In Search of Beauty

I recently returned from several days in Florida.

Had I written that sentence in the 18th century I can only imagine the wondrous tales I’d be dispensing around an enraptured northern fire.  Instead, as I write it today, a residue of despair hangs in the words like those of a eulogy to a Beauty passed. 

It didn’t have to be like this.

I won’t pretend that I write this with complete objectivity.  Most of my days are spent in search of beauty.  Our designs always pursue a natural portrayal of place that elevates its presence.  In doing so the search usually begins with what defines a particular piece of earth, or what used to define it, and what our stakeholders would like to define it, with a mixture of what the surrounding community has mandated should define it, how faded past communities have defined it (be them animal or human), and what will best define it into the future.  And yet amidst all that defining, definitive paths to a successful design solution can be elusive.  Constraints intervene, such as conflicting visions of beauty, budget limitations, or fundamental shortcomings like seismic instability, fire-prone plant vulnerabilities, diminished water supply, and diminished indigenous resources in general.  Alas, a dearth of positives often bares one truth: a manufactured beauty is, in fact, the precise assignment.

By contrast, there are areas all over the earth where our services are irrelevant, where beauty runs in such abundance that to approach it with visions of change would be preposterous.  And thank goodness for these places!  They comprise the inspiration banks to which so many of us lay in debt.  They are the National Parks, the Marine Reserves, the swaths of wilderness, the National Monuments, the historical registries, the beckoning open spaces.  In the United Kingdom they call such places Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty - such a seasoned, eloquent, and precise moniker.  These AONBs run in and out of ancient human endeavors and always seem poised to someday repossess the trifling human marks that surround them.

The Sunshine State, by comparison, expresses the reverse: glimpses of natural beauty appear with sudden richness, yet are quickly left behind as fragmented, forgotten shards of a nature that seems permanently overwhelmed.

Not too long ago I came across this show, describing the intoxicating natural systems of the coastal gulf regions once archetypically expressed in Florida.  Now the show’s trekkers encounter episodes of immersion with adjacent chapters of negotiating man’s myriad intrusions.  And while they truly do locate some of the remaining wonders, credits roll with unmistakable lament.  This place, still hiding immense splendor, does so with permanent compromise.  The tide has shifted, and the way back to its original majesty is simply too far.  The vehicle corridors that thoughtlessly slice through habitat have cut too deep.  The linked waterways that no longer connect instead lie dead in a series of fouled puddles.

Is it surprising that the social fabric of Florida would also feel torn?  Its destiny wanders in peril amidst those who came to fulfill their own fantasies without regard to those of others; or to create fantasies for others that by definition are not meant to work within the local context; or perhaps worst, to simply exploit the local bounty to fund personal fantasies destined to be constructed elsewhere.  Of course the conflicting itineraries, so personal, and so divorced from communal goals, have led to dysfunction and deceit.  Of course the goals of those who arrive only seasonally are at odds with those who dwell year-round.  And of course the natural challenges that are simply combatted rather than understood and worked with, not against, have led to large scale synthetic failures.  These social and stewardship shortfalls unite with consummate homeliness and now define this place.

And yet, behold, there IS beauty!  Look there, a pocket of egrets glides effortlessly across salt water wetlands.  A bewilderingly enchanting atmospheric glow broadcasts across a palm grove in afternoon glory.  Light and shadow dance across shorelines in ever-changing intrigue.  Florida, amidst it all, cannot help but portray its own brand of beauty.  And when it does, I’m ever so thankful to have seen it; ever so hopeful that a reversal of fortune awaits.

Does it?  It’s hard to stay optimistic.  In an area so threatened by climate change, there is such an unchanging and deliberate ignorance.  How can solutions be imminent if the intelligence needed to create them is, itself, viewed as a threat?  How can the tempests that bring such increasing intensity be combatted when the lands they strike are governed with such protracted storminess?  The blowing winds that batter this state are incessant (the hurricanes, thankfully, remain seasonal).  Sea level rise, perhaps the most insidious, offers a slow burn of environmental doom.  It will cause ill-advised and reactionary spending while an ever-worsening soil structure erodes beneath our feet.  It will hasten poisoned waters and a desaturating rainbow of marine abundance.  And, along the way, it will cause even more social unrest as the motivated solutions of some batter against the premeditated resistance of others.

