Critical Regionalism and the Sky City Visitor's Center

The Sky City Visitor’s Center at Acoma Pueblo is situated in the sacred valley of the Acoma people, fifty miles west of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Acoma people trace their ancestry to the ancient Puebloan peoples of Chaco Canyon in Northern New Mexico. Acoma Pueblo sits on a mesa that rises up behind the Visitor’s Center and it is the ceremonial center of the Acoma culture. The Visitor’s Center’s primary purpose is for Acoma people to learn about their culture. It also attracts tourism. The Visitor’s Center was designed by Barbara Felix. The architect faced the challenge of designing a building that needed to be rooted in Acoma culture and be relevant to a contemporary world. She responded to the project in a way that was Critically Regional, as described by Kenneth Frampton. The Sky City Visitor’s Center is Critically Regional in its materiality, massing, and systems integration, but layers of populist imagery also exist.

Kenneth Frampton wrote The Prospects of Critical Regionalism in 1983. He defines critical regionalism as “a dialectical expression. It self-consciously seeks to deconstruct universal modernism in terms of values and images which are locally cultivated, while at the same time adulterating these autochthonous elements with paradigms drawn from alien sources” (149). Barbara Felix exposes modern values that synchronize with contemporary Acoma principles, and adds to them elements with ways of seeing them from a non-Puebloan cultural perspective.

The “high tech adobe walls”, as she refers to them are one example of critical regionalism. Adobe construction is the primary form of construction used atop the pueblo. Adobes are baked mud bricks that are stacked to form walls. Both the Acoma people and the designer valued an efficient construction technique and stacking adobe for a 40,000 sf building would be labor intensive and structurally unsound. So, aerated autoclaved concrete was added to the materials palette of the pueblo vicinity. As seen through the non-Puebloan designer’s lens, the concrete is a massive earthen material with excellent fire resistance properties that can be stacked as masonry units. Aerated autoclave concrete is formed into blocks off-site that can then be transported to the site for installation.

The concrete is covered with either stucco or tabular sandstone. Southwest designers have a history of using veneers that evoke the built environments of non-European cultures to attract tourists with a desire to experience what they perceive to be exotic. Kenneth Frampton warns readers of his text on Critical Regionalism to not confuse his theories meaning with other regionalist intentions:

It is necessary to distinguish at the outset between critical regionalism and the simplistic evocation of a sentimental or ironic vernacular [ . . . ] Its tactical aim is to attain, as economically as possible, a pre-conceived level of gratification in behavioralistic terms. In this regard, the strong affinities of Populism for the rhetorical techniques and imagery of advertising is hardly accidental. (Frampton 149)

Kenneth Frampton sees the use of materials that are not a direct experience of historic cultural values as being rhetorical, rather than dialectic. They are useful as a means to persuade an audience. The inclusion of the materials does not engage different cultural views to reach a shared truth. The experience of the user of the building becomes one comparable to visiting a movie-set or theme park. Theme parks provide intellectually passive entertainment to the visitor and economic profit to the owner.

The use of stucco and stone at the Visitor’s Center is an authentic response to the culture. The adobe is often plastered over on the mesa-top structures to extend the life of the moisture sensitive adobes. The use of tabular sandstone veneers dates back to the ancient Puebloan civilization at Chaco Canyon who used the veneers to contain and conceal structural material. Stucco is a modern variety of plaster. The concrete blocks need to be coated with stucco, brick, stone or vinyl to protect it from the elements.

Another example of critical regionalism can be seen in the building’s glazing. First, Barbara Felix uses a texture laminated by glass around the entrance and lobby areas. This modern glass technology filters light into the Visitor’s Center similar to the way selenite allowed some light into adobe buildings. Selenite is a translucent mineral that covered openings of the Acoman houses. The use of the laminated material is not meant to be a look-alike of selenite, but, rather, to provide an experience that has deeper cultural implications. Kenneth Frampton shares Luis Barragon’s thoughts about the experience of half-light.

