Monday, September 26, 2011

Sustainable Architecture

For the past couple of lessons we have talked about how architects need to be mindful about not only about aesthetics; they need to care about making our homes more energy-efficient and sustainable. For the next lesson I would encourage you to consider this .PDF file on sustainable architecture.

Sunday, September 18, 2011









I am recommending this documentary because it extends your thought that our happiness is influenced by architecture.

The perfect home is something we all think about every moment of our lives. Since the moment of our birth we organize the space around us, moving furniture and placing ornaments on the walls. we call this "our space".

Not everybody will agree, but one thing is clear: we all try to compensate for what we lack, escaping from the monotonous and industrial feeling of a city, deciding to live in a house that on the exterior has the look of one or two centuries ago.

Maria Antonietta made the same exodus, but from her point of view. Escaping from the palaces of Versailles, she built a rustic village, known as the Queen's Hamlet. But it was an unreasonable facsimile of the peasant villages she thought she understood. The one thing she could not escape is that she liked living large. But no peasant could afford the large windows of her neo-vernacular estate. The expression, let them eat cake clearly belongs to this woman, as oblivious as she was.

We follow her steps nowadays, trying to hold on to something that is no longer around us, yet we still insist upon having our self-indulgent bells and whistles. We should learn from our past mistakes and start living more mindfully building homes that more efficient in materials and energy.

There are some around the world trying to make this change but as long we don't put aside our selfishness and indulgences we'll continue making the same mistakes.

Saturday, September 17, 2011



Gaudi's Sand Bag Models
by Tito Ballesteros







The image and its vertically flipped counterpart showing how Gaudi used the weight of small sand bags to help shape the columns and arches of La Sagrada Familia

Original image by Julia Meyer



Antonio Gaudi: a well-known name if you study architecture or if you just love art.
Born of Catalan origin in Spain during the mid 1800s, Gaudi was an architectural visionary whose buildings were more than plain cubes. These structures were inspired by the architectures of nature, following function with form, allowing for both aesthetic beauty and sound construction.

An architectural renegade, Gaudi took this inspiration and mimicked its shapes and curves, developing a different way to model his buildings. He would hang strings from the celing, tying small sandbags to them, and tying the strings to each other, creating the stronger columns and letting gravity make the arch shapes. This creates a solid structure, and one that is dramatic and breathtaking.

The wide openings at the bottom of the structure gradually narrow as your eyes move upward, drawing an "ah" from your mouth. The shapes, the colors, the use of natural materials and the ironwork all work together to give us a view that is calm and inspiring, both inside and out.

Nowadays, the purpose of a building is to show wealth and power. But where are the buildings that inspire us? if a healthy human brain gets stimulated by its surroundings, what kind of stimulation are we getting from modern buildings that we'd rather escape? Gaudi didn't intend for us to buy more, make more, consume more, be like this and not like that? The result of his careful planning and execution was not the escapism we see today. It was something far more sublime.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

The Em Dash

Last week, in reviewing the course writings about Home: a Documentary, I saw the em dash, or "--", In a couple of places in the text of these postings. This sort of punctuation is meant to set off an abrupt change of thought. Please do check out this grammar page to get a more complete explanation on the use of the em dash. It is to be used sparingly, not every time you wish to set aside a phrase that can be handled by either parentheses or commas. And we have used these dashes sparingly; we just need to use them as effectively as we can.

Cheers. Here's hoping your week is going well

Saturday, September 10, 2011


Since  the stone age we have been changing our surroundings, adapting to them and learning along the way. The population has grown along with the demand for food, water and land.

Nowadays our machinery allows us to produce food for commercial use, but in the old days, food was produced only for our sustenance. Since the agricultural revolution, we have produced more than we have been able to consume. The balance between pastures and cattle has changed radically, and what looks more  like a concentration camp is the main source of our daily meal. 

How can we have food to waste  with so many starving people in the world? Modernization may well be both a curse and a blessing. While the richest parts of the world have managed to change the desert to a  modern paradise, other parts of the world are suffering. People there live like our ancestors use to live--with just the basics--and care for of their most important assets, their children, whose extra helping hands are a blessing.

Now we shape the land as though we were performing a sacrificial rite, taking its life so that we can survive.

Petroleum is an aspect of this, allowing a few to become richer and cities to become larger; so large that is getting  difficult to  sustain or way our life. Our addiction to oil is not unlike a drug addiction. We need more of this drug to preserve our illusion of prosperity.