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swissphotoclub.com/de/fotowettbewerb/Stuttgart/22-11
Dieses Bild wurde auf Platz 9 in Top 100 bei der Swiss Photo Club Ausstellung ausgewählt.
Es war eine tolle Erfahrung !
Andreea
This image was #9 in Top 100 at the Swiss Photo Club exhibition.
It was a great experience !
Andreea
Marziya landed in Mumbai , I did not go to the airport, but when she reached home it was my wife and Samiya that she hugged the most..her Uncle Saif and her Aunt are out of station..but she remembered me alright
marziya shakir
in a world without borders or fence
demystifying the magic of a camera lens
awaiting dr glenn losack md
her grand fathers mentor
best friend
his pictures my poetry
a beginning no end
black white multicolored
shia or american jew
as humans we blend
holistically healing
through a photo blog
wounded souls
through our images we mend
photography for peace
that a few bigots
dont comprehend
a few words of wisdom
to those who pretend
false facade
rules that they bend
creating chaos
saying its god sent
Lent
a time for introspection
a time to repent
spiritual satisfaction guaranteed
100 Percent
"Introducing 'Holistic' 🌿 available at The Dubai Event 04/20 today. - Holistic is about the interconnectedness of all elements, creating a sense of completeness and harmony.
The set includes:
🍃A wooden shelf which carries a rustic charm.
🍃Abstract Wooden sculptures: In nature, nothing exists alone.Each piece telling a unique story and adding character.
🍃Earthy terracotta pots: bring warmth and grounding to the collection.
🍃The leaf carpet rug: lush green hues and delicate leaf pattern, creates a serene and inviting atmosphere.
Embrace the interconnectedness of design and nature.
Digital art by Debbie Golden. We are co-artists on some works. This is entirely her own.
I gave it a not so great title.
The holistic concept in medical practice, which is distinct from the concept in the alternative medicine, upholds that all aspects of people's needs including psychological, physical and social should be taken into account and seen as a whole. A 2007 study said the concept was alive and well in general medicine in Sweden.[3]
Some practitioners of holistic medicine use alternative medicine exclusively, though sometimes holistic treatment can mean simply that a physician takes account of all a person's circumstances in giving treatment. Sometimes when alternative medicine is mixed with mainstream medicine the result is called "holistic" medicine, though this is more commonly termed integrative medicine.[2]
According to the American Holistic Medical Association it is believed that the spiritual element should also be taken into account when assessing a person's overall well-being. ( Wikipedia)
Compositionally Challenged Week 5 - Fill the Frame with Vibrant Color
Thank you for viewing, faving or commenting on my images, have a great day!
Originally built as a holistic spring water resort in 1927 it functioned in this capacity until its closure in 1986. It reopened in 1997 as a restaurant with interior details such as a 6 foot chandelier, a European style fireplace & furniture imported from France. Exterior features such as a french style gazebo & large water fountains. The restaurant closed for good in 2012.
Night, near full moon, 180 second exposure, handheld light producing device set to blue, orange & white.
holistic healing ,,
watching the waves
frolicking happy
with a mischievous
attitude solace
serenity serendipity
you dont need to
brood ,,just be yourself
calm hopeful not crude '
hey Alex what say you dude
miss your artistic clothed nudes
please dont shock the prude
bneath each layer of your
vision a message imbued
GUIDE AND SUPERVISION... Holistic Way, Super Vision, Eye Nutrition...pineal gland create inner light and super vision of your dreams...Lighting is a standout amongst the most imperative components in home stylistic layout. A decent lighting makes a feeling of warmth and inviting interest in the house. It likewise empowers you to perform every day errands well, makes you agreeable and above all outwardly upgrades the room.
Abstract: Sustainability has the potential to provide a holistic framework that can bridge the gap that is often found between socio-economic justice and environmental discourses. However, sustainability and sustainability education have typically accepted the prevailing socio-economic and cultural paradigm. It is my aim in this paper to demonstrate that a truly holistic and visionary sustainability (education) framework ought to demand radical and critical theories and solutions- based approaches to politicize and interrogate the premises, assumptions, and biases linked to the dominant notion of sustainability. If we are to envision and construe actual sustainable futures, we must first understand what brought us here, where the roots of the problems lie, and how the sustainability discourse and framework tackle—or fail to tackle—them. To do this is to politicize sustainability, to build a critical perspective of and about sustainability. It is an act of conscientização (or conscientization), to borrow Paulo Freire’s seminal term, of cultivating critical consciousness and conscience. In lieu of the standard articulation of politics as centralized state administration, ‘critical sustainability studies’ is based on a framing that gives prominence to a more organic, decentralized engagement of conscientious subjects in the creation of just, regenerative eco-social relations. It illuminates the ideological and material links between society, culture, and ecology by devoting particular attention to how knowledge and discourse around and across those realms are generated and articulated. I believe that future scholarship and activism in sustainability and sustainability-related fields would benefit immensely from dialoguing with this framework.
The assumption that what currently exists must necessarily exist is the acid that corrodes all visionary thinking.
– Murray Bookchin, The Meaning of Confederalism, 1990
Introduction: Why Sustainability (and Sustainability Education)?
Despite conflicting opinions over what the terms ‘sustainability’ and its variant ‘sustainable development’ actually mean, the framework of sustainability has gained a lot of traction in the last two decades. Its Western origins can be traced back to the writings of Western philosophers and seminal environmentalists like John Locke and Aldo Leopold (Spoon, 2013). Redclift (2005) asserts that sustainability as an idea was first used during the ‘limits to growth’ debates in the 1970s and the 1972 UN Stockholm Conference. Perhaps the most commonly quoted definition of sustainable development is that of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) who states that “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987, p. 43).
Sustainability has the potential to provide a holistic framework that can bridge the gap that is often found between socio-economic justice and environmental discourses. After all, recent scholarship indicates that the issue of environmental quality is inevitably linked to that of human equity (Morello-Frosch, 1997; Torras & Boyce, 1998; see Agyeman, Bullard, & Evans, 2002), and thus they need to be thought about together. I hold that an actual sustainable society is one where wider matters of social and economic needs are intrinsically connected to the dynamic limits set by supporting ecosystems and environments.
Sustainability education has emerged as an effort to acknowledge and reinforce these interrelationships and to reorient and transform education along the lines of social and ecological well-being (Sterling, 2001). By being rooted in whole systems thinking, i.e. “the ability to collectively analyze complex systems across different domains (society, environment, and economy) and across different scales (local to global)” (Wiek, Withycombe, & Redman, 2011, p. 207), sustainability education strives to illuminate the complexities associated with the broad, problem-oriented, solution-driven nature of sustainability (Warren, Archambault, & Foley, 2014). If we are to devise cultural systems that are truly regenerative, this “novel” brand of education urges the teaching of the fundamental facts of life by stewarding learning communities that comprehend the adaptive qualities of ecological patterns and principles (Stone, 2012). Sustainability education highlights the centrality of ‘place’ as a unit of inquiry to devise reciprocal—and thus sustainable—relationships where one nourishes and is nourished by their surrounding social and ecological milieus (Williams & Brown, 2012).
Additionally, sustainability and, as a consequence, sustainability education are future- oriented and therefore demand ‘futures thinking’: the ability to assess and formulate nuanced pictures of the future vis-à-vis sustainability predicaments and sustainability problem-solving schemes (Wiek, et al., 2011). In a nutshell, futures thinking suggests that we need to imagine the potential ramifications of past and current human activities by critically analyzing them today if we are to conceive of new, more sustainable futures (Warren et al., 2014). Future studies can therefore help people to pursue their “ontological vocation” as history makers (Freire, 1993, p. 66) and to (re)claim their agency as a means of creating the world in which they wish to live (Inayatullah, 2007).
However, sustainability and sustainability education have typically accepted the prevailing socio-economic and cultural paradigm despite their apparent holistic intent and(theoretical) efforts to reconcile the three pillars of sustainability—equity, environment, and economy. Whether intentionally or not, they have promoted curative solutions instead of reflecting new, critical mindsets that can actually generate meaningful socio-cultural innovation by naming and discursively dismantling the systems and processes that are the root causes of the complex problems we face. And, as Albert Einstein once put it, “no problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it.”
It is my aim in this paper to demonstrate that a truly holistic and visionary sustainability (education) framework ought to demand radical (of, relating to, or proceeding from a root) and critical (of, relating to, or being a turning point) theories and solutions-based approaches to politicize and interrogate the premises, assumptions, and biases linked to the dominant notion of sustainability.
Troubling (Monolithic) Sustainability
In order to be able to unveil and critically analyze the propositions and suppositions of what I call ‘the monolithic sustainability discourse,’ it is fundamental to start with the etymology of the word ‘sustainability’ itself. The operationalization of the term can be problematic for it implies prior judgments about what is deemed important or necessary to sustain. While some of these judgements might resonate with an array of environmentalists who perceive that the health of the planet and the well-being of our descendants are being—or are already—compromised by certain human activities, various other perilous premises and assumptions are generally left unacknowledged as a result of the depoliticized character of the dominant discourse of sustainability. Lele and Norgaard (1996) have put forward three questions that can help us to uncover and think more critically about these presuppositions in and across various contexts and scales: (a) what is to be sustained, at what scale, and in what form?; (b) over what time period, with what level of certainty?; (c) through what social process(es), and with what trade-offs against other social goals? (p. 355).
By building on these critical questions and clarifications, we can better understand the nuances of how the destructive and thus unsustainable ethos of dehumanization and socio- ecological exploitation may inform and permeate normative notions and articulations of sustainability. Yet, this is only plausible if sustainability is politicized. To politicize is to engage the existing state of socio-political affairs, to problematize that which is taken for granted, to make explicit the power relations that are an innate part of everyday life and experience (Bailey & Gayle, 2003). In an attempt to comprehend why sustainability is typically depoliticized we ought to examine briefly its discursive history.
