Design For Life: The Nature of Nature
(Page 2 of 2)
September/October 2008
By Carol Venolia
The more I looked into what conditions humans need to thrive, the clearer it became that this is a false—and destructive—delineation. The healthy building movement is focused on one of the more dramatic areas of human environmental health: air quality. But humans need so much more than just clean air to thrive.
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Humans need the rest of the living world. Nowhere else can we get the rich, changing textures of sunlight, sounds, colors, warmth, coolness, moisture and delight that we crave—yet most of us spend more than 90 percent of our time indoors. After decades of building evolution, we can provide ourselves with mechanically created monotony, training our bodies and minds to believe that we are apart from the supposedly messy, unpredictable world outdoors.
What would happen if we designed buildings not to separate ourselves from the nonhuman world, but to meet our needs by interacting with it?
What do we need?
Several basic environmental factors help us know we are nature:
■ sunlight by day
■ darkness at night
■ greenery
■ water
■ meaningful sounds
■ fresh, gently moving air
■ thermal comfort within
thermal variation
■ interaction with other humans
and other species
■ a sense of safety
■ dynamic synergy among all
of the above things
How might standards shift if we used these criteria as a basis for ecological building? We don’t need to “go out into nature” to return to fruitful citizenship in the world. We simply need to come home to our true nature.
Carol Venolia is an eco-architect and the co-author of Natural Remodeling for the Not-So-Green House (Lark Books, 2006). Share your experiences with her at CVenolia@NaturalHomeMagazine.com.
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