EA212: The Slow Space Movement with Mette Aamodt of Aamodt Plumb Architects [Podcast]

The Slow Space Movement with Mette Aamodt of Aamodt Plumb Architects “In 1986 Carlo Petrini protested the opening of a McDonald's restaurant in Piazza di Spagna, Rome and launched the Slow Food Movement. Carl Honoré explains in his book, In Praise of Slowness, that Slow Food stands for everything that McDonalds does not: fresh, local, seasonal produce; recipes handed down through the generations; sustainable farming; artisanal production; leisurely dining with family and friends. But ultimately the movement is about the sensual pleasures of food. Thirty years after Carlo's protest, organic produce, artisanal cheeses and craft beer are everywhere. Foodies flock to ever more specialized restaurants serving only food cultivated in their own backyards. Whole Foods is considered mass market and Michelle Obama is promoting farm-to-table in public schools. Carlo should be proud. He saved food! Since then, the Slow Movement has touched almost every industry except ours. Slow Cities. Slow Aging. Slow Religion. Slow Cinema. Slow Education. Slow Sex. Slow Medicine. Slow Fashion. Slow Parenting. Slow Travel. Architecture, design and the building industry are conspicuously absent from the list. We find that strange. So we decided to do something.” – Slow Space Movement This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, The Slow Space Movement with Mette Aamodt of Aamodt Plumb Architects. Background Mette Aamodt is an architect, CEO and cofounder of Aamodt Plumb, an architecture, interiors, and construction firm in Cambridge, Mass. She’s a former AIA member, a design activist, and cofounder of the Slow Space Movement to promote good, clean, and fair buildings for all. She publishes biweekly thought pieces on her blog, SlowSpace.org, to explore ideas around slow space and slow architecture. She’s a mother of two with her husband and partner, Andrew Plumb. She was diagnosed with MS in 2002 upon graduation from Harvard’s GSD. Origin Story Mette’s story goes back to her parents, who did not want her to be an architect. Her father was an architect, and her parents taught her that architecture was a very hard business. She remembers the highs and lows and recessions. She found her way to architecture through a long path through urban planning and ending up at the GSD. When she graduated, she was diagnosed with MS. There she also met her husband and partner, Andrew. A week before her thesis review, she went blind in one eye and couldn’t hold the exactor to cut her model. Thinking it was stress, she pressed on. When she went to the doctor, she realized it was worse than she t thought. Mette and Andrew were starting their careers as architects with this horrible diagnosis and no idea how it was going to affect them. They were unsure of what to do because they believed in the power of architecture to make an impact on people’s lives, but they saw how much it sucked to be an architect and what little value society places on architecture. They were faced with a dilemma: how could they do good work, have a good life, and make a good living? Since then, the challenge has been to work to balance all three of those things. After a few years of working, they were lucky enough to start their own firm to figure out how to do things differently. How could they run their firm that was different from the way all the other architects were doing? How could they persevere to their triple threat: good...

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