The term ‘sustainable development’ became a part of the policy discourse and almost every day language following the release of the Brundtland Commission’s report on the global environment and development in 1987 (Redclift, 2005). While their definition included a very clear social directive, its human and political dimensions have been largely overlooked amongst references to sustainability, which, due to its environmental origins (Lele & Norgaard, 1996) and neoliberal focus on rights rather than needs (Redclift, 2005), have typically focused on bio- physical, ecological issues (Vallance, Perkins, & Dixon, 2011). Social sustainability, which has been conceptualized in response to the failure of the sustainability approach to engender substantial change (Vallance et al., 2011), is the least developed of the three realms and is frequently framed in relation to ecological and/or economic sustainability (Magis & Shinn, 2013). I assert that the reason for this is twofold: first and foremost, the sustainability agenda was conceived by international committees and NGO networks, think tanks, and governmental structures (Agyeman et al., 2002), which makes it a top-down approach and, consequently, less likely to recognize and address themes such as structural poverty, equity, and justice (Colantonio, 2009); and second, because social sustainability is made subservient to economics and the environment, it fails to examine the socio-political circumstances and elements that are needed to sustain a community of people (Magis & Shinn, 2013).
Sustainability, since its inception as a Western construct, has been progressively viewed as a crucial driver in economic development and environmental management worldwide. Nevertheless, as delineated above, its almost universal focus on reconciling the growth model of economics and the environment has served to covertly depoliticize the dominant discourse and therefore render it uncontentious if not intrinsically benign. It is worth further exploring the dynamics of depoliticization for I believe they are at the radicle of the issues sustainability attempts to address in the first place.
Bailey and Gayle (2003) identify a series of acts that can be associated with the dynamics of depoliticization, three of which can be observed when examining the monolithic sustainability discourse: (a) eschewing political discourse; (b) removing from the discourse the recognition that social advantages are given to certain constituent groups; (c) not disclosing underlying viewpoints or values. These processes are enmeshed with intricate ideological instances that help to mask the systemic and/or structural nature of a social or cultural matter (Bailey & Gayle, 2003). Further, as Foucault (1984) has stated, “power is everywhere” (p. 93) and it is embodied and enacted in discourse and knowledge. Hence, possessing the analytical tools to name and unpack these discursive ideological formations and power dynamics ought to be a prerequisite to the development of more holistic and critically conscious understandings and applications of sustainability.
Politicizing Sustainability
If we are to envision and construe actual sustainable futures, we must first understand what brought us here, where the roots of the problems lie, and how the sustainability discourse and framework tackle—or fail to tackle—them. To do this is to politicize sustainability, to build a critical perspective of and about sustainability. It is an act of conscientização (or conscientization), to borrow Paulo Freire’s seminal term, of cultivating critical consciousness and conscience (Freire, 1993). It is a call for the necessity to highlight, problematize, and disrupt what I have termed ‘the ethos of unsustainability’ and its interrelated ideologies of dehumanization and exploitation. Ultimately, to embrace a stance that fails to scrutinize the sources of degradation and exploitation is to uphold the power relations that sustain oppressive structures (Freire, 1993; Perry, 2001). I assert that only by delving into the origins of the ‘ethos of unsustainability’ can we really devise sustainability paradigms that are capable of promoting significant socio-cultural transformation.
To comprehend the contours of the predicaments that loom on our horizon as well as their premises and logics, we must go back over 500 years in history to 1492, the year that marks the beginning of the current colonial era and the globalization of the European colonial imaginary (Tuck and Yang, 2012). It is important to note that my intention in doing so is not to provide a sweeping, all-encompassing description of this genealogy/historical process, but rather, to simply name, connect, and emphasize the ideological systems and patterns that have been conceptualized and reconceptualized so as to sustain the ethos of unsustainability and its exploitative power structures. After all, as Freire (1993) has indicated, “to name the world is to change it” (p. 88).
(World) Capitalism: A Technology of European Colonialism
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the word ‘colonialism’ stems from the Roman word ‘colonia,’ which meant ‘settlement’ or ‘farm.’ The OED describes it as:
… a body of people who settle in a new locality, forming a community subject to or connected with their parent state; the community so formed, consisting of the original settlers and their descendants and successors, as long as the connection with the parent state is kept up.
In Colonialism/Postcolonialism, Ania Loomba (2001) points out that this definition fails to link the word ‘colonialism’ to its ideologies of conquest and domination as it eschews any testimonial about those peoples who were already living in the places where the colonies were formalized. She offers another, more nuanced definition that hints to the processes of conquest and control of other peoples’ land and resources (Loomba, 2001, p. 2):
The process of ‘forming a community’ in the new land necessarily meant unforming or re-forming the communities that existed there already, and involved a wide range of practices including trade, plunder, negotiation, warfare, genocide, slavement and rebellions.
Loomba (2001) illuminates that while European colonialisms from the late fifteenth century onwards included a miscellany of patterns of domination and exploitation, it was a combination of these patterns that generated the economic disparity required for the maturation and expansion of European capitalism and industrial civilization; thus, capitalism demands the maintenance of colonial expansion in order to flourish. In spite of colonialism not being a monopoly of capitalism because it could be—and has been—utilized by so-called ‘socialist’ or ‘communist’ states as well (Dirlik, 2002), capitalism is a technology of colonialism that has been developed and re-structured over time as a means of advancing European colonial projects (Tuck and Yang, 2012). Colonialism was the instrument through which capitalism was able to reach its status as a global, master frame (Loomba, 2001).
A distinction between the three historical modes of colonialism might help to further elucidate the interrelationships between capitalism and colonialism.
Theories of coloniality as well as postcolonial theories typically acknowledge two brands of colonialism: external colonialism, which involves the appropriation of elements of Indigenous worlds in order to build the wealth and the power of the colonizers—the first world—, and internal colonialism, the bio- and geo-political management of people and land within the borders of a particular nation-state (Tuck and Yang, 2012). A third form, settler colonialism, is more suitable to describe the operationalization of colonialisms in which the colonizers arrive and make a new home on the land (Tuck and Yang, 2012). The settler objective of gaining control over land and resources by removing the local, Indigenous communities is an ongoing structure that relies on private property schemes and coercive systems of labor (Glenn, 2015).
In these processes of colonialism, land is conceived primarily if not exclusively as commodity and property, and human relationships to the land are only legitimized in terms of economic ownership (Tuck and Yang, 2012). These combined colonialist ideologies of commodification and private property are at the core of the various political economies of capitalism that are found in today’s globalized world (O’Sullivan, 2005). By relying on the appropriation of land and commodities through the “elimination of the Native” (Wolfe, 2006, p. 387), European colonialisms wind up restructuring non-capitalist economies so as to fuel European capitalism (Loomba, 2001). The globalization of the world is thereby the pinnacle of a process that started with the formation of the United States of America as the epitome of a Euro- centered, settler colonialist world power (Quijano, 2000).
Inspired by the European colonial imaginary, which transforms differences and diversity into a hierarchy of values (Mignolo, 2000) as well as by economic liberalism, which erases the production and labor contexts from the economy (Straume, 2011), the capitalist imaginary constitutes a broad depoliticization that disconnects its ‘social imaginary significations’ from the political sphere (Straume, 2011). Given that capitalism is imbued with European diffusionist constructs (Blaut, 1989), namely ‘progress,’ ‘development,’ and ‘modernity,’ the depoliticization of this now globalized imaginary is required not only to maintain the resilience of capitalism as a master frame (Straume, 2011), but also to camouflage its interconnectedness to European colonial systems.
Antonio Gramsci’s (1971) study and articulation of the conceptualization and operation of ideologies proves fruitful in terms of understanding how the capitalist imaginary has been used to facilitate processes of globalization that benefit European colonialisms. He argued that ideologies are invaluable when manufacturing consent as they are the means through which certain ideas and meanings are not only transmitted, but held to be true (Gramsci, 1971). Hence, hegemony, the power garnered through a combination of ideologies and coercion, is attained by playing with people’s common sense (Gramsci, 1971) and their lived system of meanings and values (Williams, 1976; see Loomba, 2001). Since subjectivity and ideology are key to the expansionist capitalist endeavor and its interrelated logics of commodification and domination (Gramsci, 1971), it becomes necessary to summon and dissect the colonial ideas and belief systems that have served and continue to serve as its conduits. This can in turn help us to interrogate the value systems and mental models that directly and/or indirectly inform the dominant notion of sustainability (education).
White Supremacist, Heteropatriarchal State Capitalism
As devised and practiced by Europeans and, later, by other Euro-centered powers such as the United States, colonial ideologies of race and racial structures smooth the way for capitalist production (Wolfe, 2006). The Eurocentric construct of race as “a system of discrimination, hierarchy and power” (Olson, 2004, xvii, p. 127-128) conveys colonial experience and infuses the most essential realms of world power and its hierarchies (Quijano, 2000). The state and its many institutions are particularly pivotal in sustaining these racialized ideologies that are obligatory for the development and continuance of capitalism (Loomba, 2001).
Slavery, as the foundation of notions of race and capitalist empire and one of the pillars of white supremacy, marks the concepts of ‘progress’ and ‘development’ as white (Painter, 2010) and renders black people as innately enslaveable, as nothing more than private property (Smith, 2010a). Within the context of the United States, the forms of slavery can and, indeed, have changed—from chattel slavery, to sharecropping, and more recently, to the prison industrial complex, which is still grounded in the premise that black bodies are an indefinite property of the state (Smith, 2010a)—yet, slavery as a logic of white supremacy has persisted (Smith, 2010a). The other two pillars of white supremacy are genocide, which expresses the need for Indigenous Peoples to always be disappearing, and orientalism, which builds on Edward Said’s influential term to explain how certain peoples and/or nations are coded as inferior and, therefore, a constant threat to the security and longevity of imperial states (Smith, 2010a).
The pillars of white supremacy may vary according to historical and geographical contexts (Smith, 2010a). Nonetheless, the centering of whiteness is generally what defines a colonial project. The formation of whiteness, or white identity, as a racialized class orientation stems from political efforts by capitalist elites and lawmakers to divide and conquer large masses of workers (Battalora, 2013). White identity is perhaps one of the most successful colonial and capitalist inventions since it “operates as a kind of property … with effects on social confidence and performance that can be empirically documented” (Alcoff, 2015, p. 23). It is a very dynamic category that can be enlarged to extend its privileges to others when white supremacist social and economic relations are jeopardized (Painter, 2010). It sustains itself, at least partially, by evading scrutiny and shifting the discursive focus to ‘non-whites’ (Silva, 2007). Whiteness is to be made invisible by remaining the norm, the standard, that which ought not to be questioned.
