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2/21/24

Hammond-Harwood House Museum


An 18th Century Arts and Architecture Museum in Annapolis, Maryland
The gentleman planter Matthias Hammond began work in 1774 with renowned architect William Buckland on plans for a new, elegant townhouse in the most fashionable area of Annapolis.
History Buckland immigrated to the colonies in 1755 as an indentured servant to George Mason of Virginia who commissioned him to work on his home, a seemingly modest site called Gunston Hall. The young architect is credited with introducing a variety of designs into mainstream architecture in the colonies. After several successful commissions in Virginia, Buckland ventured to Annapolis, where his hand can be seen at the Chase-Lloyd House. The crowning jewel of Buckland’s career, however, was the house he designed for Matthias Hammond. This house was the only one of his many commissions that Buckland designed and executed in its entirety. He died before the house was finished.
Ironically, the man for whom Buckland erected this masterpiece never lived at the house. In the waning years of the 18th century, the house was rented by many a well-known Annapolitan, including Judge Jeremiah Townley Chase, a one-time mayor of the city. In the 19th century, the elegant mansion was home to the Pinkney and then the Loockerman families. In an uncanny twist of fate, William Buckland’s great-grandson William Harwood married into the Loockerman family, thereby bringing the Buckland clan into the house. William Harwood’s progeny lived at the Hammond-Harwood House until 1924.
An Anglo-Palladian Mansion with the best woodcarving and plasterwork in America
Through the Civil War and World War I, the house remained an enduring fixture in Maryland’s capital city. After the death of Hester Ann Harwood in the 1924, the house seemed destined to become a memory. Fighting off bulldozers, St. John’s College purchased the site in 1926 and used it for their decorative arts program, the first of its kind in the country. The economic woes of the 1930s, however, forced the College to search for new owners. Finally, in 1940, the Hammond-Harwood House was purchased by the newly formed Hammond-Harwood House Association. Since then, the site has served thousands of visitors and has become a landmark of colonial architecture.
Architecture the Hammond-Harwood House is a five-part Anglo-Palladian (derived from 16th Italian architect Andrea Palladio) mansion that features some of the best woodcarving and plasterwork in America. It maintains a kind of symmetry and system of proportions that are rarely seen in buildings of this period. While most 18th century structures were fashioned by amateurs and artisans, the Hammond-Harwood house was clearly the work of a trained professional architect.
Decorative Arts the museum proudly showcases the finest collection of colonial furniture in Maryland. With authentic works from Philadelphia, New York, Massachusetts, England, Ireland, and China, the collection represents a broad spectrum of 18th century artistic endeavors. Crafts from Annapolis are also featured in the collection, with special emphasis on cabinetmaker John Shaw whose shop is still standing on State Circle. Today, Shaw pieces can be viewed in almost every room in the house. They include a slant-front bookcase in the Study, an elegant dining room sideboard (an original Harwood family piece), a tall case clock now in the Dining Room, a gaming table covered with a green baize table top, and a host of profoundly beautiful chairs that clearly mark this craftsman as a master of his trade. Visitors can also get a glimpse of the everyday lives of colonial men and women as they are treated to authentic items like an 18th century watercolor set, a period medicine chest, a surveyor’s set of drafting tools, a delicate sewing kit, a pair of colonial spectacles, a child’s furniture set, and a vast assortment of colonial kitchen artifacts.

