Taking Part is an opportunity for our community to find common ground and connection with one another as we look to the future of The Sea Ranch and strive to better understand our environment and each other.
“Our most difficult task was to find a way for people to inhabit this magnificent and natural system in numbers without people destroying the very reason for people to come here.”
The Sea Ranch - Diary of an Idea
natural tranquility peace calm community beauty ocean quiet architecture relax recharge solitude magical restoration healing stewardship community light forest
natural tranquility peace calm community beauty ocean quiet architecture relax recharge solitude magical restoration healing stewardship community light forest
THE TAKING PART WORKSHOP REPORT
IS HERE!
MOORE RUBLE YUDELL ARCHITECTS have released their report about the events from the October weekend workshop. Get your own copy!
POST 2023 TAKING PART WORKSHOP:
Renewing an Inspiring Legacy & Envisioning a Resilient Future
On the weekend of October 21-22, Architecture Firm Moore Ruble Yudell's (MRY) team led an energetic and creative TAKING PART Workshop at the Sea Ranch. Approximately 200 Sea Ranchers came together to renew the extraordinary legacy of living lightly on the land, and to envision a resilient future with adaptations for contemporary challenges. We explored issues of climate change, affordability, aging in place, and strengthening community and mobility.
By the end of two days, we had prioritized actionable initiatives for the next era. Ideas and inspiration flowed through the weekend of group work, sketching, awareness walks and shared meals. As part of our summation, the California poet Jahan Khalighi shared a powerful new poem, illuminating the evolution of The Sea Ranch. A celebration of movement and sketching, led by Daria Halprin, provided an inspiring finale to an exceptional gathering.
This is the fourth in the historic series of TAKING PART Workshops initiated and led by Lawrence Halprin in 1983, 1993, and 2003.
“SEA RANCH HARVEST”
A Poem by Jahan Khalighi
Standing at the generative edge
where sediment cliff rock
weathered by sea foam and fog fingers
Meets the roar and rumble
of raw ocean wave
Where the fluid force
of tidal undulations
Shape the density of stone into sculptured pose
Place where golden grassy meadows
Meet entangled cyprus hedgerows
Where faultline river
walks alongside highway 1
This place of wild edges
where a community emerged
From rugged idealism
contemporary design
And a deep love of nature’s wisdom
Place where open space
was meant to predominate
over human settlement
A village architecture
oriented to the whole
as more important than
it’s individual parts
Where a commons aesthetic
was birthed from an ethic
of ecological principle
To follow the curvature of the lands dancing body
To listen to weather systems as guide
And trace the contours of the earth’s expressions
as lesson
For how to fashion
a home
A community
Sea Ranch is a place of wild edges
Where the choreographer
of northern winds
move tree limbs
Into eastern slant
Where abalone shells
scatter like seeds
into cracks of washed stone
Where the vast expanse
of the pacific
is reached by river
and we consider
What of this lands legacy
might we call forward
What of these seeded values
might we water
What of this privilege and access
This beauty which attracted us
into it’s embrace
What of the deers, foxes, coyotes and bobcats
What of the eagles, cormorants ravens and ospreys
What of the frogs and crickets and all that crawls in hidden places
What of their sovereignty might we honor with the lightness of our touch
What of the original pomo stewards of this coastline
And their living traditions that continue to persevere
What of re-conciliation and rematriation
What of the whales migration
and the possibility of connection
That exists right beneath our feet
What of the barn, rec-center and beach where we meet
And the silence and spaciousness that spreads it’s wings
What about the forested areas and the tending of garden
What of our relationship to water
in a landscape of fire, wind, rock, sand and sun
What of the past, the present, the future to come
What of the symbols, emblems, logos and signs
Which beckon our attention
What wise ways of knowing did we leave behind
That are calling our collection
What innovative strategies for resilience might come from reflection
What possibilities exists in a picture we imagine
In this place of wild edges
Where the land meets the sea
Where we stand inside a circle
And look towards the furthest reach
To listen for the vision which travels in the breeze
And roots itself inside the earth through every single tree
To live a life which celebrates the blessings we receive.
Photos by Kerry Mansfield ©2023
WORKSHOP LOCATION ~ THE WHITE BARN
WORDS from DONLYN LYNDON: A Founding Sea Ranch Architect
Today is a good day to remember that the Sea Ranch has always been a place where multiple interests have been considered important.
Certainly, it was more than just a singular vision by Al Boeke, a Vice President of Oceanic Properties, who had been sent out to the Bay Area from their headquarters in Hawaii to seek a place in California to build a new town.
It may have been he, it seems, who first imagined this territory as a place for second home development, after having been flown up to view a large tract of ranch land that had been advertised for sale by its owners.
