Tanglewood Conservatories Blog – Alan Stein's Writings about Custom Conservatory Design and More

The May issue of Garden Design magazine beat me to the punch with the publication of a new Tanglewood project. On page 34, in their section “Style”, there is a photo of a conservatory project we completed which was designed as an office for a publisher and his wife.

An office space is not a usual use for a custom conservatory and this one is quite special. Garden Design magazine calls it a “Dream Office”. There a custom built desk-for-two and a seating arrangement of Mies chairs on a Tibetan carpet all under the ethereal delicacy of an original Calder mobile!

Garden Design notes: “If prefabricated-building kits lie on one end of the spectrum, Tanglewood Conservatories, a Maryland based atelier specializing in the design and construction of custom conservatories and greenhouses, is at the other.”

They go on to say: “Whether a conservatory or a nineteenth-century copper dome you’re after, Tanglewood’s work is the stuff dream offices are made of.”

I had intended to add several new pages to the portfolio section of our website soon- one of which to showcase this particular project. In the meantime, you can see the preview in print.

While thumbing through the magazine, I noticed in the same “Style” section another interesting “office”. It’s an original piece of furniture from the Belgian design firm Colect (011-32-51-40-83-37) called B-uro. The concept behind the piece “was to create a piece of office furniture that doesn’t feel like office furniture.”

With its modern structural simplicity, it reminds me of some of my experimental furniture designs from architecture school. I was very interested in creating beautiful furniture by modifying cardboard boxes into sculptural as well as functional forms. I actually built myself a desk which served me well for quite a few years. I loved the simplicity and the “Small is Beautiful” nature if it- in addition to the fact that it was cheap and I was a student on limited means!

“The B-ero design has an abstract, decorative quality. That one would slip into it to polish off some office paperwork- seems entirely secondary!”

I agree.

Alan

I get a lot of magazines delivered to me, most of which I don’t remember ever subscribing to. The ones that really have nothing to do with our conservatory business I call up and have canceled, like the Journal of Welding (or something like that). I can’t imagine how I got on the list for that one.

But some are relevant and interesting. Of course there are the usual copies of Window & Door, Woodworking and Glass magazines that arrive monthly and sometimes even Fast Company or something really hot.

But recently, I found something called Smart CEO in my box. It was the Baltimore issue and apparently there is also a Washington DC issue. In it I found a lot of the usual stuff, stories of successful young entrepreneurs that make me feel sick with envy, business advice, much of which is common sense or already well understood by anyone who has managed to stay afloat for more than a few years and lots of ads for everyone who wants to help me do everything better.

But in this April 2009 issue, one item stood out. A column called “Interior Matters” written by Alicia Rodriguez. Alicia is founder of Sophia Associates Inc., an “international executive and leadership coaching practice”.

The title of her column was “Creating Mindfulness- running on autopilot will get you to the same old destination”.

I have heard of lots of new age jingle jangle business stuff over the years- and even been involved with some, however I sense that Alicia has digested something quite real.

Her premise is that in today’s uncertain, complex and fast changing world, the clarity and understanding that is required to take qualitatively better action, must come from what is not already “known”.

She talks about the cultivation of a quality called “mindfulness”, which definition she quotes from the Stress Reduction program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center as: “ paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.”

She says: “At its core, mindfulness is about being present to what is right in front of you. It is a quality of attention and heightened awareness, both of your internal landscape and external environment…”

She goes on to note the benefits: “It is only by cultivating this heightened awareness that you can recognize your default patterns and purposefully choose alternative actions rather than react out of …(the same habitual patterns of thinking and behavior that have actually created the situation to begin with).

I was interested to learn that Albert Einstein is credited with saying, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

In short, Alicia points out that “…creation and innovation only occur in the present moment, not in the past and not in the future” and that attention to the present moment is precisely what the cultivation of “mindfulness” is all about.

Her closing remark says it all: “If you think that cultivating mindfulness is just new age fluff, think again. On second thought, don’t think. Just pay attention!

Alan

I came across a quote which I thought apropos to the mass hysteria which seems to have gripped our society.

“Adversity in life is a great gift- if you have the wisdom to see it and the strength to use it.”

Alan

Elizabeth Spurry, a friend of ours who is an excellent financial/investment adviser here in Easton, had some insightful suggestions for would-be investors recently. She is Senior Vice President at Wye Financial & Trust, and though her remarks mainly concerned investment strategies, I thought they were applicable to much more.

She made these points:
1. Understand from the beginning that success is attained by the minority. It is not common, and won’t be achieved by following our natural likes, preferences and prejudices.
2. In the sales profession, we don’t like to call on people who don’t want to see us and talk to them about something they don’t want to talk about. You could apply this to many work areas, especially managing people in times of change.
3. Successful people are influenced by the desire for pleasing results. Failures are influenced by the desire for pleasing methods and are inclined to be satisfied with the results that are obtained by doing the things they like to do.
4. Successful people have a purpose strong enough to make them form the habit of doing things they don’t like to do in order to accomplish the purpose they want to accomplish.
5. When a successful person goes into a slump, don’t talk to them about production, talk about purpose, and they will pull out of the slump faster.

I think these principles can be applied to far more than just the work areas of our lives. I think that the ability to do what ever is required regardless of whether you like it or not or whether it is agreeable to our nature or not, is one of the chief requirements of a happy, satisfying existence on this earth.

Thanks for the tip Elizabeth,

Alan

As the holiday season approaches and my mind turns to the meaning of it all, I came across this apt quote which I want to share with everyone:

“Only that person is worthy to be a follower of any religion who, although he remembers the wrong done to him by someone, will not manifest any evil toward him.”

“Life is Real only then when, I Am”, George I. Gurdjieff (1866- 1949)

Alan