Eugene Tssui attempts to live and design as Nature designs, doing no harm to the planet, creating with meaning and purpose, and striking imagination in every work of architecture while imbuing immense human creative force within each building, a force that penetrates the human spirit and ignites the life of every individual with a sense of reaching for imagination, originality, and excellence. Tssui understands the beauty and power of interdisciplinary thinking and a multi-dimensional way of seeing. His life itself is a living example of this interdisciplinary outlook; architect, author, city planner, scientist, professor, performing musician, composer, Olympic athlete, boxing champion, fine artist, industrial designer, clothing designer, inventor, public orator, you name it; Eugene Tssui himself is living proof that every challenge must be faced head-on and his architecture designs share this same uncompromising courage. Tssui’s legacy is one of challenging mundane convention to break the chains of conformity, mediocrity, tradition, and unquestioned assumptions. His legacy is the necessity to revolutionize architecture--our built world--and create a new language of design, a language that is restorative, strikingly original, embraces Nature’s intelligence, and does no harm to our living planet. Our human habitats should have a kinship with the habitats of all animals, birds, reptiles, and insects and be just as intelligently built for its purpose, climate, and to survive natural disasters. Tssui’s legacy is to return our human-made environments, to a close kinship with Nature itself, and give expression to our human reach for originality and the unknown—to make the seemingly impossible, possible, intelligent, and beautiful!

Legacy on the Architectural World

Conforming to a indisposed world brings about physical, mental, and spiritual affliction. Living in and around our built environment, our commonplace architecture, has created an alienated, emotionless, and bleak setting within which to live and work. It is an incubator for inhumane beings; personalities that are driven by profit, self-aggrandizement, and temporal pleasure. It creates a sybaritic character who is seduced by control and domination—a bully mentality that victimizes the meek, the quiet, and the observant. Tssui’s impact is the destruction of exploitation; the elimination of the superficial, the nurturing of imagination, and the global fight for living in a world of beauty and moral accountability. Tssui’s impact it to give voice to the victimized, to create a world of moral veracity that ignites the destitute, the hopeless, and the ostracized, and transforms the bully mentality to one of endearment, chivalry, and compassion. His impact gives hope to the hopeless and aspiration to the oppressed. Tssui’s world is the world for those who dare to reveal the powers of their own genius and triumph over the impossible.

Impact

Philosophy

Words by Eugene Tssui.

“Nature is our supreme teacher. Nature is 4.5 billion years old, and we are destroying it. Our greed and arrogance is killing every living thing. We are destroying the teacher that can show us how to survive well in this world but the sick grab for profit, comfort, convenience, quickness, and ease has blinded us. We commodify everything. We buy and sell the earth, we buy and sell each other, where all of Nature’s living things will someday be acquired and consumed. Knowing this, how do we justify our deceitful actions? How do we find meaning, or a genuine love our planet? We must search for answers and never stop searching and this search will guide us with answers. It will tell us how to live. When we search we ask why? When we search we dare to enter the unknown. When we search we begin to see the truth. Truth lies far beyond our assumptions of comfort. Truth is often very uncomfortable. Very disturbing, often terrifying. Our search for truth will tell us how to live and what to do.”

An Evolutionary Outlook: The 10 Commandments of Ecological Design

  • 1.

    The existing site, with its natural habitats, flor and fauna, insects, fish, animals, and established ecosystems, must not be damaged or significantly altered.

  • 2.

    Power sources such as electricity, gas, solar and wind power, shall have no pollutants, and are controlled individually and/or locally. Creation of proven environmentally destructive power sources such as large-scale hydroelectric dams and nuclear power plants shall be provided.

  • 3.

    The building’s premise shall benefit the site aesthetically, functionally, structurally, and ecologically so that the natural site and building(s) act as a mutually dependent living organism born of nature’s design.

  • 4.

    The built environment shall fully utilize and address wind, sun, water, air, earthquake and extreme weather conditions as features of the design and its structure.

  • 5.

    The building(s) shall be designed to accommodate extreme natural and human-made conditions while minimizing materials and labor resources and cost. Efficient structural forms shall be developed to achieve this end.

  • 6.

    The architecture shall effectively utilize the minimum amount of materials with the maximum structural efficiency producing a high strength-to-weight ratio. To this end, conventional structure and aesthetics shall be disregarded.

  • 7.

    The architecture shall express an efficient use of labor and materials energy expenditure while meeting the owner’s needs and site conditions without historical and aesthetic imitation. Construction materials shall be limited to locally available materials, which are ecologically renewable whenever possible.

  • 8.

    Both building(s) and site shall work together to recycle water and air. Sewage shall be recycled by use of nature-based technology whenever possible without harming the environment; letting nature do the cleaning.

  • 9.

    The long-term consequences of building on the site, to preserve the existing site, shall be investigated, analyzed, and the results directly expressed in the scale and structural characteristics of the building(s). The possibility of NOT BUILDING AT ALL shall be seriously considered if it is shown the construction shall significantly damage the natural site.

  • 10.

    Handcrafted artistry, compelling colors, materials, and a spirit of high original art shall be an integral quality and expression of the total design; positively influencing the emotional, psychological, and spiritual life of the inhabitants and the existing surroundings.