Press Release:
Contact: Margie Bushman
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
(805) 962-2571, margie@sbpermaculture.org
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
ECO-Film Night
Honoring the Life of Visionary
Architect Nader Khalili
with film-maker Dastan Khalili & documentary film feature
"Earth Turns to Gold"
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Santa Barbara Public Library, Faulkner Gallery
7pm, donation $5
"Earth turns to Gold in the hands of
the Wise"
Rumi
O
n Thursday, May 28, at 7pm, Santa Barbara
Permaculture Network ECO-Film Night honors the life of visionary
architect Nader Khalili and the California Institute of Earth
& Architecture (Cal-Earth), with a feature film documentary
"Earth Turns to Gold" by Dastan Khalili.
Designing
with Nature, using Earth, Water, Air, Fire and the simple shapes of
arches, vaults and domes, Nader Khalili taught we could easily build
homes for humanity with nothing more than the soil beneath our
feet. He suggests that if we recognize the equilibrium of these
elements, we will never have any environmental problems. Learning
the perfect harmony of nature and how it can be applied to architecture,
this practical harmony can help us build habitats that are sustainable,
nontoxic, and ecologically sound.
Leaving
behind pitched roofs of conventional housing, his arched earthen
structures don't require a single tree to be cut, helping to eliminate
deforestation around the globe Because of the dome egg shaped
"shell-a-structure" design, they are some of the strongest
buildings possible, able to withstand hurricanes, floods, and
fires. Originally designed to be ceramic (fired earth) houses, if
properly built, grow stronger in fire, and have been tested to 6.5 on the
Richter scale for earthquakes, making them perfect candidates for housing
in Southern California.
Santa
Barbara Permaculture Network began visiting Cal-Earth more than ten years
ago for annual road-trips in the Fall to follow the evolving site and
its many innovative building prototypes. A strong friendship
developed that lasted until the death of Nader Khalili last
year. Noting that Khalili's work actually started in Santa
Barbara County, with a 600 ft prototype house on an 850 acre proposed
village site in New Cuyama in the late 1980's, Santa Barbara Permaculture
Network wanted to acknowledge his extraordinary life with an evening of
tribute in our community.
Khalili
was a Muslim born in Iran. His grandmother raised him on Sufi
mysticism and the poetry of Rumi, a poet born in 1 3th century Persia,
who inspired all of his work. Khalili became an architect who built
high-rises in both Los Angeles and Tehran. In the 1970's he took a
sabbatical from his busy career to travel through the deserts of the
Middle East on motorcycle. While searching for simple structures
suitable for housing the poor he noticed dome-like structures used for
baking and grain storage that had stood strong through the millennia in
areas frequented by earthquakes. He returned to found Cal-Earth, located
eventually on a ten acre site in Hesperia, California, where he worked
tirelessly to perfect a building technique that would use only natural,
on-site materials, but could also pass rigorous building and safety
codes. One of his best-known inventions was the “Super Adobe”
Earthbag construction system, developed for NASA in the 1980's, who had
put out a call for designs for structures on the Moon and Mars.
Khalili argued the same wisdom and logic for using on-site
materials, as transporting materials from Earth would cost more than
gold. Khalili's smaller Earthbag houses were proposed as affordable
solutions for poverty stricken areas in Africa, India, and South America.
He received special recognition from the United Nations for his
“Housing for the Homeless” proposal in 1987 and his prototypes were
recognized with the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2004.
He is the author of numerous books including Racing Alone, and
Sidewalks on the Moon, and was an accomplished translator of the
poetry of Rumi. At the time of his death, he was perfecting a 3
bedroom, two car garage house designed with middle America and the
suburbs in mind. With the devastating fires that had frequented all
of Southern California in recent years, he felt it was time to build
houses that fit into the fire ecology of our region.
Dastan
Khalili is a film-maker who has recently finished a series of films of
his fathers life work. His Greenworks Company works in affiliation with
the Cal-Earth non-profit, and is dedicated to making and distributing
environmental and humanitarian films and
productions. Copies of the films and
books will be available for purchase at the event.
The event
takes place on Thursday, May 28, 7pm at the downtown Santa
Barbara Public Library, 40 East Anapamu St, Santa Barbara. Donation
$5, no reservations needed. The event is presented by Santa Barbara
Permaculture Network Non-Profit. For more information, (805) 962-2571,
margie@sbpermaculture.org,
www.sbpermaculture.org
-end-
More Info/Website,You Tube sites:
Cal-Earth
website:
www.calearth.org
Cal-Earth on You Tube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5_LPYFyaFE&feature=channel_page
www.youtube.com/user/dastonkalili
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
an educational
non-profit since 2000
(805) 962-2571
P.O. Box 92156, Santa Barbara, CA 93190
margie@sbpermaculture.org
www.sbpermaculture.org
"We are like trees,
we must create new leaves, in new directions, in order to grow." -
Anonymous