BUILDING WITH THE
BREATH OF LIFE - Tom Bender - revised
draft text 8 Jan.1999
14
. TAKING ACTION
SOME PERSONAL NOTES ON IMPLEMENTING ENERGETICS OF PLACE
Successful achievement of a new way of relating to and shaping our surroundings
is, of course, where the proof of these concepts lie. That accomplishment
is obviously yet in its infancy. Enough can be sensed, hopefully, from the
places shown throughout this book, along with the following projects and
images, to get a tangible sense of the possibilities of implementation,
if only shown in a few bioregions.
Taking action is changing what we do, and also changing how we are and how
we act. It involves chi, and intention; the worlds we walk in and how we
walk in each. It involves how our feet touch the earth, and how we shape
the earth to better touch our feet. In the real world there is no separation
- only interweavings - of chi, intention, love, honoring, respect, celebration,
ancestors, the past and future, what we have been and what we are becoming.
<<<>>>
SEWAGE IS ART!
Healing of Place with Chi and Li
[KOMA model and drawings]
Conventional architecture today seeks primarily visual excitement and immediate
attention-getting impact, but rarely creates places that nurture our bodies,
minds, and spirits. This study of healing place with chi demonstrates an
alternative approach to the making of place. It shows the possibilities
of creating meaningful and nurturing places through design which incorporates
modern application of energetics of place.
Rather than the conventional owner's demands of "I want..., I want...",
it began with the question, "What is the most we can give
to users of the place, to its surroundings and community, to the future,
and to all of life?" It suggests that a giving-centered design
process can create places which more successfully contribute to the true
goals of their creators and users than conventional and even "green"
design. It recognizes that embodiment of positive and nurturing values can
generate the greatest power of a place to affect us, to heal and enhance
our lives and community.
Some traditional practices of place energetics constituted a highly competitive
search to obtain and flaunt the most geomantically favorable site or design,
to give comparative advantage to one's life or success. Such sites had the
most dominant views and positions, favorable breezes, exposures, terrain,
neighbors, etc. In contrast, good practice needs to recognize what is soon
learned in a family relationship - that the happiness and well-being of
each is dependent upon the health and well-being of all. It seeks improvement
of the qualities of physical surroundings which can benefit an entire community.
In this case, choice of site was not possible. The study was done as an
entry in a competition for design of a new Museum of Korean Art and Culture
to be built in Los Angeles, California. The site was already determined,
and its context and qualities were not encouraging. It was located in a
commercial ghetto in a smog-ridden and automobile-dominated urban area of
Los Angeles, filled with racial and class tensions including the aftermath
of rioting and arson. The site was rubble-strewn and barren, with virtually
no trace of the natural ecological community remaining. The site starkly
reflected the results of a society based on greed, on self-centeredness
and materialism, on taking rather than giving. This provided an appropriate
challenge to find what could be given to a place and its community to nurture
and improve its energy and life, and to tackle head-on the issue of healing
and revitalizing the places most damaged by our actions.
Our energy connections with a place occur through our bodies, our minds,
and our hearts. No matter how beautiful we make it, nobody will visit a
museum if its neighborhood is too scary to enter. If our surroundings reflect
back to us only the values of greed, lack of caring, and failure, we are
unlikely to become caring, giving, successful people. But if we initiate
caring for a place, for its people, and honoring a belief in a good future,
it will come to reflect those values, too, and become a support for the
people who live within it. The most important change any building on this
site could demonstrate is a change in the values the site embodies and establishment
of the precept of 'giving' rather than 'taking' as a basis for interaction.
<<<>>>
One basic strategy chosen was to take what is considered
waste, honor it, and turn it into wealth which can enrich the community.
It was probably the least likely action possible - of taking the community
sewer and rerouting it onto the site. The sewage of the neighborhood would
be pumped onto the roof of the museum, given advanced biological treatment,
and its nutrients used to support rooftop produce gardens to provide fresh
produce to the neighborhood. The produce would be sold at a green grocer
incorporated into the public areas of the site, which would provide incentive
and opportunity for everyone in the neighborhood to drop in, linger, and
relax, as well as obtain fresh, healthy produce.
