Accepting Your Nature

Introduction: Vernacular Architecture
Vernacular Architecture is described by Frank Lloyd Wright as “ Folk building growing in response to actual needs, fitted into environment by people who knew no better than to fit them with native feeling.”
It is an architectural style that is designed based on local needs, availability of local construction materials and reflecting local traditions. Based on the humanistic desire to be culturally connected to ones surroundings is reflected in a harmonious architecture, a typology which can be identified with a specific region. Was originally made as a form of human survival, this style of architecture told us so much on how to utilize our surroundings for our needs, without defying the nature. How is this possible? It’s because vernacular architecture adheres to basic green architectural principles of energy efficiency and utilizing materials and resources in close proximity to the site, while not exploiting them.
The phenomena with nowadays structures is that we, human are so focused on being in trend that we neglect the fact from where the trend is coming from and what it is for, we build mega-structures all over the world — not that it’s always a bad thing — but again, this resulting in high carbon trail, because everyone’s building things using materials that are not from their surroundings, in high demand so that some materials are exploited, and so the environment are often destroyed for the sake of our “development.” Of course development is essential and needed for human being to survive and it is a form of the civilization growth, but the fact that most of us neglect the importance to preserve the environment in the process is just a domino effect that made our environment unbalanced — resulting to our own destruction.
But we’re homo sapiens, the brain we posses are our treasured virtue. We can think of better things to prevent this, to learn on how to still innovate but not destructing the environment and surroundings, it’s just a matter of are we aware of the issue and our own willpower.
One of a subject that emphasis the awareness to prevent this phenomena is Sustainable Design, it is a subject that defined as the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment, and services to comply with the principles of social, economic, and ecological sustainability. Aligned with vernacular architecture, this subject is based on human, coping with their surroundings. Accepting, the nature.
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That was about human, building things. But what about human, within themselves?
Taking the Philosophy : Discovering You.
It’s a common desire that we, humans, want to live our only life here on earth the fullest, to be meaningful, to summarize : we want to value our lives, with understanding who we are.
We, in this modern era (or post modern… i actually can’t decide in which era we’re in now… what is it called now, millennial?) should be grateful that we’re blessed with the abundance of information and that some of our ancestors did wrote what they’ve been through (in their perspective, of course that’s why it’s called history) so that we can learn a lot from their experiences and mistakes, and how they tried to value their lives — in order to discover our own.
In this essay I wanted to explain the the science of architecture and the human itself, how both of them are linked with each other. At the introduction I was talking about what I’ve learned about vernacular architecture, sustainable design and how the subjects is based on the utilizing the nature for our own need, in order to make our lives better… with accepting the nature.
It’s pretty much the same with our own self, i guess. This question might pops in our head a lot : “who am i?”
Who you are, is not something that you can just decide in one night. Well, technically speaking, yes, it’s you who decide who you are but in reality it is made of much more complex factors, that builds who you are now. It is your environment, it is your parents, your genes, your surroundings, the place you live in for 10 years, the schools you attend, even the songs you listen — they took part on molding who you are now, just like on how vernacular structure are build based on the climate and materials surrounding them, you are a structure mold, too, by your surrounding — and in our case : the surroundings that we can choose.
To understand ourselves we must posses the ability to accept our nature. Nature, in Merriam-Webster dictionary is defined as the inherent character or basic constitution. This does not means that we are forced to live based merely on our given condition and to just surrender with the problems in life, it’s different than that : it’s how we accept our condition, live the most of it and if we already accept the condition and make peace with our own nature, we make the most out of it, and to live the life we want.
Accepting our nature here means that we shouldn’t burden ourselves with the inability that we posses. We should understand that at some point we will see that we can’t have the things that others have — like on how vernacular buildings are using local materials — we should’ve focused on the things that we’re able to do, as it is our virtue, and make the most out of it.
I’m taking an example of how a vernacular house in Sabu Island, Indonesia were built. The Sabu island has a very high wind-tide as it is located remote to other island and in the middle of the ocean, the locals there are using the lontar wood, that grows there and the unique part is that the houses are built aligned with the wind direction : lengthwise to the east and west with the windows facing north and south, to prevent the abundance of sunlight in the daytime, so that the indoors can obtain room temperature at all time : a homeostasis process designed by the vernacular architecture.
They accept that the wind tide is high, they built houses lengthwise to the wind direction so that the houses will not collapsed due to the wind. They acknowledge that the island is mostly growing lontar trees, they use local materials to built the house. It’s the idea of accepting their given nature and made most of it to survive.
This can be applied into our self knowledge, to accept our disabilities, acknowledge what we can do, own our virtues, and make the most of ourselves…
And we should remember one certain thing about nature : it’s constantly changing. So prepare yourself, for what the nature has to offer, and to accept them — although it might not going to be easy, but it’s a process; and every process (that we decide to be in) is a milestone towards our desired version of self.
Enjoy what you have now, gratitude, is essential.
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References
•Tim Ekskursi Sabu Raijua Universitas Indonesia. Sabu Raijua, Lontar, dan Arsitektur. Depok. IMA FTUI. 2017
•Calloway, Stephen. The Elements of Style. London. Reed International Books Ltd. 1991.