So, I ask you, dear reader: are the days when natural beauty simply presents itself numbered?  Or is a steadfast resistance to its demise lurking somewhere among us?  Is there a commitment to the best parts of ourselves, and to the legacy we leave for those destined to follow us?  It starts with seeking that beauty and defending it from those who cultivate its end.  Do you have the resolve to fight for it?

DJ

Rain

I grew up in Chicago where rain was a given.  Where snow was a given, come to think of it, and sleet…hail…whatever.  There was never a doubt that soon enough the sky would open up and deliver.

But while that rain was a givin’, dear reader, it was also a takin’ - as in taking away the ball game for that day, or washing out the hike or the picnic or the beach day or the biking, etc. etc.  I would say my relationship with rain as a young kid was contentious.  Too many times it seemed to arrive on days where I had plans.  And not just any plans, mind you: usually super exciting, ‘I’ve been waiting so long for this day’ type of plans.  I began to associate rain with disappointment.  I often wore the cold, wet chill of precipitation not just on my shoulders, but in my heart.  While meteorologists tracked barometric pressures and storm fronts with dials and gauges, I measured rain in bars of emotional distress.

Somewhere along the way, though, things shifted.  I recall seeing the deep green leaves of a maple in May one day, as if for the first time, just outside a school window.  April showers bring May flowers!  Wow!  Something connected, and while rain still came with annoying regularity, it just as often began to feel welcome - like on a smoldering summer day, or with an autumn vengeance that would whip Lake Michigan into a frenzied, rollicking wonder.

Slowly my appreciation for rain took seed.  Through college, now in Maine, rain often arrived with amazing skies and bewildering light.  The weather systems there, be them nor’easters or slow migrations from systems west, seemed to deliver rain almost as an afterthought.  Blustery winds, downed limbs, and again the froth of a nearby ocean were the show.  The rain followed along like a dutiful friend.  My last year there, living aside the Atlantic, rain began to feel like a warm blanket.  Its patter on the roof above, me studying late at night below, would light a fire in my heart and into the late hours the pages would turn.

Into grad school now, and the showers from above came with lessons.  Studying its impact, the way our urban fabric reconciled bouts with storms, I took note of the myriad gutters and pipes, the downspouts and swales, and it made rainy days an active event.  Every storm was an opportunity: here comes another drainage lesson!  And I would get out in the rain, and follow it like a detective, pursue it like a suitor, and learn its moods, its menace, its romance, as it gushed through cobble streets or slowly dripped from twilight trees.

Soon after, Northern California beckoned.  For several years in the City, rain seemed to arrive horizontally as a misty confusion, the mystery of Bay Area fog and its patterns slowly revealing themselves to me.  Once again the air’s moisture asserted its irksome side, only this time without puddles.  The emotional bars, long retired, awakened into despondency on cold grey days I’d previously known as summer.  And in winter, the rains came with an anger that raised doubts regarding the name Pacific.

But I was smarter now, and my appreciation for rain had been etched - forever, it turns out.  One year, an El Niño winter brought isolation and distress to many.  I recall being stranded for a few days near the Petaluma river with our young family as water took refuge in the adjacent marsh and just stayed there.  We were locked in, and the rains kept coming.  It was relentless…and it was beautiful.  I could see the life sustaining effects all around us.  Even in a deluge, its value was apparent and in hindsight I believe that year crystallized an understanding of how things work here.  I don’t recall ever regretting the arrival of a wet day since.

At present, years later, I’m well used to the dry summers.  I’m in tune with months on end without wet skies delivering.  North of the City’s fog, the heat can take over, and it feels like summer again.  Plans aren’t interrupted, and now it’s the calendar’s pages that easily turn.  And soon enough we all start to miss the rain like we miss an old friend.  “I hope it remembers to come back,” we think. “It would be great to see each other again.”