The wastewater from the produce gardens would then be used to irrigate street
tree plantings of native California live oaks. This would help restore greenery,
shade, and some of the native ecology back into the area, as well as decreasing
temperature swings. It would also provide groundwater aquifer recharge,
while demonstrating that a community can take action to improve itself.
This may seem at first to be far removed from the mission of an art museum
and culture center. It is a potential gift, however, which is inherent in
any facility in a neighborhood with community consciousness and a
large roof area. It also has a particular appropriateness in KOMA's case.
KOMA does not have a traditional museum's goal of just storing old objects.
Its goal is to honor its particular cultural heritage, transmit its skills
and values, heal tensions in the community, and stimulate a positive new
modern synthesis of culture.
For that primary role of the center to even begin to succeed, however, it
has to show leadership, to become a welcome and valued part of the community
and to draw people into and contributing to its activities. Vitality is
a goal of art, and any tool which helps achieve that vitality is appropriate.
The resultant roof gardens, street landscaping, and facility gardens are
a true form of art as well as wealth. In this context, sewage truly
is art, and the neighborhood an appropriate canvas!
A community enriching and empowering itself through discovering its least
likely source of wealth can be an essential element of leadership in synthesizing
a new and vibrant culture in this time and place. It also provides several
potential concrete benefits - recapture and savings of sewage treatment
and disposal costs, avoiding use of chemical fertilizers, keeping nutrients
and food production in the neighborhood and in control of the residents,
and providing an attraction to bring more than just Korean neighborhood
residents into the project.
It turns unused roof areas that conventionally contribute only to climate
extremes into green and productive areas. It provides areas of economic
value on the project property beyond those permitted by city zoning codes.
Perhaps most importantly, it demonstrates a commitment to improving the
quality of the community, and concern for the health and well-being of all
members of the community - human and otherwise.
This first level of energetic design was to change the energy and intention
of the neighborhood - replacing values that destroy, pave over, ignore,
and take, and setting in motion ones that support and restore life, diversity,
caring, and giving.
<<<>>>
A second level of energetic design for KOMA
was to change the ecology of the site itself.
It constituted actions around and within the site itself to improve the
microclimate and ecological aspects of the facility. In addition to the
rooftop produce garden, four other separate garden or green elements were
designed into the project - a traditional Korean garden in the heart of
the site, a community-use "forecourt" garden area; an outside
neighborhood "pocket garden" along the sidewalk adjacent to the
west entrance to the project, and the native street tree plantings surrounding
the site. These were planned to quiet the site, to freshen and improve the
oxygen/carbon-dioxide balance in the air, to provide food and home for birds,
butterflies, bats and other forms of life, and to reestablish a natural
ecological community on the site.
Other water features were part of the design - a gurgling and splashing
"moat" surrounding the building, the waterfall and pond in the
pocket garden, fountains at the building corner and at the "spirit
wall" at the south entrance, and fountains and water features at the
entrances. They were used to increase anions in the air to counter the "Santa
Anna" winds, to cool and refresh the air, and to provide counterpoint
to street noise.
The forecourt area, while people-intensive and necessarily hard-paved, was
designed with overhead tree vegetation, moss-covered undersides of overhead
structure, ivy-covered walls, and planters in guardrails and court areas.
These were all designed to be provided water and nutrients by the same wastewater
system.
The traditional Korean garden was located in the core of the building devoted
to understanding and conveying the roots, values, and achievements of traditional
Korean culture. It was ringed by a research library, museum galleries devoted
to the traditional arts of Korea, and a performance hall for traditional
art forms. While providing a serene "breakout" space for meetings
and visitors to the center, the garden gave an intensive experience of traditional
Korean garden and architectural arts. As well, through the principle of
using community wastewater to nurture the garden's growth, and in the special
place given to the location of the garden in the arrangement of the facilities,
this garden also held a much more central role in the symbolic level of
affecting the chi of the place.
Together, these gardens would help to share the place with other life, to
delight in the beauty, richness, and diversity of the life that makes up
a natural community, and to rediscover the sense of fit and rightness of
the natural community that had evolved in this place over the ages.
<<<>>>
The third and perhaps most powerful level of
energetic design involved the minds and hearts of the users and visitors.
