MISSING IN-PROCESS RENDERINGS RESURFACE, OF “ARCTURUS” RESIDENCE, TRAINING FACILITY, AND DESIGN/BIOLOGY/ECOLOGY LABORATORY, FOR EUGENE TSSUI, FAMILY, AND APPRENTICES, PLANNED IN 2017/2018, JUNIPER VALLEY, WEED, CALIFORNIA, USA.
This project, designed on 200 square acres in 2017, for northern California, was postponed because the water well digging turned-up dry after hitting a large boulder at 350 feet of depth. Construction permits cannot be issued, by law, unless there is an active water well on the building site.
Thus, the project was postponed in favor of developing the Mount Shasta Convention Center in Mount Shasta, California, just 50 feet from the north/south international freeway of I5, which starts in San Diego, California/Tijuana, Mexico, and ends in Vancouver, Canada.
This building is designed with four levels leading from the base of a natural hill. Because the winters are often very windy, with winds possibly reaching 150 mph, this mandated that the building be extremely aerodynamic and so it is shaped like a flying wing with a flying saucer-shaped viewing deck.
The building is used as an Olympic-level training facility, design, physiology, and biology development laboratory, and architecture office, so it is equipped with a 50 meter swimming pool and on-deck physical training areas. Film and music recording studio, archives, art gallery, work areas, and scientific laboratory facilities are located on a vertical support cylinder structure underneath the above-ground building. The underground temperatures and air-flow create a totally passive heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning system using what Dr. Tssui calls, a Biologic Ventilation System, or BVS, creating a true zero energy HVAC system, and working as nature would, doing no harm to the living environment. This system was developed with mechanical engineer, Trey Young, and will be utilized for the first time, in the Mount Shasta Convention Center building.
Additional Comments:
My hero is the beaver, whose structures and presence, enlivens the environment and makes it more fecund and able to grow and expand to attract and sustain greater varieties of plants, insects, birds, and animals. The beaver gives life with its presence and its architecture. Our architecture should do the same; it should give life, not suffocate it’s surroundings by paving over the land, spew poison CO2 into the air, rob the earth of water, and sequester human beings behind closed doors and sealed windows.
It is our own foolish arrogance that makes us human beings think we are superior to all other creatures on the planet. No other living creature has shown such stupidity in the creation of habitats, such ineffectiveness in the ability to communicate, such ignorance in healthy living and food consumption, and irresponsibility in educating the young about the real tools needed for optimal survival. The living creatures of nature are our greatest teachers yet we slaughter the for profit, captivity, and trophy hunting. Could there be a better definition of true arrogance? The challenge for all of us is…how do we defy human stupidity and arrogance, and transform it to compassionate intelligence?
Renderings by Mr. Zheng Xu Bin and team, Shenzhen, China
