EA sketch c1975

There were years of start-up work for the earth balloon project that included work with students at the U. of Minnesota that preceded production of full color prototypes. The initial student projects and first small institutional grant at the School of Architecture, with the support of Ralph Rapson, then head of the School, were preceded of course by the work of Buckminster Fuller and the earth map spherical room in Boston and others. After I was at the UN Environment Stockholm Conference Forum in 1972 I continued travelling before resuming teaching at the U. of Minnesota, formulating design projects for students. In north India during a visit to an ashram I was shown a table with a little earth model bank (not more than around 4 inches diameter) that could be viewed inside. At that time viewing inside the globe thru the bank plug opening a student project began to form. The earth awareness (EA) project did not seem to fit with the architectural design course I was teaching and I suggested the project to a colleague Prof. Holloway who was teaching an environmental course with a very large number of students. Prof. Holloway permitted me to present the EA project to his students, and several students including Peter Fu selected the EA project. The EA project also included renewable energy systems and mechanical engineering students with Prof. Frohrib participated in a collaborative project. A working model of an earth balloon was presented by the architecture environment design students and renewable energy systems were presented by the mechanical engineering students. Afterwards, a second EA project, with some of the same students designed a full size working model. After the first full size blue and white plastic earth balloon was fabricated by students and tested in the architecture building court, I approached an educational development program at the U. of Minnesota for funding and worked with Mr. C. Ahlgren. They became interested to fund development, and they required a non-profit entity to receive funds. Jerry Allan who had formed Criteria expressed interest in the development of the earth balloon and Criteria Foundation qualified to receive the U. of Minnesota funds. An informal working relationship developed with Criteria. And the full color earth balloon prototypes were produced at the Criteria facilities in Minneapolis with the participation of painters Sean M. and Brian Smith, and sewing by Linnea O., and others. The large full color prototype earth balloon was then demonstrated at several places that included schools, government buildings and exhibit halls. Representing the U. of Minnesota, Brian Smith and Joel Goodman demonstrated the large full color earth balloon at the United Nations environment conference 1976 forum exhibition in Vancouver, Canada.

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