In doing so, it dealt with the internal
arrangement, design, and symbolic meaning of elements of the facility. In
traditional Korean city and home planning, the position of power is the
north end of the central N-S axis. Here, the ruler or owner faced and received
the power and warmth from the Sun in the South, and becomes the local source
of power in the complex. In this project, that pattern of arrangement was
honored, and that prime location was given to tradition, to nature, and
to ancestors, in the form of a traditional garden.
Within the garden, in the position of greatest importance directly on this
axis, was placed a physically non-imposing, but symbolically vital element
- a shrine to the ancestors. This was to contain earth and icons brought
from sacred places in Korea. Its role was to give central place and honor
to the tradition, the land, and the ancestors which created the special
Korean tradition and culture, and which brought it to this place. It formed
a touchstone also for members of the community who had come from Korea or
whose family still live there, and a place to scatter the ashes of those
with deep ties to the "old country".
This is not of small importance. If a way can be found to show the continuing
validity and value of the principles underlying a culture and tradition
through its own design and function, the effectiveness of a museum and cultural
center dedicated to that tradition becomes an order of magnitude more successful
than one which can only preserve fragments of a tradition it is unwilling
to embrace itself.
Balanced around this shrine, representing the active and passive, yang and
yin, powers of nature, were a mountain, waterfall, a traditionally-designed
garden pavilion, and a central pool of water, representing the place and
participation of people in the balance of life. From the roof, the sun-purified
waters were conducted to the mountain and waterfall, to the still waters
of the pond, and then flow outward, carrying the energy from this central
and vital place to the rest of the project and on out into the surrounding
community. Likewise, the facility honors and spreads the heritage it represents.
At the core of the facility, the garden gives a place of silence, of emptiness
- a place for things to begin, and a reflection of the primal source out
of which all creation arises.
On this same north-south axis are located the main activity spaces of the
center - a breakout space for the audience of the performance hall, opening
into the garden; the performance hall itself, with a unique stage arrangement
with operable walls allowing a variety of combinations of public and private
use; and the community forecourt which permits a more public, community
and people-oriented gathering space connected with the various parts of
the facility.
The arrangement of the 'stage' area and the performance hall was planned
to give unique opportunity for flexible and public community use, and to
restore performances to the simplicity yet effectiveness of natural lighting,
open air performance, and participatory audience arrangements. The foyer
walls slide aside, merging the performance hall thrust stage and the public
performance area in the forecourt into a single large circular stage for
large community events which can play to both the hall, the forecourt, and
the balconies around it.
<<<>>>
Sustainability requires something be held closely
enough to our hearts that we value it enough to devote the resources needed
to its continuance. It also requires that such maintenance be affordable
and not press heavily on other life. Energetics recognizes the importance
and wisdom of letting the renewable energies of nature wisely channeled
provide the heating, cooling and lighting of a building. All of the elements
of this KOMA design were planned to be naturally lighted, heated and cooled,
and except for the permanent exhibit areas, designed for open-air use tied
to the garden areas during the majority of the year, reducing conventional
energy needs an order of magnitude. They also were planned to use natural
and traditional building materials of the area.
The design for the facility also was based on the energetic principle of
durability, acknowledging that a building that lasts 200 years costs
only one-tenth of a building that lasts only 20 years. The savings from
durability permit a generosity of design that gives comfort, repose, and
fullness to its elements and its users. The expression of that goal of durability
also conveys a firm belief in the future and creates a gift of the facility
to that future, acknowledging that our own lives are built upon the gifts
of the heritage we have inherited.
This core - of permanent and temporary museum galleries, performance hall,
gardens, library, greengrocer, bookstore and newsstand - was all contained
within the traditional form of a walled enclosure - a dominant building
form not only in the Korean tradition but in many of the Latin and African
traditions which are the roots of other community residents. It was felt
a particularly appropriate form for the safekeeping of cultural treasures,
as a sanctuary from the noise, confusion, and wrongness of American urban
streets, and for security in a tension-filled community. This "enclosure"
was combined with curved roof forms which embodied the same sense of effortless,
floating support of traditional Korean roof construction in modern materials
and technologies.
The "moat" and "wall" distinguishes the facility from
surrounding areas, defines it as an honored or "sacred" area,
and makes special acknowledgment of this difference at points of public
entry. At these points, the four elements of life - earth, air, fire,
and water are given special acknowledgment or honor. A gong or a
traditional drum is located in the central entry, acknowledging the power
of air, of vibration and sound, in the organization of life from energy.
