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By Michael Martin
World Making
As I begin to widen my design practice to include spaces, I find myself turning towards the work of artists, sculptors, and storytellers’, as well as designers, architects, and master-builders. I have found inspiration in the work of artist and sculptor, Chris Drury, his artworks are a sustained exploration of the conceptual distinctions between nature and culture. He creates spaces of contemplation, and the art lies in the ideas, in the process of making, and in the judging of formal and spatial relationships. These ‘worlds within worlds’ provide a space for gaining an insight into our inner nature through encounters with otherness. I find these structures to be beautiful.
In Drury’s work I encounter a deep relationship to place. Dury says, each work is a narrative that defines, dissolves, and renews perceptions about the relationship between nature and culture. It is a matter of being with, and making with, ideas I would like to explore further through my own meanderings. However, when Drury approaches a new work he tells me, ‘My priority is to be with a place before making anything’. Perhaps these simple acts of being with and making with, echoed through a deep sense of reflection and observation, represent something sacred, a threshold to a private universe, where we can dwell and receive revelations of a reality beyond the one, we experience in our ordinary everyday lives.
To live in a place well most certainly requires an imagination. Robert Thayer, author of Life-place, suggests without imagination, humanity mires in mediocrity and stagnation; to imagine, to create is to survive and thrive. True creativity, suggests Thayer, has another worldliness to it, and we are often suspicious of truly creative people because they often push the boundaries of our socially constructed realities father than is comfortable for us to go. The possible futures glimpsed by artists are like views through a kaleidoscope, and what springs forth from the imagination is not a navigation system, but a hand-drawn map of alternative routes. This notion of life-place then, that humans might learn to live, and dwell, more permanently and responsibly within the landscape and be shaped by the nature of a place, is an act involving both individual and collective imagination.
Few human artefacts have the longevity of a home, or in the case of nomadic peoples, of dwelling traditions, suggests Paul Oliver, author of the book Dwellings. The occupancy of innumerable dwellings has been by successive generations of families, whose association with the building, the land and the settlement are intimately related to their own sense of identity. Traditionally, the sensibility and the know-how, the skills and the competence to build effectively in response to the land, the climate and the resources to hand, the place, has been passed on between generations. In this way they embody not only the values and needs, but the wisdom of place too.
Homes are built with authenticity and integrity in ways that achieve beauty of form, as I have seen, a unity of design, transmitted to the next generation through tacit knowledge. This said the dwelling is more than an artifact, the site it occupies, the materials of which it is made, the know-how of its construction, and the labour that has gone into making it. Oliver suggests the dwelling is 'the theatre of our lives', where most dramas of birth and death, of procreation and recreation are played out, and in which the succession of scenes of daily living are enacted, and re-enacted, in the process of dwelling.
In the book, The unlikely peace at Cuchumaquic, the storyteller Martin Pretchtel suggests our modern homes have become less and less places where we can truly be at home, to the extent modern existence has no relevance to our indigenous origins. It’s as though our ‘indigenous souls’ are left homeless in a cultural vacuum when there is no knowledge of the origins of all that surrounds us. When I recall my own experiences of home, I too relate to the moments when this was both present and absent. This knowing of our origins is what gave us our shape, says Pretchel. He likens it to a cultural amnesia, where nothing is fully known, nor is it in any tangible way required that a modern person knows anything about the place they live.
This was not always the case, there was a time when people, upon entering their homes, were surrounded by natural textures, and smells, and useful objects with whose ‘origins’ they were completely familiar. This quality of knowing was likened to a living nervous system that informed a sophisticated awareness that ran through all the people as if they were a single-celled organism, suggests Pretchel. It was a place where the origins of everything within was known. A house of origins, and a place of origins. By origins, Pretchel is not describing the ancestral origins, for those cannot really be truly understood until the origins of all what surrounds us is established enough that the indigenous memory begins to function again. The origins house is a purpose made space in which nothing is placed for which the deeper story of its origins remains unknown. Everything inside this space must be known, and their origins not forgotten. It is a place where the origin story of everything, including the space itself, can reside within.
However, the house of origins is not a museum, or a tourist trophy room. It’s a place where everything is known and has a story. It’s a place where our indigenous soul may feel at home. Furthermore, Pretchel suggests it’s a place for originating a space right now for a time worth remembering generations to come. As we navigate these uncertain and changing times, I am thinking about the spaces we create, be they private, shared or public. Be they homes, gardens, towns, or cities. Be they schools, shopping centres, or the university where I teach, and what they reflect of our values, our economies, and our ways of life. How can these spaces we create, reflect a different set of values, a different way of life, and more of a storied participation with place – our ultimate place being the Earth itself?
