The Brooklyn Museum, housed in a 560,000-square-foot, Beaux-Arts building, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the country. The renovation of the 113 year old museum in 2004 brought a bold modern glass entranceway that juxtaposes the classic beauty of the robust building. This is a short film on the study of the space.

Alex Fischer shooting at a clinic in Northern Rwanda

I'm following them for two weeks, interviewing anyone I can and recording the Rwandan people and the place where they live. It's beautiful here. Everything is lush and green. Every bit of land is being farmed– even steep hillsides (and most of Rwanda is hills). There are five volcanoes less than an hour drive to our west. As you drive around, people wave and smile. Kids chase the cars (sometimes they dance). The temperature varies between 60F and 75F degrees and there are no mosquitoes due to the altitude. In short, its a nice place.

I spend most of my time at the health centers. There are two: Shingiro and Kabere. The Shingiro clinic teamed up with WWHPS in the spring of 2008 and has gone from one of the worst-rated clinics in its district to #1. Kabere is the next project.

As you can see below, I am usually equipped with an HD camcorder, a wireless mic, a shotgun mic and a monopod. I'm pretty noticeable here. I can't get far without attracting a crowd of little kids who yell, "Muzungo! Muzungo!" which means, "white person!"

Photo: Alex FischerNotable 'scenes' so far include: 

THE NUTRITION PROGRAM: Every Thursday there is a nutrition program for "reds". Every Rwandan has a color and their color corresponds to how malnourished they are. Green is healthy, yellow is not so healthy and red means they are in bad shape. So the clinic has this program every Monday and Thursday for reds and they are taught how to cook and the basics of nutrition, then they eat.

Photo: Alex Fischer

AMERICAN DOCTORS TRAINING HEALTH CENTER STAFF: The CCHIPs team is accompanied by two American doctors–Orthopedic surgeons, to be exact. They are here for a week primarily to learn about Rwanda's needs, have meetings and make connections. Their goal is to figure out the needs in the Rwandan health care system and find a place where they can make a difference. It's going well. Today they had a meeting at the hospital and I walked around filming. I went from room to room, trying my best not to make the patients uncomfortable. I was more successful in that respect than I predicted. The most significant moment was in the room with newborns in the incubators. They weighed only about three or four pounds and they could fit in your hand. (Don't worry, I didn't put them in my hands.)

Another update and photos soon.

"Clearwater was founded in 1969 by music legend and environmental activist Pete Seeger. The organization began with the launch of sloop Clearwater—a majestic replica of the sloops that sailed the Hudson in the 18th and 19th centuries. The 106-foot-long tall ship was among the first vessels in the U.S. to conduct science-based environmental education aboard a sailing ship, virtually creating the template by which such programs are conducted around the world today." [Clearwater]

Shot by Peter R. Cut by Alex F. Music by Pete Seeger

Created by Phil Morgan and John Kole of HeCHo Design and Construction, Building on Bond (or BoB for short) is a restaurant & café situated on a sun-drenched corner of Bond Street in Brooklyn.  From the outside, it’s the perfect spot for a café-- a beautiful brick building on a brownstone block in the heart of Boerum Hill. And with ivy-draped, big bay windows, an inviting, old wooden bench parked outside, and the hand-drawn logo stenciled on the glass, it would seem like the perfect place to grab a pint, or to sip a bowl of café au lait on an autumn afternoon. 

But enter Building on Bond, and you’re inside what feels like a draftsman’s studio crossed with a casual, Parisian café-- an innovative and cleverly designed space built to feel like an ad-hoc work-in-progress, that seems both refreshing and new, and to have been there for hundreds of years. From the drafting stools recovered from a school, to the folding tables made from a discarded shuffleboard, or to the beer tap made from a hefty steampipe suspended from the ceiling, everything in Building on Bond seems to serve a dual purpose, as both a functional workshop tool and stylish design element.

We created this slideshow to show the story behind Building on Bond, and to scratch the surface a little bit to find out how Phil Morgan and John Cole created the place and to get a better sense of their aesthetic and approach to design. Click on the hotspots to go deeper into the story of Building on Bond.

Reported and produced by Matthew Landfield, photographs by Alex Fischer.

Copyright 2009 Human Condition

42,000 runners trekked across all 5 boroughs Sunday, November 1st, in the annual NYC Marathon. They ran down 4th Avenue in Brooklyn, just a few blocks from our headquarters on Bond Street. Quite an amazing sight; as if thousands of people were running away from an invisible foe. A child nearby said indignantly to his father after standing street side for the better part of an hour "My feet hurt!!!", his father calmly responded, "How do you think they feel?". That inspired the composition below "Feet of Strength". Can you find yours?

By Peter E Raymond and Alex Fischer.

See photos from the event below, shot by our own Alex Fischer.

Click on the plus signs in the images for links, if you want to add info or were at the event let us know: info@hcxdesign.com