[lifesaviors] Re: [organic_architecture] Lion Kuntz
- From: <lionkuntz@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: organic_architecture@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,Palaces4People@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Lifesaviors@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 00:48:20 -0700 (PDT)
--- christopher payne <cp3crow@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hello,
> Mr. Kuntz,
> I have tried to reread over some of your posts and
> have gone to your website
> and I can't quite figure out how you fit here on
> organic architecture.
> Please tell us how does what you are doing fit with
> using natural
> unmanufactured raw materials or reusing materials in
> building a home that
> have been manufactured for another purpose but are
> now considered waste?
>
> Have you or are you building "organic" or simply
> natural homes?
> What are your building panels made out of?
> I am at a bit of a loss to figure out where you are
> comming from. Please
> help me.
>
> thanks.
> chris
> 3crow (:> (:> (:>
On doing serious inquirey using Yahoo search functions
and keywords such as ecology, green building,
alternative building, building materials, etc., yahoo
produced a number of groups, as many as 1100+, as fits
for my search. I looked at every one of them. A
serious number had less than five members or no
messages posted in the past 6 months or so. Of the
total number of groups looked at I joined 30 of them.
Because yahoo only allows joining 10 groups per day,
it took several days.
Organic architecture fit some of my search criteria.
It was not a perfect fit, but Bamboo PLantations is
not a perfect fit either. Some groups did not allow me
to even read their archives before joining, and after
my membership process was completed I found that they
were not to my interest and I quit.
My website http://ecosyn.us covers only part of my
interests, and perhaps none of yours. The name is a
contraction of "Ecological SynergyTM", which I have
been writing about for five years.
In 1974 I visited Steve Baer's home in Corrales, New
Mexico, USA, and photographed it and wrote it up for
my publication "Tribal Messanger" published out of
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. Baer's Zomeworks was
legendary in the alternative building community back
then, and his energy recycling systems were efficient,
simple and state-of-the-art at that time.
I do not accept the language-police authority to
confiscate words and hold them in perpetuity. I
recognize no groups' ownership of language.
A lengthy exchange of messages about "what is Organic
Architecture" was of no interest to me, as it seemed
to be language police passing laws about word
definitions and usage.
Organic Architecture to me has a fundamental purpose
in serving the needs of human beings for an average
species lifespan of 20,000 generations. The average
species duration is 5 million years. If humans are
assumed to have been a species since spliting from a
proto-species shared by the chimps, then the 5 million
is just about up, but if humans are considered to be
fire-using, tool-making, language-using, then there
are almost 5 million years to go.
Any architecture which inserts poison into the
biosphere threatens to cut short that tenure. Any
architecture which uses up essential resources faster
than substitutes can be provided shortens that tenure.
Any architecture which endangers masses of co-species
(biodiversity loss) or damages the life-support
systems upon which human life evolved to depend,
shortens that tenure.
Any architecture which shortens the tenure is not
organic architecture, regardless of what
self-appointed language police declare.
Organic architecture is in service to humanity,
increasing its bliss and decreasing its woes. What
makes it organic is not the materials, but the human
brain which is clever enough to figure out how to not
commit global suicide.
By choosing materials and methods which serve the
purposes, impact the environment with the least toxic
emissions, least biodiversity loss, least consumption
of materials of kinds which cannot be easily replaced,
is "organic architecture" in the sense that organic
humans get to live out their full species lifetime
(barring asteroid hits). A subset of people have
convinced themselves that their choices in
architecture is fine and dandy, but it doesn't pass
the 20,000 generations test, so it is not organic
architecture in my world.
One of the ways that architecture can serve humanity
is to provide the weather shelter function,
efficiently and comfortably, using materials which
have low impacts per year of service. Materials with
100 years of service may have double the pollution
loads of materials which need renewal every 30 years,
and the long-lived material is more environmentally
friendly than the shorter lived by a considerable
amount.
Many people in the "Organic Architecture" group are
fond of Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome. However,
while Fuller mentioned his domes in some of his books,
he mentioned "synergy" in all of his books and
lectures. As he said, over and over, there is only one
word, "synergy" in the english language which means
what it means, so if people don't even know that word,
than they can't know what it means. Often concisely
stated: "synergy means the whole is greater than the
sum of the parts", or "synergy means emergent
properties of the whole which cannot be predicted by
knowing everything there is to know about the parts".
Synergy is more than these two simple encapsulations.
Synergy in architecture is combining the maximum
amount of multipurpose systems to provide a full array
of satisfactions while minimizing the unpleasant
byproducts. Septic systems leak nutrients into the
watertables and cause eutrophication of lakes, streams
and ocean shores. My architecture eliminates septic
systems: that is "organic architecture".
Municipal sewer systems mix industrial, residential
and stormwaters, mingling 40,000 chemicals and
hospital infectious disease ward toilet flushes. My
architecture eliminates municipal sewage systems: that
is organic architecture.
Composting toilets can preserve, instead of disinfect,
pathogens in feces. My architecture pasteurizes, then
dehydrates feces daily using solar or stored-solar
energy. That is organic architecture.
The energy systems, the heating systems, the cooling
systems, the plumbing systems, the sewage treatment
systems REQUIRE synergy. It is not an unexpected
emergent outcome, but a measurable predictable
outcome, and the language police have mislead us all
on the meaning of synergy.
Language police are not serving the 20,000 generations
of oncoming unborn generations. The incoming are real,
even though not yet present. Their needs have to be
represented today, and spokespersons speak for their
needs in the councils of the world today. The needs of
30,000,000 co-species are real, not hypothetical.
Architecture which plans for the satisfaction of the
needs for today as well as the needs of all the
tomorrows, without compromising on delivery of the
satisfactions sought, is organic architecture.
My website and world-wide-writings are all about
organic architecture.
Here's what a practising and teaching architect said
about my proposal for ecocity:
http://www.ias.unu.edu/proceedings/icibs/ecocity03/proc.html
http://www.ias.unu.edu/proceedings/icibs/ecocity03/SPD-topic.htm#8
http://www.ias.unu.edu/proceedings/icibs/ecocity03/SPD-log3.htm#148
"As far as specific projects are concerned, if our
company financing proceeds as we expect, I hope to be
able to integrate with Lion Kuntz¹s People¹s Palace
project, and am considering how this might best be
accomplished. My particular interest, other than his
outstanding work on developing the overall People¹s
Palace concepts, is in the photovoltaic breeder, and
his micro-farming components. I believe that both of
these should be an integral part of any real effort to
create an ecological community, whatever size it may
be."
http://www.ias.unu.edu/proceedings/icibs/ecocity03/panel.html
http://www.globalecovillage.com/dev_team/phil_hawes_01.htm
Sincerely, Lion Kuntz
Santa Rosa, California, USA
http://www.ecosyn.us/ecocity/Challenges/Asia_Floods/Wet/All_Wet.html
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