Fine Arts of special interest are the many images by portrait painter Charles Wilson Peale whose sensitive touch, delicate brush strokes, and knack for capturing the essence of the sitter made him one of the 18th century’s premier painters. Not only does the museum retain Peale paintings that are original to the house, but the Hammond-Harwood House also exhibits one of the most beloved of Peale’s portraits—a painting of six-year-old Ann Proctor. Time stands still for visitors as they examine, first hand, the doll which he painted in Ann Proctor’s lap over 220 years ago.
Educational Programs designed to teach children the differences between modern and colonial life
Then and Now Program designed for the littlest, most curious, it can be easily adapted for 5, 6, and 7-year old students. The program is divided into three 20-minute sessions:
Session I: Tour of the Herb Garden with show and tell of fresh, fragrant medicinal herbs
Session II: Tour of the Colonial Kitchen with emphasis on differences between modern and ancient
Session III: Students dress in colonial clothing, make hornbooks, write with quill pens, or paint.
Colonial Adventure Tour for 3rd - 5th graders, students step back in time and learn about the lives of the men, women, and children living in Maryland during the 1770s. The tour is divided into two 45-minute sessions. In one session, students tour the colonial mansion and learn the basics about colonial life and history through an open dialogue with our expert guides. In part two, students touch or make several of the things they have seen in the house. Through the use of reproduction artifacts and imaginative, interactive games, students get a direct sense of what it would have been like to be an artist, a furniture maker, a gentry man and lady, a servant, and more. They can write with quill pens, make a sachet, play with colonial toys, paint a miniature portrait, play with colonial cards, build a replica brick wall, experiment with furniture.
To Be Colonial targets grades 6 - 8. The program focuses on the lives of four individuals associated with the Hammond-Harwood House between 1774 and 1820. Students are introduced to two women and two men, all with exceptionally different lives: Matthias Hammond, a colonial gentleman; William Buckland, a Pre-Revolutionary War architect; Frances Loockerman, the daughter of a mayor of Annapolis; and Rachel, a slave. Students learn about these individuals via discussions of politics, slavery, housewifery, food, art and clothing:
Session I: Colonial house tour with focus on the daily lives of four characters
Session II: Examination of primary sources documents including wills and inventories, of reproduction artifacts and clothing. Emphasis on learning through real documents and 18th-century objects.
Reading and Writing History designed to give high school students a hands-on lesson about Colonial American history. The program is divided up into three mini-sessions each with its own goals: a colonial house tour, an introduction to history resources, and a session of hands-on group study. The program covers topics which include common and indentured laborers, slave life, the life of craftsmen, gentry activities and leisure time, decorative arts, and architecture.
Professional Enrichment Tours that focus on suburban sprawl, declining water quality, diminishing water supplies, vanishing agricultural land, loss of historic character, wildlife habitat degradation, and threatened biological resources. Learn to:
Protect and conserve land and water, natural, cultural and scenic resources;
Create and strengthen local government efforts that support resource conservation;
Improve site planning and design to support resource conservation;
Plan and conserve of natural and cultural resources;
Enhance awareness and knowledge of conservation approaches.


4/05/21

A Travel Services Network

for Your Main Street and Historic District
Travel Itineraries Community Businesses Vacation Travel Services and Energy Efficiency
Travel Itineraries that draw on local history, traditions and talents in small towns across the United States and include: historical tourism, environment friendly destinations, family vacations, architectural tours, food and wine itineraries, professional enrichment and training programs.

Community businesses capable of managing incoming travel services that benefit from a centralized marketing and sales program. Resources generated from inbound travel transactions are made available to the regions, towns, and neighborhoods visited to help pay for the longer-term marketing and management of tourism and environment related services.
Tourism Projects that Generate Resources for Local Environmental Initiatives
Virtual Hotel Towns address the demand for sustainable quality tourism in urban and rural areas. Guest and local interactions promote historic preservation and re-urban initiatives. Local Projects integrate architecture with digital media to engage visitors as well as interactions with locals.   
Innovative Solutions for Your Main Street and Historic District 
in Travel Services and Energy Efficiency
Inbound Travel resources help museums theaters and historic properties on Main Street and Historic Districts and utilize travel accommodations and services in historic buildings structured as virtual hotel villages.  
Energy Efficiency projects in small town main street and historic districts. Power purchase agreements and distributed generation projects facilitate the financing of ready to implement green power projects in your community.