World Making
As I begin to widen my design practice to include spaces, I find myself turning towards the work of artists, sculptors, and storytellers’, as well as designers, architects, and master-builders. I have found inspiration in the work of artist and sculptor, Chris Drury, his artworks are a sustained exploration of the conceptual distinctions between nature and culture. He creates spaces of contemplation, and the art lies in the ideas, in the process of making, and in the judging of formal and spatial relationships. These ‘worlds within worlds’ provide a space for gaining an insight into our inner nature through encounters with otherness. I find these structures to be beautiful.
In Drury’s work I encounter a deep relationship to place. Dury says, each work is a narrative that defines, dissolves, and renews perceptions about the relationship between nature and culture. It is a matter of being with, and making with, ideas I would like to explore further through my own meanderings. However, when Drury approaches a new work he tells me, ‘My priority is to be with a place before making anything’. Perhaps these simple acts of being with and making with, echoed through a deep sense of reflection and observation, represent something sacred, a threshold to a private universe, where we can dwell and receive revelations of a reality beyond the one, we experience in our ordinary everyday lives.
To live in a place well most certainly requires an imagination. Robert Thayer, author of Life-place, suggests without imagination, humanity mires in mediocrity and stagnation; to imagine, to create is to survive and thrive. True creativity, suggests Thayer, has another worldliness to it, and we are often suspicious of truly creative people because they often push the boundaries of our socially constructed realities father than is comfortable for us to go. The possible futures glimpsed by artists are like views through a kaleidoscope, and what springs forth from the imagination is not a navigation system, but a hand-drawn map of alternative routes. This notion of life-place then, that humans might learn to live, and dwell, more permanently and responsibly within the landscape and be shaped by the nature of a place, is an act involving both individual and collective imagination.
Few human artefacts have the longevity of a home, or in the case of nomadic peoples, of dwelling traditions, suggests Paul Oliver, author of the book Dwellings. The occupancy of innumerable dwellings has been by successive generations of families, whose association with the building, the land and the settlement are intimately related to their own sense of identity. Traditionally, the sensibility and the know-how, the skills and the competence to build effectively in response to the land, the climate and the resources to hand, the place, has been passed on between generations. In this way they embody not only the values and needs, but the wisdom of place too.
Homes are built with authenticity and integrity in ways that achieve beauty of form, as I have seen, a unity of design, transmitted to the next generation through tacit knowledge. This said the dwelling is more than an artifact, the site it occupies, the materials of which it is made, the know-how of its construction, and the labour that has gone into making it. Oliver suggests the dwelling is 'the theatre of our lives', where most dramas of birth and death, of procreation and recreation are played out, and in which the succession of scenes of daily living are enacted, and re-enacted, in the process of dwelling.
In the book, The unlikely peace at Cuchumaquic, the storyteller Martin Pretchtel suggests our modern homes have become less and less places where we can truly be at home, to the extent modern existence has no relevance to our indigenous origins. It’s as though our ‘indigenous souls’ are left homeless in a cultural vacuum when there is no knowledge of the origins of all that surrounds us. When I recall my own experiences of home, I too relate to the moments when this was both present and absent. This knowing of our origins is what gave us our shape, says Pretchel. He likens it to a cultural amnesia, where nothing is fully known, nor is it in any tangible way required that a modern person knows anything about the place they live.
This was not always the case, there was a time when people, upon entering their homes, were surrounded by natural textures, and smells, and useful objects with whose ‘origins’ they were completely familiar. This quality of knowing was likened to a living nervous system that informed a sophisticated awareness that ran through all the people as if they were a single-celled organism, suggests Pretchel. It was a place where the origins of everything within was known. A house of origins, and a place of origins. By origins, Pretchel is not describing the ancestral origins, for those cannot really be truly understood until the origins of all what surrounds us is established enough that the indigenous memory begins to function again. The origins house is a purpose made space in which nothing is placed for which the deeper story of its origins remains unknown. Everything inside this space must be known, and their origins not forgotten. It is a place where the origin story of everything, including the space itself, can reside within.
However, the house of origins is not a museum, or a tourist trophy room. It’s a place where everything is known and has a story. It’s a place where our indigenous soul may feel at home. Furthermore, Pretchel suggests it’s a place for originating a space right now for a time worth remembering generations to come. As we navigate these uncertain and changing times, I am thinking about the spaces we create, be they private, shared or public. Be they homes, gardens, towns, or cities. Be they schools, shopping centres, or the university where I teach, and what they reflect of our values, our economies, and our ways of life. How can these spaces we create, reflect a different set of values, a different way of life, and more of a storied participation with place – our ultimate place being the Earth itself?
