Design for Life: the Architecture of Sim Van Der Ryn - Tapa dura

Design for Life: The Architecture of Sim Van der Ryn surveys the work and principles of Sim Van der Ryn, a world leader in the field of sustainable architecture. Sharing his years of experience as a teacher and using his building designs as examples, the author shows us that buildings are not objects but organisms, and cities are not machines but complex ecosystems.< BR>

Somewhere in the last century, architecture lost its soul. Modern culture developed the wealth, the power, and the technology to create structures that once seemed impossible. While the larger-than-life skyscrapers and the coldly post-modern structures of our time do inspire a detached sense of awe and wonder, very few appear to have qualities that truly move us...
When was the last time you were moved to tears by a building, or did not want to leave a building you were in because the place touched you at such a deep level? When was the last time you shivered, ecstatic, in a manmade place that tugged at something deep inside of you?
Buildings are not objects; they are organisms. Cities are not mechanical assemblies; they are ecosystems. Through ecological design, our buildings and cities can become more fully integrated with nature. Like organisms, they can produce their own energy, and consume and recycle their own wastes without polluting. Design can show use the connection between nature's cycles, the living and the built environment...
Our global crisis is also a design crisis as civilization shifts from design processes and products formed in the image of the machine to design based on the forms and processes of the intricately ordered web of life. I lay out the characteristics of the emerging integral worldview and integral design. As Gandhi said, "We must be the change we want to see." This is the essence of actively living with hope.
--Sim Van der Ryn