So when a September rain is forecast, it feels exciting!  It feels like Christmas is coming, and we wonder to what dimensions might our gift be described.  When will it get here?  We check our phones and make contingency plans, and we’re happy to have to make them.  We clean up the garden, preparing for a little messiness, smiling all the while.  And when the first drops come, it’s a wonder.

DJ

Death In The Garden

I spoke to a close friend recently after his father had passed away.  He was, of course, distraught, and we reflected on his sadness together.  But he was also grateful to have been there as his dad’s life expired.

“It was the perfect death,” he confided.  “My dad had a long and full life, the loose ends of his legacy had been tidied, and there was no pain.”

I marveled at this objective synopsis, delivered with a balance of emotional and clinical precision that only a doctor could bring.  And I marveled, too, at his insights.

The perfect death.

If, as we all know, death is a part of life, how great that this last bit had gone so well.  How nice that among life’s myriad ups and downs he could stick the landing on this last chapter?  Everyone loves a good ending to the journeys we have shared together.  How cool to witness this comfortable transcendence, this tidy crossing into the deeply rutted routes of our memory, and into history.

A few weeks later I found myself staring at a mature Chinese fringe flower in our garden.  Its glorious presence confronted me, the green and plum colored leaves with a few bright pink blooms hinting at the impending flower season.  Our plans to expand the wood deck also confronted me.  Only one could prevail, and reluctantly I realized it was not my Loropetalum friend.

I thought about the day I planted this beautiful plant, a full 19 years ago.  It had grown up beside our family, slowly gaining a mature structure outside the bedroom window while simultaneously expressing a winding, almost impulsive looking presence that defied its static place.  It had survived the failed Citrus above and behind it, the Rubus beneath it, the swapped lawn and lost railing of the old ball tossing area where small soccer games and diligent fielding practice helped shape future athletes.

Mostly, it had survived the Iceberg roses.  They had gone just last year, a mixed legacy of function and form, almost doomed to a duplicitous relationship in a cozy garden where their prime role was to dissuade small kids from going where they shouldn’t while bringing beauty to that banal purpose.  Their death was NOT perfect (have you removed mature rose roots lately?).  They did not go quietly into their slight, though in truth the fringe flowers seem a tad lonelier since their passing.  A mixed legacy for sure.

I stared at my shovel, grudgingly acknowledging its silent reminder.  I really didn’t want this plant to be gone, but we really, really wanted to expand our opportunities to comfortably be in the garden with friends and family.  This plant’s death would not be in vain, I consoled myself, and it would not be forgotten.  I briefly dwelled on the cycle of life, where sadness and joy often seem to intermingle like a bittersweet fog - a vapor of unknown emotional ends and murky conclusions.  I thought of deaths in my own family, and specifically the passing of my dad many years ago.  Even that deep scar had been salved by the birth of his first grandchild a week before.  He left the world with a smile in his heart, and the cycle of life carries on.

I snapped out of my repose eventually, and although the bare space of a once glorious fringe flower still remains, it won’t be empty for long.  Soon the deck overhead will fill with laughter and new memories.  The ground beneath will find new expressions, and the old photos will show glimpses of a life well-lived in the garden.  It’s a pattern as old as time, but one worth acknowledging now and again.  And yes, dear reader, perhaps you guessed: the three new Loropetalums are over in the corner, along the new railing.  I hope they’re happy and in time can find their own glory, not far from a perfect death in the garden.

DJ

Throwing Shade

Recently I saw an article in the Los Angeles Times about the increasing paucity of shade, especially in urban areas.  It’s hardly surprising given that as we grow our collective footprint on Earth we plow through tree canopies and leave ourselves more exposed to the sun.  As such, shade has become a commodity, and as with all commodities a market has developed to acquire it.  A shade industry has blossomed in the last decade with structures going up all over kids’ playgrounds, elderly housing, healthcare centers, resorts, clubs, private residences, and on and on.  Aside from fertile ground for wordplay and interactions with shady salesmen (see?) these structures can offer substantial climate altering benefits and significant personal comfort.  They also bring some impacts to exterior spaces that need to be considered more forthrightly.

