Guest Curator: Brad Davison-Rippey
We’ve invited members of our TEDxDesMoines community to “guest curate” a blog post highlighting their favorite TED and TEDx talks, and tell us how the talks have inspired them to turn ideas into action. If you’re interested in sharing via a guest post, please e-mail TEDxDesMoines@gmail.com.
Guest Curator: Brad Davison-Rippey, lead systems architect at Architectural Wall Systems, which works with architects to assist in building smarter, 
sustainable building envelope systems. Rippey’s prior architectural work includes Jasper Winery. He is also the editor of the re-designed Iowa Architect, the official magazine of the American Institute of Architects, Iowa Chapter.
Favorite TED talk: James H Kunstler Dissects Suburbia. (Fair warning, James does drop a couple of f-bombs)
Favorite quotes from the talk:
“I like to call it ‘the national automobile slum.’ You can call it suburban sprawl. I think it’s appropriate to call it the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world.”
“The public realm in America has two roles: it is the dwelling place of our civilization and our civic life, and it is the physical manifestation of the common good. When you degrade the public realm, you will automatically degrade the quality of your civic life and the character of all the enactments of your public life and communal life that take place there.”
“Consumers are different than citizens. Consumers do not have obligations, responsibilities and duties to their fellow human beings. As long as you’re using that word consumer in the public discussion, you will be degrading the quality of the discussion we’re having. And we’re going to continue being clueless going into this very difficult future that we face… Please go out and do what you can to make this a land full of places that are worth caring about.”
What resonated with you about this speaker’s message?
James Kunstler’s words are a battle cry to everyone responsible for shaping the environments where we live, work and play. He points out where we are failing at the basic lessons of good place-making here in the United States. He also makes the case for a more sustainable future by making cities more compact, walkable, and eventually more healthy.
Where do you go to find inspiration?
I often venture to my library of books, check out TED or have an inspiring dialogue with my wife or one of my colleagues. Watching my wife, Erin, care for the garden inspires me to be a good steward of the earth we live on in all aspects of life.
Do you apply anything you learned from this video to your personal or professional life? If so, how?
Yes, Erin and I have converted our back yard into a huge organic vegetable garden and are slowly converting our Beaverdale home into an urban homestead, efficiently using the land we have for our needs and to be better neighbors.
Every time I approach a design problem, I look at how I can make it better, more efficient and limit it’s impact on the earth.
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