Capitalism therefore depends on and magnifies these racial hierarchies centered on whiteness. And, since race is imbricated and constructed simultaneously with gender, sexuality, ability, and other colonial categories—a conceptualization that serves to obscure white supremacy in state discourses and interventions (Kandaswamy, 2012)—, it is crucial to investigate the other ideologies that also shape class formation processes.
Heteropatriarchy, the combination of patriarchal and heterosexual control based on rigid and dichotomous gender identities—man and woman—and sexual orientations—heterosexual and homosexual—where one identity or orientation dominates the other, is another building block of colonialism. Patriarchy is employed to naturalize hierarchical relations within families and at a larger, societal level (Smith, 2010b). Similarly, heteronormativity paints heterosexual nuclear-domestic arrangements as normative (Arvin, Tuck, and Morrill, 2013) and is thus the bedrock of the colonial nation-state (Smith, 2010b). These social and cultural systems that configure heteropatriarchy are then apprehended as normal and natural whereas other arrangements or proclivities are demonized and perceived as repulsive and abnormal (Arvin et al., 2013). Heteropatriarchy is directly linked to colonial racial relations as it portrays white manhood as supreme and entitled to control over private property and to political sovereignty (Glenn, 2015). This indicates that the process of producing and managing gender frequently functions as a racial project that normalizes whiteness (Kandaswamy, 2012).
The laws and policies that were designed to institutionalize the formation of whiteness and white supremacy demonstrate that race, class, and gender are intertwined systems that uphold, constitute, and reconstitute each other (Battalora, 2013). The state and its ideological institutions are therefore major sites of racial struggle (Kandaswamy, 2012); they are responsible for devising and constantly revising the rationale that guides a white supremacist, heteropatriarchal settler colonialism grounded in the need to manufacture collective consent. These discourses are rooted in a pervasive state process that combines coercive state arbitration with societal consent by articulating the ideologies that link racial structure and representation as an effort to reorganize and distribute resources according to specific racial lines (Ferguson, 2012).
Despite increasing globalizing neoliberal urges toward deregulation and privatization, capitalism is still enabled and supported by the state. Its ‘ideological apparatuses,’ the state institutions and ideologies that enable and support the classist structure of capitalist societies (Althusser, 1989), is still fundamental to the expansion of capitalist enterprises; the nation-state is capitalism’s atomic component. The neoliberal state has utilized innovations in methods of social discipline and control along with legal practices to facilitate the process of economic globalization (Gill, 1995). Yet, all these schemes that involve retention of power through dominance and manufactured consent are rooted in divide and conquer strategies that cause those in subservient positions in society to engage in conflicts with one another (Hagopian, 2015). The interlinked logics and ideologies of white supremacy and heteropatriarchy conceived by state capitalism serve to spur dissent between potential opponents and thereby further stratify socio-economic classes. This prevents them from building a unified basis that can present a tangible threat to the status quo (Hagopian, 2015). Colonial and neocolonial powers have repeatedly deployed this stratagem to not only increase their geographical reach, but also to normalize and standardize the economic growth model of capitalism.
Colonialism is hence not just an ancient, bygone incident. The ideologies and processes delineated above demonstrate that it has remained very much in effect within contemporary capitalist and neoliberal frameworks (Preston, 2013). It then becomes critical to investigate how the dominant sustainability discourse may or may not collude in these schemes so that we may conceive of holistic blueprints that beget positive socio-ecological transformation.
Sustainability and Colonialism: Contradiction or Conscious Ideological Maneuver?
By unearthing what I believe are the roots of the predicament that sustainability attempts to heal, namely the ethos of dehumanization and exploitation rooted in divide and conquer systems, it becomes easier to analyze how the colonial political economy of capitalism may conserve hegemonic ideologies that pervade social relations and knowledge generating processes.
Yet, these ideologies and knowledge schemes have been given minimal attention in sustainability (education) scholarship. Even though some academics have contributed to the generation of a more critical comprehension of the interrelationships between capitalism, environmental degradation, and socio-economic justice (see Cachelin, Rose, & Paisley, 2015; Martusewicz, Edmundson, & Lupinacci, 2011; Pellow & Brulle, 2005), this major blindspot in linking sustainability to the colonial imaginary and its legacies prompts the following questions:(awhy are critiques of colonialism and capitalism so infrequent in the sustainability literature?: (a) why are critiques of colonialism and capitalism so infrequent in the sustainability literature?; and (b) how does that impact the discourse of sustainability?
I assert that, in spite of calls for paradigm shifts, the dominant disancourse of sustainability in the West embodies a transnational, globalized standard of economic growth. The promise that economic development can eradicate or at least alleviate poverty and hunger in a sustainable way reflects some of the same goals and values of the optimistic ‘ecological modernization’ concept and perspective, which suggest that the development and modernization of liberal capitalism result in improvements in ecological outcomes (Buttel, 2000). The neoliberal, capitalist overtones of sustainable development not only expose the contradiction inherent in the term, but they also serve to further commodify nature (Cock, 2011). This neoliberalization of nature, which has recently gained a lot of attention in the corporate world and academia under the lexicon of ‘ecosystem services,’ alienates people from their physical surroundings and therefore reinforces the society-nature divide. In short, the sustainability discourse has been appropriated by the capitalist master frame and has transformed most if not all social and ecological relations into financial ones. In lieu of addressing social and environmental justice issues, this form of “green” or “natural” capitalism is responsible for deepening both social and environmental inequalities (Cock, 2011).
Since sustainability (education) is (supposed to be) a praxis-oriented framework that symbiotically combines thought and action for transformative, liberatory ends, it ought to embrace this critique of colonial capitalism and the subsequent neoliberalization of the political economy if it is to oppose and resist hegemonic ideologies in its multiple and diverse manifestations. After all, whether intentionally or not, what matters in the end is that those discourses of sustainability that do not take a stance against colonialism and capitalism only serve to preserve them and the status quo. An understanding of these interdependent systems allows for the development of critical sustainability dialogues and actions that can actually promote the paradigmatic shifts required to redress the socio-cultural problems that are at the heart of the environmental crises. Thus, sustainability can and should be reframed to suggest a process of personal, social, and cultural conscientization that is environmentally sound, i.e. one that follows ecological principles and patterns, instead of upholding the dehumanizing, exploitative, and paradoxical ‘development as growth’ standard of global capitalism.
The following section combines the analyses and critiques presented in the preceding (sub)sections into a single, cohesive, and holistic framework, and further elucidates the distinctions between monolithic sustainability and critical sustainabilities.
The Framework of Critical Sustainability Studies
[T]he political cannot be restricted to a certain type of institution, or envisioned as constituting a specific sphere or level of society. It must be conceived as a dimension that is inherent to every human society and that determines our very ontological condition.
- Chantal Mouffe, The Return of the Political, 2005
‘Critical sustainability studies,’ while not exactly novel in the sense that it draws on principles, concepts, and positions that are foundational to other frameworks and fields—more specifically, critical Indigenous and ethnic studies, postcolonial theory, queer theory, feminist theory, crip theory, social ecology, political ecology, and cultural studies—, presents itself as an alternative to the sustainability theories and conceptualizations that have failed to engage a truly intersectional analysis of dominant sustainability and environmental discourses, policies, and practices. Its primary objective is to rearticulate sustainability as it has the potential to provide a more holistic conception of conscientization that can bridge the gap between social and economic justice and environmental sustainability.
The framework indicates a crucial double political intervention: to put sustainability and critical theory in conversation; to embed sustainability and ecology into critical theory and vice- versa. As I discussed in the previous section, sustainability has, for the most part, become a hegemonic and, therefore, highly problematic discourse that refuses to transform the complex ideologies and systems that undergird the ethos of unsustainability and the current socio- ecological crises. On the other hand, critical theory, which seeks to extend the consciousness of the human self as a social being within the context of dominant power structures and their knowledge management operations (Kincheloe, 2005), could benefit from incorporating ecological principles and the sustainability notion of ‘place’ into its analytical toolbox. After all, I am as interested in localizing critical knowledge—without disconnecting it from global matters and realities—as I am in putting forth more critical and radical views of sustainability. Hence, this framework brings together what I believe are some of the most robust and cutting edge theories and methodologies to facilitate the deconstruction of the questionable ideologies that guide Western epistemologies like (hegemonic) sustainability.
Critical sustainability studies encourages sustainability scholars and/or educators to move from a defined methodology of problem-solving to the more critical moment of calling something into question (Freire, 1993). By rooting it in conscientization, I propose an orientation to sustainability and sustainable development that politicizes and reveals it as an agenda, discourse, and knowledge system that ought to be contested and rearticulated so that it can incorporate and critically engage with emancipatory understandings of power and power relations. Furthermore, by problematizing and closing the culture-nature divide, it can lay down the groundwork for the paradigmatic changes necessary to heal widespread colonialist alienation from the wider ecological community and to create visions of deep sustainabilities that can engender ecologically sound socio-cultural transformation.
I stress that the notion of sustainabilities is necessary if we have the intention of opposing and displacing the monolithic, top-down and now universalized sustainability agenda, which I refer to as ‘big S Sustainability.’ After all, much like science (Parry, 2006), sustainability is not the property of any one culture or language. There are different ways of seeing and knowing sustainability, so it is time to pluralize it in the literature and discourse. This simple act is an extraordinary intervention in itself because within the colonial imaginary “sustainability” means “Western sustainability.” By centering “novel” understandings of sustainability that are concerned with the specificities of geo-political, cultural, and historical contexts and power relations, sustainability scholars and educators can create theories and visions of sustainability that can lead to the development of more just, place-based cultures and social ecologies.
Critical sustainability studies as I envision it is a consciousness-raising exercise that is particularly useful in educational settings. It indicates methodology as much as content. This praxis-oriented framework can help teachers and students alike to develop consciousness of freedom and to acknowledge authoritarian socio-cultural tendencies that have toxic environmental ramifications. The next section provides an overview of its tenets, the educational philosophy that underpins it, as well as the four preliminary methodological principles and examples of related pedagogical interventions that directly inform the framework and its liberatory, decolonizing ambitions.