Michael Martin is a designer, maker, and researcher investigating ecological ways to design. He lectures on Design at the University of the Arts London.→ michaelmartin.studio
By Michael Martin
World Making
As I begin to widen my design practice to include spaces, I find myself turning towards the work of artists, sculptors, and storytellers’, as well as designers, architects, and master-builders. I have found inspiration in the work of artist and sculptor, Chris Drury, his artworks are a sustained exploration of the conceptual distinctions between nature and culture. He creates spaces of contemplation, and the art lies in the ideas, in the process of making, and in the judging of formal and spatial relationships. These ‘worlds within worlds’ provide a space for gaining an insight into our inner nature through encounters with otherness. I find these structures to be beautiful.
In Drury’s work I encounter a deep relationship to place. Dury says, each work is a narrative that defines, dissolves, and renews perceptions about the relationship between nature and culture. It is a matter of being with, and making with, ideas I would like to explore further through my own meanderings. However, when Drury approaches a new work he tells me, ‘My priority is to be with a place before making anything’. Perhaps these simple acts of being with and making with, echoed through a deep sense of reflection and observation, represent something sacred, a threshold to a private universe, where we can dwell and receive revelations of a reality beyond the one, we experience in our ordinary everyday lives.
To live in a place well most certainly requires an imagination. Robert Thayer, author of Life-place, suggests without imagination, humanity mires in mediocrity and stagnation; to imagine, to create is to survive and thrive. True creativity, suggests Thayer, has another worldliness to it, and we are often suspicious of truly creative people because they often push the boundaries of our socially constructed realities father than is comfortable for us to go. The possible futures glimpsed by artists are like views through a kaleidoscope, and what springs forth from the imagination is not a navigation system, but a hand-drawn map of alternative routes. This notion of life-place then, that humans might learn to live, and dwell, more permanently and responsibly within the landscape and be shaped by the nature of a place, is an act involving both individual and collective imagination.
Few human artefacts have the longevity of a home, or in the case of nomadic peoples, of dwelling traditions, suggests Paul Oliver, author of the book Dwellings. The occupancy of innumerable dwellings has been by successive generations of families, whose association with the building, the land and the settlement are intimately related to their own sense of identity. Traditionally, the sensibility and the know-how, the skills and the competence to build effectively in response to the land, the climate and the resources to hand, the place, has been passed on between generations. In this way they embody not only the values and needs, but the wisdom of place too.
Homes are built with authenticity and integrity in ways that achieve beauty of form, as I have seen, a unity of design, transmitted to the next generation through tacit knowledge. This said the dwelling is more than an artifact, the site it occupies, the materials of which it is made, the know-how of its construction, and the labour that has gone into making it. Oliver suggests the dwelling is 'the theatre of our lives', where most dramas of birth and death, of procreation and recreation are played out, and in which the succession of scenes of daily living are enacted, and re-enacted, in the process of dwelling.
In the book, The unlikely peace at Cuchumaquic, the storyteller Martin Pretchtel suggests our modern homes have become less and less places where we can truly be at home, to the extent modern existence has no relevance to our indigenous origins. It’s as though our ‘indigenous souls’ are left homeless in a cultural vacuum when there is no knowledge of the origins of all that surrounds us. When I recall my own experiences of home, I too relate to the moments when this was both present and absent. This knowing of our origins is what gave us our shape, says Pretchel. He likens it to a cultural amnesia, where nothing is fully known, nor is it in any tangible way required that a modern person knows anything about the place they live.
This was not always the case, there was a time when people, upon entering their homes, were surrounded by natural textures, and smells, and useful objects with whose ‘origins’ they were completely familiar. This quality of knowing was likened to a living nervous system that informed a sophisticated awareness that ran through all the people as if they were a single-celled organism, suggests Pretchel. It was a place where the origins of everything within was known. A house of origins, and a place of origins. By origins, Pretchel is not describing the ancestral origins, for those cannot really be truly understood until the origins of all what surrounds us is established enough that the indigenous memory begins to function again. The origins house is a purpose made space in which nothing is placed for which the deeper story of its origins remains unknown. Everything inside this space must be known, and their origins not forgotten. It is a place where the origin story of everything, including the space itself, can reside within.
However, the house of origins is not a museum, or a tourist trophy room. It’s a place where everything is known and has a story. It’s a place where our indigenous soul may feel at home. Furthermore, Pretchel suggests it’s a place for originating a space right now for a time worth remembering generations to come. As we navigate these uncertain and changing times, I am thinking about the spaces we create, be they private, shared or public. Be they homes, gardens, towns, or cities. Be they schools, shopping centres, or the university where I teach, and what they reflect of our values, our economies, and our ways of life. How can these spaces we create, reflect a different set of values, a different way of life, and more of a storied participation with place – our ultimate place being the Earth itself?