Kenneth Frampton includes quotes in his essay from Mexican architect, Luis Barragan who recalls his childhood home, of which there are no pictures. One theme in his work is “his opposition to the invasion of privacy in the modern world” (qtd. in Frampton 152). This opposition includes the over exposed interior of modern buildings. He says:

Architects are forgetting the need of human beings for half-light, the sort of light that imposes a tranquility, in their living rooms as well as their bedroom. About half the glass that is used in so many buildings – homes as wells as offices would have to be removed in order to obtain the quality of light that enables one to live and work in a more concentrated manner. (qtd in Frampton 153)

The Visitor’s Center allows one the Acoman cultural experience of tranquility inside a building. She does so, not by using the material of an older era, but by using a product that is manufactured using current technology. Barbara Felix utilizes square modular panes of glass that are scaled for a large building.

Another use of glazing includes an acid etched stencil of pottery motifs in a hallway that leads to auditorium spaces. Large expanses of industrial glass were a modern development. The element that connects the material to the Acoma culture is a pattern, whose specific meaning is unknown to non-Acoma people, including, even, the architect. The patterned glass takes its motifs from Lucy Lewis’s, a famous Acoman artist’s, pottery.

The inclusion of the etched glass is symbolic, and, therefore, not a direct experience. It does not represent the critical regionalism theory. It is a symbol and a symbol is representational, like a film set or theme park.

In addition to addressing critical regionalism through materiality, Barbara Felix massed the Visitor’s Center in a critical regionalist way. She knew she did not want the large building to look like a big box store such as Wal-Mart. She found a commonality between the formation of geologic slot canyons and the slot canyons formed by the linear housing on the Pueblo. She applied this pattern to the massing of the Visitor’s Center. The Visitor’s Center, then, becomes deeply rooted in the formal logic of the place by connecting to multiple layers of the cultural strata including geology and village planning. The masses do not have the shape of weather worn rocks or adobe. They have the orthogonal volumes characteristic of buildings constructed with contemporary materials.

One final way the Visitor’s Center exemplifies Critical Regionalism is by using systems, where possible, that respond to the climate and culture of its specific location. The aerated autoclaved concrete has the added benefit of having excellent thermal performance. It insulates the building from extreme hot and cold temperatures, like adobe bricks. In the Southwest, the desert has large swings from daytime to nighttime temperature due to low humidity. The adobe houses have the thermal advantage of being close to the earth and so they can passively heat themselves by taking advantage of the heat sink they sit on. Since the Visitor’s Center is much larger than an Acoman house, radiant heating coils installed under the concrete floors are used in the colder months. The modern technological solution is of the same spirit as the Acoma earthen floors in that the floor is a source of heat. Radiant heating is also appropriate for the arid climate of the Southwest because it does not further contribute to drying out the air.

The Visitor’s Center represents Kenneth Frampton’s theory of Critical Regionalism in the majority of instances. The Acoma people have a symbolic language that shows up in their tradition of pottery. Symbolism is not valued within Kenneth Frampton’s theory because, by definition, it is not a direct experience. The inclusion of this symbolic language in the Visitor’s Center is not used in a gratuitous manner and may be appropriate for a building that is instructional of the culture. The inclusion of the cultural motifs may also be motivated by an economic desire as Frampton suggests in his discussion of regional Populist rhetoric.

Works Cited

Frampton, Kenneth. “Prospects for a Critical Regionalism.” Perspecta 20 (1983): 147-162.

Felix, Barbara. Personal Interview. 28 March 2011.

The Original Green

Two years after Hurrican Katrina, I spent sometime living in Biloxi and constructed houses for Habitat for Humanity as a volunteer. I was familiar with the Habitat for Humanity house designs and the notorious FEMA trailers. I was delighted to see a Katrina Cottage displayed outside of a large home improvement store one day. It was thoughtful, regionally appropriate, relevant and sustainable. The Katrina Cottages were on lots where a single family home had been destroyed. I toured a few of the different models (they came in different sizes and styles) that had been formed into a small community. I also saw them sitting behind newly constructed homes. After people who owned a Katrina Cottage received their insurance check and could afford to rebuild their houses, they would often locate the Katrina Cottage near the back of their lot to use as a rental property or a place that an adult child or extended family member could live in.

Steve Mouzon, author of the Original Green, helped to design the Katrina Cottages. As his lecture at the University of New Mexico on March 4^th, 2011, he spoke briefly about the Katrina Cottages. He said people could “sniff out” some resemblance of a trailer in them and FIMA trailers were not exactly houses to be envied after Hurricane Katrina. He said the cottages were “not strikingly better than trailers” so they did not have the success he hoped for. Although they were not as widely used as he had hoped, the people I spoke to in the South liked them and bragged about their friends who owned them. They were loveable.

