here is a string of patched together thoughts on beauty

1. From ‘Wow Hows the House Now’ by M J Latham
here is a string of patched together thoughts on beauty from 'wow hows the
house now' (available from bookshops). It's an endless string so pull out when you get
bored ..... here's to local architecture ..... (PS if you need to look up ‘ecopicality’, refer the
Dazzlers Dictionary’ in the book}
 The magic of a home locale. There is MORE TO THE AWESOME BEAUTY of the world
than merely visual beauty. The kinetic wonder of a glaciated valley. The spatial vastness of a
plain. The path of some llamas. Our vision and sense of the original environment is obscured by
the erected building, albeit made of the playdough of the Earth anyway. Obscured simultaneously
are the neighbouring encamped tribesmen living in unison with the land. Change is one thing.
Loss is another. This lost awesome original magnificence should be replaced, compensated, the
loss minimised; compensated by replacement aesthetics and environmental engineering – to some
reasonable degree. People and animals gain immense motivation and satisfaction from this
magnificence. Beauty is power. Ask my wife. So is aura. Ask the flora.
 “All building distils into FIRMNESS, COMMODITY AND DELIGHT. But an oasis, of any
form, gives delight,” the little pig tells the llama. My Reader please note in readiness;
‘familiarity’ breeds all three - contempt, comfort and simple acceptance. Now; ingenuity of
design allows the disciplining of ‘familiarity’, to avoid the ‘contempt’ and allow the ‘comfort’. In
concert the llama verbally imagines, “Ingenuity gives delight; and beauty gives joy.” Hmm, yes,
it thinks, “Land context aside, to be delightful the form of a house in all its intricacy must convey
cleverness; whether it be wit or sheer handiness. Otherwise it is simply okay and not particularly
delightful; except in its innocent simplicity during simple use.” “Well,” snorted the pig in the
matter-of-fact face of the llama, “knock me over, roll me in flour and call me Daisy!! And I
thought I was telling you something!!”
 A house is a house, but a BEAUTIFUL HOUSE IS A BEAUTIFUL HOUSE. It is more of a
house - we thrive on beauty. Beauty though is relative to practical reality, circumstance, emotion,
ownership, ‘seeing’ and romance. Beauty is not necessarily expensive Taj Mahal style design and
it is often adequate in a vase of flowers among ordinary appearances, a visual moment to carry
one through the plain hallway. A house with abundant beauty is a tremendous success. One with
minimal beauty is probably a sign of a dweller needing creative company to assist the action on
the daily housing frontier. Or maybe the window’s holographic wallpaper effect provides all the

2. beauty required and therefore the person is encouraged away from the inward-looking trap of
interior.
 Sometimes we let the natural integrity of structure carry the day for the beauty we need and
simply make best use of the space it allows – form following function. Their eyes seem shut and
bolted against the economies of nature and flowing ergonomics. A MAJOR ASPECT OF
BEAUTY IS PRACTICALITY.
 Taste in our dwelling designs - conceptions of beauty and
expression, relative to society. WE NEED BEAUTY. It has meaning. It is legible as a social
document - interpretable. Taste is beauty that is interpretable by community and dweller together.
Some beauty is purely personal or family-based; professional architects may not manage this.
Taste relates to locale and epoch; to accepted sets of aesthetic values - vogue. As part of objective
design, taste strives for our timeless universal values. Taste is tested in our response to décor,
surface, essence and substance. The prominence of taste in societal values gives a clear notion of
practicality to this aesthetic, this emotional relationship between people and the world. Avant
garde, vogue, timeless, ordinary, different. “Monte I love you for saying that!!” I hate to say it
Little White Cloud, but, it’s just professional knowledge. I rather liked it too. Unfortunately, taste
is not as securely urbane as it was. Machinery, electricity and money have been allowed to
devalue taste as a societal binding force, where it is provided by both architecture and fashion.
People stuck between the megamonster and the divine logician. Science and invention often
dominate creative faculty. Creativity should be first and science the servant. Socio-cultural
matters should lead engineering. Conform the engineering to the social. “Design in these
conditions is too difficult, building too easy,” said our world’s greatest architect. “That’d be
right,” smirks Cheekyfella. Slowly, through the future shock, we find new aesthetic integrities,
solutions to suit the storm of industrial forms, materials and processes and the greedy pace.
Design evolves with society and technology but sometimes evolve is too good a word - warps,
leaving warts.
 ECONOMY IS KEY TO BEAUTY and balance in life. Picasso knew. I think it is this ‘look’
that sparks the Minimalist style of architecture – wholistic - balanced for all values-minimalism is
a different thing.
 YOUR INTELLECTUAL UNDERSTANDING OF YOUR HOUSE INFLUENCES YOUR
VISION OF ITS BEAUTY. It is similar for another’s vision of your own house. And in addition
the psychologies of each, the indigenous nomad, the street dweller and the opulent urban resident,
are very different one from another. Driver Pale arrogantly notes this, whilst Cheeky Talkabout
alights from the bus at his mob’s temporary smog-free urban-edge encampment. As Global’s

