We just got our first permit! We are ready for our next adventure!
Woo hoo!
Friday, June 19, 2009
Friday, May 29, 2009
Living Paradigm CDC - Volunteer day, building permit, Dan Phillips speaking at the Last Organic Outpost
Hello everyone! We have some fabulous news to report regarding our first building permit, 501c3 status and a volunteer day amongst other things.
Building Permit: We have finally submitted for our first building permit! This has been long awaited and we are looking forward to breaking ground as soon as the permit is issued.
We need materials: Please assist us in obtaining materials- especially dimensional lumber, metal roof panels, corrugated metal, tile, pecan or oak tree limbs.
Volunteer Day: If you are interested in getting involved, now is the time! We will have another volunteer day soon on Sunday June 14th and are looking for help with things such as grant writing, material acquisition, deconstruction, administrative coordination and in the near future, construction. Volunteer Day will be at the Last Organic Outpost’s Emile Street Farm from 11am to 1pm. Dan Phillips will come and speak afterwards and give a demonstration on Parquet flooring. At 2pm there will be a dinner and potluck. For direction go to www.lastorganicoutpost.org
501c3 status: Living Paradigm should receive news from the IRS on approval (hopefully!) for our 501c3 non-profit application any day. We have been greatly anticipating this since November, when we submitted the application. We are looking forward to better serving the community by being able to pursue grants and provide tax deductions on donations.
Looking forward to seeing you at volunteer day!
Best regards,
Amanda Tullos, AIA
President
Living Paradigm
livingparadigm@gmail.com
Building Permit: We have finally submitted for our first building permit! This has been long awaited and we are looking forward to breaking ground as soon as the permit is issued.
We need materials: Please assist us in obtaining materials- especially dimensional lumber, metal roof panels, corrugated metal, tile, pecan or oak tree limbs.
Volunteer Day: If you are interested in getting involved, now is the time! We will have another volunteer day soon on Sunday June 14th and are looking for help with things such as grant writing, material acquisition, deconstruction, administrative coordination and in the near future, construction. Volunteer Day will be at the Last Organic Outpost’s Emile Street Farm from 11am to 1pm. Dan Phillips will come and speak afterwards and give a demonstration on Parquet flooring. At 2pm there will be a dinner and potluck. For direction go to www.lastorganicoutpost.org
501c3 status: Living Paradigm should receive news from the IRS on approval (hopefully!) for our 501c3 non-profit application any day. We have been greatly anticipating this since November, when we submitted the application. We are looking forward to better serving the community by being able to pursue grants and provide tax deductions on donations.
Looking forward to seeing you at volunteer day!
Best regards,
Amanda Tullos, AIA
President
Living Paradigm
livingparadigm@gmail.com
Monday, April 6, 2009
Please note the new location (indoor location) for this event because of this weekend's weather.
You're Invited to The Community In Motion Benefit Concert for
The Phoenix Commotion & Living Paradigm
Saturday, April 18th 7-11pm
All size donations are welcome. All proceeds benefit the Phoenix Fund, a seed money account that helps The Phoenix Commotion and Living Paradigm provide truly affordable housing while reducing land fill waste and teaching marketable building skills to anyone with a work ethic who can swing a hammer
Event Location:
First Presbyterian Church - Fellowship Hall
1801 19th Street, Huntsville, Texas 77340
Directions: http://firstpresbyterianhuntsville.org/index.htm
Schedule of Events
6:00 pm Make your own shaker with
Tamara Chasteen of Wynne Home
Get your face painted by Bernice Peacock
7:30pm Drum Circle
8:00pm Live Music by Aimee Bobruck and Matt Reed
10:00pm Poetry and Songs by SHSU Poet's Lounge
Bring your family and friends, a picnic and a blanket
For more information, contact Kristie at 936-661-3446
or send an inquiry email to
kristie@smithercompany.com
Please forward this event to anyone with a heart
1801 19th Street, Huntsville, Texas 77340
Directions: http://firstpresbyterianhuntsville.org/index.htm
Schedule of Events
6:00 pm Make your own shaker with
Tamara Chasteen of Wynne Home
Get your face painted by Bernice Peacock
7:30pm Drum Circle
8:00pm Live Music by Aimee Bobruck and Matt Reed
10:00pm Poetry and Songs by SHSU Poet's Lounge
Bring your family and friends, a picnic and a blanket
For more information, contact Kristie at 936-661-3446
or send an inquiry email to
kristie@smithercompany.com
Please forward this event to anyone with a heart
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Dan Phillips featured in the Houston Chronicle
See link or below:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/arts/gray/6203300.html
You can see pictures of the Bone House on this site.
