Atanas Entchev – Donate to help

I’ve lifted this directly from his blog:

A Plea For Help

After living legally in the United States for over 20 years, I was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on an immigration charge, and am currently facing deportation. My son Eni, 21, who came to the United States at the age of two, is also detained and wears an orange jumpsuit through no fault of his own. We continue to pursue all possible legal avenues to remain in the US – our home.

However, our 18-year immigration ordeal has depleted our resources. My detention is about to cripple my small IT consulting business. We cannot keep up with our growing expenses, and I have no other choice but to turn to the community for help.

I ask friends and sympathizers of our cause to donate to our legal fund. No donation is too small. Please spread the word.

Thank you for your kindness, and God bless you.

Posted for Atanas Entchev, by his daughter, Christina

Atanas Entchev

It is disturbing to hear this happen to Atanas.  There is a Paypal donation link on his blog to fund his legal defense and I’d urge everyone reading this to give at least a few dollars.  What I do know about Atanas is that he would be the first to give to anyone else’s cause so we should pay him back in kind.

Stunning animations about landscape architecture

The American Society of Landscape Architects has produced a number of beautiful and educational animations collectively called Designing Our Future: Sustainable Landscapes. Even better, ASLA asked our good friend Daniel Tal to write, narrate and produce them with SketchUp. You probably know Dan as a bestselling SketchUp author; it turns out he’s a pretty phenomenal video guy, too. Here’s one of them:

Here’s how ASLA describes the raison d’etre for this project:

These animations and their supporting materials are meant to help the public get a sense of both sustainable landscape design and the type of work that landscape architects do. Each animation has a companion guide to sustainability education resources. Designed specifically for students from kindergarten to 12th grade, the resources include curricula, games, activity guides, and videos to help classrooms explore these ideas in greater depth. All these resources are at your disposal when you are discussing the profession in your communities.

Congratulations to ASLA, Daniel Tal and the National Endowment for the Arts (who provided some of the funding for this undertaking) on their commitment to educating people about the impact that design—both good and bad—can have on their everyday lives. I’ve always believed that the best way to promote good design is to make the tools more accessible. Affordable tools that are easier to learn encourage more people to participate in the process. Participation inevitably leads to understanding, which I think is the key to making better decisions about design.

As both a designer and an educator, I encourage you to watch the rest of these animations and to share them with wild abandon. You’ll be doing the world a favor.