The dining room and solarium at Full Bloom
There’s a quiet revolution going on in different pockets and niches of the planet right now and it falls under blanket terms such as “natural building”, “Green Homes”, and “Ecological Design”. The general theme is the incorporation of more natural materials and patterns into architectural design and home building. Over the past 8 years at Full Bloom we’ve been experimenting and exploring different principles of natural building and the one I’m most intrigued by is the art of creating a sense of belonging in homes and buildings. Its a thoroughly intangible concept, “belonging”, and yet I believe that if we pay attention to how we feel as we enter a certain building we can gauge the degree of belonging we feel. This can be done by simply asking ourselves: “Do I want to stay here?”, “Do I feel nourished by being in this space?”, “Do I feel at ease in this space?”. Then listening for an answer.
There are so many factors that determine the answer to that question and its also a very subjective experience, yet the point is for those questions to be asked early on in the design process. To the best of our ability we have asked those questions during the designing of the buildings here and have come up with the best answers possible. That being said, we continue to learn so much about what design components facilitate ease and comfort, exploring everything from how sunlight enters a building over the course of the day, how sound travels within a building, how to create semi-private nooks for people to have conversations, how to bring more natural curves and emblems of nature like timbers, or stain glass nature images into a building.
Stain Glass installed by our generous neighbor depicting the countryside of the Little Applegate Valley.
My belief is that as humans we have a fundamental desire to be surrounded by beauty, by patterns that are easy on our senses, that make us feel at home. When we are deprived of such beauty and ease our moods go south so to speak, we can feel depressed, lost, confused not realizing in may have something to do with the space we are living or working in. But that’s just my humble opinion and inquiry.
“In contrast to how a child belongs in the world, adult belonging is never as natural, innocent, or playful. Adult belonging has to be chosen, received, and renewed. It is a lifetime’s work.” – John O’Donohue
Thanks for reading,
Ryan ryan@fullbloomcenter.com
