As a lover of the aesthetic, I was grateful to see that there is no loss of beauty in these builders/designers objectives and projects, if anything, along with this move to "green building" there is a renewed devotion to the beauty and grace of the designs. If we are doing this to maintain the earth's inherent beauty, then aren't we missing the point if what we create isn't beautiful! If it doesn't give those living/working within a sense of pride and reflection of their own beauty, have we made the earth better?A wise woman that I met talked with me about the book, The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell. In it, he writes about when Guiliani decided to clean up the subway and his idea was as soon as a subway car became vandalized it was immediately taken off the line and repaired and then place back good as new. His reasoning: it is far easier to further degrade something that is already degraded. This action was a tipping point because it caused a ripple effect that lifted the entire subway system to a cleaner, safer place to travel. There were far less cases of vandalizm of the cars themselves as well as the subway stations, litter lightened, etc. This is the effect the "Fresh Green Start" is hoping to have. We lift one house at a time in the same area, people start to have a renewed pride in their own homes just by it's proximity, then we give the park a fresh green start, then the school, and so on... making the entire neighborhood a cleaner, safer place to live and work. Less litter, less vandalizm, more hope, more empowerment...
ponder on that...
more conference specific posts to come...