“Loveability” is one of the four characteristics of a sustainable building that Steve lays out. He criticized Modernism’s emphasis on beauty. He explains that beauty can inspire admiration but loveablity can inspire action, and therefore, loveability is a more appropriate value for architecture to have. Action is important because activated people who love a building will prevent it from being mistreated and torn down. Throw-away culture is an enemy to sustainability. “Loveability” is also a term that is accessible to people without a background in architecture or aesthetics. People may feel more comfortable expressing love for something than speaking about its beauty because beauty is a judgment sometimes associated with the snobbery of aesthetic discourse.

The lecture was accessible. The soothing colors and bulleted cursive font reminded me more of a popular self-help book than a lecture on sustainability. I felt refreshed to see and hear a lecture on sustainability where I did not feel left out because I do not share Al Gore’s philosophy. The lecture did not engage polarizing language or focus on silver bullet solutions. Steve Mouzon introduced a complex solution to the complex problems that threaten the sustainable design of places and buildings.

At the end of the lecture, an audience member asked if he would comment on a book called Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. The authors offer the idea that both nature and industry produce nutrients. Most people do not have a hard time realizing that nature offers us many nutrients that are essential to our survival, such as the fruit we might consume. Some nutrients are “biological nutrients” that can reenter the water and soil without depositing toxins. Other nutrients called “technical nutrients” will continually circulate through closed-loop industrial cycles without losing their purity and value. When buildings or industrial processes are designed, they should strive to use materials made with these nutrients, so they will not contribute to ill health effects on the environment.

Mouzon paid respect to the book but, in his opinion, the philosophy presumes failure, at least as applied to buildings and placemaking. If buildings are loveable, and people were to take care of them and reprogram them as needed, the result would be highly sustainable and efficient. In other words, buildings that last are more sustainable than buildings that are assumed to have an expiration date and than upcycled into new products.

Acoma Sky City

I visited Acoma Pueblo on the Governor's Feast day. I had the opportunity to watch dances being performed. I was not surprised that I was not allowed to take pictures but was when the tour guide stopped the tour to inform me that I was not alowed to take notes unless I was a reporter. Although I am a student reporter, I figured I was not the kind he was referring to so I stopped taking notes. Even as I was jotting down parts of the guide’s speech, I could feel that I was out of sync with the local context. Coming from a university, my process of learning usually involves recording, studying, and sectioning or analyzing a subject. Puebloan culture is diametrically opposed to this kind of positivist thinking and resists being controlled by it.

Rina Swentzell is a scholar from the Puebloan clulture who explains her culture’s holistic beliefs in “An Understated Sacredness”:

Being religiously ego-centric, Pueblo people do live at the center of the universe. Their world is sacramental. It is a world thoroughly impregnated with the energy purpose and sense of the creative natural forces. It is all one. Sacredness, then, is recognizable in everyday life. The purpose of life for Pueblo people is to be intimately united with nature, intimately connected with everything in the natural world. Everything is included in that connectedness.

She goes on to explain how houses are “fed” cornmeal after construction so they may have a good life. She also talks about how the only constant in life is wind and breath. A story she recounts explains how the profane and sacred overlap. On a recent trip to Chaco Canyon, a non-Native friend expressed anger at his girlfriend for unknowingly stepping on a part of the reconstructed walls of Pueblo Bonito. The act, to her friend was, sacrilegious. She was puzzled. As a child she climbed on ruins in full view of her caretakers who never admonished her.

Rina Swentzell gives people who grew up in non-Puebloan environments an idea of what the culture is about, although not all Puebloan beliefs are shared with an outside audience. As a visitor, you will not be told what is discussed inside of a Kiva, a religious structure.

Some anthropologists believe that when one understands a culture, it can be dominated or subdued peacefully by manipulation of that knowledge. A scholar, David Price, recently lectured in the University of New Mexico’s Anthropology auditorium. He explained that anthropology, as a discipline, gained value for the government during the Cold War because the United States government felt that sending anthropologists covertly into foreign cultural territory could yield an understanding of those cultures, and allow them to be controlled by US interests.

The Spanish tried to use this tactic to convert Natives to Catholicism and influenced their culture, but, to this day, pre-Spanish Colonial Puebloan religious beliefs survive. The mission church at Acoma was built by forced Native labor, according to the tour guide. The alter of the Catholic church is built directly over the original kiva. The Spanish must have understood the sacredness of the kiva and so used the same geographical location to usurp its power in the minds for Native people, however, traditional beliefs appear to be indelible.

