Martha Skinner and Douglas Hecker are a great new addition to the Asheville community. Exciting news:
Martha Skinner and Douglas Hecker relocated to Asheville four months ago. Immediately inspired by the local entrepreneurship, creative and environmental community, they decided to undertake a new venture. Skinner and Hecker announce the launch of the new non-profit organization, 10^10.
10^10 (10 to the power of 10) is the manifestation of a long-percolating desire between Skinner and Hecker to create an organization dedicated to launching simple design ideas into action — with big results.
Join 10^10 for a benefit and concert at 29 Carolina Lane in downtown Asheville from 6:30 – 9:30 on January 12! With a performance by Asheville based soul/rock/blues band Ol’ Hoopty, the duo will introduce their venture and simultaneously work to benefit SEED_Haiti, the team’s inaugural 10^10 global project.
January 12 was selected as the launch date to mark the 1st anniversary of Haiti’s devastating earthquake. That day, 1,000,000+ Haitians were left homeless.
The With SEED_Haiti the team envisions providing safe and secure housing for thousands of Haitians by repurposing shipping containers into homes with a design that is both affordable and simple to implement.
The name 10^10 is inspired by the “Powers of Ten,” a 1968 film created by husband-and-wife designers Charles and Ray Eames. The work proposes simple design solutions for global problems, offering strategies for effecting exponential change to global humanitarian, social and environmental issues using contemporary technologies.
The exponential effect of 10^10 uses the power of the individual within the collective for local and global impact that is culturally sensitive yet quickly implemented — providing design solutions to our most pressing needs.
About the team:
Martha Skinner is co-founder of fieldoffice and an assistant professor at Clemson University. She studies our built environment as a delicate ecology using representation methods that visualize the cycles of life in order to more acutely address temporal, social and environmental issues. Her work includes several Living Maps of cities, which include NY A/V, PROXY_florence, día de los trastos, and BiCi_N. These projects involve the inhabitants of our cities in their daily routines to affect, in real-time, possibilities for social and environmental change. As the 1999 Walter B. Sanders Fellow at the University of Michigan, Skinner developed Notation A/V, a seminar about the merging of drawing and moving image, a methodology she exploits in her work to filter, transmit, capture, and celebrate the intangible qualities of the passing of time with solutions that address the relationships between humans and the ecologies in which they are situated. Skinner founded the 10^10 initiative in response to the earthquake in Haiti. Her work has been exhibited internationally.
Doug Hecker received his Bachelor of Architecture in Design from the University of Florida and a Master of Architecture from Columbia University where he was the recipient of the William F. Kinne Fellowship and is co-founder of fieldoffice. As a professor at Clemson University Hecker focuses on mentoring a new generation of design activists who see in the contemporary world a multitude of opportunities for change. His research focuses on the role of advanced technologies (CAD/CAM, digital fabrication) in design in order to empower individuals and communities by inventing “systems” that provide greater access to design through a combination of advanced technology and activism. Hecker founded cusa.dds (Clemson University School of Architecture Digital Design Shop) and ddbNOLA (digital design build New Orleans) to pursue this aim and has led architecture projects/products such as Silhouette House, Dry-In House, and SEED.
Don't forget Ol Hoopty's funk/rock/soul music will be entertaining us too!