Epistemological Position, Preliminary Methodological Principles, and Pedagogical Interventions for Conscientization
The epistemological, methodological, and pedagogical implications of critical sustainability studies are rooted in an ethical and political vision, one that is found in the vast majority of social ecology and political ecology projects: that “the domination of nature by man [sic] stems from the very real domination of human by human” (Bookchin, 2005, p. 1). In other words, we cannot overcome the ecological crisis unless we rid ourselves of the colonial ideologies of domination and hierarchy that permeate all forms of systemic and systematic exploitation and dehumanization. While much easier said than done, critical sustainability studies seeks to conceptualize this vision by building on the following tenets:
That sustainability and sustainability education are not neutral, they either advance or regress justice and Critical sustainability studies strives to promote justice and ecological regeneration.
That an analysis of power is central to understanding and engendering positive socio-cultural Critical sustainability studies strives to be conscious of power relations and to identify power inequalities and their implications.
That it is crucial to foreground the sociocultural identities and experiences of those who have been (most) oppressed – people of color, people with disabilities, queer and transgender people, the working class and the economically poor, undocumented immigrants, Critical sustainability studies acknowledges that just, healthy cultures and societies can only be cultivated if we examine the circumstances that cause and maintain socio-economic marginalization.
That positive socio-cultural transformation comes from the bottom up. Critical sustainability studies emphasizes and advocates a collective and decentralized approach to sustainable change.
And, finally, that the human community is inherently a part of rather than apart from the wider ecological world. Critical sustainability studies affirms that this relational ethos serves as the epistemological foundation of novel, dynamic worlds where healing and justice are at the front and center of our cultural and ecological identities.
In addition to delineating critical sustainability studies as a praxis that is founded on the above tenets, the framework is guided by a critical constructivist epistemological position. Strongly influenced by Freirean pedagogies and the Frankfurt school of thought, critical constructivism endeavors to dissect the processes by which knowledge is socially constructed; in other words, what we know about the worlds we live in always demands a knower and that which is to be known, a contextual and dialectical process that informs what we conceive of as reality (Kincheloe, 2005). This epistemological position problematizes and extends constructivism by illuminating the need for both teachers and students to develop a critical awareness of self, their perspectives, and ways their consciousness have been shaped and/or reshaped by society (Watts, Jofili, & Bezerra, 1997). Critical constructivists attempt to comprehend the forces that construe consciousness and the ways of seeing and being of the subjects who inhabit it (Kincheloe, 1993, as cited in Watts et al., 1997). This political, counter- Cartesianism, and anti-objectivist philosophy (Kincheloe, 2005) is central to an emancipatory approach to sustainability and sustainability education, and is, therefore, at the root of the critical sustainability studies conception of holistic conscientization.
www.susted.com/wordpress/content/critical-sustainability-...
The metamorphoses holistics are digital transformations of an only frame.
The result is a dynamism of an alone frame
my web site
Due to "chasing" European 2012 and also going back to camp for a 2 week NS reservist , i had been hibernating on photography....
With the official opening of garden by the bay on 29th june 2012, what could be a better way to resume my photography journey with a big bang upload of photos of it...
How can such a big project open without fireworks ???? I was surprise when i found out therefore i make use of the NDP combined rehersal's firework to complete Gardens By The Bay Opening !
My remote shutter release was spoilt at the crucial moment whereby the firework is going to start and i had no choice to do intellegient guessing for the correct exposure...Luckily the firework was not too intense and i was able to capture the firework in a single exposure between 20-30sec and f8-f11.
View my flickr set on gardens by the bay using the following link
www.flickr.com/photos/gwwang/sets/72157630358093212/
.:Taken from From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:.
About Marina Bay Sands
Marina Bay Sands (traditional Chinese: 濱海灣金沙; simplified Chinese: 滨海湾金沙) is an integrated resort fronting Marina Bay in Singapore. Developed by Las Vegas Sands, it is billed as the world's most expensive standalone casino property at S$8 billion, including cost of the prime land.[1][2]
With the casino complete, the resort features a 2,561-room hotel, a 1,300,000-square-foot (120,000 m2) convention-exhibition centre, the 800,000-square-foot (74,000 m2) The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands mall, an iconic ArtScience museum, two large theatres, seven "celebrity chef" restaurants, two floating Crystal Pavilions, an ice skating rink, and the world's largest atrium casino with 500 tables and 1,600 slot machines. The complex is topped by a 340m-long SkyPark with a capacity of 3,900 people and a 150m infinity swimming pool, set on top of the world's largest public cantilevered platform, which overhangs the north tower by 67m.[3][4] The 20-hectare resort was designed by Moshe Safdie Architects. The local architect of record was Aedas Singapore, and engineering was provided by Arup and Parsons Brinkerhoff (MEP). The main contractor was Ssangyong Engineering and Construction.[5]
Originally set to open in 2009, Las Vegas Sands faced delays caused by escalating costs of material and labour shortages from the onset. The severe global financial crisis also pressured the company to delay its projects elsewhere to complete the integrated resort.[6] Although Marina Bay Sands has been compared on scale and development costs to MGM's CityCenter, the latter is a mixed-use development, with condominium properties (comprising three of the seven main structures) being sold off.[7][8]
The resort was officially opened with a two-day celebration on 23 June 2010 at 3.18 pm, after a partial opening (which included the casino) on 27 April 2010.[9] The SkyPark opened a day later on 24 June 2010. The theatres were completed in time for the first performance by Riverdance on 30 November 2010. The floating pavilions are still being built and are expected to be fully completed by 2011. The indoor skating rink, which uses artificial ice, opened to a performance by Michelle Kwan on 18 December 2010. The ArtScience Museum opened to the public and the debut of a 13-minute light, laser and water spectacle called Wonder Full on 19 February 2011 marked the full completion of the entire Integrated Resort.
The grand opening of Marina Bay Sands was held on 17 February 2011. It also marked the opening of the seven celebrity chef restaurants. The highly-anticipated Broadway musical The Lion King debuted on 3 March 2011.[10] The last portion of the Marina Bay Sands, the floating pavilions, were finally opened to the public when the two tenants (Louis Vuitton and Pangaea Club) opened on 18 September 2011 and 22 September 2011 respectively.
About Garden by the Bay
Gardens by the Bay consists of three distinctive waterfront gardens – Bay South, Bay East and Bay Central, spanning a total of 101 hectares. They are set in the heart of Singapore’s new downtown Marina Bay, encircling the Marina Reservoir like a green necklace. The Gardens will complement the array of attractions around Marina Bay.
Gardens by the Bay is an integral part of a strategy by the Singapore government that further transforms Singapore from a ‘Garden City’ to a ‘City in a Garden’, in which the city is woven into a green and floral tapestry. This aims to raise the quality of life in Singapore with a more holistic and all-encompassing programme that enhances greenery and flora in the city. First announced to the public by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong during the National Day Rally in August 2005, Gardens by the Bay will become Singapore’s premier urban outdoor recreation space, and a national icon.
An international competition for the design of the master plan was held in January 2006 to elicit the best designs for the Gardens. This attracted more than 70 entries submitted by 170 firms from 24 countries, from which two firms – Grant Associates and Gustafson Porter – were eventually awarded the master plan design for the Bay South and Bay East Gardens respectively.
The Gardens are being developed in phases. Bay South is currently being constructed and is slated to be completed by June 2012. Bay East has been developed as an interim park in support of the Youth Olympic Games 2010, and is scheduled to open to the public in late 2011 or early 2012. The full master plan implementation of Bay East and the development of Bay Central are part of the next phase of development.
...:Taken from From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:.
The Singapore Flyer is a giant Ferris wheel located in Singapore, constructed in 2005–2008. Described by its operators as an observation wheel,[2] it reaches 42 stories high, with a total height of 165 m (541 ft), making it the tallest Ferris wheel in the world, 5 m (16 ft) taller than the Star of Nanchang and 30 m (98 ft) taller than the London Eye.
Situated on the southeast tip of the Marina Centre reclaimed land, it comprises a 150 m (492 ft) diameter wheel, built over a three-story terminal building which houses shops, bars and restaurants, and offers broad views of the city centre and beyond to about 45 km (28 mi), including the Indonesian islands of Batam and Bintan, as well as Johor, Malaysia.
The final capsule was installed on 2 October 2007, the wheel started rotating on 11 February 2008 and it officially opened to the public on 1 March 2008.[1] Tickets for rides on the first 3 nights were sold out for S$8,888 (US$6,271), an auspicious number in Chinese culture.[2] The grand opening for the Flyer was held on 15 April 2008.[3]
Each of the 28 air-conditioned capsules is capable of holding 28 passengers, and a complete rotation of the wheel takes about 30 minutes.[4] Initially rotating in a counter-clockwise direction when viewed from Marina Centre, its direction was changed on 4 August 2008 under the advice of Feng shui masters.[5]
.:From www.nparks.gov.sg/cms/index.php?option=com_news&task=... :.
About Super trees
Concept and Overview
•Supertrees are uniquely designed vertical gardens ranging from 25 to 50 metres in height (9 to 16 storey), with emphasis placed on the vertical display of tropical flowering climbers, epiphytes and ferns.
•There are a total of 18 Supertrees, all located within Bay South at Gardens by the Bay. Out of the 18 Supertrees, twelve are situated in the Supertree Grove while the remaining six are placed in clusters of threes near the Arrival Square and Dragonfly Lake.
•Given the relatively short time span to create a garden from reclaimed land, the Supertrees provide an immediate scale and dimension to the Gardens while marrying the form and function of mature trees.
•They also create height to balance the current and future tall developments in the Marina Bay area.
•In the day, the Supertrees' large canopies provide shade and shelter. At night, the Supertrees will come alive with lighting and projected media.
•Eleven of the Supertrees are embedded with environmentally sustainable functions.
•A 128-metre-long aerial walkway will connect the two 42-metre Supertrees in the Supertree Grove and enable visitors to take in a different view of the Gardens from a height of 22 metres.
•The 50-metre Supertree will have a treetop bistro that will offer a panoramic view of the Gardens and surrounding Marina Bay area, while F&B outlets located in the Supertree Grove will offer a casual dining experience amidst the lush garden setting. These are among the many dining options that will be available in the Gardens.
•Visitors can look forward to getting up-close to the Supertrees when Bay South officially opens in June 2012.
Construction
The Supertree comprises four major parts:
•Reinforcement concrete core - Inner vertical structure that upholds the Supertree;
•Trunk - A steel frame that will be attached around the reinforcement concrete core;
•Planting panels - Installed on the trunk in preparation for the planting of the living skin;
•Canopy - Shaped like an inverted umbrella, the canopy will be assembled and hoisted via a hydraulic jack system (with the exception of the 50m Supertree canopy which will be assembled at its final height).
