Applied Science, Faculty of
Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of
DSpace
A Heterotopic Vision for the Nearby Far Away
UBCV
Birch, Patrick William Leslie
Scattered throughout the Strait of Georgia, which separates Vancouver Island from mainland British Columbia, are the province’s Gulf Islands. These are sites of extreme endemism and cultural diversity. One such place, at the northern end of this fragmented chain, is Hornby Island. A longstanding arts hub initially characterized by the creative energies of draft dodgers, counter culturalists and hippie intelligentsia who flocked to the island in the ’60s. Part rebellion, part escapist reformation, Hornby Island’s arts culture stands apart from others in the Gulf Islands in that it encompasses both the traditional fine arts and numerous unorthodox architectural explorations. Yet, today the island’s popularity as a tourist destination and the ever-increasing ease of access to its shores risks overtaking the memory and methods of the people who helped develop it. As established artisans age and pass on; and property values continue to rise, limiting entry for their successors, a void begins to grow that risks the erosion of localized cultural and craft memory in its vital role as a touchstone of this rural community. In an effort to contravene such a decline this project proposes a series of speculative design interventions intimately informed by local cultural practices and material ecologies. These constructs positing that the preservation of craft knowledge and freedom of action on the island is as much about one’s agency in the creation of their space as it is in the creation of their art.
AGAINST THE ULTIMATE SPINACH:A HETEROTOPIC VISION FOR THE NEARBY FAR AWAYbyPatrick William Leslie BirchB.Sc. (Biology), Simon Fraser University, 2012M.Sc. (Design + Make), Architectural Association School of Architecture, 2020 SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTSfor the DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARCHITECTUREin THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES, SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE, ARCHITECTURE PROGRAMCommittee:Adam Rysanek (Chair)Bo Helliwell (External)Sophie Maguire (External)Stuart Lodge (External) Accepted as conforming to the required standardAdam RysanekThe University of British Columbia December 2020 ©AbstractScattered throughout the Strait of Georgia, which separates Vancouver Island from mainland British Columbia, are the province’s Gulf Islands. These are sites of extreme endemism and cultural diversity. One such place, at the northern end of this fragmented chain, is Hornby Island. A longstanding arts hub initially characterized by the creative energies of draft dodgers, counter culturalists and hippie intelligentsia who flocked to the island in the ’60s. Part rebellion, part escapist reformation, Hornby Island’s arts culture stands apart from others in the Gulf Islands in that it encompasses both the traditional fine arts and numerous unorthodox architectural explorations. Yet, today the island’s popularity as a tourist destination and the ever-increasing ease of access to its shores risks over-taking the memory and methods of the people who helped develop it. As established artisans age and pass on; and property values continue to rise, limiting entry for their successors, a void begins to grow that risks the erosion of localized cultural and craft memory in its vital role as a touch-stone of this rural community. In an effort to contravene such a decline this project proposes a series of speculative design interventions inti-mately informed by local cultural practices and material ecologies. These constructs positing that the preservation of craft knowledge and freedom of action on the island is as much about one’s agency in the creation of their space as it is in the creation of their art.i iiTable of ContentsList of Figures v Acknowledgement viiAgainst the Ultimate Spinach:A Heterotopic Vision for the Nearby Far Away 2Introduction 4Islands 10Memory and Place 12Hornby Island 13Personal History 18Historical Timeline 20Hand-built Precedents 27Proposal 35Conclusion 70Bibliography 71Illustrative Credits 73Appendix 76iii ivList of FiguresContentsFigure 1. Hand-built Hornby 3Figure 2. Hornby Island, The Shire #1 5Figure 3. Hornby Island, The Shire #2 5Figure 4. Artist Wayne Ngan at Hornby Island studio 7Figure 5. Context Map - Georgia Strait 9Figure 6. Collage - Farming 14Figure 7. Collage - Craft 15Figure 8. T.A.L. Smith (Author’s great-great-grandfather) 17Figure 9. Maplehurst Orchard, Hornby