---from the Chronicle---
Lisa Gray: "This is the house that scraps built"
Dan Phillips, motioning toward a door he’s made from cedar scraps, says something I never expected to hear from a builder: “I love crooked.”
There was something wrong with every piece of wood in that perfectly functional door, he brags. Some pieces were warped. Others, left in the sun, had turned gray. Those blemishes were why lumberyards were willing to give Phillips the wood free, to be used in the ultra-low-cost houses that his little company, The Phoenix Commotion, builds in Huntsville.
The house he’s working on now — his 12th in an oeuvre that’s garnered national attention — is made almost entirely from materials that had been bound for the trash. There are leftovers from other builders’ projects. Bits of broken mirrors. Wine corks and beer-bottle caps. T-shirts. Wood scraps. Signs discarded by a state park. Brown paper. And bones: beef bones, deer bones, even a whale rib.
By all rights, the place ought to look a mess, like “a slum admixture,” in Dan’s words, “or something out of Sanford and Son.” But it’s not a mess at all. It is strange, like nothing I’ve ever seen before. But it’s also beautiful.
The secret, Dan says, is design and philosophy.
Which, like his materials, are free.
“You know The Birth of Tragedy by Nietzsche?” Dan asks.
It’s another sentence I never expected to hear from a builder. I nod uncertainly.
“You know how he described the two strains of culture? There’s the Apollonian culture, where everything is crisp, tidy and perfect. And there’s the Dionysian culture, where everything is passionate and organic.
“If an Apollonian is hanging a picture, he gets out his level and his measuring tape and precisely centers the picture on the wall. If a Dionysian is hanging a picture, he takes the picture, holds it up to the wall, and goes, “Hmmm. Does this look about right?”
“Our building industry is entirely Apollonian. Architects pre-think their design, specifying these ideal materials and aiming to create these idealized shapes. They’re at a disadvantage. They work off in an office, drawing blueprints. They can’t get feedback from the materials and let the designs evolve.”
Dan’s houses blend Apollo and Dionysus. He starts, like a good Dionysian, with whatever materials he has at hand: old license plates, maybe, rocks or tree branches. Then, to keep those whacked-out materials from looking trashy, he tames them with two Apollonian concepts: unity and repetition.
Recently, a butcher offered to give him as many beef bones as he wanted. Dan likes bone — it’s elemental, he says — and he recognized that beef bones could be treated like ivory. Bone, he decided, would be the motif he’d repeat , the concept that defines his project. The Bone House was born.
He tiled the kitchen counters with rectangles cut from rib bone. Bits of bone decorate the wood mosaic floor. Ribs form the balustrade on an upstairs balcony, and in the kitchen a jawbone with two gold teeth serves purely as a decorative flourish. Cross sections look like round tiles atop the stair treads. Outside, leg bones alternate with vertebrae over windows and under eaves.
Repetition, he notes, is key, but it’s not difficult.
“If I have 100 of ‘these’ and 300 of ‘those,’ I have the possibility of repeating,” Dan writes on his Web site. “It makes no difference what ‘these’ and ‘those’ are. I have used hickory nuts, aluminum cans, chicken eggs, branches, beer cartons, soup-can labels, tile shards, broken concrete and the whole range of structurally oriented materials.”
To create a pattern, he instructs, simply take a hundred of something — anything. Sit down with them. And play.
“Texture and repetition create pattern,” he says. “Texture and repetition create pattern.
“Texture and repetition create pattern.”
He’s happy to share this advice. He wants the world to adopt his ecosensitive philosophies, so he offers advice on his Web site. He trains unskilled laborers so they can go out and build like he does.
And he’s particularly thrilled that architect Amanda Tullos, of Living Paradigm, plans to build in his manner in Houston’s Fifth Ward.
When you’ve got something wild and good, Dan thinks, you’d best repeat it.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/arts/gray/6203300.html
You can see pictures of the Bone House on this site.
---from the Chronicle---
Lisa Gray: "This is the house that scraps built"
Dan Phillips, motioning toward a door he’s made from cedar scraps, says something I never expected to hear from a builder: “I love crooked.”