Consider your average summer day in the northern hemisphere: high sky, fewer trees, more sunblock, higher temperatures, and an ever-tightening turn of the screw from climate change.  Phew, it’s hot.  And more and more it’s hot in more and more places.  Witness the Pacific Northwest, a geographic sanctuary where heat formerly went to die, now home of cooked fish and boiled sea creatures in deathly warm rivers and along baked seashores.  Many cases of corresponding heat-induced human suffering involve workers left unprotected from the sun’s relentless glare.  Yes, there are work breaks under trees and other canopies, but often that’s not sufficient to sustain enough of us throughout the day.  To say there’s a shade crisis may yet be a shade dramatic (!), but there’s an increasing need for respite from the rays and more designers are finding innovative ways to bring it. In fact, the phrase “engineered shade” now connotes a whole range of products.  I recall an early glimpse.

On a beach many years ago, I was first introduced to one of the simpler and more enduring ideas for shade.  Amidst some dunes, our host had rammed three logs into the sand like primitive posts, applied a few iron hooks, and unfolded a shade cloth that stretched, clipped, and ultimately hung horizontally over our heads like an organic roof.  “Coolaroo,” he answered when I inquired, “you haven’t seen these?”  I hadn’t, but I’ve since seen many applications of this simple Australian product, creatively spanning, hovering, and generally enlivening both public and private spaces.  Since then, I’ve noticed a range of scales and structural integrity to these cloth applications.  Several years later our local elementary school, like so many others, brought in the brightly painted and robust structures to give the kids a safe outdoor lunch and lounging area.  And not too long afterwards, ShadeFX helped us put together retracting shade cloth awnings above the breeze space at a clients’ residence in Sonoma County.

I don’t mean to imply the idea of shade is new.  Grape arbors as simple as wire panels overhead with grapevines rambling between; wood arbors of sophisticated detailing and architectural styling; breezeways, colonnades, umbrellas, parasols, pergolas, and pavilions – all have been a part of our world for years.  But as the built environment spreads and nature’s embrace evaporates, the need for sensible, sustainable sanctuary beneath the sun is greater than ever.  All of the above traditional options are in play, and amidst a wider range of outdoor demands and technological comfort, many newer options are expanding the vernacular of shade. 

These days the idea of shade and how to provide it is a staple in conversations with clients, and solutions are increasingly sophisticated.  A current project involves Renson shade systems wherein LED lighting, manipulatable louvers, motorized shade cloth and sophisticated rain protection all express an outdoor room that can adjust to various weather and associated shade desires.  The architectural character of these systems, while certainly contemporary, is adaptive enough to fit most exterior settings.  On another project we’re employing perforated metal cloth awnings to extend architectural cover with a twist of fancy in the pattern that drops as a unique and dynamic shadow.

And yet we have not forgotten the majesty of simple solutions.  We “engineered” the use of good ol’ trees to form a living arbor at another project in Sonoma.  There, six mulberry trees are being grown around a three-year temporary arbor of traditional bamboo and rope construction.  After three seasons, we’ll remove the arbor and allow the cultivated branch structure and large seasonal leaves to cast critical shade on those summer days that increasingly bring 110 degree heat.  Although clearly a natural material, the deliberate, patterned layout combined with a baseline structure gives a sense that this arbor has been “built,” and future maintenance will continue towards a tight, floating rectangle of leafy shade.

So what’s your idea of good shade?  With so many options, no matter which way you want to go, you’ll have it made…

DJ

Photo courtesy of Robina Benson Design House

Sanitizing Nature

As we spill more and more into the outdoors and the post-Covid landscape takes shape, an old concept is again in focus.  We want to be outside, but we don’t want nature’s uncleanliness.  We want to be outside, but we want it to feel like the inside where comfortable lounging doesn’t leave our white pants stained and the fear of spiders lurking in crevices is generally contained.  What to do?