Island 17Figure 10. Craft Fair, Hornby Island 19Figure 11. Round Room, Community Hall, Hornby Island 19Figure 12. Hornby Island Infrastructures 23-24Figure 13. Cliff Top Mound - Axonometric 28Figure 14. Cliff Top Mound (Construction) - Exterior 28Figure 15. Hugh’s Houseboat - Axonometric 30Figure 16. Hugh’s Houseboat - Exterior 30Figure 17. Hugh’s Houseboat (Construction) - Exterior 30Figure 18. Rhythmic Log Spiral - Axonometric 32Figure 19. Rhythmic Log Spiral - Exterior 1 32Figure 20. Rhythmic Log Spiral - Exterior 2 32Figure 21. Leaf Retreat - Exterior 34Figure 22. Leaf Retreat - Interior 34Figure 23. Proposal - Oblique 36Figure 24. Proposal - Oblique Detail #1 37Figure 25. Proposal - Oblique Detail #2 38Figure 26. Context Map - Phipps Point, Hornby Island 39Figure 27. Context Map - Arts Infrastructure 40Figure 28. Site Plan - Existing 41Figure 29. Site Plan - Proposal 42Figure 30. Site Plan - Atelier 43Figure 31. Site Plan - Refectory 44Figure 32. Site Plan - Dwelling 45Figure 33. Site Plan - Dias 46Figure 34. Site Plan - Gallery 47Figure 35. Site Plan - Gathering Place 48Figure 36. Proposal - Oblique Catalogue 49-50Figure 37. Dwelling - Visualization #1 53Figure 38. Dwelling - Oblique/Elevation 54Figure 39. Dwelling - Visualization #2 56Figure 40. Dias - Oblique/Elevation 57Figure 41. Dias - Visualization 58Figure 42. Dwelling - Visualization #3 60Figure 43. Refectory - Oblique/Elevation 61Figure 44. Atelier - Oblique/Elevation 62Figure 45. Atelier - Visualization 63Figure 46. Gallery - Oblique/Elevation 64Figure 47. Gallery - Visualization 65Figure 48. Gathering Place - Oblique/Elevation 67Figure 49. Context Map - Hornby Island Ecosystems 77Figure 50. Collage - Boating 78Figure 51. Hornby Island Pre-emptions 79v viAcknowledgementWhile there are many friends who deserve praise for their help in the completion of this work I would like to specifically thank Josh Potvin, Julie Sikora and Andjela Vasic. Thank you to my committee, Adam Rysanek, Bo Helliwell, Sophie Maguire and Stuart Lodge for their patience and consideration. And finally, thank you to my family for their unwavering support in this and my many other endeavours. vii viiiFor my great great grandparents Thomas Alfred Lea Smith and Margaretta Maria Smith, née Brownrigg, without whom our family would never have known Hornby Island.ix xAgainst the Ultimate Spinach:A Heterotopic Vision for the Nearby Far Away1 2IntroductionIn Volume 48, No.7 of Architectural Design Magazine, published in 1978, Bo Helliwell and Michael McNamara chronicle the “Hand-built Houses of Hornby Island.” Hornby is a remote offbeat, island community that by the time of publication already had a well-established population of innovative creatives and crafts-people. Each structure the article examines is accompanied by excerpts from letters or conversations with the owner/builders regarding their attitudes and motivations. In the first of these, after briefly discussing the necessity of chainsawing off 22ft of his home with winter and the birth of his son fast approaching, Arthur Corner concludes, “It happened quicker than I’d thought possible once I realized that shelter from the elements is what was really needed and not the ultimate spinach… that’s what houses are to me, a continual growth of experiments and expression...” (Helliwell and McNamara, 1978: 451). It is with the creative agency, utilitarianism and adaptability at the root of this and other islander perspectives that this project finds its mooring. That being, against the ultimate spinach.Scattered throughout the Strait of Georgia which separates Vancouver Island from mainland British Columbia are the province’s Gulf Islands. Ranging from Ahgykson Island (Harwood Island from 1798-2016) in the north to Sidney Island in the south these landscapes are sites of extreme environmental and cultural diversity. One such place is Hornby Island which lies at the northern end of this island chain. As geological typology islands are considered biodiversity hotspots. Supporting the rapid diversification of species through geographic isolation. Endemism is a feature of many islands, one that allows the retention of several discrete ecosystems over what can often be a relatively small landmass. The same can be said for islands and cultural diversity. In the relatively short history of western settlement on the Gulf Islands, the arts have played a critical role in the development and maintenance of discrete island cultures. While the identities of each of these communities vary based on their size, ease of access, settlement approach, and historical and contemporary