Haute Couture Architecture: The Art of Living Without Walls by Anneke van Waesberghe is so much more than a book about tented green building architecture.
The book is part design manifesto, part personal diary, and part manual for future sustainable living. One in which rampant consumerism has been replaced by a more thoughtful design from the excesses of modern times to a new state of being for living sustainably and in harmony with the rhythms of the planet. It is the tale of one woman’s odyssey living alone in the jungle finding true meaning in life and manifesting its beauty into a way of sustainable living that may set a blueprint for our future existence on Earth. The author leads readers to encounter a new paradigm by showing the luxury of simplicity and the beauty of small things.
With our consumer way of living and doing things and how the world is evolving, the pace we follow as consumers rather than humans has become outdated and is not the way to go forward. We cannot solve new problems that follow our destructive actions; we have to shift our thinking from Me to We. Haute Couture architecture respects artisans, hand-made goods, self-sufficiency, and caring for nature. Being close to nature is a lifestyle of forward-thinking outside the box and is a natural means to discovering ourselves.
Ultimately Haute Couture Architecture: The Art of Living Without Walls bridges the gap between nature and architecture.
Author Biography:
Dutch-born Anneke van Waesberghe is an author, designer, and environmentalist. By the age of 32, she had created and sold an international publishing company based out of Brussels. With these proceeds, she established a nonprofit organisation that brought together sustainable design culture from Japan and the West. In the early nineties her nonprofit, East Meets West, developed Design For the Environment (DFE) guidelines, sponsored by AT&T, JP Morgan, 3M, the Dutch Agency for Energy and Environment (NOVEM) and the National Endowment for the Arts. The DFE guidelines were adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to whom she, together with her foundation and the Dutch Government, presented draft proposals for corporate environmental reporting and green tax initiatives. The DFE guidelines were endorsed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the Council of European Communities, the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, NOVEM and the Environmental Defense Fund. She guest-lectured design for the environment at design schools worldwide, and consulted for multinationals around the U.S., Europe, and Asia. In 1997 she moved from New York to Ho Chi Minh City, and finally Bali, where she established Escape Nomade, a producer of sustainable luxury tented accommodations.
Susan Cohn Rockefeller (born 1959) is an entrepreneur, conservationist, and filmmaker. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Musings. She also designs jewellery with themes that fit in with her work.
Robert Thurman is an American Buddhist author and academic who has written, edited, and translated several books on Tibetan Buddhism. He was the Je Tsongkhapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, before retiring in June 2019.
William Andrews McDonough is an American architect, designer, and author. McDonough is founding principal of William McDonough + Partners, co-founder of McDonough MBDC, as well as co-author of Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things and The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability—Designing for Abundance. McDonough's career is focused on creating a beneficial footprint. He espouses a message that we can design materials, systems, companies, products, buildings, and communities that continuously improve over time.
