Organic architectural maestro Frank Lloyd Wright once famously decreed that houses should be of the hill, not on the hill. Look around you and see how many architects get this so wrong. Like wind farms so many houses stick out on the landscape like sore thumbs - irritating not consoling. Offending not inspiring.

For years I've had an "irrational" passion for hills. I paint them, I photograph them, I sit on them, I walk barefoot upon them, I touch them. I've had a similar passion for wood, nature, rocks, rivers and skies.....but oooohhh the joy of discovery when I realise I can blend my passion in the wonderful forms of organically created architecture - of the land, non on the land.

It still seems incredible to believe that after many years dreaming of indulging my passion for healthy, happy homes and organic design that the opportunity to study architecture full time should have come up. That is real-time testimony to the creative power of passion.


Partly it began when over eight years ago I picked up a book “New Organic Architecture: the breaking wave” at the library, by best selling author, organic architect and city planner David Pearson. I still remember the thrill I got each time I read the text and poured over the images. Here was something that fed my soul, something I understood, something I believed in with such a passion that now, eight years, later designing organic homes will become my reality.

Two years prior to this I had abandoned my interior architecture degree to support my daughter after the ending of my relationship. Now she is happily settled at Canterbury University I am free to create again – only this time with a focus on both the exterior and interior architecture of space.

Pursuing ones passion is not easy. It often requires great sacrifice – I’ve had to rent out my home to make my shift to full time study affordable. The good news is, tho, that I couldn’t have wished for better tenants – a wonderful family from Rome.

“Organic architecture”, says David Pearson, “is rooted in a passion for life, nature, and natural forms, and is full of the vitality of the natural world with it’s biological forms and processes. Emphasising beauty and harmony, its free-flowing curves and expressive form are sympathetic to the human body, mind and spirit, in a well designed “organic” building we feel better and freer.”


This is so true. There is something inherently “right” about houses designed around organic principals – the materials are less poisonous, the angles less vicious, the air less toxic.... and oh the beauty of being safely enclosed within its walls.

You can follow this exciting journey as I take a big career leap and pursue my passion for architecture here
- there's lots of real time tips to help anyone contemplating a big change in career

What to see someone who is living and working with his passion for rocks? No one is more passionate about stones than my dear friend Carl Gifford – affectionately known as Carlucci. Check him out here or visit him in person at the fabulous Carlucci Land!


Great links

Check out the following organic architecture sites:
California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture www.calearth.org

Ecological Design Association – http://www.edra.org/

Ecological Design Institute – http://www.ecodesign.org/

Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation – www.franklloydwright.org

San Francisco Institute of Architecture – www.sfia.net

The Earth Center www.earthcentre.org.uk


Want to know more about “The soft and hairy house?” Intrigued by Salvador Dali's provocative statement about architecture of the future, the clients - a young couple of architectural journalists - had commissioned a "soft and hairy" house from Japanese architect Eisaku Ushida and English architect Kathryn Findlay, “Covered with a carpet of wild grasses - the same species growing on the surrounding wasteland - the house, which is entwined around its patio, was conceived as an embodiment of the couple: the body of the man and the body of the woman coiled around the body of the child represented by the womblike shape of the bathroom.” Click here to learn more



For other useful information, search the Internet under “Organic Architecture.”

Stay posted as I begin my own organic architectural project to convert my garage to a studio and apartment! Very exciting!

The Architecture of Happiness – “One of the great, but often unmentioned, causes of both happiness and misery is the quality of our environment: the kind of walls, chairs, buildings and streets we’re surrounded by.” Read, watch and listen to more about philosopher Alian De Botton’s research into the architecture of happiness

Labels: architecture