Wombspace

Is personal space like the womb? Is this what we seek when we craft spaces in which to be? This is an interesting idea which I have mused on before. The womb is the first space we know and expulsion from it signals the commencement of our lives which ultimately lead to a reconnection with the Mother. This life-death cycle is supported by architecture which shelters us when we are alive allowing us to consciously be. Erecting the HeadSpace has allowed me to touch on this mystery and to observe others succumb to its allure …

My Current HeadSpace

I’m in free fall. Once the shift began there was no going back. Embracing the change that this offered has opened up a whole new perspective. It is now clear the resistance to creating the Art Studio is rooted in me and that I really need to move on in my life embracing the future rather than being burdened by aspects of my past. This has allowed new love to flow into my life and given fresh direction to my ambitions. This is the core of the living architecture idea – living your architecture according to inner direction. I am still catching up with what this means for me, enjoying the sensation of the free fall and speculating on where it will lead.

Lughnasadh Sheltermaker

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I am at a most interesting place, literally living my own architecture. This is fascinating and a bit of a roller coaster. The EconoSpace Project has raised so many personal issues that I am stunned and fascinated at the same time. The resistance to progress has been so strong that it is demanding a complete reassessment of the original objective of creating an Art Studio to house Sharo’s paintings. This has left me poised at the intersection of past and future time, rooted in the now.

The EconoSpace Project Update, which you will see posted on the right of your screen, will bring you up to speed on recent developments. Basically the project has been refusing to move from the workshop onto the site! There were obvious physical reasons for this – the weather, difficult ground conditions, a hassle obtaining stone and so on. However underlying these rather obvious resistances something else was lurking. This, I now realise, is something in me and exploring this is has plunged me deeper into the mystery of sheltermaking. Essentially this has to do with living the future rather than living the past. This is the source of inspiration from which we gain emotional sustenance. We give this form when we make buildings in which to live our lives.

Living our lives to accord with inner direction carries us beyond rationale. The mind rails against such folly regularly issuing threats of impending catastrophe. When we bring such confusion to the building process we imprison ourselves in rigid structures blocking out the light of inspiration. This is why construction is such a macho activity and requires such immense firepower for its realisation. If we build sensitively we cannot but connect to inner direction.

This is exactly what is happening to me. It is becoming clear that putting energy into Sharo’s paintings is not part of my now. This is the source of the resistance to realising the Art Studio. If I accept this wholeheartedly – and I do – a whole new vista open up. This is where I am poised, a most interesting place to be. I cannot but laugh at the irony of all of this. I have been developing and teaching these ideas for almost 20 years in an itinerant sort of way. It is only now that I have ’settled’ that I am fully impacted by them! This is as fascinating as it is amusing.

My immediate attention is now focussed on the installation of the HeadSpace at the Dock Arts Centre in Carrick on Shannon in lovely Leitrim. This will be erected on Friday next August 17th. It will be up until the following Sunday. A new series of Courses in Sustainable House Design & Construction will begin on September 1st. which will keep me busy. I have also begun work on my Sheltermaking Theatre presentation which addresses the emotional issues surrounding the living architecture process. I will also be continuing work on the EconoSpace Project in its new guise as vehicle for my unfolding life.

So, stay tuned folks. I will be recording developments in the Architecture LIVE section of my website.

Next Sheltermaker – Autumn Equinox

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EconoSpace Project Update

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but ….

The Sheltermaking Theatre

 

 

Everything is shifting under my feet. Not in a bad way but nonetheless challenging. The EconoSpace Project clearly has a mind of its own. Despite our best efforts, the objective of getting it out of the ground is elusive. This has gotten me thinking, why is it so difficult?

There is no clear answer to this question. I can think of many reasons, including the ‘local wetting’ I wrote about previously. There is also the fact that Thomas has returned to Belfast to resume his amateur boxer training and contemplate his future. Liz has also gone on to do her own thing.

However, no matter which way I look at this all answers fail to satisfy. I’m beginning to consider that it is me that is holding things up, that somewhere in myself I’m putting a block on things. Another possibility is that I’m actually meant to be doing something else. I have been trundling from Design to Construction like an old dog on the hard road, not really thinking if this was the proper route to my objective – wherever that is! So, I decided to lay down by the roadside and reconsider everything. This was blissful – taking time to relax and dream. This led to an interesting place.

I’m calling the process ‘backtracking’. It’s not really about retracing my steps or about where I am going but seems to be more concerned with consciousness! This is familiar territory and brings to mind the comment of a student of an early Be Your Own Architect Course who said ‘I was teaching philosophy not architecture’. I am still catching up with that throwaway line.

Anyway, as fate or destiny would have it, as soon as I begin to dream everything appeared differently. I quickly put together a presentation which neatly fitted into an old idea – The Sheltermaking Theatre. This is a device to enable us to see the invisible – things like time, gravity, space and feelings. These are inexorably linked to architecture and to our selves as human beings. It is from this invisible matrix that we emerge.

Phew! This is not what teaching architecture is meant to be about! Yet, on some level, it is exactly what it is about. It is what living architecture actually means – that we can use buildings to connect to a a deeper reality, discovering in the process who we are. This I have known intuitively for quite some time but I could never explain it in a way that made sense in the context of how architecture is normally spoken of – in terms of passive solar energy, sheepwool insulation, hemplime, heat pumps, double glazing or whatever.

In many ways things that we know inside ourselves but which are repressed or remain unconscious are more shocking when we accept them than new information. That is how I feel at the moment. A mixture of impatience, excitement and trepidation. Add to that the fact that a film crew from TG4, the Irish language TV station, is coming to film the EconoSpace Project next week! I have appraised them of developments but I’m not certain they properly understood. Anyway I’ll adhere to my new mantra ‘it’s all theatre’ and things are bound to be all right on the day. Then there is the HeadSpace to get ready for display at The Dock, the local arts centre. This is pure theatre!

So there it is folks. My soul bared. My face presented to a new horizon. The wheels in motion. Destiny at play.