and artificial sources are employed throughout the course of a day to help define our spaces, activities and lives. Our sight tends to be our most dominant sense and we rely heavily on it to help us see our surroundings.

Living up north as most of us do, we become intrinsically aware of the importance of light in our everyday.

Whether it is the summer solstice when we have an abundance of natural light or winter solstice when a single lit candle can provide a relatively large experiential impact – we know in our bones the importance of light. Living in a such a state of continually changing days going from one extreme to another, most of us develop a heightened sense of awareness to our experience of space through the fundamental element of light.

The Sun, The Switch + Fire:

All sources of light - solar - lunar - artificial - fire (big like a bonfire and small like a candle) - act to illuminate the things around us.

Light gives shape to space. It helps create and define an atmosphere. Light interacts with materials. It implies the texture of things. It might indicate that an object is fuzzy or hard. It might highlight the reflectivity of a material to extend the feeling of the space through a reflection.

Light can even capture atmospheric qualities from fog and obscure the sight. In situations of darkness, a single cut through a material can produce a highly dramatic activation of space. Light when limited and controlled helps strategically define how a space feels. Light can make a space feel cozy and comfortable or creepy and intimidating. Even the specific color temperature of light can hugely impact our impressions – and make the same space feel either residential and warm or commercial and cold.

Our Latent Potential:

In Alaska, this heightened sense of experience honed in by living in a natural environment of extremes gives us as a collective community the latent potential to capitalize on our unique set of givens.

We are intrinsically and inherently primed as a community to use design - that mediation device between us and our world – as a tool to define our ideals of what it means to be a human body interacting with other human bodies and with the natural world around us. We have the potential ability to tap into our collective senses – minimally already heightened to light – to help make us more tuned in to other sensory experiences.

Design is the ultimate tool to employ in addressing issues facing us individually, collectively, privately, publicly, pragmatically and inspirationally. This tool can be implemented to help elevate our everyday.

Follow the Light:

Let there be light whether it be from the sun, a LED, a bonfire, a candle or maybe even from within. Without light we live in darkness and no one likes to be left in the dark… unless of course you have the tools to mediate it.

I want to end with a quote by Peter Zumthor:

“In a fragment of a second you can understand: Things you know, things you don’t know, things you don’t know that you don’t know, conscious, unconscious, things which in a fragment of a second you can react to: we can all imagine why this capacity was given to us as human beings - I guess to survive. Architecture to me has the same kind of capacity. It takes longer to capture, but the essence to me is the same. I call this atmosphere. When you experience a building and it gets to you. It sticks in your memory and your feelings. I guess thats what I am trying to do.” 

Delivered on January, the 5th 2018 by Julia Foland at the Anchorage Museum for the inaugural Pecha Kucha hosted by the Alaska Design Forum.