building temples

At the heart of being lies something amazing: inspiration! It’s this inspiration that motivates us to create and manifest anything we want in our lives. So what kind of imprint do we create? Is it balanced? Does it inspire? A building is like your body. When it’s developed and cared for well, it makes you feel comfortable.

As a designer, everything boils down to that inspiration. It is the core, the “talent”. Our inspiration is deep seated in quality of experience. You know that feeling that you get when you walk into a cathedral or temple? There’s something special happening in there. It’s quiet for one thing. But there is something magical about it, something hard to define.

Temples are the masterpieces of inspired designers throughout history.
~Isaac

Quality of experience is another one of those things that’s hard to define, however we don’t have a hard time distinguishing it. We know when we feel good. We know what we like. So why does a temple feel so much different than just a normal house. Well for one thing, there is a level of perfection which is evident in the accuracy of placement. Many temples and cathedrals have walls which are perfectly level hundreds of years after being built. It also has to do with the material used to make them and the intention of their use.

wabi-sabi

Wabi-sabi (in Kanji: 侘寂) represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete”.

Sometimes when defining wabi-sabi I try to impart the value of age and explain that this perspective goes hand in hand with earth architecture. Monolithic walls and structures can last for thousands of years in contrast to modern stick frame construction.

I’ve recently been getting very interested in the different types of moss, and especially lichens, that grow on rocks and they are, indeed, indicative of age. You cannot force a lichen to grow faster. They grow very, very slowly. To me, these lichens are the living part of our structures and often we will encourage them to grow by collecting local lichen, grinding them, and painting a slurry with buttermilk on parts of earth structures where we want them to grow.

100 year thinking

At Earth Architecture, we believe in durablity! We design and build structures that last and last. In fact, ALL of our earth structures are designed to last for a minimum of 100 years.

vibration/harmonics

Everything in the universe is vibrating. In fact, the very makeup of the universe is all about vibration and frequency. Different frequencies are nothing more than resonance created from differing speeds of vibration.

It’s interesting to note that the earth vibrates at almost the same rate as the human body; 7.83 cycles per second. That is a very low frequency.

With all the bombardment of frequencies in the modern world; our use of cell phones, wireless data transmission, radio waves, microwaves etc., it seems that spending as much time as we can in environments which resonate with our bodies just makes sense.

the healing earth

Earth, in it’s many forms, can be healing. For instance, clay can be used if ingested in the body as a detoxification. We believe in the healing properties of soil and enhance these properties with our own intention and design to create magnificent healing sanctuaries, made of earth, so they care for your soul.