Americans have quickly become the most
housed people in the history of humanity. Between
1950 and 1998, while family size and time spent at
home shrank, the average new house size more than
doubled to 2100 sq. ft., theoretically granting us
about 800 sq. ft. per capita.
What caused
this disproportional growth? Was it our (now fading)
enormous “reserves” of forests and mineral
veins? Was it the vast “empty” spaces of
the West? Was it our Yankee ingenuity, our Calvinist
work ethic, the development of the chain saw and the
bulldozer? Was it the Jeffersonian dream of a nation
of small landowners, each with their own plantation?
Was it a marketing scheme by the predecessors of Home
Depot?
Maybe it was
the persistent craving of an immigrant, often refugee
people hoping to recreate in the material realm the
village comforts they lost in their passage.
Whatever the
cause, it’s here. Our homes are four times the
size of the world average, with half as many people
in them. While other industrialized nations spend
dispensable income on entertainment and travel, our
spending soars at the hardware store.
And as we
look out across our nation, we see the dream of the
Puritan pioneers has been mostly met: where once
there were swelling rivers, dark forests and savage
plains there are now acres of fences, bright siding
and petroleum stations.
What is a
natural builder to do?
The first
thing to consider: Don’t build at all. If you
have chosen natural building as a way to conserve our
resources, the most effective thing you can do is
nothing. Realize that you live in an era where your
material world has been provided for you. If you are
a Christian, realize that you live in a state of
Grace. Or consider the Buddhist suggestion to stop
doing and start being.
However you
explain it, we’re lucky. Thanks to the
generosity of Nature and the hard work of our
predecessors, there is plenty of area under roof, for
all of us. If we can learn to live as we did in 1952,
with about 360 sq. ft. per person, we won’t have
to build another thing until our population doubles
again.
What does
this mean practically? It means taking advantage of
the existing housing and recreating it to fit your
dream of the future. It might mean sharing a too-big
house with friends, your parents, or grown children.
Our culture of freedom has not taught us how to live
with other people. It’s time to learn. It is
usually easier to design and build a new building
than to work with what is there, but every new
building means less habitat for other species. Choose
to walk the extra mile.
What does
the natural builder do when a dream client calls
— a moneyed couple who want to build a 5000 sq.
ft. “showcase” of natural-building
techniques? The temptation is great. Ask yourself why
you’ve chosen natural building. Is it because
mud and logs are prettier than steel and concrete?
Then you might take the job. But if it is because you
are committed to sustainable resource use, you might
inform them that the single most important criteria
in making a house efficient and reducing its embodied
energy is its size. Perhaps you’ll succeed in
reducing the floor plan a bit. Find out how many
miles of new road will have to be cut to deliver all
the comforts of the city to the new site. Remember
that some of the roads built to bring hippies
“back to the land” in the seventies served
nicely two decades later to bring earthmovers that
built the golf courses in gated communities.
When
you’ve realized that this house will be the
couple’s third, and they expect only to summer
there, try to interest them in a tent. Seriously. I
have heard of a case in which a young wealthy family
was convinced to spend one summer in a large tent on
their family property near the ocean. “It’s
a good way to get to know the land before you make
permanent buildings,” is how it was phrased. By
the second summer they came to realize that if they
built a house the children might stay inside all day.
The electric lines, the septic tank, the normal
aspects of building would destroy at least some small
part of the land they had grown to love. They chose
to continue tenting.
“But I
love to build” you say, “I love to see a
project begin, the digging of the foundation, the
smell of fresh-cut lumber, the growth of something
out of nothing.” Examine your words and
feelings. Many of your desires might be met in a
restorative project, or a small new project— a
cob oven or a park gazebo. Some of your desires may
be based in values you want to leave behind. Do you
want to be able to say, “I designed and built
that?” If so, why? What is your deepest need?
“But I
need to make a living,” you say. Of course we
all need to live. Imagine that eventually you will be
able to do this in a way compatible with all your
values. Your imagination is powerful. There will be a
way to turn your vision into a financially feasible
life. People support themselves as remodellers,
weather-proofing consultants, house detoxifiers and a
myriad of other imaginative ways. What you supply to
the market is one of the most important songs
you’ll sing to the world. Make it beautiful.
Whether
it’s deciding where and how to live, or fretting
over how to support yourself, when you remember the
great gift of Creation, and the promise that you will
be provided for, you can start to plan for your
deepest desires. You can play your part in the next
phase of our growth, the restoration of a balanced
culture.
Shay Salomon is a builder who is
trying to listen to her own advise. She can be
contacted at Wbhwbhwbh@aol.com. The above sermon, a plea
to would-be builders to build less, will appear in
the anthology, “The Art of Natural Building:
Design, Construction, Resources,” edited by Joe
Kennedy, Catherine Wanek and Michael Smith, due out
July 2001, New Society Publishers.
Some sources
A Hut of One’s Own: Life Outside
the Circle of Architecture, Ann Cline, MIT Press,
1997. This intriguing book weaves together many
threads: the failure of modern architects to meet the
needs of their clients, historical accounts of
downwardly mobile hut dwellers throughout the ages,
and her own experience building and inhabiting a tiny
tea house.
The Not So Big House, by Sarah Susanka,
Taunton Press, Connecticut, 1998. A thought-provoking
book on techniques for designing houses that use less
space while increasing quality of life for their
inhabitants.
The Tiny Book of Tiny Houses, Lester
Walker, Overlook Press, New York, 1993. A series of
case studies of tiny (less than 300 sq. ft.) houses,
with excellent illustrations.
