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There are three essential factors in all human activity: spirit, materials, and action.
Every decently-made object, from a house to a lamp post to a bridge, spoon or egg cup, is not just a piece of 'stuff' but a physical embodiment of human energy, testimony to the magical ability of our species to take raw materials and turn them into things of use, value and beauty.
In order to govern, the question is not to follow out a more or less valid theory but to build with whatever materials are at hand. The inevitable must be accepted and turned to advantage.
What I learned from architectural drafting is that everything has to have a plan to work. You just can't wing it. I can't get all the materials I need for a house and just start building. Whether it's a career, family, life - you have to plan it out.
The space industry is developing and delivering benefits that tie into our immediate needs and priorities here on Earth-for example, medical and materials research, and satellite communications.
If you look at the ecological circuitry of this planet, the ways in which materials like carbon or sulfur or phosphorous or nitrogen get cycled in ways that makes them available for our biology, the organisms that do the heavy lifting are bacteria.
The physical fabric of the world had to be such as to enable that ten billion year preliminary evolution to produce the raw materials of life. Without it there would not have been the chemical materials to allow life to evolve here on earth.
Good buildings make and are made by their settings, and they are appropriately different in different locations. Climate, culture, topography and materials have helped create regional architectural languages that seem curiously right for their locations and for all times.
I have always appreciated those who dare to experiment with materials and proportions.
In a world where so much happens through computer screens, making a meal by hand, touching the raw materials, feeling your way through a recipe, tasting, adjusting, engaging all the senses, can be a soothing release.