ruskin and eco-estates

I think my underlying question in the Ruskin piece is a moral one, regarding the sacred value of work, of craft, of place etc, which possibly i extend a little way in the two new essays. I feel Ruskin saw an honesty in the style through its workmanship, and an intrinsic motivation for that workmanship being the craftsman's faith. Would Ruskin read the aspirations of an eco-estate as motivated by extrinsic value systems and the fleeting vogue for solar energy? Perhaps I am falsely extrapolating such shallow branding efforts from a name, in the suspiscion that almost as soon as the eco-estate became the self-consiously 'eco'-estate, it has slipped a notch from Primary architecture. I'm not sure, perhaps I'm too sceptical, certainly here, there remains an emphasis on architect as saviour: eco-estates, were we to design them within the prevailing paradigm of design in the school here, would rely on no more than token participation of a community, compared to the centrality in Ruskin's thought of laboured, personal local buildings by happy craftsmen.

But I think yes, an eco-estate in its truest sense would likely have many Ruskinian traits, furthermore, there are parallels in that there are empassioned writers, writing espousing the saving power of these eco-estates, as Ruskin did of primary architecture, and they, as he was, are being imitated as a style, a neo-(green)-modernism to the neo-gothic his writing inspired that so reviled him. Ruskin and the environmental design movement share a great many parallels and may fail for similar reasons, of elitism, of writing rather than doing, of insufficiently critiquing the cultural structure than stands in opposition to deep sustainability. We shall see.

Environment Questions 1

Is there an environmental problem?
Why?

Is it curious to our age?
Why not?

What is scale of the problem?
What is the time scale for a solution
Whose fault was it?
Based on what assumptions did they make decisions which caused this?
In so far as we have noted the problem, have those original assumptions be challenged or changed?

Is Schumacher right when he says this is a metaphysical problem?
Can it be solved?
What is the nature of the solution?
What is our role in the environment's salvation?

Is there a 'right' response?
Is there a 'Christian' response?
Should there be?
Is there any other framework of morality or existence that will address the problem at its root?

What is the gospel?
What did Jesus save?
The 'cosmos' god so loved?
You Me and the trees?
What does that mean?

Is everything spiritual?
Is saving souls more important than saving trees?
How much more?
Is it possible to do one and not the other?
Is this a false dichotomy born out of bad theology?
If we make this division in our understanding of salvation will we ever have sufficient imperative to be proactively environmentally concerned?

Is the 'environment' synonymous with 'creation'?
In as much as to consider one's self as separate from the 'environment' but a part of 'created' order is a distinction that may only be subconscious.. has our theology been complicit in an destructively anthropocentric concept of life on earth? Is it still?

We don't tend to pray for the environment?
Should we?
Is it deistic not to?
Could non-prayer be attributed to a fear that we might have to live our side of the bargain out if we did pray?
Are our cars, elephants in the room, planks in the eye of the Christian community?

Is the “Earth will all be burned up” a self-fulfilling prophecy?

If this ship called earth is blasted, bound for destruction should we bother beautifying it?

What does life consist in between 'salvation' and death?

Eschatology: now? not yet?
Judgement: now? not yet?
Eternal Life: now? not yet?
His Kingdom: now? Not yet?

Of Victor Hugo's 'heart of the human problem', should environmental degradation be viewed as derivative or causal or both, of the 'problem of the human heart'?
Can the problem be addressed within that domain of the human heart?
How?

The world suffers when the church is not up to standard (?JP).
What is up to standard? Can it be? Will it ever be?
How and Why?

The local church the hope for the world (Bill Hybels) .
Is it?
How?
What is church?

How do you know you are right?
How do you know you are part of the solution rather than part of the problem?
Is theology getting better?

Environmentalism

Environmentalism is a religion and a religion that knows no grace.
Environmentalism has its prophets, its Sterns, its Al Gores, calling a globe to repent and believe.
Environmentalism has its atheists, skeptics and apologists.
Environmentalism relies on an assurance of things hoped for and a conviction of things not seen.
Environmentalism's street preachers preach of an impending apocalypse.
Environmentalism has its own morality, its ten commandments.
Environmentalism has its paid for indulgences, its solar panels, its cosmetic morality.
Environmentalism wages holy wars, draws blood and makes martyrs.
Environmentalism presumes a salvation by works.
Environmentalism is just another religion, and taken to its logical conclusion, exhausting?

