The idea of organic architecture is simple at the root of it - it is the process [link] of learning from Nature and applying these principles to the design, building and use of human habitats.

It is not borrowing various shapes and the superficial aspects of Nature; it is not using “natural” materials to build with; it is not found in simply attempting to make minimal the human built environment’s impact on Nature. These means, as worthy as they may be, do not, alone, make an organic result.

The science of the built environment is based on understanding what elements are important to a project - and what these elements mean. The art, is the ability to sense, feel and create place. Great architecture requires a synthesis of engineering and expression [link] - design is the act of fusing a million aspects into a unified whole. When building habitat, economy and ecology are one. Architecture is not a visual art - it is an experiential art and facilitates daily life.

We humans have allowed a disintegrated philosophy of economics [link] and social organization produce a monstrous result in our otherwise legitimate drive to create habitat. In this pursuit, we have failed to accomplish - on any scale - a worthy human result and we have carelessly and needlessly damaged the Earth ecosystem. What we have done - without apparent concern- to other living beings is beyond any possible excuse - we have become a global predator by default and without purpose.

We are, of course, a part of Nature. Criticisms that put us outside of Nature - and somehow responsible for everything - and assert that we should subordinate ourselves “to Nature” establishes a dichotomy that cannot be resolved. Arguments that assert that we are the same as bees - therefore anything we do is acceptable - are equally vapid. Nature is neither a god nor a trash can - Nature is a living system of which we are self-aware - and potentially - collaborative co-designers [link].

Everything we build has an impact - which is to say it has a cost. Unfortunately, we have been adding up only some (and not nearly all) of the human costs. The costs to other living beings are not accounted at all except as they may effect property values. This too parsimonious an accounting system has subverted the results - millions of isolated decisions based only on a short term assessment: “can I afford this action” drives to a self-destructive end. We are part of Nature but in the short term we are not easily constrained from acting destructively. We have to build into our own systems and organizational measures, feedback loops and design constraints that resolve the issues of scope and scale we presently ignore. If we do not, someday it will be done for us and - if history is any president - this will be in the form of a catastrophic collapse.

There are many ways to build these feedback loops so the “market” (that is all of us in the aggregate) does not do stupid and destructive things - the Gaia Project [link] is one of them. The Master Planning process [link], another. These are simply issues of intelligent engineering.

My workspace is Planet Earth. I do not mean this metaphorically. Someday, this will include space [link] beyond our, now existing, primitive, near-earth-orbit startups. At present [until 2003], I spend most of my time in North America - usually, in environments that I designed or inspired. A great amount of my time is spent in Palo Alto at the knOwhere Store [link] and in our Northern California home [link]. In addition, we have CAMELOT [link] to go to. Having these environments make me unusually fortunate. Last year, a design class from Stanford University spent some time with me at knOwhere [link] - one of the students, in a later e-mail, said “you have surrounded yourself with beauty.” I never thought of it that way. I would say I have consciously - with care - made places that express my values [link].

This statement is qualified by the fact that nothing I have done to date - with the exception of CAMELOT - even approaches the level of quality I believe is both necessary and possible - and possible to do on a large scale. The architecture that I have been part of making should be quite ordinary - not seen as “unusual” as it is today. Recent projects [link] are beginning to accomplish several long-held goals: ubiquity, affordability and a level of design that brings out the unique local aspects of the people, time and place of the project.

I travel often and take care to avoid, as best I can, places that are too ugly, have been destroyed or are unhealthy. This is both a good and bad habit. It makes, admittedly, a distorted experience. The scope of the real problems in the larger world can get, and stay, out of mind. So also can some of the extraordinary work, that is going on here and there, be too easily missed. I choose my work carefully shaping my experience of work as best I can. This is not without consequence [link]. It is not an easy thing to keep a balanced view of the world. To be “in it (fully) but not of it (fully).” This is a strange time for philosopher-designers.

My habitat is a world - a planet. And, we all live on it. We share it, uncomfortably, with each other and other life forms. Few of our systems of organization recognize this fact of planet-as-place, and the ones that do, cannot facilitate us - as a species - in the process of co-evolving this artifact [link] that is presently our only home.

Can you think of planet Earth as your habitat and workspace? If a 100 million did, would this make a difference? Impractical? Is what we are doing now - practical?

Personally, I do not draw the rigid distinction between work-space and living-space that is so typical to our culture and time. I have always lived and worked in the same environment. Even my knOwhere work-space [until 2003] has a small private area [link] for thinking, reading and sleeping. It is just recently, however, that I have started to put into practical effect my long held sensibility that different work-living locations can co-operate like the “rooms” of a single building and that the travel [link] to these different places can be - and must be - treated as an architectural experience [link]. This opens the architectural dialog to considering levels of recursion (personal environment, village, region, country or bio-region, continent, world [link]) as active design issues.

This is what I consider “my” future Northern California PLACE of work and living “rooms.” For a period, I have a couple of these rooms functioning and several in the planning/building stages. Now [August 2005], with the close of knOwhere, there is just Elsewhere. In 2003 the work shifted back to the mid west. West coast work is beginning to regenerate but so is work on the east coast and in Europe. It will take a few years to build-out this Northern California “house” - in the meantime, I will continue to be a knowledge worker nomad. This places special demands on creating place - demands that are not unique to me but increasingly system in our society. I am still committed to Northern California however see the “update” below for and out line of my currant strategy.

In addition to the Elsewhere, knOwhere, Camelot and Bay Area Studio “rooms,” my plans include a closer collaboration and co-development with SFIA, in San Francisco [link], and the establishment of an “AI West” shop in the East Bay. In sum, this will create a regional workplace that has global reach.

The continuing growth of client and partner NavCenters (now exceeding 30 facilities) creates another layer of place. At this time, I cannot relate to this place-ness in the visceral way I can the Bay Area. Then again, the “Bay” has always been my spiritual home. I do not know if this is an intrinsic limit of my personal sense of place or if it is a critical mass thing. Will time, growth of these Centers, my more frequent use of them change this? If so, will this provide a “bridge” between the scale I can now FEEL and the scale of planet Earth (which I can now only “understand” as a mental construct)? Is the issue of conflict between people and places one of our ability (or inability) to enlarge what we think of as “us” and “home?” Should the concept [link] of “homeland security” be scaled up to human and animal land security and planetary viability?

SolutionBox voice of this document:
VISION • STRATEGY • EVALUATE