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Is it us or me? The question of human survival |
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A linkedIn blog about design and building.....
I think the intense responses make it clear how many people are interested in this on so many levels. That is a good thing.
One thing we can agree on is the mother nature is fine and it is our health and survival that is the issue here.
If this is the case, it seems to me that there have always been two kinds of ways we act as humans. One way is to act as humanitarians, the other is to conquer based on many economic reasons. All of humanity has done this forever.
The problem facing us has now met an impasse. Our earth, the population and the available resources are colliding for the first time and it matters because we might not make it and if we do it may not be for the best. Certainly, the argument about our grandchildren has become very provocative.
This is one planet. We all share it. If you think we are exempt, think about the spread of the Aids epidemic and how it has spread throughout the world. Think of the pending human trauma in other countries as they try to feed and house their families and there will be no water. The pictures of these impoverished people we see today will be in the millions, actually, billions and soon. Imagine the risk to us all in disease and uncontrollable , unmanageable resource management.
Planned Parenthood has failed and religion continues to tell women to not use birth control and this happens mostly in poor countries.
Humanity has one option, only one, create a new Enlightenment, we have before. Focus on each other and health. Prioritize , before all politics and religions making health for mankind the only priority, physically, soulfully and spiritually. Let the individuals honor be the first order of business beginning with each other, today and from now on.
Redesign design making homes high quality, energy efficient, and healthy in executing and production. Look to serve, as the greatest people have and push social consciousness towards our shared humanity.
Keep talking.... |
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American Cities are Unhealthy |
American cities have lost the essential elements of health in design, energy use, land planning and future population absorption. The training of architects today is very much like the training of physicians, many specialists and no comprehensive philosophies that guarantee all aspects of human health is included in a diagnosis. Essentially, the training of the architect historically resembled more of the training of the engineer today and this was not as complete as was done historically.
As a student of Vitruvius, 27AD, the building process was considered a part of human health and our buildings and cities today lack this fundamental consideration. Historically, cities and early communities shared the same qualities and design elements. These were, location to water and potability, high ground, patterns that related to the constellations which assured measure of time and agricultural planting, height of buildings never exceeding 7 stories to allow for air and light, a sacred core, transportation, upwind of bad air, local materials and products. Naturally, all these also assure sustainability and the deeper soulfulness we crave. Our cities and the ones around the world are hastily being designed with the new "Green" band aid methodology. Unfortunately, these pieces address an underlying problem in the essential elements of human health with basic existing design and construction approaches being profit driven. Enclosed buildings, unhealthy air, excessive glass, lack of "clean" products , greenways and harmonic patterns in road and infrastructure will continue to assure stress and ill health unless this model is challenged and we adopt a dramatically new model, more like the ones from the past.
The drawings from the past all share the sacred geometries that assure human health. We have no patterns today nor do we have any philosophy that is challenging our mechanistic architecture.
I challenge the way we have taught our architects, their thinking and methodology and know how individuals crave other solutions.
For your information, 44% of personal income is spent on home. 55% of our environmental resources are spent on home. My clients and research confirm that 85% of home purchases are made by women and another 85% of purchases at Home Depot are made by women. This represents over 2 trillion in annual expenditures.
As we will be seeing the population double in foreseeable future , the US has not grasped the need to downsize, the need to spare the aquifers from urban sprawl nor the need to provide soulful , healthy homes to individuals. We are so far off track it feels as though with out bold changes in this industry, our building solutions will not begin to address the future and human health and survival will be compromised.
The reason I believe in my work is because of my professional experience dealing with clients over a 25 year period.The public is stressed, the solutions we are providing are not based on a new approach but on the same soulless, mechanistic approach from the last 100 years. I believe our answers can be found in the spectacular building models form the past that not only remain our most beautiful but also show us how to consider human health and the health of the environment as interdependent.
If this note, has in any way challenged or interested you I have many more ideas to share.
I have a distributor and am looking for a strong team to complete this important work. I was told many times why I could not design and build homes but I continued. Producing a film feels very much the same way.
I have a complete marketing study, 95% of all footage, 60% animations and a companion book. I believe I have uncovered a nerve in the market because of the huge response I have received. |
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American Cites are unhealthy |
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American cities have lost the essential elements of health in design, energy use, land planning and future population absorption. The training of architects today is very much like the training of physicians, many specialists and no comprehensive philosophies that guarantee all aspects of human health is included in a diagnosis. Essentially, the training of the architect historically resembled more of the training of the engineer today and this was not as complete as was done historically.