Fire, in the form of sunlight, is honored in the form of plant life it makes
possible. Earth is honored in the placement of special rocks, whose form
reminds us of our kinship with the earth, the rocks themselves, and the
stars - all ashes of earlier stars. Water is honored everywhere at entrances,
for its central role in the creation and unfolding of life.
Incorporation of traditional principles of design acknowledges their value,
and with that, the value of the culture of which they were part. Demonstrating
their effective power in new materials, technologies, climate, culture and
context not only gives greater meaning and effectiveness to the design itself,
but as well further enhances the credibility and value of the traditions
and our ability today to create with them a synthesis which opens new vistas
and dimensions of effectiveness for our current environmental design
<<<>>>
By asking the prime question, "What can
we give?", we see what can be gained and created - free, if you
wish - in the course of meeting the program of a facility. Here, careful
arrangement of facilities and creation of ancillary services allowed the
community to use facilities outside museum hours. The performance hall,
meeting rooms, studios, bookstore, newsstand, greengrocers, cafe, courtyard
all could have double use. The gardens, trees, and fresh vegetables became
other gifts to the community as well as a new intention of caring,
expressed via something as unthinkable as turning sewage into gardens, trees,
and the song of birds.
Rediscovering the effective design principles of a tradition and finding
successful contemporary expression of them became a give-back and honoring
to that tradition and those born in it. The respect and honor we give that
tradition affects in turn our own self-esteem and mutual respect. By asking
the question, we are able to create a gift of opportunity for the community
- to grow, to learn, to give, to share, and to enjoy. A community without
joy is one without life.
A building, like a person, can have a soul, can affect our lives, and can
be part of the life of a community. It can be rooted in and convey the spirit
of a strong culture and tradition. It can help restore to our surroundings
a sense of sacredness and honoring of people, place, and diverse traditions.
In its organization, construction, and demands on the rest of our world,
a building can demonstrate patterns which are sustainable and nurturing
of the human spirit and of all life. Any less is not worth pursuing.
<<<>>>
THE COLOR OF LIGHT
[Sheridan Ave. apt]
As renters or users of places, we are, of course, more restricted in what
we can do to improve the energy of the place. With stark white walls being
typical to most rental spaces, other means need to be used to provide warmth
and color in a space.
One of the simplest and most effective means is to use light reflection
off of colored fabrics. Spotlights on an orange bedspread casts an instant
golden glow within a room. Sunlight on a rich colored rug overlaying a dirty
gray existing carpet reflects a warm ambiance into the room. Inexpensive
fabric bedspreads can be used as wall hangings. Wide and inexpensive colored
fabrics such as tricot can be used to create a soft, billowing ceiling diffusing
harsh built-in lighting and hiding ugly ceilings. The same fabric, or shoji
paper, can be used as window coverings to let in diffuse light while hiding
an ugly view. Folding screens or bookcases can create privacy at an entrance.
Crystals in a sunlit window can refract rainbows deep into a room. Plants,
of course, can bring the richness of life into otherwise stark spaces, and
the sound of wind chimes or a small fountain can give pleasant sound.
<<<>>>
[Mpls office]
Imagine also being held captive in a 20th century architecture school faculty
office. Concrete block walls, metal desks and windows, asphalt tile floors,
fluorescent lights. Stark, functional, depressing to the soul. Sounds an
awful lot like a prison cell, doesn't it?
Then imagine that you are teaching some courses in non-Western architectural
history, with different concepts of space use, an eye for rich and subtle
color combinations, lighting, mood, spirit of a space. Something would have
to give way.
It did.
The department secretaries were startled when the desk was pushed out into
the hall. Their eyes really rolled when a mattress was dragged in
from a second-hand store. A trip to the dusty storerooms in the basement
of the building turned up a wall sculpture and an old samovar. A lucky find
of a worn oriental carpet in a rag store, a coat of warm-white paint, a
tricot ceiling, and a couple of $2 spotlights, and the architecture prison
was gone!
In its place was something closer to a nomad's tent. Room for people
- to sit and talk together on a comfortable carpeted platform with pillows.
Soft lighting. Shoes off. Tea and quiet music. A low shelf for a desk. Hierarchical
office and interpersonal patterns wouldn't work.
