Transformative change
I welcome my role to be part of the transformative change that is required at this time. We are the only species on earth that destroys our environment to such a degree that we are damaging all of life - including our own. Scientists have predicted that we have limited time to reverse this damage.
And yet there is hope.
Of all the species on this earth we also have the capacity and ability to BE the answer if we chose to realise the potential within us. To realise this potential requires deep transformative change in how we think, make decisions and be in the world.
In my role as an architect I have learnt to bring this transformative change into the process of creating architecture. Clients often say it has been one of the more rewarding experiences of their lives. The role I play is to awaken the sacred in people and in the forms we create. To do so requires connection and transformation as we collectively and consciously make decisions from a place of awe, beauty and potential.
When we do this we create living architecture - life affirming, regenerative and beautiful places. This process towards positive change is a way our profession can help shift the scales towards a future with us in it.
Why is this so important? According to a growing number of scientists we have less than 10 years to reverse the damage that we have inflicted on our world around us. The ferocious hurricanes, the fires, the droughts and the pandemics are all happening due to human actions since the Industrial Revolution. It’s taken just over 250 years to get us to this point - when life on earth has been around over 2.8 billion years. That’s sobering. We are damaging the waterways and the soil that we require to sustain us. We are using over 1.6 earths this year in terms of the resources we use and this figure grows yearly as consumerism and demand for more grows exponentially.
Instead if we can chose to build consciously, by making informed choices on materials, water use, energy and considering all of life in our decision making. By doing so we have a chance to reverse the damage and regenerate. We can take this further by lovingly building high vibrational places, places that sing the unique sacred blueprint of people and place to help activate the potential in people, which in turn causes an ongoing positive ripple effect into the community and surrounding ecosystem.
To create this type of architecture requires collective action. I am compelled to listen to the call within me and respond to Papatūānuku, but I cannot do this alone. If you feel this too, please come and join me on this journey so that we demonstrate a new way of working and being in the world.