World Making
As I begin to widen my design practice to include spaces, I find myself turning towards the work of artists, sculptors, and storytellers’, as well as designers, architects, and master-builders. I have found inspiration in the work of artist and sculptor, Chris Drury, his artworks are a sustained exploration of the conceptual distinctions between nature and culture. He creates spaces of contemplation, and the art lies in the ideas, in the process of making, and in the judging of formal and spatial relationships. These ‘worlds within worlds’ provide a space for gaining an insight into our inner nature through encounters with otherness. I find these structures to be beautiful.
In Drury’s work I encounter a deep relationship to place. Dury says, each work is a narrative that defines, dissolves, and renews perceptions about the relationship between nature and culture. It is a matter of being with, and making with, ideas I would like to explore further through my own meanderings. However, when Drury approaches a new work he tells me, ‘My priority is to be with a place before making anything’. Perhaps these simple acts of being with and making with, echoed through a deep sense of reflection and observation, represent something sacred, a threshold to a private universe, where we can dwell and receive revelations of a reality beyond the one, we experience in our ordinary everyday lives.
To live in a place well most certainly requires an imagination. Robert Thayer, author of Life-place, suggests without imagination, humanity mires in mediocrity and stagnation; to imagine, to create is to survive and thrive. True creativity, suggests Thayer, has another worldliness to it, and we are often suspicious of truly creative people because they often push the boundaries of our socially constructed realities father than is comfortable for us to go. The possible futures glimpsed by artists are like views through a kaleidoscope, and what springs forth from the imagination is not a navigation system, but a hand-drawn map of alternative routes. This notion of life-place then, that humans might learn to live, and dwell, more permanently and responsibly within the landscape and be shaped by the nature of a place, is an act involving both individual and collective imagination.
Few human artefacts have the longevity of a home, or in the case of nomadic peoples, of dwelling traditions, suggests Paul Oliver, author of the book Dwellings. The occupancy of innumerable dwellings has been by successive generations of families, whose association with the building, the land and the settlement are intimately related to their own sense of identity. Traditionally, the sensibility and the know-how, the skills and the competence to build effectively in response to the land, the climate and the resources to hand, the place, has been passed on between generations. In this way they embody not only the values and needs, but the wisdom of place too.
Homes are built with authenticity and integrity in ways that achieve beauty of form, as I have seen, a unity of design, transmitted to the next generation through tacit knowledge. This said the dwelling is more than an artifact, the site it occupies, the materials of which it is made, the know-how of its construction, and the labour that has gone into making it. Oliver suggests the dwelling is 'the theatre of our lives', where most dramas of birth and death, of procreation and recreation are played out, and in which the succession of scenes of daily living are enacted, and re-enacted, in the process of dwelling.
In the book, The unlikely peace at Cuchumaquic, the storyteller Martin Pretchtel suggests our modern homes have become less and less places where we can truly be at home, to the extent modern existence has no relevance to our indigenous origins. It’s as though our ‘indigenous souls’ are left homeless in a cultural vacuum when there is no knowledge of the origins of all that surrounds us. When I recall my own experiences of home, I too relate to the moments when this was both present and absent. This knowing of our origins is what gave us our shape, says Pretchel. He likens it to a cultural amnesia, where nothing is fully known, nor is it in any tangible way required that a modern person knows anything about the place they live.
This was not always the case, there was a time when people, upon entering their homes, were surrounded by natural textures, and smells, and useful objects with whose ‘origins’ they were completely familiar. This quality of knowing was likened to a living nervous system that informed a sophisticated awareness that ran through all the people as if they were a single-celled organism, suggests Pretchel. It was a place where the origins of everything within was known. A house of origins, and a place of origins. By origins, Pretchel is not describing the ancestral origins, for those cannot really be truly understood until the origins of all what surrounds us is established enough that the indigenous memory begins to function again. The origins house is a purpose made space in which nothing is placed for which the deeper story of its origins remains unknown. Everything inside this space must be known, and their origins not forgotten. It is a place where the origin story of everything, including the space itself, can reside within.
However, the house of origins is not a museum, or a tourist trophy room. It’s a place where everything is known and has a story. It’s a place where our indigenous soul may feel at home. Furthermore, Pretchel suggests it’s a place for originating a space right now for a time worth remembering generations to come. As we navigate these uncertain and changing times, I am thinking about the spaces we create, be they private, shared or public. Be they homes, gardens, towns, or cities. Be they schools, shopping centres, or the university where I teach, and what they reflect of our values, our economies, and our ways of life. How can these spaces we create, reflect a different set of values, a different way of life, and more of a storied participation with place – our ultimate place being the Earth itself?
