Ask Nature

Check out AskNature.org. This project of The Biomimicry Institute opens the door to nature's research lab. Down at NATURE they've been exploring design applications for hundreds of millions of years. The results are all around you from the architecture of galaxies to the interior design of your brain. Want ideas for waterproofing and paint colors? Don't go to the local lumber yard. Ask Nature and discover what birds, plants and other living things have learned about living on Earth.

Biomimcry means imitating life. What better way to learn about truly sustainable design. Is there a more functional, versatile and beautiful solar collector than a leaf? Why not study a bird's feathers to learn how to design roofing shingles? Nature is ready and willing to share her secrets. Talk to her at AskNature.org.

Soul Fires at the Core of Dwelling

Primal acts of place-making renew the world. The vital task of caring for the hearth narrates the whole story of creation. In Ireland, the tradition of Smooring the Fire embodies the birth of diversity from the oneness of existence. At the end of the day, the cooking and warming fire is put to rest, but not extinguished in the following ritual. "The embers are spread evenly on the hearth--which is generally in the middle of the hearth--and formed into a circle. This circle is then divided into three equal sections, a small boss being left in the middle. A line of peat is laid between each section, each peat touching the boss, which forms a common center. The first peat is laid down in the name of the God of Life, the second in the name of the God of Peace, the third in the name of the God of Grace. The circle is then covered with ashes sufficient to subdue but not to extinguish the fire, in the name of the Three of Light. The heap, slightly raised in the center, is called 'Tula nan,' the Hearth of the Three. When the smooring operation is complete, the woman closes her eyes, stretches her hand, and softly intones one of the many formulae current for these occasions."

This ritual links the structure of home to the structure of conscious through which we perceive the world. Within the oneness of Being a spark of consciousness awakens to itself. The One appears to become the Three, The Perceiver, The Perceived and The Process of Perception. Every experience in life and architecture is seen through this lens. I (Perceiver) look out (Process of Perception) at the garden of the world (Perceived). How I interpret what I see determine how I shape the world into structures for dwelling. With each perception, I am smooring the fire of of living, tend the hearth of new creation.

Can Prefab Be Green?

This house, designed by Scott Spect Harpman of uArchitects, generates its own electricity, collects and stores rainwater, and processes its waste. It's shipped to the site on two flatbed trailers and can be erected in less than a day. The design fulfills the goals of green building. Or does it? I appreciate the attempt, but to say this a house is attuned to nature is to be caught in a fragmented view of ecology. Like Le Corbusier calling houses "machines for living," I call this house a "machine for mining natural resources." It efficiently takes and gives back the energy and matter needed for human dwelling, but is misses essential connections that make a nature sustainable, living ecosystem.

Reflecting on the way nature does prefab points out the disconnect between this house and vital ecology. An apple seed, for example, is a prefab component produced by nature. All seeds manufactured by an individual apple tree have a similar shape and contain the information needed to make new apple trees. Once the seeds arrive at their sites, they interact with the particular qualities of the soil, air, sunlight, rain and groundwater of those sites. The seeds also interact with the plants, birds, insects, humans and other creatures they find there. To survive and grow, the prefab apple seeds adapt to the conditions they find on the ground. This shapes the overall form of the tree and the qualities of the apples it produces. A prefab apple seed planted on the Iowa prairie and one planted on California coast encounter very different environments. They share the same DNA, but the local relationship turns them into different creatures. Would an apple tree grow at all in Panama or Antarctica?

I don't get this idea that a building is green without engaging a direct relationship with its location on earth. What makes a particular spot on earth a living place includes the geology that formed the terrain, the geometry of the sun's path across that specific latitude, the plants and animals that live in that watershed, and many other factors that make a Tahitian island different from Vancouver Island and a Greek Island. Architecture that is truly green is not born in a factory and dispersed on trucks. It is born from its site and grows in response to the land, sun, plants, animals, water and other neighbors it finds there.

How a Donut Explains the Secrets of Design & Life

The design of a donut sums up what I've learned about life. Within the vast, unnamable expanse of Being rises the circle of sticky goo. Mind is drawn to the sparkling, sugary mandala. Body salivates. Fulfillment, it appears, can be had by biting into the ring of sweet fat. When swallowed, however, the pleasure of those empty calories passes almost instantly. 

On the other hand, pausing for a moment and gazing at the glazed halo reveals the donut's secret power and wisdom. The whole structure is about the hole. The circle of calories frames the calorie-less center.  The gap in the dough is not empty. It is vibrant spaciousness, ignited by being captured within the ring of sugar and wheat. The donut captures this bit of spaciousness not to harness or suppress its vitality, but to tease its potential into manifestation. The design of the donut embodies the womb of the universe. Without energized spaciousness the donut is a lifeless blob. Without the donut's sweet circle, spaciousness remains unborn nothingness.  

