Patagonia and me

CR,
Am read­ing “Let My Peo­ple Go Surf­ing” by Chouinard and these pas­sages stood out enough for me to adapt them to my own work, with inspi­ra­tion for a more con­crete per­son­al philosophy.
Cheers,
NFH

Phi­los­o­phy of Archi­tec­ture (from Let My Peo­ple Go Surf­ing, Y Chouinard
1. Don’t build a new build­ing unless it’s absolute­ly nec­es­sary.  The most respon­si­ble thing to do is to buy used build­ings, con­struc­tion mate­ri­als, and furniture.
2. Try to save old or his­toric build­ings from being torn down.  Any struc­tur­al changes should hon­or the his­tor­i­cal integri­ty of the build­ing.  We rec­ti­fy mis­guid­ed “improve­ments” made by pre­vi­ous ten­ants and strip way fake mod­ern facades, end­ing up we hope with a build­ing that is a “gift to the neighborhood.”
3. If you can’t be retro, build qual­i­ty.  The aes­thet­ic life expectan­cy of the build­ing should be as long as the phys­i­cal mate­ri­al’s life span.
4. Use recy­cled, and recy­clable, mate­ri­als like steel gird­ers, studs, re-milled wood, and straw bales.  Install fix­tures from waste mate­ri­als like pressed sun­flower hulls and agri­cul­tur­al waste.
5. Any­thing that is built should be repairable and eas­i­ly maintained.
6. Build­ings should be con­struct­ed to last as long as pos­si­ble, even if this ini­tial­ly involves a high­er price.
7. Each [house] must be unique.  The heroes, sports, his­to­ry, and nat­ur­al fea­tures of each area should be reflect­ed and honored.

Patag­o­nia Philosophy:
a deep appre­ci­a­tion for the envi­ron­ment and a strong moti­va­tion to help solve the envi­ron­men­tal cri­sis; a pas­sion­ate love for the nat­ur­al world; a healthy skep­ti­cism toward author­i­ty; a love for dif­fi­cult, human-pow­ered sports that require prac­tice and mas­tery; a dis­dain for motor­ized sports like snow­mo­bil­ing or jet ski­ing; a bias for whacko, often self-dep­re­cat­ing humor; a respect for real adven­ture (defined best as a jour­ney from which you may not come back alive–and cer­tain­ly not as the same per­son); a taste for real adven­ture; and a belief that less is more (in design and in consumption)

My Phi­los­o­phy:
A uncon­di­tion­al love for indi­vid­ual humans I meet, a deep and lov­ing con­nec­tion for the nat­ur­al world; a curios­i­ty about how things work, a deep root­ed intent to help oth­ers reach their poten­tial; a healthy skep­ti­cism toward author­i­ty; a love for dif­fi­cult, human-pow­ered sports that require prac­tice and mas­tery; a dis­dain for motor­ized sports like snow­mo­bil­ing or jet ski­ing; a respect for real adven­ture (defined best as a jour­ney from which you may not come back alive–and cer­tain­ly not as the same per­son); a taste for real adven­ture; and a belief that less is more (in design and in consumption)