Silence, Song and Shadows:
Our Need for the Sacred in Our Surroundings

Bender, an architect and deep thinker about sustainability, speaks of how we can create sacred spaces, places of the soul—“A place with a soul gives refuge and sanctuary. It fills primal psychic needs for protection, for warmth, for companionship, for meaning.” He tells us about making a garden of the spirit, “a place ... of giving, of that impulse of love which underlies all life and creation.” Many accepted practices of sustainable building are re-visited and set into this larger context. He encourages building for durability, which he says “grants a generosity to the places we make that can be obtained in few other ways.” In support of indigenous, natural materials, he suggests that they offer “a truth of meaning and connection to our places.”

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