Raising Our Building of Life

2015

Termites and the structures they build have been used as exemplars of biomimetic designs for climate control in buildings, like Zimbabwe's Eastgate Centre, and various other "termite-inspired" buildings. Remarkably, these designs are based upon an erroneous conception of how termite mounds actually work. In this article, we review recent progress in the structure and function of termite mounds, and outline new biomimetic building designs that could arise from this better understanding. We also suggest that the termite "extended organism" provides a model to take architecture "beyond biomimicry"-from buildings that merely imitate life to buildings that are, in a sense, alive.

Caring for Our Common Home: A Practical Guide to Creation Care, 2020

In Laudato Si' Pope Francis weaves a powerful story that speaks to the inter-connectivity of all Earth's life systems and the need for new ways to honestly talk about what economy, progress, and purpose should be. He asks readers to examine how they value our common home so that the scales can fall from our eyes and we can fall deeply in love with our planetary neighbors-and act differently. This book does this in a way that readers can interact with the theology of Laudato Si and move holistically towards ecological conversation. (https://www.paulistpress.com/Products/5447-0/caring-for-our-common-home.aspx)

2004

The best way to predict the future is to design it"

Quite often construction has been blamed for being unsustainable, causing high levels of waste, carbon emissions and use of resources. As in other industries, there is an urgent need to face the challenge to increase the performance of buildings. This urgency has been embraced by in their book 'Cradle to cradle: remaking the way we make things'. The idea of cradle to cradle (C2C) is to pursue the 'right kind' of growth, and the key to that is better design of the things we make. The Living Building Concept (LBC) shares the same objectives of C2C stressing the need for good design and changing the way we build. In addition LBC offers a strategy how to apply these objectives in practice, increasing the benefit of buildings for suppliers as well as demanders, and society as a whole. The strategy is aimed at keeping built objects 'fit for purpose' and 'up to date' continuously by applying new technologies and insights for improved performance and sustainability. The strategy implies an integrated approach to the procurement and delivery of built objects. This requires construction clients as well as companies to revise their own strategies too. Clients need to revise their procurement and contracts allowing and challenging construction companies to supply integrated and sustainable products and life cycle service. Construction companies must become integrated suppliers for living buildings applying rules of product development, and the construction sector as a whole to become a 'normal' consumer products industry delivering new products fitted out with the latest technology to its customers. This paper squares LBC with C2C, and indentifies areas where LBC can add to translate the shared objectives of both concepts into an integrated strategy to achieve 'living buildings' and even 'living cities'.

Rebirth Network Journal, 2022

The conversation of building from within makes a point for the fact that, the unique identity of every human being on planet earth guides their contributions to their extended environment. This article, as well as other articles published in the Rebirth Network Journal presents articles that help every individual on the path to self-knowledge and authentic living through conversations that will mitigate against self-doubts and self-sabotaging actions.

2A, 2020

This article presents the design and experience of the built environment as central to fostering the spiritual development of humanity — a required evolution if we are to address the perilous challenges we face. Theoretical, architectural, and urban arguments and examples will show that, if carefully done, the migration of spiritual practices from the realm of the traditionally sacred and unique to the secular and ordinary may accomplish such feat.

The Routledge International Handbook of Spirituality in Society and the Professions, 2019

Addressing the voluminous and multifarious expressions of architecture and spirituality is a daunting task. Consequently, three focused perspectives inform our discussion. The first con­ siders the "objecthood" of architecture-the functional, typological, and material ways that buildings express and facilitate spiritualiry. Second, the phenomenological dimension of spiritual settings is addressed, including bodily experiences and feelings produced by. interactions with buildings. Third, are considerations of the cultural and social aspects of architecture, visa -vis spiritualiry, and its ethical, communicative, and symbolic fi.111ctions. These three positions align with the fundamental ways human reality unfolds: first person, individual, internal, or subjective reality (I, me); second person, collective, dialogical, or intersubjective reality (you, we, us); and third-person, empirical, external, or objective reality (it). A number of impulses define contemporary spirituaLiry, including aesthetic, ethical, and ontological emphases.The first conceives of spirituality and spiritual experiences as growing out of the beauty and presence of creation. The second offers sustainable and restorative perspec­tives and aims to address the grand problems of the age - global climate change, economic and political disparities, warfare and displacement, and other contemporary imperatives that demand holistic solutions. The third seeks psychic reorientations where the world and one's place in it arc revealed, and reverence is paired with inquiry to seek inner development and outer realiza­tion regarding the nature of being, purpose, and place in tbe cosmos.

Urban Planning, 2023

Christopher Alexander explored the world of built structures. He longed for buildings and spaces that touched and triggered our own psychological and spiritual structure. From his examples of spaces we experience as alive he distilled his Fifteen Properties: aspects and qualities in buildings that quicken us. As architects, we want to learn how we can create structures that embody the Fifteen Properties. Can we do so through consciously attempting to design them? In my experience of designing, we need more than a conscious attempt. We need an awareness of the goal of our designing. And Alexander himself gives us a glimpse of that goal in The Linz Café: Our goal is nothing short of designing as an offering to God. What might an offering to God mean? What might it mean as an attitude free from ideology or embalmed belief? The discoveries C. G. Jung made can help us get in touch with such a goal. Our goal is our own divine centre. Our challenge as architects is to open ourselves to the images and structures that appear on our paper or screens as we design. What is their source? Can we see ourselves in them? Can we meet our divine centre in them? Keywords divine centre; living structures; original experience Issue This commentary is part of the issue "Assessing the Complex Contributions of Christopher Alexander" edited by Michael W. Mehaffy (Sustasis Foundation) and Tigran Haas (KTH Royal Institute of Technology).

As built environment theory evolves, so does the awareness that built environments form an integral part of natural systems. Living systems are capable of renewal and regeneration, resiliently adapting to pressures and disturbances in order to sustain life and avoid environmental collapse. Through this perspective, the role of architecture in our cities can be seen as an opportunity to catalyse renewal in the urban system by working with and integrating various systems of life. Using the theme of water, this paper explores the latent potential of degraded urban sites to inform architecture that unlocks processes of renewal, resilience and regeneration in natural and social systems.

Cadernos PROARQ, 2013

We live in extraordinary times, facing challenges of a scale, speed, and/or kind never before encountered. Architecture, the art of establishing the material order of a cultural order, cannot avoid but to reflect and respond to such reality. But, how are we to profess architecture in this world that defies all traditions and seems in the brink of collapse? This article discusses how our dire circumstances actually create conditions ripe for truly innovative and transformative architectural education, research, and practice with the real potential of a great impact. A four-fold way based on the pursuit of Simplicity, Science, Situation and Spirituality will be humbly offered as a potential path