Experiencing a different way of living and being, not talking
about one. Our acceptance of conventions of space use are often more limiting
than real restrictions put on us as users.
<<<>>>
A PLACE OF THEIR OWN
[FMS windows, outdoor seats, porch, commons,
lofts diff sized rooms]
It is rare that we actually consider and honor children in the design
of schools. It is usually classrooms, teachers, support staff, and code
requirements that get attention. This elementary school was designed as
a place for children - to give them access to resources, guidance,
enthusiasm and love of others for their own learning. As a result, windows
are placed where kids can see out through them, open them, and make window
seats in them.
Library and supply shelves are open and accessible so everyone can find
what they need. Outdoor group and individual places are made for good weather
use. Classrooms have lofts, where kids can get off by themselves (yes, out
of sight of teachers) to read, nap, or work on projects. Doors are glazed
so kids can connect with what is happening inside or outside. A small kitchen
lets them make their own lunches. The surrounding forest provides real-time
nature labs. Windows allow us to keep an eye out for interesting things
happening in those woods - hummingbird nests, hailstorms, or animal visitors.
A Commons provides space for small group meetings or projects outside of
the classrooms. The classrooms are different sizes and configurations. In
real life, student/teacher ratios are never exact, classes are different
sizes, class groups are combined together in different patterns, and different
projects have different space needs. Two have sliding doors between them
to be used together, or for a stage for plays.
The school was built by the families, with the kids helping to nail framing
and raise walls in what turned out to be a very wet "barn-raising".
Daylighting, and sunshine when it makes its rare appearance, is provided
to all spaces.
<<<>>>
INSTITUTIONS HAVE HEARTS
Our intention towards a place can totally change
the lives of others. Out of an intention of making a Head Start Center good
for the kids using it, we asked ourselves what would make us feel best if
we were kids coming in the door. "The smell of good food!" was
the unanimous response. This lead us to put the kitchen right in the middle
of the building, open to all the classrooms and entry. It works wonderfully,
giving immediate pleasure and sense of rightness to those coming in the
door. It also gives parents a place to stop for a cup of coffee and a chat,
and to peek around the corner to see how their kids are doing. It allows
the cook to be an extra friend and source of snacks and hugs for the kids,
and a backup pair of eyes for the teachers.
What we didn't realize until later, is how much our intention totally changed
working as a cook in this place! Cooking is usually a "back-room"
job, tucked away out of sight in service areas near the loading dock. In
contrast, putting the cook in the middle of everything, and in contact
with everyone, made them a whole-person part of what went on!
What happened in the Head Start Center was undoing the marginalization of
people's lives by honoring them, and by changing their working context.
The right-design of place intermingles, enhances and enriches the
lives of everyone concerned. The design tradition of putting kitchens
in the back corner, behind closed doors, next to the loading dock had put
the cooks' lives in the back, behind closed doors, and next to the loading
dock. It deprived both the cooks and the rest of the people of other things
that those people could contribute to the community of the place.
An architect later asked what we would do if the center was larger and needed
a bigger kitchen and loading dock. The answer was simple...... "You've
just defined too big!" A change in intention - from wholeness
and people-centeredness to optimizing mechanical function - is usually what
underlies our gut feeling of wrongness when something becomes too big. [Head
Start kitchen]
<<<>>>
TAKE CARE WHAT MIRRORS REFLECT
[Bender mirror]
Mirrors are frequently used in modern buildings to give an illusion
of greater space. Using anything to delude people into believing
something untrue damages the energetics of a place. Better to design a good
small room than to use mirrors to give the illusion of a space twice as
large.
Mirrors are often used geomantically as a curative for many negative qualities
of spaces. They may have some effect on reflection and movement of subtle
energies, but their symbolic value can be achieved better through other
means.
Our family stayed once in a rental apartment in Florida with mirrored walls
everywhere. Waking up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, we
got disoriented in the reflections and non-existent hallways, frightened
by the intruders we bumped into around every corner (our own reflections,
it turned out). Mirrors reflect confusion, not comfort.
