Module one – Professional Diploma in Architecture (AEES)

The past week has been unlike any other, as the 22 Prof Dip fresher’s travelled to CAT from all over the country to meet for our first meal together on Monday night in the WISE building. The tutors didn’t waste any time and started us off that evening discussing the ‘sacred cows’ of sustainability with the MSc students to challenge our preconceptions and ideologies on sustainability from a wide variety of points-of-view through role-playing.

We were really looked after at CAT, with delicious food, 3 large meals a day, teas, coffees, juices and wine. This week we were sleeping in the WISE building itself, enhanced by our lecture about the building design by David Lea. We stayed 2 to a room in the wonderfully tranquil bedrooms, timber clad, with a floor to ceiling, square glazed screen that slid open directly onto the roof top terrace, looking down to the ‘drop-pool’ courtyard and out to the west Wales mountains.
The first module took us through some information-packed lectures, from Nick Baker: “…intercepting natural cycles of CO2 for human use…”, Peter Harper: “Physics trumps Politics…is true although our whole economic and societal systems are based on entirely the opposite…” To Ranyl Rhydwen, jumping up and down on stage, electrically retelling in quick rhythms the proofs of future doom caused by humanity, then following on in a subsequent lecture “human adaptation/transformation for climate change, opportunity and a change in fundamentals…” renewing students hope, energy and ideas for our learning to design future places. Evening lectures included history of CAT and a visiting lecturer: Roddy from Ted Cullinan architects.

Studio time this week initially made us take a look at our design approach and write a manifesto to be presented in one minute, then, we were taken through a drawing journey with Trevor Flynn of ‘Drawing at work’ who ran a drawing gymnasium. It began in the hills at CAT trying to measure and draw the 5th year’s Bird Hide. This twisting, free flowing form built from standard sized timber all felled within 500metres of the site, proved incredibly difficult to work out in the mind’s eye, due to the shapes and shadows of its morphic appearance. Despite this, with Trevor’s help, freehand oblique, section, isometric, one and two point perspectives appeared before us.

Saturday bought the roundup of the drawing session in the WISE building and a site visit for design project 100.1. This was followed by a traditional evening for the postgrad students: a social with a theme, everybody became their pirate alter ego, drinking rum and playing crew games, wearing elaborate costumes and props created from any material to hand in an old slate quarry. Not sure if anyone remembers which team won…but I do remember the fantastic atmosphere in the bar, the hot wood sauna in the hills and the cool fresh waters of the reservoir lake…

We finished with a Sunday morning of thought provoking lectures, Richard Hammerton: ‘Humans in context: Environmental change’ and Tanya Hawkes: ‘Policy responses to climate change’. The general consensus at the end of week 1 from the Prof Dip student’s is that there is nowhere quite like CAT to study and we are very glad we’re here. We are inspired, very tired, bonded as a group, filled with optimism and can’t wait to get started on the rural housing project based in Machynlleth, sketch books ready, roll on the next week at CAT…

on the way to work, a sunny morning -

Sharp shadows are cast from buildings plumb and flush, strike lines and areas accross our land, I see my sillouette follow a journey line, but slip into darkness suddenly into the cool of un-sunned places. A map made of the land showing only these crisp black edges may reveal or conceal the landscape we live among.

Man is nature..?

Man says to nature: 'you are organic, you grow naturally you are unpredictable and powerful, how did you become to look so perfect?' Nature says to man: 'Nature is according to rules both mirco and macro, what is this distinction between man and nature? man is of nature, you are according to these rules too.'

Pies! The fruits of Don's Garden...

Blackberrys  (from St Albans hedges,) apples (from my mums garden,) plums and redcurrents (from my Grandpas friend Don's garden) turned into pies, although we have only used about a sixth of the fruit so far...

New Compost bins and leaf moulder...The Garden see's no waste...

3 little composts's standing in a row...The product of cutting back the paths and clearing out the pond for maintenance in the St Albans Garden...Hopefully, with the help of the kitchen remains...next springs allotment will have first class soil and mulch.

Interesting links...

www.treehugger.com
http://www.animalarchitecture.org/
http://www.anycorp.com/
http://www.lifeofanarchitect.com/
http://3ddreaming.blogspot.com/
http://www.oneplanetliving.org/index.html
http://bureau-spectacular.net/
http://www.bioregional.com/
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/
http://www.brunskilldesign.com/
http://www.sustainableabc.com/
http://blink.hdrinc.com/
http://www.permacultureproject.com/
www.earthships.net
http://students.autodesk.com

Waking Life Scene Quote

Richard Linklater's  'Waking Life'

Scene 15: 'We are the authors'

