We’re excited to be working with Coldwater Village on their new community center and housing project.  Please join us in this great cause

Coldwater would like to invite you to attend the 4th Annual Winterfest fundraiser. The evening includes a delicious meal served by Hereford House, delightful conversation with friends and family, music performed by one of our local high school orchestras and jazz bands and a fun night of competition at both the Silent and Piccadilly auctions. The cost is just $35 per guest, a portion of which is tax-deductible. Please join us as we raise funds to help care for our community in the coming year.

To learn more about the Coldwater programs that benefit from Winterfest,click on  www.coldwater.me

Changing the way we eat: One of our favorite stories is Hilary’s Eat Well in Lawrence KS.

All of their products are fantastic but our favorite is the Adzuki Bean Burger.  We also heard their Veggie Bites are about to hit the shelves this spring.  We’ve been working with their team for years and their new production facility is currently under construction.

http://www.hilaryseatwell.com/

If you didn’t make it to Google Fiber viewing party, catch it online

http://new.livestream.com/tedx/manhattan2013

We are so excited (and honored) to be working with this amazing group on their new facility to help our community.  Please join us in helping promote this incredible and inspiring organization. They depend upon your generosity, your time and your talent.  http://www.cross-lines.org/

Congratulations to our friends at Netsmart!

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/print-edition/2013/01/11/netsmart-technologies-relies-on-recent.html

Clockwork designer Todd Howard is featured in this month’s Pitch for his involvement in the Kansas City electronic dance music  scene.

Read the article HERE and check out Todd’s blog HERE

Enjoy this great TedxBeirut talk from our friend/client/mentor Hani!!!

http://youtu.be/nmDQ66SU9m0

Heirloom quality for the new year:

: a piece of property that descends to the heir as an inseparable part of an inheritance of real property

: something of special value handed on from one generation to another

: a variety that has survived for several generations usually due to the efforts of private individuals

We have been putting a lot of thought into the next step-   Heirloom Quality…for the average person.  The talent at Clockwork has designed millions of square feet of built environment, equating to a few BILLION of hard earned client dollars invested.  What’s the next step for Clockwork?

Heirloom Quality.

Considering our limited lifespan, don’t we prefer the highest quality within our means?  In the world of social media, it seems commonplace to accept the banal.  Hey guys, check out the cup of coffee I had this morning!  The snow is so beautiful!   Really???

We know that there is something special within our combined talents, and we are searching for the next step….The designed product that is heirloom quality.  It’s the item that you would be proud to pass down to your client- or son or daughter or employee or loved one that stuck with you through thick and thin; and they will LOVE it.  Each of our projects for 2013 will incorporate at least one of these items.  It may be a luminaire, a conference table, a custom door, or a  simple item like a candle holder for the corporate restroom.  It doesn’t really matter, as long as it’s heirloom quality and it MATTERS!

Here’s an example, the design for the common hatchet.

Well, this really isn’t the common hatchet- it’s a handmade Wetterlings campers hatchet from Sweden; hand forged over the last 100 years, and it is PERFECT.  This is an item that you have never really thought about.  It’s just an axe, right?  No, it isn’t.

The word hatchet comes from the French word Hachette or hache meaning axe.  It’s simplicity and perfection is the result of designs originating from 6000 BC to date.  The hatchet has been tested and reworked over the years to become one of the most perfect designs in history.

At a glance it looks like a simple object made of two materials, but the forged construction of this hatchet is remarkable.  A piece of tool steel is forged in a series of trip hammers, and pierced for the handle.  The shape of the eye, cheek, haft, lug, heel, end knob and head takes years of experience to master, as well as a significant investment in equipment to fabricate.

You may walk through one of the spaces that Clockwork has designed and think;  I like it- it’s simple and pleasant, but of course simplicity is the most difficult to achieve.

The designers at Clockwork hope to achieve Wetterlings quality and perfection for you this year, and hope that you respect our efforts as much as we respect your investment in us.

-Neil

Clockwork lands feature in New American Luxury.  Check it out!

Here’s a copy of the online version:  http://newamericanluxury.com/2012/clockwork-design-architecture/

Every single day we dedicate ourselves to our J. O. B. As widespread, diverse and variant the independent aspects of our daily routine may be, we all share the same bottom line – we work. We work hard, work long, work smart, and constantly strive to better either ourselves as individuals, our dedicated profession(s), and/or the company we consider worthy of the majority of our time (and ultimately our lives).  Some (presumably the majority) say its for a little piece of paper, that’s right – a paycheck.  But I’m not confident, nor willing to admit that the piece of paper we work so hard to receive every two weeks is the underlying premise of ‘work’.  I think it’s more than that.  I believe that it is to better something. That is the whole point, right? To obtain a higher meaning of success or fulfillment. We, as humans, on a basic emotional level, have needs – and I believe one elemental desire is cored around ’contribution’. To add, give, and/or provide significance to the said ’something’ in which we love… or for some, desire to change.

Upon my arrival home, following a typical daily routine consisting of an often long and mentally-intensive work day I cardinally set aside time to reflect on the day’s events.  This aspect of my evening is indispensable.  This brief time-frame propagates insight and permits internal deliberation on the significance and indications of crossed paths and entailed interactions.  It’s in these concise moments of clarity that I have an opportunity to determine my personal perspective of meaning… my actions, my words, my profession and most importantly my ‘contributions’.

I encourage you to the same - and at the end of this analytical debate if in the core of your being, in the pit of your stomach you are ‘satisfied’ as a direct result of the people, companies, communities, and/or professions being bettered by your direction and devotion, then you will understand that your fundamental need is being met.  In this instance you realize that you can’t put a price on meaning… because once attained, an accomplished level of achievement, respect, or shared support can’t be expressed by a decimal point, a coma, or an additional zero. It’s simply not comprehensible. The emotional rewards of our ‘work’, the instances that completely overwhelm you with lucid intuition (particularly pertaining to the purpose of your dedication and as a result, providing positive and lasting impacts) are absolutely invaluable.

It’s in the moment that you discover a purpose in your work that you truly see the potential of what you are doing.  The ‘why’ that we all so nauseatingly pursue becomes evident and you will become more focused and ‘defined’ than ever.

the challenge… is you have to find and embrace those certain individuals who share and express a parallel passion and a comparable perspective (whether it’s family, friends, clients, a group, or even a city).  Every day is a journey, a hunt, a pursuit.  We all are searching for the same (or similar at least) thing – and that thing (in my eyes) is meaning -something to engrave a small yet lasting impression on this unbelievably overwhelming world.

I (and we at clockwork) absolutely and undeniably believe in purpose and ultimately providing talents, thoughts, discussions and labor to predicate a process that works for the progression of people, communities, and the built environment that is an integral part of the fabric of society.

- written by shane fowler.