It's the same with architecture. We can make our forms and materials as tasty as we like. If, however, the sexy geometry, sensuous skin, green materials doesn't make spaciousness come alive we are just littering the landscape with more passing amusement and empty calories. 

Will Cleverness or Insight Save the World?

Cleverness gets a lot of press. It also gets a lot of money, power and adoration. Our fascination with cleverness reveals our belief that the mind is superior to the heart, that flash is more important than substance. As a result, architects often aspire to cleverness rather than insight. In the bargain, the landscape gets littered with glittering toys rather than structures that engage the rich mix of nature and culture.

Cleverness is cute, perky, entertaining. It's Disneyland for the mind's insatiable desire for entertainment. But, as a wise friend said, we may want the world to be like Disneyland, but nobody really lives there. On the other hand, insight is perceptive, responsive, nourishing. Cleverness screams, "Look at me. I'm incredible. Check me out." Insight whispers, "Look at the world. It's amazing. Check it out." Cleverness believes, "I am the source of the innovation and change that determines the state of the world." Insight believes, "I participate in a world that is creating and transforming itself again and again."

Our fascination with cleverness feeds an ego-centered, competitive approach to architecture and life. It separates us from nature. Even when cleverness says it is working to benefit the world, it is working to feed itself. Perhaps this is because cleverness sees itself as the world. Insight promotes an eco-centered, co-operative approach to architecture and life. It engages nature. By seeing itself as integral to the workings of nature, it cannot help but foster the renewing processes of nature. 

Ultimately, cleverness fragments and wounds the world. Insight appreciates the interconnectedness of the world and heals it.

It's Alive!!!

Passing any strip mall, big box store, or office park, I see a graveyard of lifeless buildings. I understand the limitations of budgets, building codes and routine function. But I don't get limitations in imagination and missing the chance to infuse matter with life. The energy is in there, waiting to be released from the frozen appearance of stone, wood, glass, even plastic; released from the seemingly static stance of walls and furniture. In the rush to find renewable sources of energy such as sun and wind, the potential power within designed objects is being overlooked.

To free the vital forces within architecture, takes letting go of frozen beliefs about form, function, color, sound and other qualities of built environments. By naming a pillar a "pillar" we limit the possibilities of what a pillar can be. Then, along comes an architect like Antonio Gaudi who sees that a column can do more than stand vertically to support a beam. It can tilt! It can dance! Put them is a row and a line of tilting columns can become a conga line of a colonnade.

Energized buildings aren't the result of wild shapes and clever design tricks. They come from looking past preconceived ideas of beauty, purpose, cost, etc. and saying hello to the building elements and furnishings we live with. Try it. Look at the room where you see. Direct your attention to a piece of furniture. Notice what preconceived ideas you have about the furniture. Look through those ideas and imagine you have never seen a designed form like that before. What do you see? What is within this object that wants to be expressed. How could the object be altered to release the energy within it?

Creatures in the Architecture

Sometimes, when I'm at a market or airport, I look around and remember that we are mammals inhabiting an elaborate nest of our own making. If we saw sea otters at the deli counter ordering lunch, or fruit bats passing through security at the United Terminal, we would think we were in a Disney animation. But, humans emerged from the same primordial soup as dolphins, hawks, lizards, tigers and elephants. 

Perceiving myself as an animal living within architecture, I sense the sparks ignited by biology colliding with mental abstractions. This intersection of nature and mind, body and conscious is the creative womb-space where architecture is born. Just as bird perception determines the way birds make nests and ant perception shapes anthills, human conscious determines the way humans inhabit forests, grasslands and deserts. Since our cultural viewpoint puts the mind in conflict with the body, it's no wonder that we've created buildings and cities that clash with nature. In the last 100 years, buildings have reduced the body's importance and favored mental abstractions.

Want would happen if we created homes and neighborhoods more for our animal selves and less for our clever minds. Imagine redesigning the room your in so it focused less on visual/mental aesthetics and more on touch, sound, and smell. Would the material of your chairs have a softer, rougher texture or a harder, smoother one? When you walked across your living, would you like to hear beneath your feet the crisp crunch of gravel or the spongy hush of moss? How would your bedroom change if it were designed around fragrance of lavender or the sound of rain on the roof? What color would your stomach paint your dinning room? How would your arms and legs redesign your shower? Getting out of that brain space between our ears and designing from our bellies opens an entirely different ways of shaping nature into architecture, and crafting buildings into nature. This way, we might begin yo get beyond the idea of green and learn to touch, smell, taste and hear green.