We also use mirrors compulsively to check on how we look. In the
process, they focus our attention on surface appearances, rather than inner
qualities, of ourselves and others. We use them at times that most frequently
bring us face to face with our bleary-eyed worst outsides, with subsequent
damage to our self-esteem. Without their nudging our consciousness of externalities,
we stop seeing and thinking about ourselves, stop being so concerned with
the outside packaging of people and things, and become more attuned and
responsive to important inner qualities.
There is value in avoiding bathroom mirrors - putting them on the inside
of medicine cabinet doors or on the back of bathroom doors, where they can
be available when needed, but out of the way otherwise. If you're stuck
with non-removable mirrors, hang fabric over them when not in use, stick
pictures to them, or otherwise try to diminish their effect. How much better
to place a window into a garden rather than a mirror over a bathroom sink!
How delightful to start our day in connection with beauty and nature - with
reality, rather than a mirror image of its packaging.
Mirrors can be used beneficially in certain cases, to reflect light or sunshine
into an otherwise dark space, to give us a glimpse of something otherwise
hidden around corners or out of sight, for sometimes playful accents of
sparkle, lightness, or incongruity, or to give us a glimpse of someone approaching
from a blind direction who could unexpectedly interrupt our privacy. Otherwise,
however, they disturb the congruence and wholeness of a place, and probably
should be avoided.
<<<>>>
THE RICHNESS OF EDGES
[YMCA plan]
This was a very low budget expansion for a YMCA several years ago. Their
national office did all the programming and preliminary design, giving local
architects an already designed layout that only had to be "gussied
up" and engineered. But it felt as if something important was missing.
There was. All of the programs were planned for - swimming classes,
basketball games, and exercise rooms - but there was no planning for people!
What about the shy new kid, who was more than a little apprehensive
about some program and wanted to scope it out a bit before committing to
join it? What about people who wanted to sit around and rest after a hard
game and watch some other people play? What about the kids who came to spend
the day, and needed a place to sit with friends and eat their sack lunch?
What about a place to sit around during the bigger kids' time and learn
some good moves? What about a place to sit and replay an exciting game,
or to just jaw and make friends? None of those places were in the program!
With some hard stretching, it was possible to enrich the edges to give space
for such "people stuff". Wide spaces in the corridors were provided
with chairs and full-length windows into the gym. The entrance lobby was
widened to provide room for lunch tables and vending machines. A balcony
corridor at the handball courts was added so non-players could watch the
games. Wherever a usable corner could be found, lights, windows, seating,
carpet, or whatever was needed was added to turn it into a people place.
The success of these places acknowledged the psychological, emotional, and
interpersonal dimensions of human lives that rarely show up on a planning
program. The edges where something ends and something else begins are special
places with important values of their own.
<<<>>>
HONORING THE SPIRITS OF ALL LIFE
[our entry door] [wormy door handle] [MacN or Wilson driftwood] [MacN rock
wall] [Rombalski prow]
It is wonderful to discover how much our hearts are moved when we find ways
to honor other life in our buildings. It started for me, I think, with a
spruce root found on the beach years ago and made into the handles on our
front door. The root had squeezed its way among the pebbles on the beach,
which had left their imprint on it's contours. Some pebbles were still enfolded
into the root!
With another twisted piece of driftwood as a handrail on the stairs, coming
into the entry in the evening had a particularly moving quality, hard to
decipher. What we realized finally is that through the contortions of their
shapes, the root and the tree were still telling the story of their lives.
Like the wrinkles and stoops of an old person, each told of a battle won
or lost, a lesson learned, an impasse surmounted. We were feeling the history
of their lives, and the stories were worth experiencing.
As time went on, I started trying to have at least one place in a building
where the past lives of the materials were not sawn, ground, split or otherwise
taken away. In one house, a single driftwood arch. Not much work, but something
that everyone entering the house seemed to fall in love with! In
another place, a couple of natural boulders forming the end of quarried
stone retaining walls - honoring their past lives, untouched, as part of
a new place.
I sometimes make door handles now of bug-chewed wood, where the traces of
the insects' paths seem to add a singular beauty to the wood. And recently,
I've started to find ways to honor other spirits in the making of a house.
It ' s hard to define the difference between
doing this and adding "art" or "sculpture" to a building,
but it is very different. It comes back, again, to intention.
