The Rey Foundation maintains a Environmental Design Studio at the Community School in South Tamworth, NH. The studio includes a GIS (Geographic Information System) lab and and database that is available to students and faculty at the Community School, as well as Bearcamp Valley and Sandwich Range Communities. Environmental Design has been defined:
We live in the world by design. Creating the everyday environment in which we live involves complex systems of cultural meaning, visual communication and the use of tools, technology and materials. As a field of study, Environmental design encompasses the built, natural, and human environments and focuses on fashioning physical and social interventions informed by human behavior and environmental processes. Design asks us to find answers to the most fundamental of human questions: how should we live in the world and what should inform our actions? This complex endeavor requires an interdisciplinary approach.
The Environmental Design Studio is currently focus on supporting a variety of community-based initiatives to establish a protected corridor between the Sandwich Mountain Range in the White Mountain National Forest and the Ossipee Mountains. This corridor has the potential to balance a a combination of values, including wildlife, agriculture. recreation and human settlement.
The Studio is also leading an effort to establish the Hans Rey Energy Garden at The Community School, which will seek to make the Community School buildings, grounds, farm and forest and model for sustainability by demonstrating environmental technologies and practices in the areas of energy, water, food, agriculture and silviculture, and biodiversity protection.