There was something wrong with every piece of wood in that perfectly functional door, he brags. Some pieces were warped. Others, left in the sun, had turned gray. Those blemishes were why lumberyards were willing to give Phillips the wood free, to be used in the ultra-low-cost houses that his little company, The Phoenix Commotion, builds in Huntsville.
The house he’s working on now — his 12th in an oeuvre that’s garnered national attention — is made almost entirely from materials that had been bound for the trash. There are leftovers from other builders’ projects. Bits of broken mirrors. Wine corks and beer-bottle caps. T-shirts. Wood scraps. Signs discarded by a state park. Brown paper. And bones: beef bones, deer bones, even a whale rib.
By all rights, the place ought to look a mess, like “a slum admixture,” in Dan’s words, “or something out of Sanford and Son.” But it’s not a mess at all. It is strange, like nothing I’ve ever seen before. But it’s also beautiful.
The secret, Dan says, is design and philosophy.
Which, like his materials, are free.
“You know The Birth of Tragedy by Nietzsche?” Dan asks.
It’s another sentence I never expected to hear from a builder. I nod uncertainly.
“You know how he described the two strains of culture? There’s the Apollonian culture, where everything is crisp, tidy and perfect. And there’s the Dionysian culture, where everything is passionate and organic.
“If an Apollonian is hanging a picture, he gets out his level and his measuring tape and precisely centers the picture on the wall. If a Dionysian is hanging a picture, he takes the picture, holds it up to the wall, and goes, “Hmmm. Does this look about right?”
“Our building industry is entirely Apollonian. Architects pre-think their design, specifying these ideal materials and aiming to create these idealized shapes. They’re at a disadvantage. They work off in an office, drawing blueprints. They can’t get feedback from the materials and let the designs evolve.”
Dan’s houses blend Apollo and Dionysus. He starts, like a good Dionysian, with whatever materials he has at hand: old license plates, maybe, rocks or tree branches. Then, to keep those whacked-out materials from looking trashy, he tames them with two Apollonian concepts: unity and repetition.
Recently, a butcher offered to give him as many beef bones as he wanted. Dan likes bone — it’s elemental, he says — and he recognized that beef bones could be treated like ivory. Bone, he decided, would be the motif he’d repeat , the concept that defines his project. The Bone House was born.
He tiled the kitchen counters with rectangles cut from rib bone. Bits of bone decorate the wood mosaic floor. Ribs form the balustrade on an upstairs balcony, and in the kitchen a jawbone with two gold teeth serves purely as a decorative flourish. Cross sections look like round tiles atop the stair treads. Outside, leg bones alternate with vertebrae over windows and under eaves.
Repetition, he notes, is key, but it’s not difficult.
“If I have 100 of ‘these’ and 300 of ‘those,’ I have the possibility of repeating,” Dan writes on his Web site. “It makes no difference what ‘these’ and ‘those’ are. I have used hickory nuts, aluminum cans, chicken eggs, branches, beer cartons, soup-can labels, tile shards, broken concrete and the whole range of structurally oriented materials.”
To create a pattern, he instructs, simply take a hundred of something — anything. Sit down with them. And play.
“Texture and repetition create pattern,” he says. “Texture and repetition create pattern.
“Texture and repetition create pattern.”
He’s happy to share this advice. He wants the world to adopt his ecosensitive philosophies, so he offers advice on his Web site. He trains unskilled laborers so they can go out and build like he does.
And he’s particularly thrilled that architect Amanda Tullos, of Living Paradigm, plans to build in his manner in Houston’s Fifth Ward.
When you’ve got something wild and good, Dan thinks, you’d best repeat it.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Dan Phillips lecture this Thursday- Rebellion with Intelligence
Sierra Club Lecture- Thursday January 8th at 7pm
Rebellion with Intelligence: Building Sustainable Low-Income Housing
Come see what Living Paradigm is all about.
Dan Phillips combines social and environmental responsibility together in his design and construction of low-income housing. He sees building potential in material - ranging from scrap lumber to bottle corks to scrap glass - that would otherwise be dumped into a river of waste, thereby reducing the stream of waste to landfills. In his words, "...know what the rules are and enter into your rebellion with intelligence."
