People/Place/Occasion

How do you feel about Samuel Mockbee's statement that "everyone, rich or poor, deserves a shelter for the soul"? How do you think you could uphold that statement with projects that you are currently working on? Do you think every structure should?

Craft, Making, and Tectonics

"Corruptio optimi pessima! (Corruption of the best is worst!) Some materials promise far more than others but only the workman can bring out what they promise. In this domain of quality our environment is deteriorating." Pye, in his "The Workmanship of Risk and the Workmanship of Certainty", argues that what threatens craftmanship most is not bad workmanship in mass production but because each product is so uniform that it lacks depth and character. This reminds me of African tribal craftmanship where they believe that gods and spirits come and live in each thing they create. Do we stay with our uniform and lifeless plastic products and try to put uniqueness in them? How would we do that? Or should we try to retreave some of the ancient arts?

Sustainable Practices and Thinking Ecologically

There are two main reasons why people look at sustainable practices: for environmental issues and then for what could be called social justice. When sustainability or green products are discussed it always goes straight to ecological topics such as the ozone layer and depleting raw material supplies. Do you think that maybe you personally think of using sustainability because of energy and land fields or because of the social justice factor?