The mission church holds mass only twice a year. No church pews set up the situational frame seen in other Catholic Churches. An alter is prominently located at the far end of the church, but the floor is wide open, like this inside of a kiva. Below paintings depicting the twelve stations of the cross are paintings of rainbows over corn stocks. Numbers important to Native, not Catholic, religion were used in the construction of the church.

Acoma people have made choices to open their culture up for tourism, one of their most profitable industries in the twentieth century. Today, another industry provides even more revenue. Sky City Casino is owned by Native people and is the largest employer of both Natives and non-Natives and in Cibola County. Sky city Casino must be circumnavigated before one can reach the road that leads to the Pueblo off I-25. From I-25, one must turn in the opposite direction of the Pueblo and circle the perimeter of the casino before heading directly to Acoma Pueblo. The tourism and gaming industries have formed a link that makes them more profitable than they would be on their own. A tension exists between using their culture to attract curious visitors and resistance to fully exposing their culture so that at least parts of it can survive, relatively uninfluenced by outside cultures.

Works Cited

Swentzell, Rina. “An Understated Sacredness.” MASS. 1985.

Price, David. Lecture. How the CIA and Pentagon Harnessed Anthropolical

Research During the Early Cold War [. . .] With Little Critical Notice. University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM. 17 February 2011.

Antoine Predock Lecture

Architectural Motivations

Antoine Predock gave a lecture on February 15, 2011. On February 14th he was in the hospital with eight broken ribs and a broken scapula in Los Angeles from a motorcycle accident. He spoke about his life leading up to speaking about the architecture because understanding what Antoine has experienced, can explain what drives his buildings. He told the students at the school to find out what it is inside themselves that drives them and use it to create architecture. He added that he was not suggesting everyone go out and hurt themselves doing dangerous things, but that he could not stop participating in high-risk physical activities because the thing in him that made him do that, made him do architecture.

Inherent in Antoine’s architecture is narrative, which implies motion. It is no wonder that skiing, scuba diving, dance, and riding motorcycles are inspiring to him. The circulation of his buildings inspire journeys that are fantastical, haunting, spiritual and beautiful.

New Mexico is an apt choice for someone to live who is interested in the phenomenal aspects of life. Antoine‘s home and primary office are located in Albuquerque, a place he has chosen to live for most of his life.. His first project was La Luz, a housing development that was ahead of its time in terms of its application of ideas such as critical regionalism and sustainable design. Embedded in La Luz are the spirit of places Antoine visited in his life, such as Spain and Chaco Canyon.

I worked for Antoine Predock and participated in his poetic design process. I helped to create a collage one of my first days on the job. All conceivable contexts surrounding a site are researched and visual imagery representing them are rendered by multiple members of the design team. Antoine orchestrates a painting process where the images are added and subtracted until a narrative of place emerges. This collage is a starting point for discussion with clients and is hung in the office, so the design team will never forget who they are designing for and what they are designing.

Later in my employment, I researched potential materials to present to a client for a building. The building had a client who shared Antoine’s interest in poetry but also had other motivations. I found stone for the building which fulfilled the artistic and physical intentions of Antoine and the client but felt uncomfortable, when one of my bosses told me that the client would not use the stone if it was quarried by, shipped by, or the transaction was otherwise profited off of in any way by a specific religious group. I researched the stone company and found the concern to be a non-issue. I never had to decide whether or not to be so directly complicit in contributing to the economic disenfranchisement of a religious group.

When projects become large and expensive, separate interests converge in the realm of architecture. When combined they can contribute to a building which is truly a work of art, however, sorting out the other implications of your actions becomes more difficult.

Response to the Environment Critique

New Mexico’s political debates about environmental issues are usually rooted in conflicting ideologies where economic growth is pitted against concern for the environment. Decisions take time to be made and more time is needed for laws to pass. When a new party comes into power, the decisions are readdressed and repealed in some cases. Some New Mexican industries and citizens need more urgent support. Expanding Architecture, edited by Bryan Bell and Katie Wakeford and Cradle to Cradle, by McDonough and Braungart offer ideas for designers who are interested in helping in the context of industry and in the streets.

