Preserving Trees After LA FIRES

Preserving Trees After LA FIRES.

Dear Neighbors, Friends and Community Members, 

We have good news! LA County and the Army Corps finally issued tree waivers. 

It is IMPORTANT to COMMUNICATE as the homeowner's right and decision, through “the RIGHT of ENTRY PROCESS” that you would like to preserve your home’s trees. When the contractors calls, usually within the 72 hours grace period, before they begin the process and when they call you again, at 24 hours before they start the removal of trees, as the homeowner, you will need to give the form and the waiver, along with the diagrams and lists of trees to preserve to the Army Corp contractors. Ideally, complete all of your forms and waivers before they even call - since you might need the approval of an arborist to determine which trees still have life left in them. Upon completion of the form, email a copy and nail the diagrams onto the body of the tree. 

Below is a PDF for a set of instructions to the waiver form for tree preservation for your residence, along with names of arborist we recommend and an example of how to draw the diagram for the contractor. We are here if you have any questions; and we have also outlined how to submit the diagram/sketch if you choose to do it yourselves. If you would like more guidance or if you need assistance to clearly communicate your drawings more thoroughly with the Army Corp, please contact us and we will assist you through the process.

We are always here, if you have any questions; and as we untangle and resolve more of these complex issues regarding our environment, climate change, restoration and preservation for the places we live, our communities, and our home, we will keep you all updated.

TREE WAIVER FORM + INSTRUCTION
LA COUNTY WEBSITE

With gratitude, 
Maryam + MIIM Team 
Designing Communities + Creating Culture

LA Fire Note: MIIM EMERGENCY CLOSURE NOTICE

Dear Clients, Colleagues, and Friends:
We wanted to update you regarding where MIIM’s operation stands during the ongoing fires that are taking place across Los Angeles and Southern California. 

First, your companies’ health and welfare, as well as that of our community and staff, is a top priority for us. Prior to the pandemic, MIIM has had a robust technology platform that allowed us to provide seamless service to all clients anywhere, anytime. The MIIM Team met this morning and will continue to meet online to go through project goals, deadlines, and priorities. We continue to meet with all teams to ensure the proper flow of operation and information in order to meet deadlines. Our priority is to ensure as little disruption to your projects, as we can accommodate the safety from these fires that are spreading because of the Santa Ana winds.

Employee safety and wellness is a top priority, and we have implemented a firm-wide response plan. We have protocols and safety measures for tragedies like these. Every employee has the support platform- BIM/communication - to resume work from home, until the state of emergency has been lifted.

We intend to attend meetings via video, or phone calls; should an in-person meeting be required please let us know - but for the safety of your own health, the welfare of our first responders and clearance to access roads, we ask you to also stay indoors.  That said, we respect that each employee has their own comfort level and we will allow them to act accordingly. 

In addition, we are so grateful to everyone. Thank you for your messages and calls to our office. The air is thick and the smoke from the fires is damaging to everyone's eyes, nose and throat. Climate change is real and we are living through it.  We are sensitive to the uncertainty that everyone may be feeling and we are committed to getting through this period together. 

With respect, safety and health! 
Maryam + MIIM Team

Maryam to Lecture Thursday at Casablanca School of Architecture and Landscape

Maryam Eskandari will lecture on Thursday afternoon as part of the “Les Premières Journées des Jeunes Chercheurs en Architecture et Paysage”. The lecture will take place at 12:15pm local time at the Casablanca School of Architecture and Landscape. For more information, or to register to attend virtually, go HERE.

Maryam Eskandari Discusses on Designing Beyond an Autonomous Architecture

Maryam | MIIM Designs Take Part Experimental Landings Exhibit

Maryam takes part in the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) and the Pratt Institute, School of Architecture Teachers Summit dedicated to Summit for Climate Agency: Teaching the Design Experiment in Brooklyn, New York Summer '22 for the TNC Dangermond Capstone Studio that she lead. The Curriculum for Climate Agency, saw calls for Architectural Education to step-away from pre-conceptions about climate and re-engage in active learning and science. The consistent takeaway voiced throughout the conference was that if architectural design wishes to establish an environmental agency within the 21st century it must depart from known narratives and operating conventions in favor of experimental approaches.

Experimental Landings is an exhibition that interrogates how designers assert agency through the representation, organization, and formation of land. Understood as an elastic and open-ended framework of consideration this collective exhibition of work will showcase how architecture and landscape experiments across “land” address new definitions of formal practice across several thematics : Artificial Earths, Seeding Resilience, Mapping Maintenance and Imaging Grounds. Maryam’s TNC Dangermond Capston Studio showcased half a dozen mappings and illustrations of the formation of land.

Exhibition curated by Jonathan A. Scelsa and David Erdman.

Read More Here.

ACSA CLIMATE SUMMIT.

Earth Day 2024

Image of Point Conception © MIIM Designs

MIIM Designs has always been about ideas, and creating culture and community through those creative ideas. Each one of the built spaces and landscapes that we are trusted with, we use our creative tools to design and build a community to forge connections. This is always started by understanding the history of the land and the people who have fostered it. 

Since the inception of MIIM Designs we’ve had the opportunity and the joy of collaborating with many partners - each one of our creative projects and collaborations have focused on inspiring people to create culture, design communities and bring everyone together through the notion of these creative spaces. 

Most recently, MIIM Designs partnered with Material and Application (a Los Angeles based non-profit project space for critical and experimental architecture) and with Look Out FM (southern California’s home for radio art on a creative reading), under the theme of SONIC DUST, on one of Maryam’s reflections while working on a project in collaboration the Nature’s Conservancy in California. In honor of Earth’s Day, you can listen to Maryam read her reflection, “The Celestial Dust of the Chumash at Point Conception”, HERE.  

California Senate Bill 4 and 423 To Proceed

MIIM Designs has been collaborating with many policymakers, lawmakers and senators on the issue of lack of affordable housing, which has long been a problem for middle and low-income households. The primary goal over the last 7 years has been that California can, and should, look to innovative programs across the country for models to inform future policy efforts to address the state’s housing challenges. Using examples and case studies from religious institutions of the Middle East, Asia, and parts of Europe, the SB 4 and SB423 will allow for religious institutions and nonprofit colleges in California to turn their parking lots and other properties into low-income housing. Churches and colleges often face big hurdles trying to convert their surplus land and underutilized parking lots into housing because their land is not zoned for residential use. Proponents said the new law will serve as another tool to help build much-needed housing in the state. A recent study by the University of California, Berkeley, Terner Center for Housing Innovation estimated California religious and higher education campuses have more than 170,000 acres (68,797 hectares) of land that would be eligible under the bill.

The law, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom rezones land owned by nonprofit colleges and religious institutions, such as churches, mosques, and synagogues, to allow for affordable housing. Starting in 2024, they can bypass most local permitting and environmental review rules that can be costly and lengthy. The law is set to sunset in 2036.

More Information HERE
Office of Governor Gavin Newsom