"..."On this bridge," Lorca warns, "life is not a dream. Beware. And beware. And beware." And so many think because Then happened, Now isn't. But didn't I mention the ongoing "wow" is happening right now? We are all co-authors of this dancing exuberance where even our inabilities are having a roast. We are the authors of ourselves, co-authoring a gigantic Dostoevsky novel, starring clowns. This entire thing we're involved with called the world, is an opportunity to exhibit how exciting alienation can be. Life is a matter of a miracle that is collected over time by moments, flabbergasted to be in each other's presence. The world is an exam to see if we can rise into direct experience. Our eyesight is here as a test to see if we can see beyond it. Matter is here as a test for our curiosity. Doubt is here as an exam for our vitality. Thomas Mann wrote that he would rather participate in life than write 100 stories. Giacometti was once run down by a car, and he recalled falling into a lucid faint, a sudden exhilaration, as he realized that at last something was happening to him. An assumption develops that you cannot understand life and live life simultaneously. I do not agree entirely. Which is to say I do not exactly disagree. I would say that life understood is life lived. But the paradoxes bug me, and I can learn to love and make love to the paradoxes that bug me. And on really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion. Before you drift off, don't forget. Which is to say, remember. Because remembering is so much more a psychotic activity than forgetting. Lorca, in that same poem said that the iguana will bite those who do not dream. And as one realizes that one is a dream figure in another person's dream, that is self awareness. ..."

For Better or Worse: Society it has to be.

We struggle here, in this Big Society, in his Bad Economy, to find any work, to pay any rent, to make any friends…People are happy to let me work for them for free, they like my approach to design and are impressed by my portfolio, but can they pay me? No. In this Big Society, should relative worth (money) become something else (food and company – community projects – like Wwoofing?) There is no Money to be earnt, so therefore, I cannot have a home, or even rent a room, I cannot afford public transport, let alone a car, insurance, petrol, so I am stuck to the distance of my pedals and the generosity of ever-helpful friend and  So, there is another life we discussed over breakfast with my great uncle Ray (artist.) One where with just $250 one could buy an acre in the desert, (southern USA,) and for just $500 start to build shelter, collect rain water, generate electricity, and grow food, and all this in a place where a reputation is easily built, so people will trust you and always come to you for odd jobs, after a while, one could have a home, a farm, water, food, a family, a community, electricity and a lot of time to think in a beautiful country.

The discussion; I say, so one can stick with society and struggle, or turn their back on society…live and run around in the desert and relax. Ray says it wouldn’t be turning back, instead, it would be creating a new society.

These words new society don’t seem to be the case, or would they work.

Firstly, if anyone were to start a new society, it wouldn’t be the easy life in the desert described above. A society needs laws and principles on which it operates, that is what our big society is. I know we haven’t got it anywhere near perfect, no one has, but maybe it is impossible to. The history of America, (and in fact the whole history of human migration,) is a great tale of people moving to the frontier, the new lands, in order to live in a way unrestrained by where they were, essentially to make a better lives for themselves and their children, (usually away from tax,) in other words, a new society. And people are still escaping the urban rat society to live on the frontier and cultivate land and a ‘new society’ to this day. All they managed to do was create more places that people want to escape from. Ideology and utopias are prisons, real cities and societies are unpredictable. We must stay and grow what we have, as Reader says in ‘Cities’ : “So long as cities have been […], change has been the currency that sustains them – demolition and reconstruction, the recycling of investment…” We must continue the change and development of our societies rather than starting from fresh yet again.

The Meeting Dome

At the beginning of the Summer La Loma Del Chivo community had been split into 4 corners…The Sunhouse, John’s Gypsy Camp, The Goatshed Hostel and Guil’s Nabolom, so we came up with the idea to build a central meeting space, an outdoor space on the path between the two places of congregation as a place for coffee, music conversations and art. When Guil got involved in the plan, he pulled out some inspiring drawings by Kiv from a few years back that suggested we needed a dome. It was about the same time when John Suficool drove Mike, Kikay Wes, Guil and I down into Terlingua to meet Don Bryant.

Don Bryant has been building domes for decades. Out here in the dessert, he has been evolving a smart way to build Geodesic domes. From the basic tetrahedron shapes, he takes the triangles and breaks them up into various frequencies of smaller triangles, much like the methods of Buckminster Fuller, however, Don rationalizes the complex construction this usually requires by generating jigs and forms for the original size panels, meaning one does not need to cut each and every triangle.

This means that with one jig, one can assemble the strong geodesic framework for the dome in record time. Furthering this idea, if enough panels are creates from the jig to create one dome, the panels themselves can become forms - assembled, copied on site and removed, leaving a dome framework and then being passed on to the next builders, or, another dome built connecting to the first.

This is the method that Don recommended to us. Trevor, who lives near to Don has tried this out and is currently building the first of his domes, so, while he is working on the window and door fittings, he has kindly lent us the forms before he starts on the second.