Expanding Architecture and Cradle to Cradle were preceded by The Brundtland Report, written by a United Nations sponsored commission called the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987. The Brundtland Report, named after the chairperson of the commission, acknowledges that, “today’s environmental challenges arise both from the lack of development and from the unintended consequences of some forms of economic growth” (WCED 340). Many affluent peoples demand a limited amount of resources and generate more waste as they consume more goods. Those who are poor and hungry will destroy their immediate environment in order to survive in the short-term. The Brundtland Report defines the problem and suggests generic guidelines. For example, the Brundtland Report states:

Raw materials and the energy of production processes are only partly converted to useful products. The rest comes out as wastes. Sustainable development requires that the adverse impacts on the quality of air, water, and other natural elements are minimized so as to sustain the ecosystem’s overall integrity. (WCED 341)

Environmentalists who were contemporary with the report thought “sustainable development” was an oxymoron that could be used by developers to make capitalism sound environmentally friendly. Industrialists of the time saw the report as a call for regulatory measures that would threaten their financial success.

Cradle to Cradle suggests the idea that environmentalism and capitalism need not be mutually exclusive goals. When seeing through this new environmental paradigm, industry produces nutrients that can be reused, just as nature does. When we have a project, regardless of the project, we can be conscious of the materials we put into our buildings and create a cradle to cradle mentality. The use of a material becomes cyclic, rather than the linear cradle to grave mentality.

New Mexico’s current political debates still center around the issues of regulation versus job creation. For example, New Mexico’s current political discussions regarding the environment include issues such as cap and trade agreements to limit greenhouse gases from large industries, Pit Rule 17 which suggests treatments of oil pits to reduce ground contamination, and the reduction of water pollution by the dairy industry. Ex-Governor Bill Richardson and his supporters initiated these proposals, some of which were signed into law, and our new Governor Susana Martinez and her supporters are questioning them and trying to repeal them. Governor Martinez and her supporters fear the proposals are not based on sound science and will prevent New Mexico from being a competitive state to operate a business in. Legislation can be a slow process.

Expanding Architecture offers an alternative to the top-down control of development. The book offers examples of clever and pragmatic design solutions that are relatively inexpensive address the problems of those people most in need first. When people find that they have no space to act because of political and economic constraints, peoples imaginations can find solutions. For example, a Life Straw is a straw designed to filter polluted water and allow poverty-stricken people in Africa to enjoy clean water without the inefficiency of traveling long distances. The people who use the straws can enjoy water without becoming sick and the straws are much less expensive than healthcare or infrastructure to transport clean water to people in poverty. Expanding Architecture challenges architects to use their drive to be innovative in service of a greater good.

Architects, by definition, are practitioners and therein leys their value and a major difference between themselves and legislators. Debate allows more than one viewpoint to be had and new sources of information to be revealed to a wider audience. Unfortunately, debate can also take us around in circles, and action is never taken. Architecture is not always successful, but it is a laboratory, and includes many people with good intentions. Most often they build because a project comes to them with funding. In this way they act within a top-down system. I agree with the ideas in Expanding Architecture to an extent. Architects should expand the population they serve and actively seeking diverse solutions, even when they have not been commissioned. In doing so they help people and expand their services. Architects need to make a living too though and a balance needs to be struck between paying commissions and pre-bono or speculative design work. Cradle to Cradle offers an optimistic view of both industry and the environment that architects should always keep in mind as they chose and combine materials. How long will the building last? Will it melt back into the earth like some of New Mexico’s earthen architecture? Will it be built of plastics that can be recycled into other industrial processes when the building is no longer needed? These are questions that architects can answer and put into practice to effect the political debates regarding environmental issues.

Works Cited

Bell and Wakeford, eds. Expanding Architecture. New York: Metropolis Books,

2008.

Bruntland Commission. Toward Sustainable Development. 1987.

McDonough and Braungart. Cradle to Cradle. New York: North Point Press, 2002.

Koyaanisqatsi

1-When do you think the film was made? Why is the production date significant?

The film was made over six years, three of them spent in shooting and three of them working on the music. It was released in 1983.

The production date is significant because that is the context the film is responding to. The film responds to many controversial projects undertaken in the preceding decades. In the 1960’s Glenn Canyon Dam created Lake Powell, shown in the film. Pruit-Igoe was a large urban housing project completed in 1955 and torn down in 1972. The demolition could be seen as a symbol of the end of modern architecture. People were probably reflecting on whether they were really making progress (one of the underlying ideas of the Modernist movement).