As a student of Vitruvius, 27AD, the building process was considered a part of human health and our buildings and cities today lack this fundamental consideration. Historically, cities and early communities shared the same qualities and design elements. These were, location to water and potability, high ground, patterns that related to the constellations which assured measure of time and agricultural planting, height of buildings never exceeding 7 stories to allow for air and light, a sacred core, transportation, upwind of bad air, local materials and products. Naturally, all these also assure sustainability and the deeper soulfulness we crave. Our cities and the ones around the world are hastily being designed with the new "Green" band aid methodology. Unfortunately, these pieces address an underlying problem in the essential elements of human health with basic existing design and construction approaches being profit driven. Enclosed buildings, unhealthy air, excessive glass, lack of "clean" products , greenways and harmonic patterns in road and infrastructure will continue to assure stress and ill health unless this model is challenged and we adopt a dramatically new model, more like the ones from the past.
The drawings from the past all share the sacred geometries that assure human health. We have no patterns today nor do we have any philosophy that is challenging our mechanistic architecture. I challenge the way we have taught our architects, their thinking and methodology and know how individuals crave other solutions.
For your information, 44% of personal income is spent on home. 55% of our environmental resources are spent on home. My clients and research confirm that 85% of home purchases are made by women and another 85% of purchases at Home Depot are made by women. This represents over 2 trillion in annual expenditures.
As we will be seeing the population double in foreseeable future , the US has not grasped the need to downsize, the need to spare the aquifers from urban sprawl nor the need to provide soulful , healthy homes to individuals. We are so far off track it feels as though with out bold changes in this industry, our building solutions will not begin to address the future and human health and survival will be compromised.
The reason I believe in my work is because of my professional experience dealing with clients over a 25 year period.The public is stressed, the solutions we are providing are not based on a new approach but on the same soulless, mechanistic approach from the last 100 years. I believe our answers can be found in the spectacular building models form the past that not only remain our most beautiful but also show us how to consider human health and the health of the environment as interdependent.
If this note, has in any way challenged or interested you I have many more ideas to share. I have a distributor and am looking for a strong team to complete this important work. I was told many times why I could not design and build homes but I continued. Producing a film feels very much the same way. I have a complete marketing study, 95% of all footage, 60% animations and a companion book. I believe I have uncovered a nerve in the market because of the huge response I have received. |
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Nature's Patterns challenge the creation theory.
One is all inclusive, complete , perfect
My home, my peace, my balance
Her home, harmonic, balanced,beautiful earth
Ancient mysteries explained through sacred geometries
How do you use six words to say what has taken a lifetime to understand? Once, I began to question everything changed. The question was simple to begin with. It was" How did we get where we are?" What it meant was, how did we loose our landscape, our regional designs, our quality buildings? Where had our communities gone, our families? How had the culure gotten so far away from close family and community ties? Home, our most sacred place had changed so much over the years and between divorce and corporate moves,mortgage expense, poor design and land use, drugs, alcohol ,internet porn, our very core, our personal sacred space had been violated.
Home, where we regain our sense of belonging has changed. So, this work, these six words is big . It questions what happened and where we go. It has looked into multiple cultures over vast periods of time to try to rediscover how to redesign design and this is what I learned.
Design from the inside out, from the person to the building , building to community , community to earth and back again. See these as interdependent, connected and One.What I learned is that this One cannot abuse the earth or each other, knowing the deep connection of life itself.As so many buildings, their architecture and building quality relied on this concept. This interdependence between human health and survival and the impact of the building on the earth. These connections impact all aspects of human health, in body,mind and spirit.
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Unfortunately, there are religious groups that deny a woman the right to birth control. Ideologies that encourage population to fill their own pockets with cash has been in existence for a very long time. The prejudice towards women, children and human life should be challenged. Unfortunately, these religious groups have very few free thinking people in their power bases.
There is nothing to prevent the population from exploding, that window has closed. Mother nature will deal with this with famine, disease and environmental pollution to say nothing of the human suffering .
Our job is to deal with acknowledging these problems and to begin to adjust our thinking towards a balanced outcome.
We must agree that we share this planet and find forums to have our professional expertise begin to comprehend the magnitude of this problem. We can solve so many problems if we are realistic about this calamity of population, pollution and diminishing resources . It is not what we know, but how we think that will make the difference. |
In the US today, our standard of living reflects 4 times the earths resources and the population is about to double. Imagine twice as many people. If we consider old fashioned values, we all remember a different time, from our own lives or our families lives, a simpler time in some ways. Certainly, as a home design/build professional, I have been through the Solar 70"s, the greedy 80"s, the somewhat prosperous 90's and 00"s. Home building used to be done by individual builders who had reputations and quality was highly regarded. Today we have large builders who see our farms and aquifers as opportunity to buy cheap land to build Hog homes.Back in the 70's corporations saw an opportunity to control people's lives and transfers became common.At around the same time, divorce increased housing needs and quality became too expensive. All we had known and learned about solar was forgotten. The documentary film, "Earth Day" , worth seeing, shows the politics of the 80's when Carter said we needed to sacrifice and Regan said, no we do not, not we Americans! We voted and the environmental movement of the 60's,70's and 80's disappeared.
