Radical Joy Revealed
April 19, 2017
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Radical Joy Revealed is a weekly message of inspiration about finding and making beauty in wounded places. We hope you'll enjoy these doorways into places that are both familiar and surprising, and we welcome your suggestions, stories, and photos. Click here to subscribe. 


The new Sandy Hook School, Newtown, Connecticut
The new Sandy Hook School opened at its new location in Newtown, Connecticut last fall, four years after Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 children, six adults, and himself. In designing the new school, said architect Barry Svigals, the challenge was not to focus on what the new building would look like, but on what those who would spend their days there really needed. To that end, the architects at Svigals + Partners listened a great deal to parents, teaches, and children.
 
At one point in the design process, for example, local children were invited to a space where tables held twigs, pine cones, leaves and a selection of art supplies. Each child drew one of the natural objects, then was shown how to hold up another object with a special pair of tweezers so a second child could draw it. The children paid great attention to helping one another draw the best picture possible. The architects incorporated the drawings into an undulating wooden façade for the school interior.
 
"The sickness we have as human beings is that we have lost this profound connection with ourselves and in nature," Svigals said. He was determined to create a school with a landscape that would both foster a sense of safety and invite nature in. Among the design elements meant to achieve that goal are small niches with curved wooden benches and tall windows that offer the children places to play and read, while surrounded by plants, hills, and trees.
 
The primary goal, said Svigals, was to "create a wonderful and inspiring place for kids to learn." 

The 9th annual Global Earth Exchange is Saturday, June 17! On this day people all over the world go to damaged places they care about, share their stories, and make a simple gift of beauty for the place. Our theme this year is...

Sharing Love of Place
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For more information and to register, see our website.
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Radical Joy for Hard Times is a global community of people dedicated to finding and making beauty in wounded places. Reconnecting with these places, sharing our stories of loss, and making acts of beauty there, we transform the land, reconnect people and the places that nourish them, and empower ourselves to make a difference in the way we live on Earth. 
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Each week Radical Joy Revealed comes to you free of charge with inspiring stories and suggestions for living with endangered places in creative, life-affirming ways. It takes thought, imagination, and a sense of timing to uncover and write the stories, choose just the right images to accompany them, and prepare them for distribution, and we could use your financial help. Please show your support of Radical Joy Revealed by making a tax-deductible donation to our non-profit organization.

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