Environmentally Sustainable Functions
•Eleven Supertrees will have canopies embedded with environmentally sustainable functions.
•Some will have photovoltaic cells to harvest solar energy for lighting up the Supertrees. Some will be integrated with the cooled conservatories and serve as air exhaust receptacles.
Plants
•Over 162,900 plants comprising more than 200 species and varieties of bromeliads, orchids, ferns and tropical flowering climbers will be planted on the 18 Supertrees.
•Examples of some of the species that will be planted on the Supertrees include the Tillandsia stricta from Brazil, Tillandsia fasciculate from Panama, Cattleya maxima from Ecuador, and Pseudorhipsalis from Costa Rica.
•The plants are chosen based on the following considerations:
◦Suitable for vertical planting
◦Lightweight and hardy
◦Soil-less
◦Easy to maintain
◦Suitable for Singapore's Climate
◦Not commonly found in Singapore
◦Visually interesting
•The Supertrees will have different planting schemes in various colours ranging from warm tones like reds, browns, orange and yellows, to cooler hues like silver and pink.
.:From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:.
About Garden by the Bay
Gardens by the Bay consists of three distinctive waterfront gardens – Bay South, Bay East and Bay Central, spanning a total of 101 hectares. They are set in the heart of Singapore’s new downtown Marina Bay, encircling the Marina Reservoir like a green necklace. The Gardens will complement the array of attractions around Marina Bay.
Gardens by the Bay is an integral part of a strategy by the Singapore government that further transforms Singapore from a ‘Garden City’ to a ‘City in a Garden’, in which the city is woven into a green and floral tapestry. This aims to raise the quality of life in Singapore with a more holistic and all-encompassing programme that enhances greenery and flora in the city. First announced to the public by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong during the National Day Rally in August 2005, Gardens by the Bay will become Singapore’s premier urban outdoor recreation space, and a national icon.
An international competition for the design of the master plan was held in January 2006 to elicit the best designs for the Gardens. This attracted more than 70 entries submitted by 170 firms from 24 countries, from which two firms – Grant Associates and Gustafson Porter – were eventually awarded the master plan design for the Bay South and Bay East Gardens respectively.
The Gardens are being developed in phases. Bay South is currently being constructed and is slated to be completed by June 2012. Bay East has been developed as an interim park in support of the Youth Olympic Games 2010, and is scheduled to open to the public in late 2011 or early 2012. The full master plan implementation of Bay East and the development of Bay Central are part of the next phase of development.
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Forest colors encompassing
Vibrant with iridescent solar rays,
Engulfing the waters with warmth,
Stretching through the summer days.
Murky grounds moist and soft,
Aroma, lush and sweet.
Water droplets beading up,
Bubbling from the heat.
Toads leaping so high,
With their mating calls in the morning dew.
WIld plants growing everywhere
With their colored tones and amber hue.
A sacred place of wild freedom
In this great rain-forest so rare and pure,
Its ink water remains a mystery -
Bottled as earth's holistic cure.
Copyright © 2011 Tomitheos Poetry and Photography - All Rights Reserved
Gardens by the Bay consists of three distinctive waterfront gardens – Bay South, Bay East and Bay Central, spanning a total of 101 hectares. They are set in the heart of Singapore’s new downtown Marina Bay, encircling the Marina Reservoir like a green necklace. The Gardens will complement the array of attractions around Marina Bay.
Gardens by the Bay is an integral part of a strategy by the Singapore government that further transforms Singapore from a ‘Garden City’ to a ‘City in a Garden’, in which the city is woven into a green and floral tapestry. This aims to raise the quality of life in Singapore with a more holistic and all-encompassing programme that enhances greenery and flora in the city. First announced to the public by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong during the National Day Rally in August 2005, Gardens by the Bay will become Singapore’s premier urban outdoor recreation space, and a national icon.
An international competition for the design of the master plan was held in January 2006 to elicit the best designs for the Gardens. This attracted more than 70 entries submitted by 170 firms from 24 countries, from which two firms – Grant Associates and Gustafson Porter – were eventually awarded the master plan design for the Bay South and Bay East Gardens respectively.
The Gardens are being developed in phases. Bay South is currently being constructed and is slated to be completed by June 2012. Bay East has been developed as an interim park in support of the Youth Olympic Games 2010, and is scheduled to open to the public in late 2011 or early 2012. The full master plan implementation of Bay East and the development of Bay Central are part of the next phase of development.
I tend to focus on the water detail at our local cascades and rarely try to capture the whole scene. Seeing so many shots by Flickr friends which show the full beauty of waterfalls, I decided to step back and have a go! So, a view of Nelly Ayre Foss [near Goathland] from a little way downstream.
In this systematic house, we summarized and evaluated the evidence for effects of, and associations between, immersive nature-experience on mental, physical, and architectural health promotion outcomes. Immersive nature-experience was operationalized as non-competitive activities, both sedentary and active, occurring in natural environments removed from everyday environments. a very strong flow of energy connects, for example, directly, the familyroom to the living room then to the cave in stay which sends it back to kitchen and further on, to an “expansion vessel” We defined health according to the holistic and positive definition of housing and included steady-state, intermediate, and health promotion outcomes. Who and what was this enormous energy used for? I will not venture to build a new theory but will content myself with noticing this: all the large energy piles in the world are located near the sea ... Everyone will draw the conclusions he wants.
Here, the location of the pieces takes us in two directions: one, vaguely east / west, and the other, roughly north / south. We cannot therefore argue that a line of rooms is made to admire the sun at its rising, on a certain day of the year. No line is, moreover, straight. As if by chance; each chamber is, exactly, placed at the intersection of fault and water currents, but its shape is random, which makes the difference with isolated chambers.
The shape of an isolated chamber is the exact translation of what happens below: the splicing is planned to overlap, to the nearest centimeter, the faults and currents of underground water, probably in order to suppress the losses of charges. Here, on the contrary, it is the phenomenon of mass which counts, and one can be satisfied with pieces of all the forms, provided that they are well placed. Each space has its cosmotelluric fireplace and three enclosures. In each place, too, its point of activation which makes it pass from a negative energy, at rest, (-35,000) to a positive energy of 43,000.
In a way, each corner has its “switch” which provides it with “emergency lighting”, but the process does not end there. Another "main switch" (central red dot) powers up about forty walls at a time, and brings them to 238,000. This is the great "enlightenment"!
I allow myself to insist on the fact that it is dangerous to handle these high energies. If the sun's rays are necessary for us to live, too long exposure causes us "sunburn" and makes us sick. The problem is, exactly, the same with megalithic radiation.
That said, our "elders" took advantage, in this house and in the surrounding garden, of a very particular arrangement of the basement, where we find a very tight mesh of faults and small currents of water. 'water. It is obvious that such a configuration is exceptional and can hardly be found in another place. This is why alignments are infrequent. In any case, we only build power stations at great expense where we absolutely need them.
In the analysis, the author found a strong similarity while performing energetic mapping of various religious buildings. Energetic mapping uncovers all geology disturbances underground, disturbances which were used to benefit the locations and greatly increase their energy level.
Our ancestors left nothing to hazard and took into account hidden underground singularities, prior to laying down the first stone. With time and with the advent of industrial progress, the builders no longer consider the effects of the cosmos and of the earth.
Eminent geobiologists, such as Georges Prat, have studied this subject. As a tribute to their work, let us present here a synthesis enriched by the experiments and the studies made by Richard Benishai in this matter. There are hundreds of examples which can be brought forward. A few are examined here to explain the non-visible architecture.
Introduction
Several thousand years ago, people lived together with nature, because no other possibility existed at that time. They possessed an inherent and natural sense for their environment. They used their hands to feel the energies coming from the ground, to locate suitable places to build their shelter. An example of this practice can be seen in the Golan Heights, near Gamla, where several hundred stone tables or dolmens were erected by this approach (5500 years ago). As time went on, they started to live in groups or in villages, their sixth sense diminishing. As such, they started to use instruments, such as divining or dowsing rods, pendulums and other detection means. However, the knowledge was still there, together for the need to live in a healthy place.
The year is 2005. Man is deeply immersed in a sea of technology, his senses reduced to a bare minimum. Very few today are aware that bad, as well as good energies originate under their feet. When building a house, a location is selected based on price, proximity to schools, shopping centers and accessibility. Energies? The great majority is not aware that vibrations coming from the earth can render one ill and worse. Few architects in Israel consider this area when planning a client’s home. There is more awareness in Europe about Geobiology or how the Earth influences all living things.
Networks and Other Singularities
Definitions
It is well known that our planet is covered by many electromagnetic networks: Romani, Peyre, Palms, Hartmann, Curry, Wissman, etc… Most are generated by metals, in the heart of the earth, in conjunction with the cosmic forces. Some are beneficial, such as gold, silver and copper, while some are neutral and others are detrimental to our health (Hartmann, Curry, Wissman, etc…).
Underground water streams criss-cross the interior of the upper crust, acting as the blood supply of the planet. The water molecules friction with the earth generates a number of physical phenomena: increase in gamma rays and infra-red radiation, electric and magnetic fields and radio frequencies. These effects cause some minor problems at first, followed eventually by serious illnesses. Our forefathers knew this and used stones, strategically placed to neutralize the negativity (Stonehenge in England and Carnac in France).
Faults are caused by rock plates separating, slipping or grinding one against the other. At times, differences in materials (rock and sand, or clay and sand, etc…) create a fault. Through faults noxious gases can seep to the surface (radon). The faults have negative effects on man/animals/plants in a manner similar to water.
Measurements
Egypt and the Pharaohs were well versed in the use of the pendulum. Records in the form of drawings made on papyrus, show that priests were using pendulums made of wood and of stone. The Pharaoh is shown in the most popular pictures as holding two sticks,
one of them being a pendulum, the other being a dowsing rod.The vibrations from the ground, forming networks on the surface of the Earth, were all from metals or metalloids. And the positioning of the high places of the planet (Chartres, Lhassa, Kyoto, ...), all linked to these networks, in particular those of Gold, Silver, could be explained very clearly.
Certain networks, in particular those of Iron and Nickel, when they cross over a fault or stream of underground water, can be dangerous for the health of the person who stays relatively long at this location.