Church Architecture

http://kester.typepad.com/signs/2007/09/signs-of-life-i.html

Hi, I just got to you through vaux, through haunted geographies. I've spent a happy little while browsing your blog, some really brilliant thoughts. And Ruskin always gets me going, last year I wrote a piece on Ruskin, atheism and architecture.

http://phil-blogs.blogspot.com/2007/11/discuss-aims-of-john-ruskin-in-his.html

My next essays are on the role of design in effecting an 'essence' of sustainable housing and then a critical piece on something since 1985.. I hope a church building, I haven't really started. I want to write on new church architecture, even emergent/ing church architecture. I can't really find a lot written on it. Have you come across anything worthwhile on that?
"Have we lost something here? Are the warehouse churches that we throw up or rent just bland, interchangeable shells for an equally bland and interchangeable God?" I have thought this, currently at a warehouse church, and saddened by the missed opportunity that their new building project represents both environmentally and artistically. I'm torn also by their explicit arguments made for church as a shoe box as primary metaphor. Also on my blog are these questions, I've been going back and forth with some friends with:

Is the church building a shoe box, is it a sheepfold, is it only shelter, is there something gnostic at the end of this train of thought? Do we owe the rich architectural heritage of cathedrals from a former christendom to idolatry alone?

How deep rooted is our damaging abandonment of the arts and disregard of place, and how far reaching are the implications?

What is community? How much slower should we be moving geographically inorder to form better community, what is the role of craft in community, and what would its contemporary expression be?

If God is Green, is this a call to asceticism and does it have implications for christian expression in architecture?






http://emergentvoyageurs.blog.com//1336565/?page=last&msgsuccess=1#cmts

So this conversation finished about a year ago, I'm just browsing, and thought I'd post a few questions that have been on my mind regarding church architecture, I'm writing from the uk, I'm not sure how different the situation is over there, certainly the rich heritage of european ecclesiastic architecture, is on our doorstep and so even more immediately begs such questions regarding the role and nature of contemporary architecture in the framing and communicating of christianity in a post-modern secular etc culture.

Centrally I ache to know why church architecture today is so lacking in substance? I would argue that it is not for lack of means, nor lack of technology, we have never before had such available resource for building to the glory of God. I would currently argue that the source of this change has been theological and sociological. We have changed in our understanding of place, our understanding of congregation and community, in a change derived from our view of work and family, we have become estranged from the divine good in locality, in physical work and craft and we no longer live in any one place long enough to consider a project beyond a generation. Our assimilation to cultural values, the veneration of youth, mobility, speed etc has lead to a transient placeless church for whom primary metaphors chosen for church buildings are a shoe box, a sheepfold, a shelter.. is there something gnostic at the end of this train of thought? Do we owe the rich architectural heritage of cathedrals from a former christendom to idolatry alone? I would say know. How to we put in place an understanding of our incarnation that engages architecture pragmatically, narratively, communally, sacrificially evangelistically.. bleh. I'm at a Vineyard church, whose regard for musical worship lends itself to an, i think, fascinating comparison with the value it places its warehouse and the message the juxtaposition conveys, at least the the architecturally sensitive.

stats and speculation

A selection of those stats beloved of politicians, preachers and general pessimists.

- 4.6million people die from air pollution per year
- 50,000 species lost per year
- 1.5 acres of rainforest lost per second
- 70% of Chinese rivers are polluted – unfit for human contact
- US dumps 63,000 trucks of rubbish per day
- 2005 – hottest year on record, the decade preceding 2005 had 9 of the 10 hottest years on record

- Climate change is projected to kill 184 million people in Africa alone – Climate Change a More Deadly Threat – BBC, May 15 2006

Since UN report Our Common Future 1987:
- Proportion of collapsed fish stocks has doubled from 15 per cent to 30 per cent and the proportion of fish stocks deemed overexploited risen from 20% to 40%
- A hectare of cropland yielded 1.8 tons of produce, but due to intensification now risen to 2.5 tons with it the burden of soil erosion, water scarcity, nutrient depletion and pollution.
- In Canada and the US, demand for energy up by 19%. Concentrations of carbon dioxide, are about a third higher.
- Species of animals and plants are estimated to be going extinct at a rate that is about 100 times faster than the historical record
- Biologists have now classified 30 per cent of amphibians, 23 per cent of mammals and 12 per cent of birds as threatened
- In west Asia, available fresh water has fallen from 1,700 cubic metres per person per year to 907 cubic metres, due to pollution and demand

If China becomes us, per year:
- 1352 million tons of grain – 2/3 of the 2004 global harvest
- 99 million barrels of oil – 20 million more than the global today
- 2.8 billion tons of coal
- 11 billion cars – more than currently on the road

- 1951–1991 – American Family has x2 as many cars, drives x2.5 as far, uses x21 as much plastic, and flies x25 as far
- GDP x3 since 1950, House size x2 since 1970, Av number of people decreased per house

Total US advertising spending is expected to increase 1.7% in 2007 to $152.3billion
Worldwide ad spending will maintain a 6% growth rate for the next 2 years, climbing to $427 bln in 2006 and to $451 bln in 2007

- 5% drop in self-reported happiness between 1970-1994 annual study - 'very happy'/'pretty happy'/'not too happy'
- 66% rise in UK GDP 1973-2001 - no increase in 'satisfaction'
- 500% rise in per capita income in Japan 1958-1986 – no increase in satisfaction
- UK national income doubled – coincide with rise in crime and divorce - Richard Douthwaite – 1955-1988
- x3 rise in depression in people born since 1955 over the grandparents generation - Daniel Goleman
- 1985 study – 1.3% born in 1910, 5.3% in 1960 chance of having had a major depressive episode inc tenfold across a generation - not an artefact of increased knowledge about depression – questions on non-medical terms – eg ‘was there a time when you tried to kill yourself?’

