Fountain Hills - Design a la Carte

It was in 2005 when my creative juices were ignited and the frustrated architect inside me woke up to great adventures. I was asked to complete a pretty basic 2500 sq ft house with 2 acres of land in Arizona bordering a national park. The house was build right in the middle of the lot and looked a bit lost. What was missing, was an inviting front yard, a secluded backyard and a separate family room.

This property is located on a gentle hill, hence the supporting walls which you can see on these 3d architectural drawings.

The front yard with fountain

As you know AZ is pretty hot at times. What I wanted to achieve with the additions is a place of "welcome" and refreshment when approaching the entrance/front door in the middle of the house. There are trees and a small fountain and a pergola across the additional family room, dividing the front yard from the back yard.

I added a tower to make it more obvious to where the main entrance is located...

The pergola leading to the front door

Pretty amazing to see the finishing product like this. Technology is just so helpful to see how ideas can become reality... My friend Wayne Parker in Cape Town created them according to

my hand drawn designs.

a bird's eye view. The sun terrace

In order to use space to the fullest, my idea was to have a sun-upper or -downer meditation deck on top of the additional family room, which you can reach from the pool area. Up there the views were spectacular 360 degrees, and the space could be graced with desert pot plants and a comfortable sitting arrangement.

bird's eye into the private pool area

The wall at the end of the pool is a cascading waterfall, blocking the views from the neighbours. And right next to it you can see a chimney from the outside under cover fireplace area leading to the outside jacuzzi accessible from the master bedroom and the pool - all well set back from the views of the neighbours and protected against wild animal intrusion ;-)

The guest room backyard with fireplace

To complete this home, I added another patio adjacent to one of the 3 bedrooms with a separate entrance behind the house, in order to be able to give guests some privacy, or to welcome clients when used as an office. The little shed was meant to be for garden tools and air conditioners...

What a pity that I could not see the house in completion. But the designing and drawing was such an inspiring, fulfilling and uplifting process... I would do it over and over again! Studying desing was worth every penny...

The Power of Creation 1

Evolving into my Mastery of Self in Service, I am coming across more and more like minded people. It seems like a silent (r)evolution of Beings and their higher purpose bridging over the currents of fear, terror, depression, stagnation, denial and hopelessness. Bridging between imagination, belief and our reality. "Enough is enough "is be one of the many building blocks,

"it's time for change" another one.

As Gregg Braden and many others have stated: new discoveries suggest that our world is the mirror of our beliefs. We are currently limited by our beliefs. And what we once believed is about to change!

What is called for now is the POWER OF CREATION, of creativity, of understanding that everything in our world is connected to everything else.

"The ancient mystics like Rumi reminded our hearts, and modern experiments have proven to our minds, that the single most powerful force in the universe lives within each of us.

And that is the great secret of creation itself:

the power to create in the world what we imagine in our beliefs.

it may sound too simple to be true,

I believe that the universe works precisely this way."

Gregg Bradden in The Divine Matrix.

We ARE NOT separate and we ARE NOT stuck. On the contrary! We might believe it. Yet - the truth is that we have CHOICES. We can choose to let go of limiting fears and step into the fullness of possibilities. And somehow we do already have a sense that we have more to offer then what we have brought to the table so far... Isn't it true?! Just think for a moment about these brilliant ideas you had... Where did they go?

Applying the knowing of having choices and being creative to our living and working spaces - WOW, I cannot even imagine the outcome...

Instead of limiting ourselves to rights or wrongs, to should bes and have to bes, we cross over to the league of the free spirits giving imagination a fair chance.

This all can happen in baby steps. No sweat. It also can be a huge leap into the unknown..

Just take the evolution in architecture!

In 2007 Chris Davies stated that "current fashion in architecture seems split between designing buildings that stand out in their surroundings and make a statement, and buildings that blend into the environment and whose statement is more about living harmoniously with what was already there. The problem with the latter, perhaps, is that in preserving the location you sometimes have to compromise the design of your construction. As technology and building materials advance, however, innovative ways to maximise living space and have a home in-keeping with nature are becoming more accessible and imaginative."

This forest home designed by 24H architecture sits happily within its natural setting, and yet its occupants aren’t denied the space or light by compromise. The end section extends out, revealing a bank of windows and giving more internal room. It’s a beautiful and clever idea, and the choice of materials give it an art-like quality as well as making it renewable.

I can imagine myself sitting in this inspiring place!

Want to know more? There’s a video of it in action over at their site: http://www.dragspelhuset.com/

A Better Life Through Mindful Interiors

GOOD NEWS!

We do not need to wait until we have tackled our deeper issues, which are holding us back from living a life fulfilled! The way our homes look and feel can also have an intimate impact on the overall quality of our life.