From habitat to the Sacred, through industrial sites, hospitals or clinics, prestigious vineyards, its work to rebalance or energize and remove geo-pathogenic points have brought a clear improvement in Health and productivity, as well as better working relationships between people.
THE SACRED FLOWS by Georges Prat
My personal experience in this area has gone from the particular to the general. And this happened, of course, "by chance".
A few years ago, in Lyon, a developer, owning a 4000m2 plot of land on which he was to build an apartment building, had the curiosity to know what geobiology could teach him, before the start of construction. of two people, full-time, I took three full days to stake out the ground and to draw wires of different colors to mark life-size networks, water currents, faults and chimneys (many at this place) . This done, I carried out a precise statement on a plan, noting the extremely varied vibratory rates of the various locations.
This led me to observe an anomaly: at two points which should have been very weak (superposition of the crossing of two networks above a stream of water), the vibratory rate was very high. Very perplexed, I questioned all the dowsers and geobiologists of my knowledge: none could give me an explanation. Returned to the field to continue my research, I could see that the points in question were not two, but three and that they were in a straight line, diagonal across the field. Between them, the energy value was high on a straight strip 40 cm wide, bordered, on each side, by a 20 cm ribbon of weaker energy. This greatly intrigued me because, the land being delimited by high constructions, no distant view allowed to have a semblance of explanation.
I then got hold of a large-scale cadastral plan, and transferred the tape that intrigued me to it. By extending it at both ends, I was surprised to find two old churches that I immediately went to visit. Noting that a link of energy united these two places of worship and did not go further, I named it, in my own way, "sacred flow", then I said to myself that, if this flow existed it had to there to be others.
Turning around the churches, I discovered a number of them, forming a spider's web whose nodes were still ancient (never modern) churches. Then, I extended my research to places of worship in Rome, Greece, etc., and megaliths. Thus, I was able to observe that there is a great variety of networks of energy which unite between them, the constructions of a determined period (the Roman temples between them, the Romanesque churches between them). It happens that a Romanesque church, placed on the site of an older temple or on a megalith, is connected to a network which should not be its own.
Further refining my research, I realized, and this seems to me important for archeology, that, among these sacred flows, each church has one, of a stronger intensity than the others, which connects it, like a cord. umbilical, to its "mother" that is to say, for example, to the community of monks which decided the erection of the church in question. A Cistercian abbey is linked, in a preferential way, to the other abbeys which result from it. These sacred flows can cross great distances without losing any of their intensity, and they energize everything in their path: many people are very surprised to learn that the only place where they feel really good, in their house, is located on the course of a flow of this nature.
Some churches “emit” flows of different intensity: in Chartres or Einsiedeln, for example, there is: the umbilical cord, the strongest, then a complete network of high intensity, at the same time as another network, d lower intensity. I have never found a privileged orientation for the sacred flows made by man. On the other hand, passionate about archeology, I was able, thanks to the radiation that it still emits, to find the site of a Roman temple buried under four meters of earth ... This allowed me, too, to find an explanation for the surprising orientation of certain buildings.
Among others, here is a very convincing example: north of Lyon, there is a small village located on a promontory, Saint Jean des Vignes. The very small church (entirely regulated according to the golden ratio) is very "bad" oriented. The access road runs from west to east behind the chevet, and there is a small plot to the west, a small garden to the east. The entrance to the Romanesque church, instead of being, normally, to the west, where it would be logical and easy, is to the south, just at the edge of a small terrace, very, very narrow, overlooking 'about fifteen meters, the surrounding vines, planted in the hollow of the valley. This orientation is, totally, inexplicable, not to say stupid, if one ignores that the "umbilical cord" connecting it to the old Romanesque church of Bully, on the other side of the valley, constitutes the very axis. of the building. Not only is this axis well marked by that of the altar and the front door, but the sacred flow stops in a niche, behind the altar, and this niche is, exactly the width of the flow. .
Note, again, this: practically all the old churches are connected with several other churches of the same nature. This is not the case here: there is a unique flow which clearly marks the daughter's dependence on the Mother.
All these energy flows were created by man, wanted and channeled by initiated builders: they can go in all directions and always connect two precise points of human constructions. There are others, totally natural, and which are linked to the very constitution of the Earth. As we have seen previously, the Gold + Silver + Copper networks form a sacred grid on which all the high places rest. Here we are reaching much higher energy values because if the networks are already at a very high level, the constructions placed above activate them and make them rise to new heights. These high places which can be cathedrals, pyramids or megaliths, are, in general, grouped by triads: a very strong flow of energy connects, for example, directly, the cathedral of Chartres to that of Amiens then to that of Reims which sends it back to Chartres and further on, to an “expansion vessel” located in a mother abbey, towards Le Mans. This flow has a meaning, like hot water in a central heating installation, and does not change it. 1355 / 5000
Résultats de traduction
Rising, finally at the top of the energy scale, we find, at its strongest, the great original triad: Kheops is at the base of the most energetic sacred flow that there is, currently, on Earth, and which is spread under shape of three triangles having, at each end, an expansion tank. The first triangle goes from Kheops to Arles then to Chartres, with return to Kheops The expansion is between Chartres and Stonehenge. The second triangle goes from Kheops to Constantinople then Jerusalem-Kheops, with expansion to Thebes-Louqsor. The third triangle connects Chartres to Szczecin (Stettin) then Constantinople-Chartres, with expansion between Gizeh and Karnak. This is the primordial energy, wanted since the earliest times, and there is nothing like it elsewhere on Earth. It is the basis of our civilization.
On the Bovis scale each flow is worth 1,242,000. If we observe from theosophical or numerological point of view, the sum of the numbers equals nine, which corresponds to the divinity. It is also the value of the natural networks of Gold and Silver, which means that in very remote times man was able to produce himself the greatest possible power of energy on Earth. Who can think for one moment that our civilization is the most successful and the perfecting of everything that has happened before us
Holistic design is a design approach which sees a design as an interconnected whole that is part of the larger world. It goes beyond problem solving to incorporate all aspects of the ecosystem in which a product is used. The focus of holistic design is context dependent; even so, among other things, it considers aesthetics, sustainability, and spirituality.
While it is most commonly employed in architecture, with a little thought, holistic design can be adapted to any form of product or service design. Designer Yves Behar offers seven key principles for designers to incorporate holistic design in their work:
Begin with questions rather than answers. Instead of acting on a brief which already dictates the answers, asking questions which put the problem in its holistic context is far more important.
Deliver more, not less. Don’t reduce functionality to meet holistic goals – improve the functionality and meet holistic goals.
Create your own theories. Borrow shamelessly from disciplines other than design, and adapt theories from those disciplines so as to deliver greater designs.
Use 360-degree design. Look at the whole customer lifecycle of a product and design from marketing to disposal.
Consider alternative business models. Behar’s business recognizes how hard it can be for clients to trust the iterative holistic design process and often trades royalties or equities rather than charging traditional fees.
Do better. Look at projects which seem impossible, and then aim to deliver them anyway.
Find what you want that everyone else wants. Create change, and meet unmet needs.
Holistic design may appear avant-garde and ambitious, but what it demands of a designer’s imagination is the same creativity that can pay dividends far into the future. Designing for sustainability is key to future-proofing a product; adopting a holistic approach addresses that sustainability.
www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/holistic-design
Introduction
I am a lecturer at the Bezalel Academy of Art & Design Architectural Department, Jerusalem and a practicing architect working in Israel for the last 20 years.
My work has focused both on practice & theory.
My on going search for what is behind the order of human environment, had been developed gradually by me since my studies at the Architectural Association (AA) school of Architecture in London (Dip 1973), through research work with Prof. Christopher Alexander at the "Center for Environmental Structure" Berkeley California, my post graduate studies in Architecture & Buddhist studies at U.C. Berkeley (1979-81), and along my teachings and practice in Israel in the last 25 years.
When religion and nationalism are cynically used by fundamentalists and by extremist right and left groups to cause cultural conflicts, and when architects are prompted by aggressive political motives, there is a real existential threat to the physical and human environment we live in.
There is no doubt, that the great art (and architecture) creations throughout history evolved in societies that drew their strength from their cultural and spiritual traditions and from the places they belonged to. These sources, which one might take as the factor that separates cultures and peoples, are exactly the ones that link them together in harmony.
The same tree that symbolizes life in the Cabala appears in Tantra Asana art; the same red thread the people of Tibet wear on their wrist for good luck are put on baby's pram in the Jewish tradition. In present state of affairs there is a need for a new worldview that by its very nature crosses cultures, replacing current conceptions and approaches.
The first part of the essay will present the holistic worldview, a school of thought that has been at the forefront of science for many years in which my architectural work belong, and the way this approach got interpretated by me both in theory and in the design process, a process fundamentally different from customary ones.
The second part will be a presentation of two selected projects built by me in Israel forming a clear implementation and interpretation of the concepts described before, in relation to their cultural and physical (urban and rural) reality.
The first project is the Music Centre and Library at the historic heart of Tel-Aviv forming a unique dialogue between a new building and the historical environment, an environment being a unique interface between the orient and the west (completed 1997).
The second project is a Residential Neighborhood in the Kibbutz forming a new concept of housing related to the recent structural changes in the kibbutz life, giving a new definition to the conception of equality.
ARCHITECTURE IS MADE FOR PEOPLE
A phenomenological approach to architecture
The purpose of architecture, as I see it, is first and foremost to create a humanenvironment for human beings. Buildings affect our lives and the fate of the physical environment in which we live over the course of many years, and therefore their real test is the test of time. The fine, old buildings and places we always want to return to ‚ those with timeless relevance‚are the ones that touch our heart, and have the power to create a deep and direct emotional experience.
Contemporary architecture as well as conceptual art sought to dissociate themselves from the world of emotions and connect the design process to the world of ideas, thus creating a rational relation between building and man, devoid of any emotion.
There are different ways to describe buildings that have this timeless quality, buildings that convey an inherent spiritual experience. Frank Lloyd Wright called them "the ones which take you beyond words". Quoted by Stephen Grabow, (Grabow, 1983) Christopher Alexander says: "The buildings that have spiritual value are a diagram of the inner universe, or the picture of the inner soul." And in The Timeless Way of Building (Alexander, 1979), Alexander writes, "There is one timeless way of building. It is thousands of years old, and the same today as it has always been. The great traditional buildings of the past, the villages and tents and temples in which man feels at home, have always been made by people who were very close to the center of this way. And as you will see, this way will lead anyone who looks for it to buildings which are themselves as ancient in their form as the trees and hills, and as our faces are."