First, let’s face it, nature IS dirty.  The process of spreading seeds, blooming, fruiting, adapting leaves to bring proper interest for sustainable partnerships in a balanced ecosystem, weathering storms, wind, rain, and sun is messy business.  And that’s even before we show up.  Those who decide which trees, for example, should dot the urban landscapes of our world know this well, and their selection process is always directed by how to bring the best and most compelling features of a tree in front of us while leaving as many nuisances as possible behind.  Seed pods, intense leaf drop, sap, pinecones and the like have no place on our town floors. (Nor does our own manufactured litter, though of course it appears.)  The truth is these civic decisions at the macro level reflect the collective dilemma we all face, and that’s how to proceed in a built world enhanced as much as possible by a civilized relationship with nature.

In cultivating residential exterior spaces, we’ve long contended with this notion.  And while it hasn’t slowed our urge to push people into the outdoors, the obstacles impeding many of our clients have been real: it’s too cold, but bringing heat is expensive and I don’t want a campfire in my living space; it’s too hot, but I don’t want a tree that blocks our view or those of the neighbors; it’s too windy but we don’t have the room for a hedgerow and a plexiglass barrier gets dirty so quickly, etc.  Successes have generally been born of procedure and not product: provide a convenient solution for seasonal storage of seating cushions; contain the dog’s business in a certain area; set up electrical access so cleaning can be adaptive and thorough when necessary, etc. etc.  Slowly, however, product-driven solutions are materializing.

An important development in the first part of this century was a gradual mainstreaming of Nana (or accordion) doors.  These doors can effectively eliminate whole walls at a time, breaking down the binary worlds of indoors and out.  The resulting spaces just outside them often manifest as an architecturally protected yet outdoorsy living space that generally feels clean and is often comfortably shaded by eaves or other creative extensions of the building architecture.  Though expensive, these doors have worked their way into a contemporary vernacular of elegant indoor-outdoor living.  Building on this success, designers like us have leaned harder into the idea that sophisticated stylings of the indoors could spill out from within.  Think of all the restaurants you’ve been to where pleasant, protected al fresco dining occurred without feeling like you’re in a different place.  Why not at home?  Why can’t I refine my grill area so both meat focused chefs and the salad minded among us can dwell comfortably?  And why can’t that kitchen combine the family room with it as so often happens inside?

With the pandemic, these challenges are more in focus as the urge to fully function in our residential spheres takes hold.  We’re now more insistent, while so often working from home, that the outdoors adapt to us rather than us adapting to it.  Manufacturers have been taking notice (like OOD, shown above), and this groundswell to push living spaces comfortably outward has become a rising tide.  Shade, for example, is cleaner from an architectural pergola than a shade tree.  If it’s more efficient at handling rainwater, sturdier than umbrellas, and stylish, even better.  Fire features, while elemental and always appealing, can often be substituted with less volatile heat accessories like electric furniture and infra-red heaters.  For many of us, staying connected to the indoors means having digital access alongside, and weatherproof wi-fi extenders are arriving to oblige.  And on and on.

So, can nature be cleaned up?  Of course not.  And for all the impulsive notions we have to alter its ways, the best results come from simply framing its good sides.  But can the terms on which we encounter nature at home be defined to keep things clean, comfortable and functional?  More and more the answer is yes.

DJ

Photo credit: OOD House

Rinse, Turn the Calendar, Repeat

As we leave February, and round into the homestretch of a full year under Covid, I must (for the first time) praise the short month – and not because it’s the last time I remember washing my hands for less than 20 seconds.

Yes, February, the month of love per Hallmark and St. Valentine, but to me a blip on the calendar where future memories stumbled on barren ground, always seemed to vanish before I knew it was there.  Whatever I recall fondly as occurring in February was usually proven as late January or early March instead; and whichever plans I made for the year seemed to skip the scant four weeks of late winter.

