Green Building: Going…Going…Green!

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II. OUR RECIPE

I have never had an original thought. Everything we do is based on wisdom and knowledge that has first been expressed by others. At best, we have taken the observations of others and combined them synergistically to create deeper, more profound reality.

Underlying our philosophy of design is the understanding from Christopher Alexander that the people of a place have a common design language consisting of design patterns embedded in their culture and in the culture or environment of the place. These design patterns are like words that by themselves mean very little but when you combine words carefully you can create a lot of meaning in a few words. Likewise when you combine the right design patterns thoughtfully and precisely you create what Alexander calls "dense space", space that is deeply comforting and nurturing to the human psyche, the Greek word for soul.

Robert Bellah is one of America's premier sociologists. Bellah's analysis of American culture at the end of the 20th century gave us the courage to take the risks to create communities that give people the opportunity to once again live more interdependently and interconnectedly.

Wendell Berry, the Kentucky farmer, environmentalist, and author who has lectured at Harvard, Stanford, et.al., taught us that a community of people is inevitably rooted in a place and the ecology of a place and that in America there is an inseparable dichotomy between public and community and between public rights and communal autonomy, and that you cannot have a healthy, sustainable natural ecosystem unless you have healthy sustainable communities; i.e. they are mutually interdependent.

So our foundation is the Bible, Alexander, Bellah and Berry. The primary super structure consists of archetypal patterns from Pattern Language, CoHousing, Design for Children, Traditional Neighborhood Design, and Traffic Calming.

You can pick up a copy of our design bibliography in the back for specific references.

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