Michael Martin is a designer, maker, and researcher investigating ecological ways to design. He lectures on Design at the University of the Arts London.→ michaelmartin.studio
By Michael Martin
World Making
As I begin to widen my design practice to include spaces, I find myself turning towards the work of artists, sculptors, and storytellers’, as well as designers, architects, and master-builders. I have found inspiration in the work of artist and sculptor, Chris Drury, his artworks are a sustained exploration of the conceptual distinctions between nature and culture. He creates spaces of contemplation, and the art lies in the ideas, in the process of making, and in the judging of formal and spatial relationships. These ‘worlds within worlds’ provide a space for gaining an insight into our inner nature through encounters with otherness. I find these structures to be beautiful.
In Drury’s work I encounter a deep relationship to place. Dury says, each work is a narrative that defines, dissolves, and renews perceptions about the relationship between nature and culture. It is a matter of being with, and making with, ideas I would like to explore further through my own meanderings. However, when Drury approaches a new work he tells me, ‘My priority is to be with a place before making anything’. Perhaps these simple acts of being with and making with, echoed through a deep sense of reflection and observation, represent something sacred, a threshold to a private universe, where we can dwell and receive revelations of a reality beyond the one, we experience in our ordinary everyday lives.
To live in a place well most certainly requires an imagination. Robert Thayer, author of Life-place, suggests without imagination, humanity mires in mediocrity and stagnation; to imagine, to create is to survive and thrive. True creativity, suggests Thayer, has another worldliness to it, and we are often suspicious of truly creative people because they often push the boundaries of our socially constructed realities father than is comfortable for us to go. The possible futures glimpsed by artists are like views through a kaleidoscope, and what springs forth from the imagination is not a navigation system, but a hand-drawn map of alternative routes. This notion of life-place then, that humans might learn to live, and dwell, more permanently and responsibly within the landscape and be shaped by the nature of a place, is an act involving both individual and collective imagination.
Few human artefacts have the longevity of a home, or in the case of nomadic peoples, of dwelling traditions, suggests Paul Oliver, author of the book Dwellings. The occupancy of innumerable dwellings has been by successive generations of families, whose association with the building, the land and the settlement are intimately related to their own sense of identity. Traditionally, the sensibility and the know-how, the skills and the competence to build effectively in response to the land, the climate and the resources to hand, the place, has been passed on between generations. In this way they embody not only the values and needs, but the wisdom of place too.
Homes are built with authenticity and integrity in ways that achieve beauty of form, as I have seen, a unity of design, transmitted to the next generation through tacit knowledge. This said the dwelling is more than an artifact, the site it occupies, the materials of which it is made, the know-how of its construction, and the labour that has gone into making it. Oliver suggests the dwelling is 'the theatre of our lives', where most dramas of birth and death, of procreation and recreation are played out, and in which the succession of scenes of daily living are enacted, and re-enacted, in the process of dwelling.
In the book, The unlikely peace at Cuchumaquic, the storyteller Martin Pretchtel suggests our modern homes have become less and less places where we can truly be at home, to the extent modern existence has no relevance to our indigenous origins. It’s as though our ‘indigenous souls’ are left homeless in a cultural vacuum when there is no knowledge of the origins of all that surrounds us. When I recall my own experiences of home, I too relate to the moments when this was both present and absent. This knowing of our origins is what gave us our shape, says Pretchel. He likens it to a cultural amnesia, where nothing is fully known, nor is it in any tangible way required that a modern person knows anything about the place they live.
This was not always the case, there was a time when people, upon entering their homes, were surrounded by natural textures, and smells, and useful objects with whose ‘origins’ they were completely familiar. This quality of knowing was likened to a living nervous system that informed a sophisticated awareness that ran through all the people as if they were a single-celled organism, suggests Pretchel. It was a place where the origins of everything within was known. A house of origins, and a place of origins. By origins, Pretchel is not describing the ancestral origins, for those cannot really be truly understood until the origins of all what surrounds us is established enough that the indigenous memory begins to function again. The origins house is a purpose made space in which nothing is placed for which the deeper story of its origins remains unknown. Everything inside this space must be known, and their origins not forgotten. It is a place where the origin story of everything, including the space itself, can reside within.
However, the house of origins is not a museum, or a tourist trophy room. It’s a place where everything is known and has a story. It’s a place where our indigenous soul may feel at home. Furthermore, Pretchel suggests it’s a place for originating a space right now for a time worth remembering generations to come. As we navigate these uncertain and changing times, I am thinking about the spaces we create, be they private, shared or public. Be they homes, gardens, towns, or cities. Be they schools, shopping centres, or the university where I teach, and what they reflect of our values, our economies, and our ways of life. How can these spaces we create, reflect a different set of values, a different way of life, and more of a storied participation with place – our ultimate place being the Earth itself?