Over time, though, that’s proven a good thing.  How else might I have slowly observed, with annual iterations, and unplanned hours, the subtle awakenings from horticultural dormancy that so many plants display at this time.  In the Bay area, devoted gardeners know that a true coastal California Spring begins in the early days of February.  And though it’s been a month that literally comes up short every year, those transitions have gradually changed my perspective, and I really feel it’s the most interesting time of year.

Some of you were likely ahead of me.  And it’s true, February has always been special: how many months get a makeover every four years?  Yet the virtues of February 29th have also made it notorious, like the day we turn our clocks forward: a good thing that often simply feels like seasonal aggravation.

So, I’ve wondered recently if it’s time we all embrace February and celebrate its character.  In fact, rather than lamenting its short days, I propose we emulate its concise ways, and let’s make every month 28 days long.  Let’s redefine the year into 13 months of 28 days with one extra day at the end we can all celebrate together – a true Earth Day.

Not sold yet?  Perhaps we can review how our months came to be in the first place.  Don’t worry, in the spirit of February I’ll keep this brief.  Our second month got its name from februa, an ancient Roman festival emphasizing purification and cleansing. Now I’m not saying our calendar needs purification, but did you realize September, October, November and December were once months 7, 8, 9, and 10, as their etymology properly suggests?  And then someone declared that “All hail Caesar” should be an annual priority of the seventh month, Augustus should own the eighth month, and the rest should go to the back of the line.

I admit rolling thirteen months would come with a cost.  I’ve always admired the unique tidiness of February and how it seemed to accelerate us out of winter with natural haste.  And the recurring dates of March, where March 3rd is the same as February 3rd, give us a veritable month’s worth of groundhog days (excepting leap years) - at once expressing the daily grind of late winter and the expanding notions of Spring.  Now it would be just another month.  A cleansing, I suppose, that seems about a month late.  Not to mention the blow to our sense of the seasons.  The neat recurrence of seasonal equinoxes and solstices, with their consistent numerical precision and fixed brandings of months 3, 6, 9, and 12, define calendric conciseness.  Without them, those dates would stand as roughly March 24, July 4, October 12, and some unnamed 19.  Whaaa?!  And about that thirteenth month, what are we supposed to call it anyway?  And what happens to Christmas, Thanksgiving, or my birthday?!

No problem.  It turns out the idea of 12 zodiac signs as a basis for our calendar is an astrological myth, and in truth there are 13 astronomical zodiac constellations. Where art thou Ophiuchus the Serpent Charmer?  Yes, we’ll have to reconfigure a few million birthdays outside of January, but what’s better than a birthday surprise, as in “Surprise, your March birthday is now in April!”?  And February can still be special by keeping its distinction of having leap year.  In fact, it will be even more special, as that one extra day will no longer come off like a desperate reach at 30 but a regal reminder that, in fact, February stands tall over all the others.

Listen, the months were rejiggered before, and it’s good to mix things up every couple thousand years.  Now that they’ve moved, we’re over it.  In fact, who knew?  It’s just the way things are.  And far be it from our design office to simply accept things as correct because that’s just how they are right now.  Might there be improvements?  Can not only space but also time be better?  Can we experience the braiding of nature and time in a more emphatic and enlightening way?

I ask you, reader, and I suggest as you drift out into the evening one of these nights (perhaps pondering what might make for a good thirteenth month moniker), gaze up, and give a nod to Ophiuchus.

DJ

American Sustainability

Today we’re picking up on the idea of creating sustainable sanctuary in this remarkable year of 2020.  And given that an incredibly important election here in the USA looms just days from now, I thought I’d try to give some historical context to the idea of pursuing a regenerative enclave here in America.

Not too long ago a breadbasket of untapped natural resources lay before our ancestors.  Our forefathers realized the seemingly endless opportunities lurking in our “vast, empty continent,” and they gathered visions of how a new nation’s prosperity could be assured.  Among those leaders, Thomas Jefferson endorsed an agrarian ideal where the rhythms of nature are tamed just enough to cultivate an agricultural bounty while leaving places of relative wilderness amid the forests in between.  Others like Alexander Hamilton saw prosperity in industry and technological advancements, envisioning great urban centers where ever-increasing efficiencies of labor could produce a North American manufacturing bounty to rival those in Europe.  A push and pull of nature and technology was begun. 

