RCBC PLAZA, Makati City

2nd Runner-up for New and Exisiting Buildings Category
ASEAN Energy Awards 2003 for Energy Efficient Buildings

Competition or Cooperation?

I'm a realist get me out of here!
Unreality TV as you’ve never seen it before
- Story Board by Polyp


 New Internationalist Magazine 368 June 2004 

Mahatma Gandhi

I have just finished reading The Essential Gandhi edited by Louis Fischer.  It is an anthology of writings by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, otherwise known as Mahatma Gandhi, with editorial notes by Louis Fischer, a journalist and biographer. 

 
 
From what little I have read about Gandhi, I gather that he was a seeker of truth and a believer of love.  He was also a human being and a product of his place and time, but one who managed to transcend so many limitations despite it all.  His written thoughts are intimate, frank, reassuring, and altogether inspiring.  This was a man who truly knew how to love, in the best sense of the word.

I used to think that people who imagined that love would save us all were delusional.  I still do.  I have begun to realize that all of us are, in one way or another, imagining the world out of what little we know.  The search for truth merely provides a way to make sense of it all, and different people search for different things.  The previous owner of the book wrote an interesting question at the very last page:  "Why does Gandhi believe love is the strongest force in the world?"  I cannot help but ask myself the same question.  After some thought, I have come to the conclusion that the answer entirely depends on one's ever-changing definition of love, and this is the best answer I can think of at the moment:  love is a compulsion to create and sustain life - and life is the very reason why we are all here.

Lecture About Sustainable Design Innovations by Max Lindegger

The lecture, entitled Sustainable Design Innovations for Tomorrow's Communities, was held July 16, 2004 at the Social Science Building of the Ateneo University in Katipunan Quezon City. The main speaker, Max. O. Lindegger, a Director at Ecological Solutions, Pty. Ltd. and the founding Director of the International Global Village Network, is an ecological community developer and consultant with an engineering background. 

In his lecture and slide presentation, Lindegger described a number of alternative communities in rural, suburban, and urban areas in Oceania, Europe, and the Americas, including the World Habitat Award winning Crystal Waters in subtropical Eastern Australia.  He also explained concepts such as the restoration of brownfield sites, urban and suburban infill, rammed earth construction, solar energy, wastewater recycling, permaculture, and other sustainable design innovations.  All in all, he emphasized a holistic approach to sustainable design, to address both social and spiritual needs in addition to the universal need for clean air, water, land and food. Finally, Lindegger shared his dream of an integrated suburban and rural culture that essentially lives within its means.  Lindegger ended his lecture with an invitation to contact or visit him at Crystal Waters.   


The lecture was organized by the United Architects of the Philippines Green Architecture Movement, the Philippine Business for the Environment, and the Ateneo University Environmental Science Department. 

Have you...

Have you ever imagined turning the world upside-down?
I do not mean literally turning everything upside down, but changing the positions of different people, places, and things.
Surprisingly, a great many things do not seem so out of place.