This somewhat remote location was not suitable for a New Town, but could become, Al imagined, a “second home community”, drawing people from the Bay Area metropolitan region to come up here for respite in a more natural, dramatic and attractive locale - a landscape worth caring for.
Having convinced the corporation’s Board of this possibility, he looked to the noted landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, with whom he had worked on a New Town development in Hawaii, to become the Lead Planner.
The table around which all these gathered, to present ideas, discuss and deliberate might well be considered the first Sea Ranch Workshop, with each person taking part in providing his or her viewpoint on what it would take to make this a great and viable place, then discussing them together.
Consideration of these many factors resulted in the concepts, graphically rendered in diagrams by Halprin, that we have used now for decades to great effect. They can still guide work on The Sea Ranch.
[We] Might seem to separate Past, Present and Future….and artificially construct distinct differences, when the most important construct is continuity, which can draw from the past and open opportunities for how we may move into the future.
Clearly there are changes which have taken place since the founding and others that will take place in the society and economy and the geography in which we live…. and there are more changes to come. This makes it all the more important to gather common understandings that may guide us and our successors in caring for this place.
Larry and Anna Halprin stayed firmly involved with the TSR throughout their lives and ....and he, knowing the vitality of the experience of those who were now living here, realized that also was a resource and an important part of what needed to be brought to mind. He created the idea of the Workshops, which would be open to all and gather vital current information about the place and its care from many voices - "Taking Part" in continuing to envision the promise of this place and the ways it can best be stewarded.
PICTURES FROM THE WORKSHOP
FROM The Archives Committee
The Taking Part 2023 Workshop was held in the White Barn on the weekend of October 21/22. The barn was set up with 20 tables, each seating up to ten people. There was an entry area for food service, and an area where the presentations took place. More than 150 people attended the event, which was conducted by the architecture firm of Moore Ruble Yudell of Los Angeles (MRY), led by Buzz Yudell and Mario Violich. The Archives Committee hired MRY to conduct the workshop—a role held by Lawrence Halprin at the previous workshops in 1983, 1993 and 2003. The weekend was divided into three workshops and an awareness walk about the White Barn.
On Saturday morning attendees were assigned to worktables; each table had a large map of TSR, a large post-it pad, colored post-it notes, pens, and crayons. Additionally, a 10-foot-long map of TSR was hung on the barn wall and attendees were given five red dots, five green dots and a gold star. These were used to identify the five areas that represent current and future challenges for the community (red dots), the five areas highly valued as exemplars of TSR’s founding principles (green dots), and a favorite place (gold star).
Introductory presentations were by Buzz Yudell and CM Menka Sethi, and a brief statement from Donlyn Lyndon was read by Design Committee member Mary Griffin Turnbull. Attendees were asked to discuss and record at their tables what they felt were the future opportunities for creating community, how the community has changed and evolved in recent years, and what are the key opportunities and challenges to environmental resilience. Each table posted comments on the barn walls written on the large post-it; a representative from each table gave a brief verbal summary.
In addition to four people from MRY, seventeen Sea Ranchers worked as facilitators to assist participants in formulating, recording, and presenting the tables’ answers to these questions.
After a lunch break participants went on an awareness walk to one of three areas within easy walking distance of the barn, guided by a printed Places Guide which pointed out specific areas of note either historically or ecologically. Gathering after the walk, each table again shared their observations. The day ended with a wine and cheese reception which gave participants an opportunity to review what other tables had posted during the day.
On Sunday morning, despite a terrific downpour of rain, most of Saturday’s participants gathered again to discuss key topics raised on Saturday and to find creative consensus on a number of topics. More postings and a final comment were presented by each table. The day ended with a poem created specifically for this event by Larry Halprin’s grandson, Jahan Khalighi, a dance led by Halprins’ daughter Daria, and a casual lunch provided by the Lodge.
Videos created by Alan Frost are posted on this site. Brochures created for Taking Part will be available at the Association offices. Follow-up articles will be printed in the monthly Bulletin, and Soundings will have a recap of the weekend in its Winter issue. A final report by MRY will be submitted to Archives by mid-December and shared with the community.
The entire weekend was free-of-charge to all participants. Funding was made possible by the generous donations of several Sea Ranchers, The Sea Ranch Lodge, and a small budget donation from The Sea Ranch Association to the Archives Committee.
Thank you to all who took part and to everyone who helped put this event together. We look forward to the many ways your ideas will enrich the lives of all of us who live in this wonderful place.
SEE WHAT YOU MISSED AT THE EVENT!
THE PLACES GUIDE
All participants were provided with The Places Guide to explore during the Awareness Walk. You can visit one or all of them! Each place offers a distinctly different experience and opportunity for discovery!