For many decades, the idea that you could be building and farming on weekdays while out hunting and fishing on weekends was the bread and butter of a sustainable American life.  Indeed, much of our Independent Yankee history reflects a work ethic that harvested the resources of manifest destiny for capital gain while exploring and reveling in their beauty to cultivate a pioneering and uniquely American spirit.  Even for those not pursuing an agrarian ideal, this often translated as a personal, contented repose with nature.  In an untamed continent, the wonders of nature lurked around virtually every corner.

Only in recent decades has the unsustainable truth revealed itself.  Only in recent times have we realized that there are limited tickets to an American harvest, and that nature cannot indulge more and more and more before serving notice that we must change our relationship.  

Many feel that reckoning first appeared in the mid 20th century when the rotten infrastructure of world wars and the hyper production of a post-war boom left us with filthy air and industrial-scale wastelands.  Throw in new problems like nuclear waste and clearly change was due.  Landmark environmental laws of the early 1970s seemed to pivot our national consciousness towards valuing sustainable and shared planetary good health.  But the engines of capitalism are unceasing.  With very few Americans now actively engaged as farmers, it’s fair to say that manufacturing and technology have won out.  The self-sustaining independence that Jefferson dreamed of has been mostly lost, and the great majority of us rely on large, communal infrastructures to sustain us.

Amidst that narrative, the virtues of a healthy planet are increasingly lost in the drive for a technologically adapted, comfortable independence.  Who cares if the skies are clear in Ohio if I have to work too hard in Nebraska to sustain them?  Many instead seek only to create an enclave of their own private comfort, away from the global manipulations and dangers of a stressed world.

And so we’ve come full circle.  How can I get my ticket to the American harvest?  Where are the sustainable homesteads of our forefathers?  Make no mistake, they are lurking; but they will not be found via the approaches of old.  New tools are available, and with them so is a new American sustainability.

DJ

Maintaining in Place

Okay, here we are, embarking on a third season of The Pandemic.  We’ve all been sheltering in place, adapting, and then slowly slipping back into previous patterns - but certainly by this time with slowly maturing new perspectives and revised routines.  For most of us all is not lost, but much has certainly changed.  Amidst everything that has been removed, some items and experiences have arrived anew.  So, let me present my very old, but perhaps new-sounding vantage, buffed and shined for the Covid era.

Behold these truths, which I submit as self-evident:

• The world outside our homes is a rough ride.

• Amidst our journey on an increasingly challenged planet, the actions of others will daily impact our lives.

• No matter how fine and in control we believe our lives to be, the idea that we are one commanding maestro of our own fate will inevitably be debunked.

And so, that bright old idea: the places we call home need to perform as safe havens and, ultimately, SANCTUARY.  They need to be more than a secure respite behind locked doors.  They need to be restorative and rejuvenating oases.  They need to be SUSTAINABLE sources of energy that return us to the world with renewed vigor and confidence and a belief that we are ready for the rough ride, the letdowns and the twists of fate that await us.  And the more we cultivate this domestic embrace, the happier we will be.

Amidst a cascade of other uncertainties that await beyond our front doors, the question is, “how do we make a sustainable sanctuary now?”  So much of our lives – work, school, socializing (either virtual or actual) – is now from home.  Other aspects like exercise, spa treatments, holidays/vacations, and even food production now often qualify as residential pursuits.  Where, then, is the reclusion from everyday events if all the everyday events occur at home?

The answer is outside.  Now more than ever the idea of developing a residential place of happiness requires attention from property line to property line and not just from wall to wall.  The sanctuary you seek awaits just outside your doors, and it’s time to create it.

In our next several blog entries, we’ll look at how the “new normal” is translating into exterior design and how landscape architects are poised to lead the redefining of what it means to be home.  We’ll also pick up the pace a little bit, no longer waiting for a change in season to prompt our prose.  So, stay humble, stay safe, stay healthy… and stay tuned.

DJ