This is a concept which may not seem obvious at first, and yet when we come to realize what a home really means on a psychological, a functional, and even a spiritual level, the influence which this space has on our life can suddenly become very clear.

One of the major aspects of a home is that it is a place where we feel safe to let our guards down. When our mind is in such a state of relaxation, it tends to become more open to the absorption and exchange of ideas, thoughts, dreams and visions, to truth telling and being vulnerable - and to influence from outside elements. This means that the visual and emotional aspects of our homes are going to have a rather profound effect on our overall psyche.

Even more than just affecting our minds psychologically, our home is actually a part of how we think of our self as a person. Everyone has a concept of Self, and the way we define that concept in our head is made up of a number of different factors including our cultural backgrounds, our education, our job, our family, and even something as innocuous as the way we dress.

One of the major factors in this determination is the state of our home. Being the physical manifestation of our personal world, the look and more importantly, the feel of our personal habitat is a major element in any determination of character.

Since our home has such a deep impact on our personality, we should strive to make it an environment which fosters the kind of person we want to be!

If we tend to be anxious and stressed out, getting violently angry at every little setback, we may want to develop a space which is a tranquil paradise of peace and relaxation. However, if we are lethargic and unmotivated, finding it difficult to get up the energy to do almost anything in life, then we may want to try and create a home full of interesting and inspiring elements, bold colors, and invigorating decorative pieces.

While these subtle personality effects are powerful, the function of our home has an even more obvious impact on our day to day lives. Anyone who has ever lost their keys in a cluttered kitchen knows that the wrong environment at home can have a negative impact on our ability to get things done in life. In its simplest form, the home is where we keep all of our possessions. Some of the things we own are worthless, others are priceless, and everything else falls somewhere in between.

The problem is that many people don't have a strategy for incorporating all of these different elements into a space. The result is often chaos, with useless decorative mementos making it impossible to find anything we need, or important functional items being placed in prominent unattractive places so that they will not be lost.

This is a situation which could be easily cured by simply getting a little more organized.

Our home also affects our function because it is a location we can use for a variety of purposes. We can conduct business meetings there, have an intimate date at home, or throw parties or family reunions where we reconnect with the people we care about. However, our ability to pull off events such as these will be determined largely by the appearance and state of our home.

If we are trying to conduct business we will need a space that has a formal appearance, while throwing a party makes having a home with lots of space and good flow vital.

The function of relationships with other people is actually the most important way our habitat can affect our life. While it is possible to live in isolation, the part of life which has the deepest meaning is when we connect with other people.

If the spaces in our home are inviting and make others feel comfortable, it will automatically make our social life easier. Even if we prefer to party at someone else's place, we will still want to have people over on occasion, even if it is just to meet. When they get there, their concept of who we are will be affected by the way we live.

A home is an environment that exerts an enormous amount of influence over how we live our lives. Luckily, we can control this environment, making decorative and functional changes as our goals change from day to day. In this way we can exert a subtle influence over the world around us, and our self, through the simple application of a little interior mindfulness.

Gracing Places - What does it mean?

What exactly does that mean? Gracing Places....?

"Grace" is originally defined in Scripture as something that teaches us how to live!
I chose to take a vantage point which encompasses also the physical manifestation of our Selves, i.e. the places where we practise our lives, in which our lives are projected.

In order to get a better understanding of gracing a space, here are some definitions , I have found, which represent my work:

(Greek mythology) one of three sisters who were the givers of beauty and charm; favorite subject for sculptors.

Beauty, physical, intellectual, or moral; loveliness; commonly, easy elegance of manners; perfection of form.

To adorn; to decorate; to embellish and dignify.

A characteristic or quality pleasing for its charm or refinement.

Elegance and beauty of movement or expression.

A disposition to kindness and compassion; being good will.

Giving Thanks.



According to Metaphysical teachings, like The Science of Mind, Grace is "the Givingness of Spirit to Its Creation and is not a special law, but a specialized one. In other words, Grace is, but we need to recognize it. It is the logical result of the correct acceptance of life and of a correct relationship to the Spirit...."


In my Mastery of Self in Service, I am envisioning a new physical manifestation of our awareness for peace, love and freedom, for beauty and possibilities, creativity, integrity and truth; because we are at the verge to loose our integrity, with the loss of personal values. Jamie Sams calls the development to greed and negligence of basic spiritual and human values, replaced by money and power, as the "marketplace souls".
Bigger houses, bigger cars, more of this and that.

Change is happening from inside out. And change is always seen in the physical representation of it. If we choose truth telling and healing, healthy human beings, nature and environments will be visible again. Beauty, physical, intellectual, or moral; loveliness; commonly, easy elegance of manners; perfection of form; in other words - Grace - will have its presence back.
What a joy to serve in this field of evolution....