“In my 25 years in architecture I have never seen it so intellectually bankrupt. The whole architectural profession seems to have given up its morale and its visionary role in society.â€â€”Sim Van der Ryn in “Culture, Architecture and Nature—An Ecological Design Retrospective.†(Routledge Press, 2014)
What is the role of architect today?
Architects need to design for life; we should be eco-tects, not ego-tects. Nature is the heart of ecological design. We should take our inspiration from nature.
Do you mean sustainability?
I don’t like the word “sustainabilityâ€â€”instead I prefer “resiliency,†an environment that responds to human needs as the world around us changes. Climate chaos—rising seas, severe temperature changes, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, population explosion—should be taken into consideration.
Do you think we are coming to the end of the Western era?
Cultures like the Mayans, like the Romans, collapsed because they could not make the changes that would sustain them. We don’t have a democracy anymore because corporations control politics. The suburbanization of America, with its vast highway system, spread the country out, leading to one car, one driver. A waste of resources. I truly believe large continental empires like China, the U.S. and [the former] USSR can’t work. They are too large. We need to govern smaller units.
What do you think is the biggest threat to our Western civilization?
The greatest threats to our civilization are the triple whammy of the ideology of the Enlightenment and religious belief that hold humans to be separate and above nature, the Industrial Revolution that in 200 years disassembled the organic world to assemble a short-lived mechanical world, and lastly a global capitalist system that steals nature's wealth funneling it to riches for the few, while destroying a global commons that belongs to everyone. Eighty-five individuals now hold as much wealth as 3.5 billion humans—half the planet's population. I still have hope that we can make what Joanna Macy calls "The Great Turning"—a shift from an industrial growth society to a life-sustaining society.
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“In my 25 years in architecture I have never seen it so intellectually bankrupt. The whole architectural profession seems to have given up its morale and its visionary role in society.â€â€”Sim Van der Ryn in “Culture, Architecture and Nature—An Ecological Design Retrospective.†(Routledge Press, 2014)
What is the role of architect today?
Architects need to design for life; we should be eco-tects, not ego-tects. Nature is the heart of ecological design. We should take our inspiration from nature.
Do you mean sustainability?
I don’t like the word “sustainabilityâ€â€”instead I prefer “resiliency,†an environment that responds to human needs as the world around us changes. Climate chaos—rising seas, severe temperature changes, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, population explosion—should be taken into consideration.
Do you think we are coming to the end of the Western era?
Cultures like the Mayans, like the Romans, collapsed because they could not make the changes that would sustain them. We don’t have a democracy anymore because corporations control politics. The suburbanization of America, with its vast highway system, spread the country out, leading to one car, one driver. A waste of resources. I truly believe large continental empires like China, the U.S. and [the former] USSR can’t work. They are too large. We need to govern smaller units.
What do you think is the biggest threat to our Western civilization?
The greatest threats to our civilization are the triple whammy of the ideology of the Enlightenment and religious belief that hold humans to be separate and above nature, the Industrial Revolution that in 200 years disassembled the organic world to assemble a short-lived mechanical world, and lastly a global capitalist system that steals nature's wealth funneling it to riches for the few, while destroying a global commons that belongs to everyone. Eighty-five individuals now hold as much wealth as 3.5 billion humans—half the planet's population. I still have hope that we can make what Joanna Macy calls "The Great Turning"—a shift from an industrial growth society to a life-sustaining society.
http://www.pacificsun.com/marin/life_in_marin/upfront-sim-cities/article_308ef8da-943a-11e3-8496-0017a43b2370.html
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