Before collecting the forms, Eric and I dug and filled a 1foot deep foundation at the same diameter to the forms - 18foot. Assembling and placing the forms took almost no time at all and the next day we started wiring together the rebar.  Once all the framework lines had been copied, and a rebar ring attached at the base to the foundation, the forms could be removed - by simply cutting the initial wiring.

We decided to go for a less expensive option by instead of using regular cement lath and trawling on the stucco, we would use chicken wire and cement-soaked sheets to create the initial egg-shell layer, this technique is borrowed from Mike Reynolds ‘The Hut’ video where they use this as an inexpensive way to make the first shell on a roof. This technique has worked well in the sense that it gives a backing for the cement and thus there is less loss of material - as there can often be when trowling through regular lathe. Paper - Mache building! Before adding the sheets we wired up electricity lines for where the lights and the outlets will go.

This is the stage we are currently on, see the photo album for more images during construction.

Beehive Life...Post-building my own shelter

Last November I arrived at La Loma Del Chivo in West Texas as a Wwoofer...to help experiment in alternative building. The people who welcomed me as family, said if I could draw my idea and explain it, I could build it. I worked with Kikay for a few days on the Sweat Lodge he was building. He introduced me to the ideas of Nader Khalili, an Iranian architect, who founded the Cal-Earth Institute. Khalili designs simple shelters built from the materials of War...refuge shelters, built from the materials that are readily available: sandbags, barbed wire and dirt. They can be built by families and children and take the form of domes and vaults. So I decided to begin a Khalili 'Bed-Womb' small, half-dome shaped shelter for one or two people.

There was already in existence a path - 'the glass street' made from crushed recycled glass bottles and flag stone, leading from the Goatshed - the hub of the community, towards the garden and the sunhouse, which, at the time was under construction. This gave a natural location for the first more private room for guests.

At the beginning of the path, I dug a foundation, using two books as guides during the design and build of 'The Beehive'. These were: Nader Khalili's book 'Emergency Sandbag Shelter', and a book by a family who had built a whole home using the same technique.

After a week of building two other wwoofers - Jarrett and Amber - got involved and as a team we made the Beehive over the next 6 weeks.6 months later I have returned to La Loma and currently live in the Beehive. It now has solar panels to power a light or music player, a front step, a rocket stove and plants growing in the planter that collects all the run-off from the half-dome.

Building my own shelter has been a very significant and important turning point for me, after this and many subsequent projects - I now know that it is possible to create by hand the 4 key elements to settled survival;              

             1-Shelter,
             2-Water Collection,
             3-Soil cultivation for food growth and
             4-Use and collection of Available Energy.

McCommunity...?

This post is following a thread of ideas sparked by Mike McCain's designs at La Loma Del Chivo. He explores ideas of essential shelter that is affordable, quick to assemble and has a possibility of mobility, he also works with the housing crisis in Mexico. Due to this "fast-food" method of housing design and his last name, the buildings here are named: McMansion - his largest and first build here, from OSB modules, pre-insulated and waterproofed before construction. McNugget - A two-storey 'box' house with connection to water and electricity. McMushrooms - small, one-roomed 'cube' shelters that as a whole, or in parts, can be transported to wherever is needed. They could also be shelters while one builds a larger house, or they can be grouped to create what we are experimenting with here - McVillage.

My question here is about the potential of this in continuing development...we can very quickly and cheaply make a McVillage, but will it do anything towards a McCommunity? Surely this would take longer, with connections growing between places, people and resources...

Sustainability and Organic as Art - The Questions

Gillian and I had a table in the Marfa Bookstore at the Chinati Open house last weekend, as a part of the Marathon Sustainability event we asked a number of questions about organic produce growing, shelter and art. The following we used as a thought-provoker for people to take away:

'Growing as intsallation art

Organic gardening as spatial art

Growing as kinetic art

Nature time scale, kinetic art

Alternative building types as installation art

One way to portray

One perspective on life and living

Living a sustainable life is performance art

Performance art is kinetic

Performance art is spatially reflective

Lifestyle choice is performance art

Permaculture is a lifestyle choice

Understand the workings of nature

Work within nature

Witness natural cycles

As they grow around you

Watch the kinetic spaces form

These spaces could be shelter

Shelter is sculpture

Sculpt out your home

Your home is your portrayal

Of your perception of your world

Your portrail of your perception of your world is art

Non-permanance, Kinetic art

Kinetic is performance art

Watch the light change

Where do you sleep?

Where do you eat?

Cycles of energy

Grow the energy that will in turn grow you

Cyclic dances to tend to the food

Sculpture of food

Art is alive

Exhibit your perception of the world

Exhibit your lifestyle through your shelter

Exhibit your lifestyle through your food

The food you grow

Haptic experience

Spatial art of kinetic, Growing food

Surround your shelter, Create the haptic

Tend to the haptic

Smell your art

See it grow

Expression of the dwellers perception

A mirror of cultural choice

A mirror of individual choice.'