Summer 2014 is here.

Can you feel the spirit of mother earth? You should. It is your home. You share it with over 7 billion other humans and millions of other living species. Put your thoughts, time, and money, into positive actions to improve our planet. Humans need to remember that our actions affect all other living systems on this planet. Do you know what your Carbon Footprint is? Do you know what a Carbon Footprint is? Go on line to: -http://www.carbonclix.com/calculator or http://carbonfootprint.c2es.org/ to find out. See what you can do each day to reduce your impact. It could be you who is the tipping point on global warming. You can save someone else by your actions. Let’s reduce our negative effects on climate change. It could be someone in your family now or in the future that you are rescuing from the repercussions of weather change.

Earth Day is here, April 22, 2014. Look at it as a soul searching day. How are we taking care of the earth? What have you/we done to improve life for the next and future generations? The concept of looking out 7 generations is still very much alive, for as we live, we effect the environment. I hope you think about this daily, I know I do. This is a life philosophy for me. I think everyone should put their thoughts, actions, time, and money into positive actions to improve the situation on the planet. As a teenager I used to think, “Why are my grandparents and parents generation allowing the air to be so polluted?” “Why, after all the wars that were fought, are people still being treated so poorly around the world?” “Why was the population on Earth expanding at such a rapid speed that food and water were going to be limited?” As I grew up and began to vote, these thoughts were on my mind. We all need to give back as we are able. We all need to think of the Earth as a complex integrated chemical system that works in balance for each living entity. Life is beautiful. Humans need to remember that our actions affect all other living systems on the planet.

You hear on the news every day that farmers are having problems obtaining water for their crops and that in the years to come you will be spending more money on buying energy. The top 1% can buy their way out of any calamity, up to a point. The less fortunate are at the mercy of their environment and their government. If you are starving and you have no water to grow crops, your only choice is to hope for assistance from your government, other governments, or to move. In Syria, the farming community chose civil war in hopes of changing their government to get assistance. Their need to move causes neighboring communities to experience large amounts of population growth, thus disturbing their balanced economic system and using a greater amount of their natural resources. So you see how our actions lead to populations of discontented people with lack of water and food. They are easily manipulated into civil strife and aggression toward those that have. This leads to war or terrorism.

Times have changed. In most cases you can no longer just go to the city and get all of your government sign off needs in one shot. No more napkin plans as in the old days. The building plan check itself is not the time consuming issue. If you do a good job preparing your plans, obtaining the sign offs needed should be completed with one set of corrections and then approved. However, this is not necessarily true. It depends on the plan checkers. One department can make you change the drawings that then need to be rechecked by another plan checker; i.e. planning, cultural affairs, accessibility, green/sustainability issues, fire, and building departments. Different departments might be in entirely different locations and time schedules

As an architect I have always looked into what a site and or building will accept as its natural response to a specific use, as well as how it will function in its environment and how its aesthetic will express itself in its community. The options are usually endless but the use sets the direction. There will probably be a sweet spot just for the main attraction, the corporate leaders or the master bedroom. Sometimes this is the board room or the living room. But, there are many issues that will affect those and or many other options.

These are just a few of the design parameters that affect a design. Protecting the health, safety, and welfare of society is what Architects are charged with. One must lead to have this result! Health, safety and welfare are directly a result of choices. The big picture starts with the quality of earth (our land), air, water, and fire (energy) that exists. They are what our lives revolve and evolve around. Human choices affect these entities.

As citizens and design professionals we need to think in terms of NET-ZERO uses of these elements. I don't mean Net-Zero the famous free-internet-access company, I mean the idea that the net result of what one takes from the environment less what the architect adds to the environment with their careful design and materials usage should be zero. Designing out of the box, using existing knowledge that used to be common or new ideas that lead to more resource friendly choices are what the norm should be. The status quo is not working. Our environment is being depleted of its many gifts to us.