2-How is nature represented?

Nature is a resource which our current systems survive off of. We use it. Kayaanisqatsi means “life out of balance” in the Hopi language. The new nature is out of balance. Near the beginning of the film are shots of pictographs. Then we see a desert landscape with rock formations. A few shots later we see a similar desert landscape with rock formations, now covered with water. This is lake Powell and the rock formations and culture contained there within (pictographs) are now drown by this water.

Nature is used for mass-agriculture, mining, and bomb detonations among others. We see water in the film and we see how its power is tapped with dams. Land and air are polluted by industrial gases and discarded material.

Technology has become part of the landscape, in some cases dominating it. For example, power lines in the foreground of the film look large relative to the scale of the desert. Combine their heavy weight in the picture with the maniacal sounding music and the message is clear that we are throwing off some natural balance.

3-How are people represented?

People are represented as existing in the new nature and being oblivious to its realities. They are unaware of the effects of the systems they create and live within. For example, some people are shown sunbathing on a beach. Then the camera pans upward to reveal a nuclear power plant towering above them (San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station in southern California). They seem unaffected by the presence of a system in which a nuclear reaction takes place which produces the same amount of energy as the bombs shown in other frames of the movie.

People are surrounded by technology. They are shown in cars, in front of planes and trains, in front of the electric lights of Las Vegas, in busy cities, and inside of heavy industrial equipment. Technology is a ubiquitous reality, the new natural environment.

4-What is the role of humankind in the film?

Humankind seems to create and operate within a system of self-created circuitry. They race around the system at a constantly accelerating pace. They don’t actually make progress. Shots of computer chips immediately proceed aerial shots of cities, encouraging a comparison.

Time lapse photography showing transportation centers and freeways speeds up the activities of humans. We don’t know these anonymous people so we can not possibly know where they are going and why it may be important. Combine that with the fact that they are shown moving faster than in real time, and they look like they are racing around pointlessly.

5-What is (re)presented? How?

Nature and architecture are two things that are (re)presented.

Nature is represented as a system with balance and rhythms. The sun moves over a rock arch and the moths follow it. Day and night are naturally light and dark.

Architecture is shown in contrast, as a grid, which needs to be lit by artificial light so the occupants can work at any hour. The lights in the buildings turn on and off, at different times, on different floors, never all off at once, like the light from the sun as it circles the earth.

6-What is the objective/agenda of the film?

The objective/agenda is for people to devalue industry, be aware of themselves, and slow down. The film seems to say that we are off rhythm and out of balance with nature. Technology has become too ubiquitous. It affects our motion over the earth, our diet, our employment, and our leisure time. We are unaware we are slaves to a system we are creating. Are our lives better because of it? Is the planet better because of it. This film says no.

7-Do you recognize any of the places shown in the film?

I haven’t visited all the places in the film but I recognize some of them. Having lived in Utah and visited Canyonlands National Park, I recognize the shadow figures pictographs from images, although I haven’t seen them in person. I also recognized the image of Lake Powell.

8-Who/what is NOT represented?

People enjoying nature with the help of technology are not represented. For example, hikers, surfers, campers, skiers, and kayakers are not seen.

Architecture which houses a family, and provides warmth and privacy is not seen.

A person who is sitting with their family after being given a longer life after receiving a kidney transplant is not seen. An anxious bloody hand with an i.v. is seen which is only comforted by direct human touch.

9-What does the film have to do with:

Politics? It has a pro-environment, anti-industry agenda and supports people and parties in favor of these causes. It influences people to favor these causes by the way it frames nature, technology, and people.

Culture? It frames our culture in a way which may cause us to examine our values. It shows us staring in awe at skyscrapers and also the water which covered up ancient art.

Architecture? Our steel superstructures are destroying our natural rhythms and mining earth’s resources. They destroy our natural rhythms. Also, it seems to be a waste of material. A huge housing development was demolished 16 years after construction, which failed to solve or even help our social problems.

Power? The machines seem to have the power and we are a slave to their patterns. For example, navigating traffic and sorting bologna and Twinkies are how some people spend their days doing repetitive actions, pushing and pulling, stopping and starting.

Technology/science? Inspires awe but is really disintegrating value in our lives.