Between the unbridled greed at the expense of human health we are in a most critical time . Maybe an answer is in a simple choice, choose quality over quantity hence creating balance in lifestyle and future health. |
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It is not what we know but how we think that is the problem |
No time for the homework ,but thank you for the suggestion. Our focus should be on a common mission. Once defined, solutions are easy. We seem to have ample ability to solve problems yet no effective leadership that can connect the dots . So, if we can solve the problems ,it must be another problem. This may be in how we see our connection to the way we interact with nature. Philosophically, can we continue to exploit the earth and expect healthy results for ourselves? All of these issues directly impact our individual lives. A new system model is in order.
The US is suffering from a profit driven model in business that has been allowed to exploit the individual and the environment . Unfortunately, until we resolve this critical component to the proposed system, there will be continued band aid solutions, non long term.I suggest other countries, and there are many, have a better cultural and philosophical understanding of these connections. Their understanding is the result of connecting these dots of human connections to our environment and making choices that sees human health as more important than profit. Certainly, the profit is greater when we live in prosperity and balance to the individual.
It is really not what we know but how we think that is the problem. |
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Bulldozers await recovery to continue sprawl |
The economic downturn, which we have experienced before, only delays the bulldozers. The big builders are cash heavy awaiting cheap land sales to prepare for more urban sprawl., Check out Toll Brothers on the NYSE. I believe the only way to avoid this destruction is to educate the general public.Unfortunately, change will happen because we decide, as consumers, developers want the cash,
It is true it takes time to change people's minds, individually and collectively. It is up to all of us to choose the healthiest solutions we have. Clearly, wind power is healthy and if we used utility lines and light poles, it would be amazing, immediately.
We know by blood testing that we have 500 times more pollutants in our blood than our grandmothers did (great grandmothers). In order to assure heath, our buildings need to be built well, be manageable,affordable and these mean sustainably.
When we think about where to live, live near where you work. That would help all of us. When you buy a house, buy one that is dry, sunny, with good HVAC and built with quality not quantity. Try to buy to restore, remodel reinvest in existing infrastructures.
Then take a deep breathe and relax! |
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Windmills , Nuclear , Urban Planning and Human health |
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There is no downside to wind power except noise. There is with nuclear. However, we are not at a time when one solution is enough. Actually, we really must stop our consumption model, change our attitude about how we live and downsize, create health and safe energy use and address our approach to all existing infrastructures that prevent this happening. As a professional builder, I have dealt with many restrictions. Urban planning should be redesigned to consider a much larger system dynamic to include human health and the interconnections between the existing built world and the possibilities. If we share a common goal of health, answers become more apparent for change.We need leadership, not opinion in areas of human health in our existing built world to sustain quality of life as the population will be doubling very soon |
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Can women's buying stuff be our salvation? |
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Imagine if you needed less. Had less , but lived better.
Imagine if you are personally responsible for singlehandedly destroying your own childs health through the lack of understanding how damaging the stuff you buy is ,to the air we breathe or the water we drink.
Last spring I saw a wonderful documentary film called "Earth Day". It is a story of the environmental movement of the 60's and 70's. The hard work, the progress of an entire generation, my generation which disappears as the political agenda of two past presidents asks Americans to choose. Jimmy Carter , the Nobel Prize winner and past President of the US understood the danger our personal consumption had on our health , seeing the connection between the environments health and our personal health. He spoke to us about learning to "sacrifice", his terminology was political suicide, the impact environmentally ,horrific. During those debates, another President, Ronald Regan said something like," Americans, we can have the American dream", which destroyed the course of our conservation awareness and the environmental movement and made our world a toxic place to live as greed and entitlements replaced common sense and survival, at least for some.
As we await the economy's recovery, large land developers and builders await the sound of the bulldozers tearing up our farms and aquifers. Unaware of the magnitude of their process, they build inexpensive, big hog homes that destroy our land, water, air and peace of mind. We then buy them and fill them with large, over sized furniture to fill the large excessive space, need to work to pay for the huge expence of a hog home and as divorce reaches astronomical levels, we feel helpless.
It is the US home that needs to be looked at. Women need much more information to help them know what they are buying and what impact that has on health, on everyones health. Women naturally care about this.
The next time you are asked to move, consider not. The next chance you buy a home, consider remodeling or moving into an urban area. The next time you enlarge, go to Ikea and add storage first. When you get in your car, be sure to do all the errands you can at one time. The next time you see higher pay, consider the disruption to your family and life, say no if you must move. Demand quality over quantity.
Women can change the outcome to the environmental disaster we are facing by purchasing smartly. In the end, it is the women who can recapture the qualtity of life we crave, simplify ladies and save the planet. It may be in your very own home that will make the shift occur!
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