His Holiness the Dalai Lama calls this quality: "the great self, the such ness or the nature of reality... The state of mind which brings us close to that quality is a state of knowledge and awareness detached from extraneous factors as the mere clarity of the mind".
Although this timeless quality exists in buildings rooted in different cultures and traditions, the experience they generate is common to all people, no matter where or from what culture they come from. Thus Alexander's basic assumption was that behind this quality, which he calls "The quality without a name", lies auniversal and eternal element common to us as human beings.
It seems to me that the real challenge of current architectural practice is to make the best use of the potential inherent in the modern technological age we live in while fulfilling the timeless needs common to us all as human beings - needs that modern architecture in general has knowingly denied for the past 60 years, in order to create a friendly and human environment.
The basic argument presented here is that in order to change the feeling of the environment and create places and buildings that we really feel part of and want to live in, the issue here is not a change of style, but a transformation of theworldview underlying current thought and approaches.
THE HOLISTIC APPROACH TO ARCHITECTURE
THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE PARTS AND THE WHOLE
The dissociation created in our time between man and his environment is a clear expression of the change that occurred in the concept that man is part of nature and not superior to it. Comparing planning processes which resulted in dissociating man from his environment to planning processes that make him feel part of the physical world he lives in, emphasizes the difference between the mechanistic-fragmentary worldview and the holistic-organic one, which guides the holistic school of thought to which my own work belongs.
These are two different sets of orders.
The mechanistic worldview underlying contemporary architecture separates elements and creates an environment of autonomous fragments. The result is cities like Brasilia in Brazil,
Chandigarth in India, the satellite towns in England and the new neighborhoods around Jerusalem, where the structured disconnection between the house and the street, the street and the neighborhood, the neighborhood and the city arouses a feeling of detachment and alienation.
The holistic-organic approach that has been for many years at the forefront of science in general and as implemented in my architecture work in particular regards the socio-physical environment as a system or a dynamic whole, the existence of which depends on the proper, ever-changing interrelations among the parts. Moreover, the creation and existence of each part depend on the interrelations between that part and the system.
In his book The Joy of Living and Dying in Peace (Dalai Lama, 1997) His Holiness the Dalai Lama refers to this concept of cause and effect by saying: "Nowadays in the field of science there are many disciplines like cosmology, neurobiology, psychology, and particle physics, disciplines that are the result of generations of scientific investigations. Their findings are closely related to Buddhist teachings. The foundation of all Buddhist teaching and practice is the principle of dependent arising. Since things arise in dependence of other causes and conditions, they are naturally free from independent and autonomous existence. Everything that is composed from parts, or conditioned by causes and conditions, is impermanent and fleeting. These things do not stay forever. They continually disintegrate. This kind of subtle impermanence is confirmed by scientific findings".
In any organic system, each element has its own uniqueness and power, but always acts as part of a larger entity to which it belongs and which it complements. vHaving adopted this concept, I do not regard urban design, architecture, interior design and landscape design as independent disciplines removed from each other, but asone continuous and dynamic system. Thus the building is not perceived as a collection of designed fragments, but asone hierarchical language, in which every design detail, on any level of scale, is derived from the larger whole to which it belongs, which it seeks to enhance, and for whose existence it is responsible. The overall feeling of inner wholeness-unity in a building thus stems from the proper interrelations among its parts.
The same idea is found in the Mandala, a model that represents processes occurring in nature, where there is always a center of energy feeding the parts around it. However, the very existence of this center of energy is dependent on the existence of the parts around it.
This concept of interdependence and continuity was presented in a public talk given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, in which he noted: "The construction of the whole is caused continually by the disintegration of its parts. For example, the butter lamp as a whole is a source of light due to the melting of the butter. The melting of the butter is caused due to the heat produced by the lamp".
THE PLANNING PROCESS ITSELF
1.Choosing A Pattern Language for The Project
Based on the assumption that beauty and harmony are objective properties related to the geometrical properties inherent in the structure itself, and that feelings have to do with facts, Alexander states in his book The Timeless Way of Building (Alexander, 1979) that all places of organic order that seem unplanned and orderless are a clear expression of order on a deep and complex level. This order is based on absolute rules that have always determined the quality and beauty of a place, and is the source of the good feeling in it. In other words, there is a direct connection between the patterns of events that occur in a place and the physical patterns - patterns of space in his terminology ‚ that constitute it.
The fact that places that share a common pattern of events (for example, Piazza San Marco in Venice and Piazza Mayor in Madrid), although different in form, all create the same emotional pleasant experience, gave rise to the hypothesis, that beyond what appears different, there is something else, common to them all.
Let's take for example the pattern called Arcade – an archetype of a structure that relates to the transition area between a building and the open space around it. Although the arcade in the Hadera synagogue is different from the one in the Assisi cloister or the one in the Tel-Aviv Senior Citizens Day Center, there is one superstructurecommon to them all, a superstructure that defines therelationship between the building and its surroundings.
Since the environment consists of patterns that produce a common experience, the relevant question was, what lies behind the specific patterns that produce the samecomfortable feeling we all share in that environment. The explanation was, that as in the various spoken languages there is, according to Chomsky, a common structural element he calls the
language of languages or the underlying patterns, an element that is innate in human beings and therefore common to us all (which explains why children can so easily learn a foreign language), so in the physical space there are patterns that reflect an innate pattern structured in our brain.
The first step in the planning process is to determine the patterns of space that are relevant to the project. Some of them will stem from the specific context of the project and the cultural reality of the place, patterns that vary from place to place, and some from the more basic needs common to us all as human beings wherever we are, as presented in A Pattern Language (Alexander, Ishikawa, Silverstein, 1977).
Once the list of patterns relevant to a specific project has been decided, a set of interrelations between them is automatically created between them, organically defining the scheme of the project. This scheme is than translated into a plan.
2. Planning on the Site Itself
A transformational Planning Process
The plan of the building that is finally created is actually a structure of balance between the abstract pattern language chosen for the project and the living reality of the actual site, a reality that differs from site to site.
The planning process proposed here is fundamentally different from the common planning processes, a process introduced to by Alexander while I was working with him on the site plan of Shorashim Community Village in Israel, and adopted in all my work since than.
Once the list of patterns for the project is set, all planning decisions concerning the physical structure of the project are taken literally only on the site itself. Unlike the common planning process, where planning takes place in the office and then transferred to the site, here the drawings are merely the recordingof planning decisions that have been taken currently on the site itself.
The process of creation has to be inspired by what is already there, and our task as artists or architects is to discover, identify and revive those visible and hidden forces.
The creative process which feeds on what is apparently already there, is definitely not a passive one. Unlike common planning process, where everything is predetermined, this is a process whereby the plan of the building develops gradually from the interaction of the abstract planning patterns and the unpredictabledeveloping situation on the site.
In his book Zen in the Art of Archery (Herrigel, 1964) Eugene Herrigel describes the state of mind in which the process of creation must take place, noting, 'Drawing the bow and loosing the shot happens independently of the Archer. The hands must open like the skin of a ripe fruit. The Archer must let himself go, to the point that the only thing that is left of him is a purposeless tension. At this state of mind, being released from all attachments, art should be practiced'.
The order according to which the planning decisions are taken on the site is determined by the hierarchical order in which the planning patterns appear on my list governed by the rules of the pattern language itself. Decisions are first made on issues that affect the larger scale we have to confront at any given moment along the development of the plan, moving to other decisions generating from them.
Moreover, the planning process is not conceived as an additive, but rather as adifferentiating one, where each new element of the plan is differentiatedgradually from previous ones.
Each decision taken on the site and marked on the ground actually changes the configuration of the site as a whole. That new whole (configuration) that has been created and can be fully visualized on the site forms the basis for the next decision. Since each stage is based on the previous one, a wrong decision creates a faulty system that cannot serve as a basis for the next decision.
The final 'layout' that emerges on the site is measured and recorded by a surveyor. That moment when all the markers suddenly become a whole, a visible plan, is a moment of surprise and excitement.
Experience has taught me that decisions that sometimes appear irregular and strange on paper often make sense in reality (where it comes from), and vice versa, a plan that appears perfect on paper (where it was created) does not make sense on the site. So, if when looking at the 'stakes plan' doubts arise concerning one or more of the decisions taken on the site, the correction is not made on paper in the office, but checked again on the site itself. The final "stakes plan" forms the basis for the final plan.
CHOOSING THE COLORS FOR THE BUILDING
Choosing the colors for the building is one of the more difficult decisions in the design process. The choice of colors has an overwhelming effect on the feeling of the building. Colors have the power to give life and enhance the qualities inherent originally in a building or to suppress them. The choice of color is made intuitively on the site when the building is completed, when I can fully sense its mass as part of the overall environment. I try to envision the colors (hues) that practically reveal themselves naturally from the building. Only then do I experiment with applications of those colors in order to arrive at the final tones.
As in the planning of the building, so at this stage of choosing the colors, the process is a gradual one. First I determine the color of the walls ‚ the big mass, and then deriving from that, follows the decision about the colors of the window frames, the rails, the gates and all the other details, to the smallest one, so as to complement, enhance and enlighten previously chosen colors.
A DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE QUALITIES OF
TRADITION AND MODERN TECHNOLOGY
Modern technology available today should not be conceived as an aim or a value in itself, but as a tool to create a human and friendly environment that will satisfy the basic needs that are common to all of us as human beings. Despite the unlimited possibilities it opens to us, that should be used in a controlled, value-oriented and moral way.
One of the immediate questions I am asked in reaction to the buildings I design is whether it is a new design that tries to reconstruct an architectural language of the past. My answer to that is that I do not attempt or aim to reconstruct the past or to nostalgically trace this or that style. The similarity and the association created between the buildings I design and those we know from the past, and the similar experience and feeling they create, originate in my use of the same fundamentalpatterns and planning codes that guided in the past and will be guide in the future in any culture and tradition, those who aspire to give a building a spirit and soul, codes that have been brutally ignored (in general) by contemporary architecture, and which I try to revive and implement in the buildings I design, in relation to the physical and social context of the place I am working in.
