Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
THE WIMBERLEY HOUSE OF HEALING
MARLEY PORTER
Feng shui (wind water). Chi (energy). These are words and concepts not
often understood or practiced in Western design philosophy, yet these func-
tional and meaningful realities are every bit as important to the building as
nails and glue and bricks and mortar.
Just as the human brain attempts to maintain a healthy equilibrium bal-
ancing the right (creative) and left (practical) hemispheres of thought, the
boxes we live in should be no less balanced. Good design weighs equally
the physical and the metaphysical, exposing an architecture that transcends
the box. Great architecture may be found in the celebration of the marriage
of Eastern and Western ideologies, the living together of the rational (mind)
and the emotional (heart).
Far too many homes and offices in North America lack meaning. They
are empty of soul and void of divinity.America's preoccupation with speed,
modularity, cost, and size has evolved a sea of insanely proportioned and
grossly unsustainable “tract houses with thyroid problems.”
Far too many buildings have been “facadomized”—decorated with styl-
ized facades in two-dimensional screaming matches with all the other bill-
board, paper architecture. Far too many buildings are built with toxic and
unsafe materials, most utilizing dated construction techniques and systems
that are costly to the environment and consumptive of natural resources. It
is no wonder that our buildings contribute significantly to health problems
and emotional unease.
The end result of any given project must transcend simple profit meas-
ures in order to get the biggest bang for the buck or to develop to the high-
est and best use possible. The Western fiscal invention of immediate
gratification might be elevated to a more long reaching and ultimately
more rewarding structure of balanced living; truly, a “higher” use.
