Every year
thousands of acres of natural land--out in the country or on
suburban tracts still untouched by developers--are turned into
home sites. But by the time the moving vans arrive, the beauty
and character of the land has been destroyed. The culprit is
conventional building methods that put the building first and
the land second.
Today, however, a
new building technique--Nature’s Envelope--is putting the
land first. The end result is that the new home looks as if it
had been gently set down into the natural landscape. The
Envelope is simple to execute, cost effective, environmentally
sound, and – important to developers – highly marketable.
“When it comes to the global
environment, architecture--and architects--face a choice:
continue to be part of the problem, or learn to become part of
the solution. And Wasowski demonstrates convincingly
that the latter is not only possible, but feasible, exciting,
and even inevitable. By building with nature's
envelope we can avoid inflicting further wound on the natural
world, and so begin the process of restoration."
--Don Falk,
Society for Ecological Restoration
In the first few
decades of this millennium, we will all become more
environmentally aware. We will have no choice. The
consequences of dwindling and threatened resources, endangered
plant and animal species, and our escalating world
population--the root cause of virtually all our environmental
problems--will become too manifest to be ignored except by the
most mindless individuals.
And, I firmly
believe, during this time, the envelope will become an
important part of our response to the environmental problems
that beset us.