World Making
As I begin to widen my design practice to include spaces, I find myself turning towards the work of artists, sculptors, and storytellers’, as well as designers, architects, and master-builders. I have found inspiration in the work of artist and sculptor, Chris Drury, his artworks are a sustained exploration of the conceptual distinctions between nature and culture. He creates spaces of contemplation, and the art lies in the ideas, in the process of making, and in the judging of formal and spatial relationships. These ‘worlds within worlds’ provide a space for gaining an insight into our inner nature through encounters with otherness. I find these structures to be beautiful.
In Drury’s work I encounter a deep relationship to place. Dury says, each work is a narrative that defines, dissolves, and renews perceptions about the relationship between nature and culture. It is a matter of being with, and making with, ideas I would like to explore further through my own meanderings. However, when Drury approaches a new work he tells me, ‘My priority is to be with a place before making anything’. Perhaps these simple acts of being with and making with, echoed through a deep sense of reflection and observation, represent something sacred, a threshold to a private universe, where we can dwell and receive revelations of a reality beyond the one, we experience in our ordinary everyday lives.
To live in a place well most certainly requires an imagination. Robert Thayer, author of Life-place, suggests without imagination, humanity mires in mediocrity and stagnation; to imagine, to create is to survive and thrive. True creativity, suggests Thayer, has another worldliness to it, and we are often suspicious of truly creative people because they often push the boundaries of our socially constructed realities father than is comfortable for us to go. The possible futures glimpsed by artists are like views through a kaleidoscope, and what springs forth from the imagination is not a navigation system, but a hand-drawn map of alternative routes. This notion of life-place then, that humans might learn to live, and dwell, more permanently and responsibly within the landscape and be shaped by the nature of a place, is an act involving both individual and collective imagination.
Few human artefacts have the longevity of a home, or in the case of nomadic peoples, of dwelling traditions, suggests Paul Oliver, author of the book Dwellings. The occupancy of innumerable dwellings has been by successive generations of families, whose association with the building, the land and the settlement are intimately related to their own sense of identity. Traditionally, the sensibility and the know-how, the skills and the competence to build effectively in response to the land, the climate and the resources to hand, the place, has been passed on between generations. In this way they embody not only the values and needs, but the wisdom of place too.
Homes are built with authenticity and integrity in ways that achieve beauty of form, as I have seen, a unity of design, transmitted to the next generation through tacit knowledge. This said the dwelling is more than an artifact, the site it occupies, the materials of which it is made, the know-how of its construction, and the labour that has gone into making it. Oliver suggests the dwelling is 'the theatre of our lives', where most dramas of birth and death, of procreation and recreation are played out, and in which the succession of scenes of daily living are enacted, and re-enacted, in the process of dwelling.
In the book, The unlikely peace at Cuchumaquic, the storyteller Martin Pretchtel suggests our modern homes have become less and less places where we can truly be at home, to the extent modern existence has no relevance to our indigenous origins. It’s as though our ‘indigenous souls’ are left homeless in a cultural vacuum when there is no knowledge of the origins of all that surrounds us. When I recall my own experiences of home, I too relate to the moments when this was both present and absent. This knowing of our origins is what gave us our shape, says Pretchel. He likens it to a cultural amnesia, where nothing is fully known, nor is it in any tangible way required that a modern person knows anything about the place they live.
This was not always the case, there was a time when people, upon entering their homes, were surrounded by natural textures, and smells, and useful objects with whose ‘origins’ they were completely familiar. This quality of knowing was likened to a living nervous system that informed a sophisticated awareness that ran through all the people as if they were a single-celled organism, suggests Pretchel. It was a place where the origins of everything within was known. A house of origins, and a place of origins. By origins, Pretchel is not describing the ancestral origins, for those cannot really be truly understood until the origins of all what surrounds us is established enough that the indigenous memory begins to function again. The origins house is a purpose made space in which nothing is placed for which the deeper story of its origins remains unknown. Everything inside this space must be known, and their origins not forgotten. It is a place where the origin story of everything, including the space itself, can reside within.
However, the house of origins is not a museum, or a tourist trophy room. It’s a place where everything is known and has a story. It’s a place where our indigenous soul may feel at home. Furthermore, Pretchel suggests it’s a place for originating a space right now for a time worth remembering generations to come. As we navigate these uncertain and changing times, I am thinking about the spaces we create, be they private, shared or public. Be they homes, gardens, towns, or cities. Be they schools, shopping centres, or the university where I teach, and what they reflect of our values, our economies, and our ways of life. How can these spaces we create, reflect a different set of values, a different way of life, and more of a storied participation with place – our ultimate place being the Earth itself?
