#2 The Useless, the Wasteful and the Necessary

The Goal in Architecture PART.I Goal — 1. Part 1. The Useless, the Wasteful and the Necessary

This section is in two parts. It is a statement meant to influence like the drone in Indian music. It does not always harmonize, but it does over time. It is the tonal anchor to something. In this case, it is our status quo expressing a general approach.

This is necessarily near the beginning. This project takes the trouble seriously, beyond doing something about it. This sets up working with many of our brothers and sisters who so willfully continue to make it worse. It is one thing to be ignorant. Willful ignorance is much more complex. Ignorance of Nature's greater value and known harm is calculated against benefit and loss of personal gain. This means dealing with egotism and capacity to be humane and to find compassion. Therefore, spirituality. It requires me to evolve to value and live a greater sphere of knowing.

Part 1

Calculated ignorance.

The work on architectural practice naturally begins with our place in Nature. We must all contend with Nature interpreted as ecosystem, as wealth, as fount of discovery, as mother, as resource, as park, as scary unknown, as dangerous, as infinite bounty, as the destroyed, as partner, as trespasser and as owner who is generous and sensitive, and as drawer of the line and deadly. We have no choice but to work with human concepts of Nature.

In this perception of Nature and cultural valuations, according to current human theory and actions, there are objects and processes that are seemingly useless or isolated. These tend to be deemed as up for grabs for our use. This may seem crass and marginal, and it is crass, but it is not marginal. It pertains to the vast majority of our resource acquisition and interventions. Of course, there are many processes and events that we value, protect and feel heartfully attracted to as well.

The apple tree provides apples, for example. It is hard for many people to find utility in exiting the human perspective that says that liking apples means that they are for us to eat, and we like that they make more apple trees. More generously, many might also feel that apples are also for black bears, worms, wasps and birds, and many more, while farmers might see them as enemies. We punish or kill creatures for spoiling our apples.

We tend not to feel thankful for the apple, since the apple will only fall on the ground and rot if someone does not pick it or eat it. We deny the wider flow of Nature this way. The tree will intend to produce apples no matter what anyone does anyway. We will take the apple, feeling entitled to possession. This is both right and wrong, and therefore it signals a wrong approach.

In the same way, when we find a metal in the ground, seemingly doing nothing at all, embedded there in the soil or rock since millennia. There is rarely a thought given to its purpose in being there. Is the ground a body? We find wood in the forest and the tree will not stop us from cutting it down, no asking for permission nor gratitude seems to be required. Is the tree alive and aware? Is it a body? Is it part of a community?

This project must include all kinds of Natural life and forces, including those that remain concealed and invisible to most of us, partially or wholly; known to a few of us, a supposition for some, and are unquantified and un–valued to most of us. We feel the influence of Nature on a walk for a ‘breath of fresh air’ when we go out in the afternoon before tea or while forest bathing. We feel our condition change. What influences us in such communion is devalued elsewhere for being imperceptible or undocumented in science. Whatever the extents, the limit of (any) human perception cannot be taken as a limit for what is, and what is true. This is true for architects and practicing architects, i.e. everyone.^[1] Human technologically and scientifically initiated and guided processes are a vague and unclear, stony and aloof proposition. So too the architectural professional regime. Architecture's limit, is like the human limit, beyond science and technology. The bounding limit of Nature in architectural practice is often engaged visually and generally superficially most often as an aesthetic or climate issue.

Capacity of mind and heart.

Human capacity allows that one level of awareness can be overcome by attaining a superior awareness. Few people work on their awareness to see what could happen if they rise above their condition today or today's feeling, although it is sometimes automatic. There is no limit to that increase, according to thousands of years of written testimony and living practices for that. We are also subject to losing a state of awareness if we cycle to a condition that drowns it out, overwhelming it with a cruder state. We can spiral down and down as one negation pushes down to the next, increasing our heaviness.