- Money consistently buys happiness right up to about $10,000 per capita income and after that the correlation disappears Diener and Seligman – Beyond Money fig 2 p5
- World Values Survey, an assessment of life satisfaction in more than 65 countries conducted between 1990-2000, indicate that income and happiness tend to track well until about $13,000 of annual income per person (in 1995 purchasing power parity) After that, additional income appears to yield only modest additions in self-reported happiness.

- 90% of Americans believe they are kinder than average
- 84% of Americans wanted to be in the top 20% of income distribution
- ¾ of Americans don’t know their neighbours

- The present footprint is equivalent to 22 hectares per person, whereas the natural carrying capacity of the Earth is less than 16 hectares per person

- UK dumps 6.7 million tonnes of food per year, meaning each household jettisons between £250 and £400 worth of food each year. Most of the waste – which nationally costs £8bn – is sent to landfill where it rots, emitting the potent climate- change gas methane.

- 1500miles: the average bite an American eats has travelled

- US cities – 10 persons per acre 1920 – 4 persons per acre 1990 to present developments building 2 persons per acre
- 25% energy used is phantom power
- 95% less energy is used to recycle aluminium than to make new
- 1 ton of recycled paper saves 17 trees, 3 cubic yards of land fill, 7000 gallons water, 4200 kwh of energy, 390 gallons of oil, 60lbs of air pollution
- 1 acre of land can produce 50,000lbs of tomoatoes, 40,000lbs of potatoes, 30,000lbs of carrots, or 250 lbs of beef.
- 2500gallons of water = 1lb of beef
- 25gallons of water = 1lb of wheat

- 5 million tons of rubbish in the holiday season, 4m of that bags and wrapping paper
- 14m lbs of rubbish into the oceans last year
- 80% more trash than 15years ago, we have 80% less landfills
- If every family in America ate one locally grown meal a week we would save 800 million barrels of oil

- The cost to countries beyond its borders of the environmental damage and exported effluent from the US has been estimated at $73 billion annually
- Americans use energy – x6 mexican, x38 indian, x531 ethiopian per person
- 2004 – World Health Organisation – study of the rates of emotional distress – correlated inequal income distribution and higher levels of emotional distress
- Gini coefficient – inequality – American – 0.4, china .45, japan .25
- Gini Coefficient - 2001 – northwestern University – the top 1 percent of wage earners captured far more of the real national gain than the bottom 80 percent

What Americans and Europeans Spend on Ice Cream: $31 Billion Global
Cost of Creating Marine Parks to Protect the Oceans: $12-14 Billion

Last year
- the rich world spent three times more on bottled water ($58bn) than it did on aid to Africa ($18bn)
- 10 times more on military expenditure ($1trillion) than we did on aid globally ($104bn).
- Britons spent almost twice as much on champagne and other wine
last year as we did on aid
- The French spent more on perfume, German women more on shoes, Italians more on ice cream and the Japanese spent more on luxury goods than their governments did on the world's poor

- Pet food in Europe and United States $17 billion
- Elimination of hunger and malnutrition $19 billion
- Perfumes $15 billion
- Universal literacy $5 billion
- Ocean cruises $14 billion
- Clean drinking water for all $10 billion
- Ice cream in Europe $11 billion
- Immunizing every child $1.3 billion
- Makeup $18 billion
- Reproductive health care for all women $12 billion

Architects

We hear much of designing from the 'inside out' among those who consitute what remains of the architectural profession - that sometimes jolly, sometimes sanctimonious, occasionally chi-chi and often pathetic organisation of shelter tailors' Buckminster Fuller, Nne Chains to the Moon.

As members of a profession currently without an ethic, they have not been driving the discussion. Commissioned by clients to install barrier walls and private pathways that can keep out or discourage those who are unwanted or hired to create private commercial experiences out of what may have been public spave, many become complicit in structuring the urban language of separation. Ellen Posner, on Architects.

facebook rhyming society

i rhyme and i will slight
facebook its not quite
what it used to be
now with this new type
newsfeeds me with all such
rubbish i don't like
knowledge i dont' need
time that i could spend
setting the world free
touching a new sea
i'm itching to both be
here and remain there
you virtually don't care
there is a truth out there
blink and you'll miss it
think that i'll skip it
christ knows i've been it
here's a forum to spit it
rhyme back to me if you
found something that is true
a fight big enough to
carry the day through

cartoon - http://gapingvoid.com/