Michael Martin is a designer, maker, and researcher investigating ecological ways to design. He lectures on Design at the University of the Arts London.→ michaelmartin.studio
By Michael Martin
World Making
As I begin to widen my design practice to include spaces, I find myself turning towards the work of artists, sculptors, and storytellers’, as well as designers, architects, and master-builders. I have found inspiration in the work of artist and sculptor, Chris Drury, his artworks are a sustained exploration of the conceptual distinctions between nature and culture. He creates spaces of contemplation, and the art lies in the ideas, in the process of making, and in the judging of formal and spatial relationships. These ‘worlds within worlds’ provide a space for gaining an insight into our inner nature through encounters with otherness. I find these structures to be beautiful.
In Drury’s work I encounter a deep relationship to place. Dury says, each work is a narrative that defines, dissolves, and renews perceptions about the relationship between nature and culture. It is a matter of being with, and making with, ideas I would like to explore further through my own meanderings. However, when Drury approaches a new work he tells me, ‘My priority is to be with a place before making anything’. Perhaps these simple acts of being with and making with, echoed through a deep sense of reflection and observation, represent something sacred, a threshold to a private universe, where we can dwell and receive revelations of a reality beyond the one, we experience in our ordinary everyday lives.
To live in a place well most certainly requires an imagination. Robert Thayer, author of Life-place, suggests without imagination, humanity mires in mediocrity and stagnation; to imagine, to create is to survive and thrive. True creativity, suggests Thayer, has another worldliness to it, and we are often suspicious of truly creative people because they often push the boundaries of our socially constructed realities father than is comfortable for us to go. The possible futures glimpsed by artists are like views through a kaleidoscope, and what springs forth from the imagination is not a navigation system, but a hand-drawn map of alternative routes. This notion of life-place then, that humans might learn to live, and dwell, more permanently and responsibly within the landscape and be shaped by the nature of a place, is an act involving both individual and collective imagination.
Few human artefacts have the longevity of a home, or in the case of nomadic peoples, of dwelling traditions, suggests Paul Oliver, author of the book Dwellings. The occupancy of innumerable dwellings has been by successive generations of families, whose association with the building, the land and the settlement are intimately related to their own sense of identity. Traditionally, the sensibility and the know-how, the skills and the competence to build effectively in response to the land, the climate and the resources to hand, the place, has been passed on between generations. In this way they embody not only the values and needs, but the wisdom of place too.
Homes are built with authenticity and integrity in ways that achieve beauty of form, as I have seen, a unity of design, transmitted to the next generation through tacit knowledge. This said the dwelling is more than an artifact, the site it occupies, the materials of which it is made, the know-how of its construction, and the labour that has gone into making it. Oliver suggests the dwelling is 'the theatre of our lives', where most dramas of birth and death, of procreation and recreation are played out, and in which the succession of scenes of daily living are enacted, and re-enacted, in the process of dwelling.
In the book, The unlikely peace at Cuchumaquic, the storyteller Martin Pretchtel suggests our modern homes have become less and less places where we can truly be at home, to the extent modern existence has no relevance to our indigenous origins. It’s as though our ‘indigenous souls’ are left homeless in a cultural vacuum when there is no knowledge of the origins of all that surrounds us. When I recall my own experiences of home, I too relate to the moments when this was both present and absent. This knowing of our origins is what gave us our shape, says Pretchel. He likens it to a cultural amnesia, where nothing is fully known, nor is it in any tangible way required that a modern person knows anything about the place they live.
This was not always the case, there was a time when people, upon entering their homes, were surrounded by natural textures, and smells, and useful objects with whose ‘origins’ they were completely familiar. This quality of knowing was likened to a living nervous system that informed a sophisticated awareness that ran through all the people as if they were a single-celled organism, suggests Pretchel. It was a place where the origins of everything within was known. A house of origins, and a place of origins. By origins, Pretchel is not describing the ancestral origins, for those cannot really be truly understood until the origins of all what surrounds us is established enough that the indigenous memory begins to function again. The origins house is a purpose made space in which nothing is placed for which the deeper story of its origins remains unknown. Everything inside this space must be known, and their origins not forgotten. It is a place where the origin story of everything, including the space itself, can reside within.
However, the house of origins is not a museum, or a tourist trophy room. It’s a place where everything is known and has a story. It’s a place where our indigenous soul may feel at home. Furthermore, Pretchel suggests it’s a place for originating a space right now for a time worth remembering generations to come. As we navigate these uncertain and changing times, I am thinking about the spaces we create, be they private, shared or public. Be they homes, gardens, towns, or cities. Be they schools, shopping centres, or the university where I teach, and what they reflect of our values, our economies, and our ways of life. How can these spaces we create, reflect a different set of values, a different way of life, and more of a storied participation with place – our ultimate place being the Earth itself?
