Origen Architects Philosophy

Towards Ecological Sustainable Architecture

Origen Architects works together with clients to design architecture, urban design and interiors that advance ecological sustainable development, which is to combine the environmental, economic and social aspects together into a cohesive whole or green building. Green building is finally becoming a reality but the next challenge is for green building to evolve into a living building.

Towards a Living Building

The next leap forward for architecture is to design built environments that become a living entity together with its surroundings. Taking from, but giving back to, the environmental, economic and social context. Our design process for a living building evolves from the arranging of the accepted ten elements of sustainability, for design purposes, wholistically into a matrix of mutual influence where each element informs the other(s). This 'informing' can be categorised into several principles (of relationship) between the elements such as: intricate, ubiquitous, integrated, synthesised and unified. As our company logo suggests, these inter-relationships can be modelled, again for design purposes, by applying the 'Tree of Life' to analyse relationships co-jointly. This then is the Kabbalah of living architecture.

Towards a Restorative Architecture

What's the point of sustainability if it does not restore and imbue our cities, towns, villages and homes with an architecture that informs our body, mind and spirit? This restoration approach to architecture takes time to comprehend and design solutions can be explored and continually improved. The 'tree of life' matrix of elements and principles can be applied, in simple terms like a chart or can be viewed three dimensionally, like the DNA molecule, and revolved nine times and end-joined so that a chain of continual improvement can be achieved. The final conjunction point in the linked chain is the elements of Site and Landscape/Building Envelope and hopefully these will coalesce as a complete unity! (This checklist encompasses the nine other elements in a matrix of a total of 91 confluences, i.e. each element can be related to the other nine elements). This matrix, as in the movie The Matrix which describes a parallel universe, similarly describes here a design 'universe' where a parallel architecture can be described, explored and refined, hopefully resulting in a more restorative architecture.

What's the real alternative?

By many accounts this fragile World is at a point of critical danger of slipping into entropy (chaos) and is perhaps at the 49th level of 'demerit points' (the 50th level is beyond redemption). We need to embark on a 'u' turn back to nature. See Duane Elgin's book, Promise Ahead: A Vision Of Hope and Action for Humanities Future, which describes us changing from post-adolescents and returning towards nature as adults. Like the biblical 'Children of Israel', we can still return, and merit redemption for the world with us as custodians. We all however, need to move to respect creation, seize the responsibility for our future generations and become a gentler folk. Even a water crystal responds to love and caring. See Messages From Water by Masaru Emoto, an alternate medical practitioner, who takes photographs of water crystals from water that is polluted (and or hated) and pristine (and or loved) and freezes and compares how crystals grow/not grow!

Even as the smallest water crystal responds to love and caring, how much more the whole of creation?

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