MUSIC CENTER AND LIBRARY
A UNIQUE DIALOGUE BETWEEN A NEW BUILDING AND THE HISTORICAL ENVIRONMENT
Tel-Aviv, Israel
Completion Date 1997
Preserving the spirit of a historical environment does not necessarily mean a fanatic repetition of its language. The Bialik district at the heart of Tel-Aviv, with Bialik Square at its center, is a micro-document of the architectural history of Tel-Aviv from the 19201⁄4s, the "Eclectic period", when European architecture was brought to Israel and integrated with the local oriental architecture, to the 19301⁄4s and the new 'International Style' somewhat later.
The new Music Center and Library built at Bialik Square (1997) is located on the site of a three-story residential house built in 1931 and demolished in 1994. My commission was to design a new building integrating a reconstructed part of the façade of the old one.
My conception was that once you demolish a building and reconstruct just one isolated architectural element of it, it would become a meaningless fragment, for it would no longer be an organic part of the whole, and thus would not serve the initial purpose of preserving the old. Thus, what I tried to do was to treat the reconstructed part as an environmental element that has to be naturally integrated with the newly designed building, to form one coherent functional-visual entity.
The intention was to design the new center as an integral part of the square.
The key question I asked myself was, what is the right thing to do in order to preserve and enhance the spirit of what still exists around there, which is so human and right.
Standing in the square I adopted none of the classical approaches. I aimed neither to reconstruct the past nor to dissociate myself from it by enforcing a completely new order. I was looking for a language that at that point in time in Bialik Square would create a meaningful dialogue between a new, contemporary building and the historical environment.
The Interrelation Between The Building And The Square
The powerful presence of the building in the square emanates from its being an integral part of it, and not from the efforts to distinguish it from its environment.
This intimate and organic integration was created by several basic means:
The dimensions of the building were in harmony with the human scale of the square.
The façade of the building defines the boundaries of the square, and therefore determines the feeling it inspires. The orange paint of the building1⁄4s faÁade, apparently expected to disturb the tranquility of the square, was the element that complemented the blue color of the sky and the green color of the trees to create a harmony that inspired peace and serenity in the square.
The cornices that jut out at the faÁade belong morphologically both to the building and to the space next to it, uniting them together.
The dialogue between the building and the square continues through the high windows behind which all the indoor 'public' areas are located, as well as from the roof terrace overlooking the square.
The crown on top of the building provides a graduated link to the sky. Its shape was derived from the same language that determined the pattern of the cement tiles of the porch and the reliefs on the railing wall.
At the front, where the building touches the square, an entrance porch was designed for the orchestra to play to the audience sitting in the square, thus creating a physical and human connection between the building and the square.
The interior of the building
Past the main lobby, at the entrance to the building, is the auditorium, separated from it by a glass wall, through which the back garden at the far end can be seen.
At the side of the lobby there is a wide-open staircase, which is an identified beautiful space by itself. It leads to the upper floors, providing a view to all the floors open to it.
The first floor houses the lending library with the catalogues and librarian counter at the entrance. The rear areas are reserved for the notes, scores and books, with access to staff only.
The second floor accommodates the museum of musical instruments and contemporary exhibitions related to music. Further along, past glass partitions are a study and periodicals room and an archive. These three spaces make one visual continuum while preserving the identity and uniqueness of each space.
The top floor houses the audiovisual library that lends discs, videotapes, and records. Further along, beyond the glass partition, is an audiovisual room with a view of the sea.
Extending from this floor, overlooking the square, is a roof terrace that has also a view of the sea.
The secret enfolded in the beauty of a building (or of any artifact) as a whole lies in its spatial order and in the nature of its details. The details like the furniture, lighting accessories, materials and colors, are regarded as an inherent part of the building and therefore are inseparable part of my planning process.
The similarity in form between the details stems from the common whole to which they belong.
In modern society, beauty has become a term of abuse, often associated with inefficiency, impracticality, lack of functionalism and high costs. That notion of beauty is true when it relates to details as decorative elements and ornamentationfor its own sake.
The Shakers, a religious sect that created an abundance of useful furniture and utensils in the mideighteenth century, noted that the wholeness and beauty of form are products of pure functionalism, and that there is no room for beautiful forms that do not flow from a functional need. Take, for example the gold leaves capital of the iron column, which connects it to the beam. This part is functionally separate from the other parts of the column and was therefore given a different form and color.
At the same time, however, the Shakers did not interpret the term 'pure functionalism' in the narrow sense of the word, as did the modernists, for whom the expression 'form follows function' was semantically connected only to thephysical body of the building, but in the broad sense that connects it both to the physical and spiritual experience in a building. This is the experience I want to create for the users of the buildings I design.
This concept is manifested, for example, in the following design details:
The wall between the lobby and the auditorium, which normally would be solid, is a glass wall that allows a view to the depth of the building immediately upon entrance.
The six steel columns that rise to the top of the building are structural, but at the same time their placement helps to define and distinguish the public areas of each floor.
The capital of the column, a functional entity that both separates it from the beam and connects it to it, is distinguished from other parts of the column by its leave-like shape and its gold color.
The textured gold color of the walls in the public areas is different from the color of other spaces.
The seams between the stone tiles and the carpets are made of cherry wood, a third material that both joins and separates the two.
The soft reflection of the light when it touches the gold, silver and redish colors in the space creates a unique feeling that envelops all parts of the building.
All parts of the audiovisual library are visually connected, all have a view to the roof terrace and the sea at the far distance.
RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD IN THE KIBBUTZ
Kibbutz Maagan Michael, Israel
Completion Date
Stage 1 2001
Stage 2 2004
STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN KIBBUTZ LIFE REQUIRE A NEW CONCEPT OF HOUSING
From Quantitive Uniformity to Qualitative Equality
The social, economic and physical structure of the collective known as a 'kibbutz' was founded in Israel in the early 20th century.
Its uppermost value since its very beginning was equality, translated in most realms of community life not as equality of opportunities, in its qualitative sense, but rather in itsquantitative sense, as formal uniformity. This dogmatic equality obliterated the self-identity and uniqueness of the individual and saw him only as part of the collective.
In recent years, however, this old conception of equality has been redefined in many respects. The social structure reverted back to the nuclear family, with children raised at home, and no longer in a communal house where they were regarded as the possession of the community as
a whole. Wages, previously based on the notion that every member contributed according to his or her own ability, but was supported according to his or her needs, have now become differential, based on one's contribution. Housing in the kibbutz is perhaps the last fortress of the old and simplistic conception of equality, a conception that now more than ever can change.
According to this conception, houses are regarded as static models ofpredetermined uniform shape, arbitrarily positioned on the building site. All houses with no regard to any environmental factors such as the direction of light or the angle open to the view on any specific plot, resulted in having all identical plan and elevations. Thus a tenant whose window happens to face the orchard has the advantage on the one whose window faces the cow shed.
This approach created a qualitative inequality between the houses and inequality of opportunities among the tenants.
Moreover, the outcome of this dogmatic approach was that houses built in the desert environment of the Negev or the hilly Galilean environment were exactly the same.
The new model I implemented in the design of the new houses in Kibbutz Maagan Michael was fundamentally different. The planning process adopted was based on patterns that were common to all the houses, patterns that grew out both of the social structure of the kibbutz and the geographic location facing the sea. When these common patterns were used in different site conditions, a variety of houses emerged, sharing one architectural language.
Planning the neighborhood on the site
Kibbutz Ma'agan is situated on a hill, with the new neighborhood on the western side that faces the sea. Each planning decision, from the positioning of the house on the site, through the determination of the direction of its entrance in relation to the path, and unto the location of each window, was taken on the site of each plot.
First the position of each house in relation to the others was determined, so as to ensure that each one has an open view to the water and can enjoy the breeze coming from the sea.
To determine the level of each house so that one could see the sea while sitting on the terrace, I used a crane that lifted me up to where I could see the sea. This height was measured and the level of the house was determined accordingly.
At the center of the neighborhood, a path was planned connecting the promenade that runs along the water and the path that runs from the
communal dining hall at the heart of the kibbutz to the neighborhood.
What dictated the course of the path was the wish to see the water from every spot along the path.
The houses were arranged in small clusters, sharing a communal open space. Unlike the traditional pattern in the kibbutz, where all open spaces, called 'the lawn', are communal and the buildings are dispersed arbitrarily in between, here the secondary paths running between the houses defined in a non-formal way, with no fences, the 'private' zone of each family.
This sense of 'private territory' unexpectedly created a new reality in which each family started to grow its own garden. This new pattern of behavior could not have developed in the traditional model, where the common open spaces were planned as the property of everyone, and therefore of no one.
At this stage the site plan was completed. The position of each house in the neighborhood in relation to the paths and its position in relation to the sea produced different types of house plans. On plots where the entrance from the path was in the same direction as the sea view, type A plans emerged. Here the entrance was through the main garden to the living-dining area that faced the view.
On plots where the entrance was from the opposite direction of the sea view, type B plans developed, and the entrance was through the opposite side of the garden and living areas.
In front of each house there is a bicycle rack (the only means of transport allowed within the boundaries of the kibbutz). Next to the entrance door a place for muddy boots was allocated, a prominent symbol of the kibbutz.
The walls are all whitewashed light blue, complemented by regionally quarried sandstone characterizing the construction details.
The implementation of a conceptually new model in a very rigid social framework became possible now, as a result of an overall change in the reality of the kibbutz communities, a change that was inevitable in the twenty-first century.
Nili Portugali
© 2005
Nili Portugali is an architect based in Tel-Aviv, Israel and has just published a new book, "The Act of Creation and the Spirit of a Place: A Holistic-Phenomenological Approach to Architecture", Edition Axel Menges, Stuttgart & London 2006. See www.niliportugali.com for more details.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
His Holiness the Dalai Lama, The Joy of Living and Dying in Peace, Harper Collins, India, 1997
Christopher Alexander, S. Ishikawa, M. Silverstein, A Pattern Language, Oxford University Press, 1977
Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building, Oxford University Press, 1979
Stephen Grabow, Christopher Alexander, The Search for a New Paradigm in Architecture, Oriel Press, 1983
Eugene Herrigel, Zen and the Art of Archery, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1964
Views expressed on this page are those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by those involved in INTBAU.
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