industries; they all harbour an abundance of creative energy that has manifested itself in myriad ways over the last Figure 1. Hand-built Hornby 3 4century. There is a deep-rooted relationship between land and lives in specific places and spaces over time. It’s the coalescence of these two things that frame a good local culture, of which there assuredly is one on Hornby Island. Local culture being, in its most important function, a collection of memories, ways, and skills necessary in holding local soil and local character in place as time goes on (Berry, 1990: 155). As agents in the preservation of culturally and geographically bounded memory the artists who assume this mantle are confronted with the limitlessness of time and thereby the urgency of action required in commemoration of place. This is, of course, not to say that these artists and their constructs are meant to statically capture the period of their creation alone, but rather, in the progression of their practice, combining both inherited and personal skills and insights, speak in part to the continuum of a community and its culture. Along with neighbouring Denman Island to the west Hornby is one of the province’s northernmost Gulf Islands. While the island has entertained various industries over its history, including but not limited to; farming, logging, whaling, commercial-fishing and boat building it is now known predominantly for its white-sand beaches and burgeoning tourism industry. Prior to its draw as a beachgoers paradise the island, also known as the “Hawaii of the North,” was widely acclaimed by outsiders for its many skilled resident artisans and creatives. The island’s reconfiguring as an arts hub began in the 70’s with a wave of new settlement fueled by real estate development and populated by American draft dodgers, counter culturalists and hippie intelligentsia. The feelings ignited by site, in all its complexity and social imbrication, led these early creatives to establish a thriving arts community in relative isolation. Part rebellion, part escapist reformation, Hornby Island’s arts community stands apart from others on the Gulf Islands in that it encompasses not only expressive artistic works but also the creative collaboration that has brought about numerous experimental architectural constructs on the island. Yet, today the island’s popularity as a tourist destination and ease of access risks overtaking the memory and methods of the people who helped develop it. While once the main draw for seasonal tourists, today the arts are largely overshadowed by the island’s idyllic sandy shores and associated commons. The closing of several public galleries has forced many artists to transition their creative efforts into smaller works more easily sold at Figure 2. Hornby Island, The Shire #1 Figure 3. Hornby Island, The Shire #2 5 6tourist markets. While this requisite submission to commercial influence may be stayed in the coming years through the development of a purpose built arts centre that after 20 years of work has finally received sufficient financial backing, a greater problem remains, the aging community of artists and their absent successors. The potential loss of resident artisans on Hornby Island risks the erosion of localized cultural and craft memory in its vital role as a touchstone of this rural community. In the same nature by which we endeavour to preserve fragile ecosystems through conservation and protection so must we endeavour to safeguard distinct local culture and its constitutive memories given the continual risks of fragmentation and elimination. “Memory is a perpetually actual phenomenon, a bond tying us to the eternal present,” (Nora, 1989: 8) and one that is wholly embodied in arts. Artists can resurrect and reconnect the scattered fragments of memory, bringing the past into the present and so, it is incumbent upon us to abet this preservation.7 8Figure 4. Artist Wayne Ngan at Hornby Island studio IslandsIn New Geographies 08 editors, Daniel Daou & Pablo Pérez-Ramos’ introduction begins with a direct quote by Jacques Derrida; he states, “There is no world, there are only islands” (Daou and Pérez-Ramos, 2016). As is later explained, but can be immediately understood Derrida uses the term island as a parable of any number of conditions that can act to integrate or dissociate individual lived experience. In effect, a series of heterotopias. The authors go on to discuss the associated “Umwelts” that constitute these incommensurably separate islands of lived experience (Daou and Pérez-Ramos, 2016). “Umwelt” is a term originally used by German