A LIVING TRADITION [Architecture of the Bahamas] Lecture & Book Signing Wednesday at 8 PM
Submitted by GFS on Mon, 2008-08-18 22:57
A LIVING TRADITION
[Architecture of the Bahamas]
Lecture & Book Signing
Wednesday at 8 PM
Books & Books
265 Aragon Avenue, Coral Gables, Florida
If you're in the Miami area Wednesday evening, stop by Books & Books for an intriguing look at the next big idea in architecture: Living traditions have, for thousands of years, been responsible for creating the most-loved and most sustainable places on earth. Most people assumed they were impossible in today's industrial and post-industrial societies, but Steve Mouzon wasn't so sure. Beginning over a quarter-century ago, he has been working to figure out how they operated, and how to re-start them. A Living Tradition [Architecture of the Bahamas] is his first full-scale test of those ideas.
This book is a richly illustrated description of the architectural traditions of the Bahamas. But this is not just another catalog of architecture in paradise. Rather, it is a workbook, or pattern book, that examines each pattern of architecture in detail, such as the proportion of a window, the slope of a roof, or the design of a garden wall. It is principle-based, not style-based. Those principles are based on the architecture that makes the most sense for the Bahamas, not a random collection of historical styles. And each principle is explained in the plain-spoken fashion of "we do this because..." One reason for building this way was to be sustainable. A Living Tradition explains the Original Green of each pattern that contributes to sustainability, re-infusing architecture with the green wisdom all our ancestors knew by heart. With this book, it’s not just about style anymore.
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Living Traditions are the operating system of the way we once built sustainably, which Steve refers to as the Original Green: originally, before the Thermostat Age, we had no choice but to build green, otherwise people simply couldn't live there. Read more about the Original Green:
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