3. naive despicable thoughts of the houseless camp increase a lust for his new highly plasticated
floor, his face, usually just ghostly, turns a whiter shade of pale.
 There is some DESIGNER CONTROL of the cultural persuasions of our houses. Houses can
be made to express specific whims or disciplines. Cultural cringe, culturally inept, uneducated,
punk, eccentric, ego, the good bad ugly, Art Deco, the architects frustrations with all of these in
his clients, and vice versa the clients wonder too. Houses, boxes, suburban layout, community
layout, urbane design. We aren’t looking good – over all. We are beginning to look uglier and we
seem to be taking the gentle and the meek away from their inheritance. Not all. Only most.
Sustainability is coming into the spirit of culture. Building only that which at least seems to be
sustainable within balanced ecology. Sustainability - the beauty of nature, an ecopical aesthetic to
be expressed. Very quickly, urgently, please.
 THE SPIRIT OF THE ACTION; a key to doing it well. Simple brave integrity exercised in
fabricating your house, or just in daily decor, shows up as awesome beauty. The beholding eye of
the house buyer, however, may not see the beauty; being unenlightened of the romance as to how
the appearance came about.
 Like limbs and roots from the stem of a tree, paths moving out about from and to our
residential place add LIVING BEAUTY to its nurtures and garden.
 Colour in our buildings influences mood and feeling. It contributes to the immeasurable
MOTIVATIONAL BEAUTY in the world; the land, cosmos, buildings and interiors.
 Vernacular building, and taste, is based on native locale; usually the product of generations of
‘inexpert’ lay development. It has a BEAUTY LIKE THAT OF LOCAL PEOPLE AND
LANGUAGE.
 These ‘cities’, with their remote outposts, urbs, surveys and houses are mutually protocoled to
sit happily organically and spiritually within the nomadic realms. And the nomadic realms within
them. With this, ecopicality is uncovered; an urgent modern way of dancing the Housefandango
and the first-principles mindset that includes ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY ALSO
FOR ITS ETHIC, BEAUTY AND LIFESTYLE.
 ECOLOGY is akin to environmental beauty. A sacred harmony. Easily crushed by a naked ape
with a bulldozer and a drum of chemo-waste. What potential harm can a polyester carpet do to the
world? Trees to wood, to wall. Ore to waste. Ecology, sustainability. Natural rhythms, patterns,
cycles, wonders. Rich auras of fields of grass. Beauty. In our ability to modify nature lies the
responsibility of a caretaker-cum-cosmetic-surgeon – mayor-cum-architect. Cottage in a valley,
house in a street, suburb in a valley, a town full of streets. This all; ecopically made, carefully
made with a balanced regard for the environment itself and its components and its benefit to us.

4. We are also components of the environment, like the tribesmen. We do this. This is beautiful. A
swallow's nest is beautiful. But swallows do not plague.
 Wilderness heritage, environmental ecology, beauty and recreation are the reasons for land
conservation. Simple domestic righteousness. Very often we want these in close accessible and
enjoyable proximity to our crowded residential areas. We need to limit and coordinate built
growth in locales to enhance the land, not to consume it; for our own pleasure and wellbeing and
that of ecology and creatures. The deep and meaningful delights and motivations of the land are
invaluable. The house introduces a new aesthetic element. It must be sympathetic, if it is to be.
Nature’s earthy nurtures is married by our synthetic aesthetic. WE WOULD NEVER BUILD IN
GRAND CANYON, on Uluru, One Tree Hill or put a house boat on the local swimming hole but
we have over-ridden some very beautiful places with our houses, gardens, roads and residential
industry. Your site is your vote in the land – in the country, in a city or at sea.
 Doing it right. There is A MESSAGE IN THE ZEN OF MOTORCYCLE maintenance and
many other philosophies that link environmental intervention and personal actualisation. Unlike
the mechanical truths of motorcycles, Lancaster bombers and structural physics; the aspects of
décor, conservation, taste, tidiness and aesthetics can be affected by ‘seeing’. ‘Seeing’ is doing.
‘See’ the broken-down bathroom drawer in the perspectives of your efforts, passions,
responsibilities and potentials, unbiased by the predilection of social norm or the expectation of a
visitor. You may ‘see’ a perfect justification for this drawer-of-some-character in your house that
serves you well. Bugger off with the snappy interior designer’s upturned nose – Cheeky might
say. You only wish the designer could ‘see’ the beauty of that drawer as you see it – a sow’s ear
working perfectly. When the time is right you will see that the drawer should now be straight. In
the meantime let it lean a lintel.
 As Global Pale is blind to the finesse of ECO-SENSITIVE BEAUTY, many are blind to the
cultural essence of simple indigenous dwelling.
 Ecopical attitudes and actions, having no scope, beyond controlled compromise, for deviance,
will convert the playdough into tame balanced urban solutions. Thus, providing variously an
abundance of health-giving natural physicality; nature’s earthy nurtures. And with it domestic
room as a basis for settlement that is sensitive to environmental BEAUTY, creature habitats,
ecology and nomadic realm.