sensibilities remain “full-stomach philosophies” - a parent will always act to benefit their children first. The object of our development strategy is comprehensive affordability, in both socioeconomic and ecological terms. Rather than offering up another “silver bullet”, we look for a new architectural DNA that embeds permutation into a replication framework based on change and response-ability. Necessity is a mother as they say, and while we may need water, shelter, and a “defensible space” for kin, community and livelihood – we like choice, not social engineering. Nature likes substrate, so we asked what would a human substrate look like. for a succession of self-determinate settlement over time not a themed development. Unprecedented affordability would not comprise a breakthrough without absolute avoidance of social engineering or pre-determination of use, which is to say without compromising desirability. Our design is not a community development, but rather a middle topographic layer, or supra-infrastructure that couples the creation of it's own authentic location with an inherent carrying capacity to facilitate a succession of self-determined development. Necessity is a mother as they say, but it is also the root of authenticity in a living environment. Water, shelter, livelihood, a “defensible space” for kin and community, and space for individual expression may be better provided by a comprehensive substrate rather than a finished commodity

Describe the critical need your solution addresses.

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Explain your initiative in more depth and its stage of development.

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How does your strategy and approach respond creatively and comprehensively to key issues?

Scott Peterson is a Playground and Landscape designer/builder specializing in ferrocement structures, ecological design, and biological water treatment systems.
Bill and Helga Olkowski are biologists who have written and taught extensively including principal authorship of The Integral Urban House, Sierra Club Books 1979; The City Peoples Book of Raising Food, Rodale Press 1975; and Common Sense Pest Control, Taunton Press 1991. Bill and Helga have been convenors and served as directors and on the boards of Bio-Integral Resource Center, Ecology Center of Berkeley, NCAT, Farallones Institute, to name a few. They hold advanced degrees in biology and are considered experts in Integrated Pest Management and agroforestry.
Robin Marzi is nutritionist with an undergraduate degree from Berkeley and an advanced degree from Long Beach State. She specializes in the effects of diet on the endocrine system.