3/29/21

Collaborations and Partnerships in the Pay-per-Use Economy


Consumers, Manufacturers and Businesses in the Circular Economy
Consumers increasingly prefer usership to ownership by utilizing pay-per-use and other on-demand services, as scalable and resilient value-driven outcomes such as pay-per-mile become available.
The Traditional make, use and dispose economy is supplanted by a circular one in which resources have a longer useful life, with product and materials recovery at the end of lifecycle. End to end providers will be replaced by multiple product and service offerors with unique expertise in the provision of customer-centric rather than asset-centric services.
Small Businesses, especially those with clients located in rural and smaller urban communities, can increase their capabilities with environmentally viable offerings by entering into collaborations and partnerships in a multi-sector ecosystem as new companies enter the marketplace to target these opportunities via data democratization and new organizational models.
Reduce Transit Times and Travel Costs with Pay-per-Use
Communities that rely on connections and collaborations within and among regions will have access to technologies to transition from a sale to a service culture that features pay-per-use and pay-by-outcome models such as pay-per-mile and power-by-the-hour, creating locally owned enterprises and achieving economies of scale pricing in areas ranging from travel service and destination management, to local and intercity mobility programs connecting large cities with micropolitan areas, and innovative energy savings, water conservation and building automation systems solutions for buildings typically found on main street and in historic districts.  
Technology tasks include data sources integration, micro payments, flexible billing and cost-effective self-service customer and partner interfaces.
Linking Manufacturing and Services
Circular and Shared Economies create new value as pay per use models and outcome payments change the points of reference of projects and transactions as manufacturers repair and upgrade their products with modular designs; asset management and optimum maintenance become major capabilities. Equipment re-use, remanufacturing and redeployment as well as asset harvesting allow manufacturers to offer life cycle management services.
a collaborative system that delivers seamless customer experiences

3/23/21

Knowledge Tourism in the Knowledge Economy

The Rediscovery of Small Town Main Streets and Historic Districts with Sustainable Socio-Economic Policies
Knowledge Tourism brings together local histories, customs, values and traditions with expertise in a variety of disciplines to learn, experience and expand knowledge of the territory with a holistic program that addresses simultaneously:
Logistics such as Transit Oriented Development - TOD -  and Location Efficient Communities. Transit availability is important for business and economic development as well as a health issue, as numerous studies link reduced obesity with public transport, and the development of walking and biking trails, implemented in part via eServices and the application of appropriate communications technologies that put under served communities and customers within reach of public and private transport services at an affordable cost.
EnergyEfficiency and Water Quality/Conservation synergies between energy and water are key as costs and consumption of the latter are highly dependent on the efficiency of the former; also, main street storefronts, offices, museums and other venues can regain visitors from malls and other commercial structures only if they implement energy savings programs.
Geography and Historic Trade Routes, take into consideration rivers, lakes, coastlines, highways, wagon trails and rail routes to ensure sustainability and resilience, even where the rivers are no longer navigable, or a source of water for nearby communities, and rail heads have been dismissed. Each region has anchor locations with a history as hubs.
Anchor Locations are the points of reference for other local areas in their respective regions as well as cross-regional collaborations whereby a local government, nonprofit or business that has a specific expertise in a topic beneficial to local food and/or heath related issue, is invited to participate and transfer its know-how to ensure
Purchasing Power, the Achilles’ heel of both small communities and small business, achievable via local and regional collaborations and transfers of know-how and a
A Planning Process that addresses Land Use, Housing, Utilities, Community Facilities, Transportation, Water and Natural Resources, Historic Preservation and Economic Development.
New Small Business and Employment Opportunities
Cultural Heritage and Local Museums give meaning and purpose to the objects on display in museums and art galleries as they disclose the historical and archaeological heritage of a community, leverage conservation and the rediscovery of cultural heritage through the arts, history, archeology, literature and architecture, preserve biodiversity and the cultures associated with rural, coastal and river communities.
Local Food Wineries and Breweries there are several fascinating examples throughout America of a resurgence in farming that caters to an ever-increasing demand for local, quality and sustainable food, wine and ale consumption in urban and rural areas.
Preserving and Divulging the Cultural Heritage of American Communities via Placemaking
Public Transport Initiatives In recent years, efficient and affordable public transit - in the form of bus rapid transit - BRT, rail services and trolley cars – for urban, suburban and intercity service have been debated, studied and in some instances implemented. Major cities such as Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, DC and Minneapolis/St Paul that have established commuter and regional services can bring their planners and managers into collaborations with small town planners and businesses to construct efficient, safe and affordable commuter, transit and travel related services.
Water Resources and the Environment visit and study the efforts of communities that are in the forefront of water resources management and other environmentally sustainable practices in coastal and river waterfront development in small towns and large cities as well as agricultural communities. Local officials and nonprofit stewards of the environment, among others, explain their policies, programs and best management practices in wastewater and watershed management, land conservancy issues, LEED certifications, recycling, rainwater collection and energy efficient systems.
Industry and Commerce Itineraries from Agriculture and Industry to Services and Sustainability
Communities transitioning from traditional industrial and commercial activities to technologically innovative ones; in some instances, they are also able to re-establish their traditional economic activities with a successful application of the so-called knowledge economy and, in the process, becoming once again competitive in the world marketplace.t

3/18/21

Travel Logistics and Itineraries for Business and Vacation Trips



anchor locations hub and spoke travel transport mode selections and destinations

Business Travelers need efficient plans to meet trip objectives that may entail visiting several locations in a compressed period of time whereas family and group vacationers select destinations primarily on the basis of cultural, gastronomic, wellness and other preferences. 