World Making
As I begin to widen my design practice to include spaces, I find myself turning towards the work of artists, sculptors, and storytellers’, as well as designers, architects, and master-builders. I have found inspiration in the work of artist and sculptor, Chris Drury, his artworks are a sustained exploration of the conceptual distinctions between nature and culture. He creates spaces of contemplation, and the art lies in the ideas, in the process of making, and in the judging of formal and spatial relationships. These ‘worlds within worlds’ provide a space for gaining an insight into our inner nature through encounters with otherness. I find these structures to be beautiful.
In Drury’s work I encounter a deep relationship to place. Dury says, each work is a narrative that defines, dissolves, and renews perceptions about the relationship between nature and culture. It is a matter of being with, and making with, ideas I would like to explore further through my own meanderings. However, when Drury approaches a new work he tells me, ‘My priority is to be with a place before making anything’. Perhaps these simple acts of being with and making with, echoed through a deep sense of reflection and observation, represent something sacred, a threshold to a private universe, where we can dwell and receive revelations of a reality beyond the one, we experience in our ordinary everyday lives.
To live in a place well most certainly requires an imagination. Robert Thayer, author of Life-place, suggests without imagination, humanity mires in mediocrity and stagnation; to imagine, to create is to survive and thrive. True creativity, suggests Thayer, has another worldliness to it, and we are often suspicious of truly creative people because they often push the boundaries of our socially constructed realities father than is comfortable for us to go. The possible futures glimpsed by artists are like views through a kaleidoscope, and what springs forth from the imagination is not a navigation system, but a hand-drawn map of alternative routes. This notion of life-place then, that humans might learn to live, and dwell, more permanently and responsibly within the landscape and be shaped by the nature of a place, is an act involving both individual and collective imagination.
Few human artefacts have the longevity of a home, or in the case of nomadic peoples, of dwelling traditions, suggests Paul Oliver, author of the book Dwellings. The occupancy of innumerable dwellings has been by successive generations of families, whose association with the building, the land and the settlement are intimately related to their own sense of identity. Traditionally, the sensibility and the know-how, the skills and the competence to build effectively in response to the land, the climate and the resources to hand, the place, has been passed on between generations. In this way they embody not only the values and needs, but the wisdom of place too.
Homes are built with authenticity and integrity in ways that achieve beauty of form, as I have seen, a unity of design, transmitted to the next generation through tacit knowledge. This said the dwelling is more than an artifact, the site it occupies, the materials of which it is made, the know-how of its construction, and the labour that has gone into making it. Oliver suggests the dwelling is 'the theatre of our lives', where most dramas of birth and death, of procreation and recreation are played out, and in which the succession of scenes of daily living are enacted, and re-enacted, in the process of dwelling.
In the book, The unlikely peace at Cuchumaquic, the storyteller Martin Pretchtel suggests our modern homes have become less and less places where we can truly be at home, to the extent modern existence has no relevance to our indigenous origins. It’s as though our ‘indigenous souls’ are left homeless in a cultural vacuum when there is no knowledge of the origins of all that surrounds us. When I recall my own experiences of home, I too relate to the moments when this was both present and absent. This knowing of our origins is what gave us our shape, says Pretchel. He likens it to a cultural amnesia, where nothing is fully known, nor is it in any tangible way required that a modern person knows anything about the place they live.
This was not always the case, there was a time when people, upon entering their homes, were surrounded by natural textures, and smells, and useful objects with whose ‘origins’ they were completely familiar. This quality of knowing was likened to a living nervous system that informed a sophisticated awareness that ran through all the people as if they were a single-celled organism, suggests Pretchel. It was a place where the origins of everything within was known. A house of origins, and a place of origins. By origins, Pretchel is not describing the ancestral origins, for those cannot really be truly understood until the origins of all what surrounds us is established enough that the indigenous memory begins to function again. The origins house is a purpose made space in which nothing is placed for which the deeper story of its origins remains unknown. Everything inside this space must be known, and their origins not forgotten. It is a place where the origin story of everything, including the space itself, can reside within.
However, the house of origins is not a museum, or a tourist trophy room. It’s a place where everything is known and has a story. It’s a place where our indigenous soul may feel at home. Furthermore, Pretchel suggests it’s a place for originating a space right now for a time worth remembering generations to come. As we navigate these uncertain and changing times, I am thinking about the spaces we create, be they private, shared or public. Be they homes, gardens, towns, or cities. Be they schools, shopping centres, or the university where I teach, and what they reflect of our values, our economies, and our ways of life. How can these spaces we create, reflect a different set of values, a different way of life, and more of a storied participation with place – our ultimate place being the Earth itself?
Michael Martin is a designer, maker, and researcher investigating ecological ways to design. He lectures on Design at the University of the Arts London.→ michaelmartin.studio