On one house, situated on the edge of a slough of the Columbia River, we
had the projecting ridge beams of the roof carved into bird heads. The eagle
head happens to be visible from inside through a clerestory window. Unexpectedly,
the lightness and shape of the roof, combined with the carved head, gives
a subtle feeling to the room underneath of being sheltered under the wings
of this powerful spirit! This is how, perhaps, we should feel connection
with the spirits of all life around us.
<<<>>>
THE PEACE OF SANCTUARY
[MacNaughton]
What a building becomes or doesn't become emerges out of the nature of the
owner, designer, builder, site, budget, and the times. As I understand intention
more clearly, I've been able to look back at past projects and see the subtle
yet vital role which the intention of the owner has on a project. In one
project there was lack of trust, and the results turned out competent but
uninspiring. In another, the client exuded trust, respect, caring and clarity.
What resulted had a soul.
With another client, lack of their caring held me back from doing certain
things that would have resulted in a more moving building. In another case,
the client's expectation that I could do more than I thought resulted
in spectacular improvement in sensitivity.
This one house, in ways I'm not totally clear, powerfully and instantly
affects everyone who enters it. The patterns are good - porch and entry
as welcome, kitchen as a place to gather around food, living space as connection
between people and between people and place, bedrooms as sanctuaries. But
there is something else (the generosity and love of the owner?) that is
reflected in it and which causes people to feel it a haven immediately upon
entering.
<<<>>>
BE WITH, NOT ABOVE
The top of a mountain, the highest point
on a hill, or an upper story in a tall building are all considered premium
locations in our culture. They have a common characteristic, however, which
negatively affects their occupants.
Often such sites are without vegetation, or have had vegetation removed
to achieve an "uninterrupted panoramic view". The result is a
lack of grounding for the occupant. "I'm here, and the view's out
there". There is no connection, no context for the occupant, no
world they are part of, which leads inevitably to disconnection from the
world. Obviously, one of the seductions of such sites!
Any view, however spectacular, becomes boring after time. There is far more
power in a variety of views that connect us in different ways with the world
outside. It can be wonderful leaving some of the trees in a "view".
How magic it is at sunset with the light causing the raindrops on the end
of every pine needle to shimmer! "A view" is a uniquely modern
concept, and one that misses the powerful value of being an integral part
of a place. To be connected with its setting is primary to the power of
a building. If that setting establishes a relationship with distant places,
wonderful, but if that is done with exclusion of linkage with its own setting
it causes that same loss of meaning for its occupants.
Frank Lloyd Wright named his own home in Wisconsin "Taliesin",
meaning "Shining Brow" in Welch. He placed it off the top
of the hill, preserving that singular place in a natural state so it could
be enjoyed for itself, in addition to the house. In doing so, he
was able to nestle the house into the hillside, creating a wealth of connected
and unique interior and exterior places tying the house into its natural
local community.
<<<>>>
SILENCE AND INTENTION
[Bender-demoll]
One of my richest memories is of silence.
It is a memory of a full-moon night inside the dome of the Taj Mahal, filled
with reverberation of the singing of the keeper of the space. Near midnight,
he went out, and silence filled the majestic space.1 The dome magnified the silence as it had magnified the
sound, and our breathing and our hearts fell deeper and deeper into the
rich and powerful silence. .......
Ever since, I have listened for that silence - and the harsh mechanical
noises of TV, of toilets flushing, and of refrigerators, dishwashers, clothes
washers and heating systems turning on and off have jarred me to the core.
In this house, more than 20 years ago, I set out to regain that silence.
Flush toilets were replaced by a compost toilet. Heating was passive solar
and wood heat. An insulated cupboard, or cool box, in the kitchen,
captured the cool night air, eliminating need for a refrigerator. Earphones
supplemented audio speakers. No TV. Only one house rule - quiet has priority
over noise.
The silence from the Taj returned, and grew deeper. It was enriched by the
song of the wind and waves, of birds, by the dainty footsteps of deer in
the night. It filled with the sound of snowfall and of moonlight on the
water.
That silence made a space
for clear attention and intention, for working from the heart and touching
the heart of what was being worked with. It opened a closeness with the
world outside, between people, and with our inner selves. It began the journey
that has become this book.
TOM BENDER
38755 Reed Rd.
Nehalem OR 97131 USA
503-368-6294
© 8 Jan. 1999
tbender@nehalemtel.net