The Logistics of Travel are defined as:

Anchoring your stays in strategic locations along planned trip routes conveniently located to local points of interest and minimizing the number of accommodation changes; hence, fewer times packing and unpacking and lowering accommodations and transport costs, in
Hub and Spoke Locations smaller towns, rural and urban areas with regional rail, bus, van, car and air connections strategically located within 200 or less miles of multiple larger cities and their attractions.
Sightseeing, meals and other planned events in a hub and spoke fashion, saving time and money, but also an opportunity to slow down and enjoy the places and the people you are visiting.
Mode of Transport selections are a function of number of persons, trip length as well as the time of year you are traveling. Rationalizing travel movements, ascertaining transport mode(s) availability and costs are the key to a successful trip planning.
There are many points of interest in the United States; all regions offer destinations rich in historic, cultural and culinary traditions. Some anchor locations from which you can base your travel movements:
Northeast Atlantic
The Lehigh and Delaware River Valley are the ideal anchor location if your interests include New York City and the Hudson Valley, Philadelphia and South Central Pennsylvania. For travel in Northern Virginia, Washington DC and North Carolina your anchors are Richmond, Fredericksburg and Manassas. 

American South
Louisville is centrally located along the Ohio River and is one America’s most accessible cities within a day’s drive of more than half the nation’s population. Further South, a Texas Trail puts you within reach of the Southwest and the southern Plains. Aberdeen Mississippi is the anchor to reach Mobile and New Orleans on the Gulf Coast as well as other Southern cities such as Memphis, Nashville and Atlanta

Logistics Locations Costs Time and Personalized Travel Solutions


Mid America
From North and South Dakota and Minnesota you can follow the route of the Empire Builder and explore the Northern Plains, Seattle, the US Northwest and the Rocky Mountains as well as the Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa, Alton and the Great River Road or explore Mississippi River Towns



US West
Lake Tahoe and Sacramento connect you with attractions in Nevada, the Bay Area and Pacific Coast, Southern California as well as Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and Montana.


3/13/21

Microgrids and Energy-as-a-Service

 Energy as a Service enables the efficient utilization of resources and assets by helping customers modify energy consumption with time-of-use and real-time pricing.

microgrid systems with equipment re-use re-manufacturing and redeployment


A client-centric approach that reduces energy consumption and costs in collaboration with local utilities and service providers. EaaS:

o   requires no money down or investments by the project beneficiaries

o   includes equipment and components life cycle management and after sales services

o   offers local and regional employment opportunities as well as contracting opportunities

o   features environment friendly services

o   utilizes performance-based payment systems and client discounts


Utilities are project(s) participants. Clients own plant and equipment after 5 years

Distributed Generation occurs on a property site when energy is sold to the building occupants; Power Purchase Agreements - PPAs - enable businesses and governments to purchase electricity directly from the generator rather than from the utility. 

PPAs are a legal contract between an electricity generator and a power purchaser


Microgrids
are electric grids that manage energy and ensure reliable delivery. A self-sufficient, energy plant, the microgrid serves a specific geographic area, neighborhood, and community with distributed energy resources - solar, wind, CHP, other - energy storage, as well as electric vehicle charging stations. Interconnected to nearby buildings, the microgrid provides electricity, heating, and cooling.

community-friendly microgrids: a cheaper alternative in infrastructure development


As-a-Service Models
work particularly well for capital-intensive energy projects; EaaS shifts long-term capital expenditures into a short-term operational expense.

EaaS secures microgrid benefits without risk. The microgrid can serve as the primary source of electrical power, as the emergency backup source of power in the event of a grid outage as it captures reduced energy consumption and utility bills, and sells surplus electricity to the local grid operator.