The Phoenix Commotion is a low-cost housing initiative created by Dan and Marsha Phillips that puts the "recyle-reuse" philosophy into practice. They are particularly interested in serving the population of low-income families and artists, whose income may not allow them to actually afford "affordable housing". The houses are built with unskilled labor, which allows workers to get on-the-job training. Pictures of some of Dan’s work are on Phoenix Commotion’s website www.phoenixcommotion.com. Some of the cottages would be at home in the Houston Heights.
Join the Sierra Club for a brief social period at 7:00 p.m. The program begins at 7:30. Central Presbyterian Church. 3788 Richmond at Timmons. Houston, TX.
Rebellion with Intelligence: Building Sustainable Low-Income Housing
Come see what Living Paradigm is all about.
Dan Phillips combines social and environmental responsibility together in his design and construction of low-income housing. He sees building potential in material - ranging from scrap lumber to bottle corks to scrap glass - that would otherwise be dumped into a river of waste, thereby reducing the stream of waste to landfills. In his words, "...know what the rules are and enter into your rebellion with intelligence."
The Phoenix Commotion is a low-cost housing initiative created by Dan and Marsha Phillips that puts the "recyle-reuse" philosophy into practice. They are particularly interested in serving the population of low-income families and artists, whose income may not allow them to actually afford "affordable housing". The houses are built with unskilled labor, which allows workers to get on-the-job training. Pictures of some of Dan’s work are on Phoenix Commotion’s website www.phoenixcommotion.com. Some of the cottages would be at home in the Houston Heights.
Join the Sierra Club for a brief social period at 7:00 p.m. The program begins at 7:30. Central Presbyterian Church. 3788 Richmond at Timmons. Houston, TX.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Call for volunteers!
[[please note date / time change]]
Living Paradigm needs your help! If you’ve been interested in getting involved or learn something new, now’s your chance!
As a volunteer based organization, there are many tasks that need action. These tasks include everything from construction and construction process to helping with email announcements, the website, event planning, and coordinating material donations.
Bring a chair and a snack and head on out to the Emile Community Farm located at 700 Emile (near Gunter St.) Houston, TX 77020 on Saturday, January 24th from 1pm to 3pm.
Please let us know if you can come, so we can get a head count. If you are unable to come but want to be involved, please let us know, so we can make other arrangements.
This event will be followed by the Organic Outpost’s Farm party and dinner from 2 until Dark. The event will feature the expansion of the Emile Farm to Buck Street. www.lastorganicoutpost.com
Everyone is welcome and please tell a friend.
Hope to see you all there!
Living Paradigm needs your help! If you’ve been interested in getting involved or learn something new, now’s your chance!
As a volunteer based organization, there are many tasks that need action. These tasks include everything from construction and construction process to helping with email announcements, the website, event planning, and coordinating material donations.
Bring a chair and a snack and head on out to the Emile Community Farm located at 700 Emile (near Gunter St.) Houston, TX 77020 on Saturday, January 24th from 1pm to 3pm.
Please let us know if you can come, so we can get a head count. If you are unable to come but want to be involved, please let us know, so we can make other arrangements.
This event will be followed by the Organic Outpost’s Farm party and dinner from 2 until Dark. The event will feature the expansion of the Emile Farm to Buck Street. www.lastorganicoutpost.com
Everyone is welcome and please tell a friend.
Hope to see you all there!
Monday, December 22, 2008
Dan Phillips featured in Natural Home Magazine
Check it out!
Phoenix Commotion was featured in the December issue of Natural Home Magazine. The article is also online at: http://www.naturalhomemagazine.com/People-and-Places/Building-Dreams-Green-Collar-Economy.aspx
The Last Organic Outpost is having a Farm Party at The Emile Street Community Farm in the 5th ward, Saturday January 10th from 2til Dark. The event will feature the expansion of the Emile Farm to Buck street. Everyone is welcome and please tell a friend. www.lastorganicoutpost.com
Come to the outpost to visit the new home for the gazebo!
Happy Holidays!
Phoenix Commotion was featured in the December issue of Natural Home Magazine. The article is also online at: http://www.naturalhomemagazine.com/People-and-Places/Building-Dreams-Green-Collar-Economy.aspx
The Last Organic Outpost is having a Farm Party at The Emile Street Community Farm in the 5th ward, Saturday January 10th from 2til Dark. The event will feature the expansion of the Emile Farm to Buck street. Everyone is welcome and please tell a friend. www.lastorganicoutpost.com
Come to the outpost to visit the new home for the gazebo!
Happy Holidays!
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