Our mission is to promote the beauty and functionality of straw bale building and other appropriate and efficient methods by organically designing to bring inspiration, identity, and awareness to our clients.
Organicforms Design practices ecologically and artistically based, or in other words "organic" design. The term "organic" was coined historically by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright in the late 19th century to describe an architecture that is as individual as the people who experience it, one that looks to nature as a model for design, and one that is appropriate for both the client and the site, and in nearly every instance, improves both.
Organicforms Design looks to nature and the spirit in music, as primary influences and models that don a project or building with a sense of belonging and a compelling transition to the space surrounding it. A building or space should provide more than just shelter and protection from the elements. It should inspire and provide identity and awareness about who you are. I feel that architecture embodies the human condition; it truly is a metaphor for where we are as human beings. While growing up, I watched the systematic infiltration of the "urban sprawl", quite like a virus, overtake the entire landscape of southern California. Everybody seemed to think it was swell, but I couldn't help feeling that something was wrong.
Modern architecture and design has come to the point of just slapping a "style" on a building, packaging it, and marketing it to the masses. Choosing a "style" in order to bring control or appeal to a building may create an aesthetically pleasing façade, but it also acts to disconnect the building from the "essence" of the inhabitants. By that I mean, the Parthenon in Greece is a truly magnificent work of architecture, yet it does not relate quite as much to the culture in Greece today as it did when it was constructed. Organic Architecture is not just about creating buildings, it is about creating space; space to inspire, space to enhance your senses, and space to bring awareness. Think about the last time you were in a truly great building. How did it feel different from a building designed merely for occupation or shelter? How did everything relate to everything else?, What feelings and emotions were stirred? These questions go into every one of our designs whether it is for a deck in your back yard or for your new home!
I grew up in Costa Mesa, California. At the tail end of high school in 1989 I discovered the "magic" of music. It became my life. I would go through great lengths (and distances) to experience it. It made me feel more alive then ever. It brought me out of my home and out into the world. It moved me to Berkeley, CA in 1993 where I finished school at San Francisco State University with a B.A. in Liberal Arts (focusing on drawing and music) and a minor in Philosophy of Religion, in 1996. After that, I did some more traveling around the states and even throughout Europe. In 1997, I went over to Asia for six months. I trekked through Nepal for a month, was enchanted by India for four months and relaxed in Thailand for a month. It was a trip that made me truly appreciate on many levels the world we live in.
Over this time, I was living and working in Berkeley. From 1995 to 1999, I worked in a collective called Berkeley Worms. We were a student-initiated group contracted out by Cal Berkeley, to pick up all the food waste from the seven dormitories (about 800 lbs. per day) and compost it on a site donated by the university. We experimented with many ways of composting and found that worms produced the most valuable product. So we went to the drawing table to design a worm box that will allow us to do this on a large scale. Degge Hayes and I designed and developed a prototype that we tested for six months. It processed 150 to 200 lbs. of waste per week and it separated the worms from the finished product, which before hand constituted 40% of our labor. We received a grant to build forty boxes. I worked as construction manager and primary builder for 6 months. The boxes were 4'x8'x4', and constructed almost entirely of salvaged materials.
After that project was up and running, I decided it was time to go back to school. But I didn't know what for. I wanted to integrate all of the past 10 years of traveling, music, drawing, and environmental consciousness into a career. That is when I discovered Ecological design at the San Francisco Institute of Architecture - A small school in downtown San Francisco that specializes in organic architecture, ecological and visionary design. Exactly what I was looking for. I attended classes there from the spring of 1999 until I graduated in the fall of 2001 with a Masters in Architecture and Ecological Design.
In the fall of 1999, I went to Arizona for six weeks on an internship with an ecological designer, Phil Hawes, in the town of Oracle, about thirty miles north of Tucson. He was the architect of the Biosphere II project back in the late 80's. He lives on some land there where he is doing numerous building projects. While there, I, along with two other students and Phil collaborated on the design and construction of a greenhouse, a constructed wetland for processing wastewater from the house, a 2000 gallon water cistern made out of ferro-cement, and the production of adobe bricks.
In the summer of 2000, I did a two-week internship at Frank Lloyd Wright's School of Architecture, Taliesin West, in Scottsdale, Arizona. While there, I studied the geometry of desert life on the site, just as Mr. Wright did back in the early 30's when he designed Taliesin. My project was a desert museum called the Four Elements Learning Center. It was modeled after the forms of the local desert.
In June of 2000 my daughter Willow Maya was born. We decided to move to Ashland, OR. In February of 2002, I was offered my first private job from Bill Kauth. He wanted me to design and build a meditation hut for him on his land. It was a very successful endeavor as the photos show. Since then I have worked on a number of projects including home remodels, landscape structures, waterscapes, stonework and the design of several straw bale homes throughout the country, and in May 2003 I began design on fifteen straw bale homes in Jacksonville, OR called the The Straw Bale Village. Check out my current and past Projects page.
