Mission Statement

Mis­sion State­ment:

DESIGN for SUS­TAIN­AB­IL­ITY

The design philo­sophy of Mac­don­ald Ar­chi­tec­ture & Tech­no­logy is based on the premise that the re­la­tion­ship between man­kind and Nature is em­bod­ied in the prac­tice of ar­chi­tec­tur­al design.  Ar­chi­tec­ture provides the meth­od by which we or­gan­ize the ba­sics of shel­ter.  We define our ac­tions, and design spaces with qual­it­ies to ap­pro­pri­ately ac­com­mod­ate these ac­tions.   Ar­chi­tec­ture also en­com­passes the spir­itu­al act­iv­ity of man­kind in that build­ing design dir­ec­tly af­fects how our dreams, as­pir­a­tions, and self-im­age shape our built world and its re­la­tion­ship to the nat­ur­al world.

The sense of phys­ic­al and spir­itu­al well-be­ing por­trayed by the word "home" speaks to the age old act­iv­ity of mak­ing a nest where we might be safe and com­fort­able.  The design of a se­cure and com­fort­able shel­ter "home" in­cludes pro­gram­mat­ic choices of ma­ter­i­als and con­struc­tion, these days in the form of man­u­fac­tured products and code com­pli­ant build­ing meth­ods, such that this home may re­main af­ford­able, dur­able, com­mo­di­ous, and beau­ti­ful.  These qual­it­ies re­quire us to in­teg­rate tech­no­logy in­to cre­ation of build­ings which can sus­tain them­selves through time.

To be sus­tain­able through gen­er­a­tions this shel­ter must be fab­ric­ated ac­cord­ing to nat­ur­al en­vir­on­ment­al prin­ciples.  The at­ti­tude of the ar­chi­tect to­wards his ma­nip­u­la­tion of Nature, ma­ter­i­al fab­ric­a­tion, and build­ing con­struc­tion is crit­ic­al, per­haps to the sus­tain­ance of man­kind it­self.  The waste and rape of the nat­ur­al en­vir­on­ment in or­der to build build­ings threatens forests, ad­vances deserts, and al­ters mi­cro-cli­mates.  Ar­chi­tects are at the crux of this act­iv­ity.  So­ci­ety has en­trus­ted us with pub­lic safety, the design of the built en­vir­on­ment, and its re­la­tion­ship to Nature.

It is time for ar­chi­tects to in­volve en­ergy en­gin­eer­ing in design, in­cor­por­at­ing sol­ar en­ergy pro­du­ction, both as elec­tric­al power and heat, as well as earth tem­per­ing in­to shel­ter con­struc­tion.  Com­fort can be achieved through the phys­ics and geo­metry of the build­ing it­self as well as through ma­chinery.  These means are re­new­able, less ex­pens­ive for the own­er, and less tax­ing on the nat­ur­al en­vir­on­ment.

DESIGN with EM­PATHY

Of all the feel­ings ex­per­i­en­ced by a per­son, the feel­ing of "com­ing home" is one of the old­est and most ba­sic.  The sense of long­ing for home, and the in­ner com­fort and re­lief of com­ing home, are com­mon to tri­bal and mod­ern man alike.  The prac­tice of ar­chi­tec­ture today has be­fore it a gi­ant and worthy task: which is to con­sciously mold the in­ef­fable beauty and grace of com­ing home from mod­ern man­u­fac­tured con­struc­tion ma­ter­i­als and meth­ods.  This task takes pre­ced­en­ce over desig­ni­ing to be pub­lished, or design­ing ac­cord­ing to this or that mod­ern, or post-mod­ern ar­chi­tec­tur­al style.  It is the most ex­cit­ing and com­pre­hens­ive of tasks to tax the depth and abil­ity of the finest de­sign­er!

Sin­cere and in­formed em­pathy leads the de­sign­er to­wards an am­al­gam­a­tion of tra­di­tion­al re­gion­al forms with mod­ern con­struc­tion tech­no­logy.  Such his­tor­ic­al ref­er­en­ce is what we in­ter­pret as the charm and fla­vor of man­kind's vari­ous cul­tures and the world's spe­cif­ic loc­ales.  If the me­dia ori­en­ted lens through which ar­chi­tects see their work be­ing judged and pub­lished could be dis­pelled, a true vis­ion sens­it­ive to the re­gion­al­ity and in­di­vidu­al­ity of loc­al cul­tures would ap­pear.  There is no com­pel­ling reas­on for the re­jec­tion of tra­di­tion­al mor­pho­logy.  Tra­di­tion­al forms and their or­na­ment­al pro­grams, ex­tend­ing back for some­times thou­sands of years, need not be re­placed by the latest ar­chi­tec­tur­al fash­ion simply be­cause the prac­tice of ar­chi­tec­ture, like man­u­fac­tur­ing, has be­come single fa­ceted through the dom­in­ance of glob­al con­tract­ors and in­ter­na­tion­al design cor­por­a­tions.

The qual­it­ies of built space which in­spire the emo­tion of com­ing home res­on­ate in the mind and spir­it of our cli­ents.  Our cli­ent's in­ner be­ing reaches back to both child­hood memory and to com­mon his­tory when it re­acts to the form of his home.  It is our gift and duty as ar­chi­tects to evoke this emo­tion hon­es­tly, through the em­path­et­ic ap­plic­a­tion of our curi­os­ity and cre­at­iv­ity re­gard­ing both the phys­ic­al world of Nature as well as the so­cial and cul­tur­al mi­lieu of our cli­ents.

We be­lieve such prac­tice to be en­light­en­ing to ours­elves and be­ne­fi­cial to man­kind at large.