Category: N Carolina
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Using Design to Address Homelessness through Transitional Housing
Last spring Activate14–an outreach initiative I co-founded–jumped on the tiny home craze in an effort to address Raleigh’s underserved homelessness community. We wanted to prove our belief that good design is accessible to everyone and can radically change a community. The transition out of homelessness is more successful when services like job training, medical attention, and other support are provided through…
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The Case Against Major-League Sport Stadiums in Urban Areas
Before leaving Raleigh, a conversation emerged around bringing a major-league sports team to the capitol city. Several people–all men–thought a football or basketball stadium near the amphitheater would be THE BEST THING EVER. Let me tell you why it’s not: 1. Stadiums are dead zones. The NBA plays 41 home games per year, the MLB has…
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Quick Ugly Housing = Future Affordable Housing?
Is Raleigh getting ugly, or is it just me? Raleigh is quickly looking like a second-tier replica city dictated by developer’s profit margins. All of our new housing developments are plywood wrapped in terrible materials; they’re poorly designed, unfriendly to the street, and, frankly, an eyesore. Elan City Center could be one of those at Clark+Oberlin, on N Boylan, S…
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Food Truck Proposal for Raleigh’s Moore Square
The City of Raleigh is spending $12 million to revamp Moore Square, one of two downtown green spaces. While the space needs an upfit to reflect the world-class status Raleigh is working towards, I believe there are smaller steps the city could take to attract crowds and increase revenue. Restaurants, shops, and a children’s museum…
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Activate14: Architecture + Design Event Series
What started as intra-office conversation on hosting architecture and design events quickly turned to reality when Frank Harmon Architect decided to sponsor the inaugural summer event series at the AIANC Center for Architecture and Design (CfAD) in Raleigh, NC. Planning quickly commenced with the AIANC Program Committee. We decided to bridge the events by focusing on…
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My NYE Wishes for Raleigh: A List
I think about Raleigh all the time. I want to make it better, I want to contribute, I want to provide services to encourage a thriving urban center. Here are some of my wishes for the New Year. I wish for increased ridership on public transportation; dedicated bike lanes; attainable rents for startup businesses or…
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Custom Textiles: Print All Over Me + Spoonflower (Durham!)
While doing some research today I ran across another custom fabric company called Print All Over Me that lets me pick an object to digitally print whatever pattern I want or pick from another’s uploaded design (that user receives 20% of the sale). I can’t speak to the cut or fabric but the print is as…
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Why I wanted to be a RDU Baton holder
I am the RDU Baton holder on instagram today (@rdubaton) and I plan to use it as a soapbox for multimodal transportation, sustainability, utilizing urban space better, the need for public art, and so on. The mission of the RDU Baton is to showcase Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, and the surrounding communities. We’re supposed to “show off…
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Thoughts on Books and Bookstores
I’m researching book mobiles and book bikes and such to figure out ways to increase literacy and the love of reading. I’m tired of blogs foretelling the death of books as a physical entity. At some point they will meet their end but we are not there yet. At the very least, rich book collectors will…
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Wilders Grove in the Newspaper
A public art project I’ve been working on for McConnell Studios made it into the newspaper Sunday and you can barely see me in one of the photos…it’s a start! ha! The project is “Wilders Grove,” a 40 foot long undulating wall composed of recyclable materials to be installed at the first LEED Platinum waste…
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Travel Map
I have been keeping a google map of all the places I have been as well as starring favorite places–which I need to catch up with–and thought I should share it with you. You can view the map here. As you can see, I’ve traveled quite a bit within the United States, mostly in the…
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Expansion in Downtown Raleigh
I didn’t like downtown Raleigh when I moved here in 2009–I was working two jobs, the scene was small and close knit, and, being a government center, was dead past 5:30pm. After Raleigh Denim moved downtown in 2010 (I was working there at the time), I noticed that many storefronts were going under renovations and…
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Check out my new job at Frank Harmon Architect!
Hello loyal followers, visitors and one-time hitters, I want to apologize for my absence the last week and a half… I was previously posting almost every week day, a feat I was very proud of. However, two weeks ago today was my first day at Frank Harmon Architect, PA, a nationally acclaimed architecture firm in…
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principles of liberty
The idea that governments should define “marriage” or give permission for marriage is inconsistent with the principles of liberty. Wake County Libertarian Party, North Carolina
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Food Truck Site Plans Before and After
For the food truck application I had to make a site plan, or hire someone else to do it. It was the best part of the application process, by far. Check out Spaceship Quesadilla if you get the chance. Here is the layout of the truck, first, the original with all the measurements, then, the…
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My Food Truck Startup
My friend Tom approached me a few months ago about a joining his new food truck venture. He thought I would be a good fit given our personal history and my previous work with startups. Well, that talk at Surf Club led to bringing our dream food truck to life. We bought the truck bus and…
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The Best Chefs in the Triangle are…Women!
The poll results from the Independent Weekly’s Best of the Triangle were released this week and I immediately noticed that all the Best Chef awards went to women! (Coincidently, all their names start with A.) The rest of the finalists were men save for the husband and wife team at Magnolia Grill in Durham (now closed).…
Catherine R. Hofmann 