biologist Jakob von Uexkull to describe distinct environmental realms (Ponte, 2017). The word was later borrowed by philosopher Peter Sloterdijk and used to refer to the spheres or “fabricated milieus,” the latter framed by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, that he argues constitute the subjectivity of spatial understanding, social relationships and thereby the universe. In A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari writes, “Every milieu is vibratory, in other words, a block of space-time, constituted by the periodic repetition of the component. Thus the living thing has an exterior milieu of material, an interior milieu of composing elements and composed substances, an intermediary milieu of membranes and limits, and an annexed milieu of energy sources and actions-perceptions. Every milieu is code, the code being defined by periodic repetitions, but each code is in a perpetual state of transcoding or transduction. Transcoding or transduction is the manner in which one milieu serves as basis for another, or conversely is established atop another milieu, dissipates in it or is constituted in it.” (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987: 345).Deleuze and Guattari’s “rhizomatic” approach to spatial theory further built on the idea of subjectivity in perception by suggesting that despite the distinct nature of an individual’s interpretation all thought is indeed intertwined and accessible from anywhere by anyone (Daou and Pérez-Ramos, 2016). This bottom-up cognitive approach to spatial operations being much at odds with the top-down approach of the grid and the 9 10Figure 5. Context Map - Georgia Strait conventional topographic survey aimed at dictating site understanding. A shift “from object to field,” as proposed in Stan Allan’s 1997 article by the same name, speaks to how a field condition could serve as a spatial matrix capable of integrating disparate elements into a unified body while still maintaining their distinct nature (Allen, 1997). Curiously we can understand these conditions or spheres of perception as highly static and mobile territories within conventional geographies. While the island-like nature of these fields is one way by which to construct spatial meaning free from a specific, bounded location it can also be seen as a tool that can aid in the understanding of a spatial field through a hybridized perceptual interface that accounts for the extant physical landscape and the cognitive projected landscape. These two positions are not diametrically opposed but rather mutually beneficial interpretations, islands as both metaphor and materiality, that can be combined in pursuit of heightened perception of place. Staniscia (2016) argues that islands, particularly small islands are highly suitable for design experimentation. She states that “the island’s spatiality allows designers to sidestep one of the thorniest problems connected to design - or at least, of the design of landscape and territories. Namely, it allows the designer to surmount the issue of defining the limits of the area of intervention, which - given the boundlessness of natural systems - are notoriously not clear-cut.” (Staniscia, 2016: 51) The nature of island spatiality and the natural boundaries therein undoubtedly produces design effect as it catalyses transformation through geographical influence. As such we cannot dissociate metaphor from the material. Memory and PlaceIn an effort to break from the standardizing influence of modernism that saturates our subconscious, we return to nature. We “run to the country, space to be, to dream, eliminate the greed, seek the land and harmony with the earth” (Helliwell and McNamara, 1978: 451). Tasked to dwell in the forests of the Gulf Islands, we are faced with important questions concerning our operations therein. Questions rooted directly in how our relationship to our environment informs design, much like Laugier’s concept of the primitive hut, wherein man’s response to the natural environment is viewed as central to the development of architectural form. In fact, understanding the etymological relationships between ecology and architecture serves to reinforce what Laugier proposes. “‘Ecology,’ derived from the Greek word ‘oikos,’ and roughly translated to ‘relations of home,’ suggests not only an idea about biological materials and energy but also about how things, people and being come together. In this way, perhaps it describes more clearly the nature of building than the word architecture itself, in that architecture is fundamentally about how things relate.” (Manley, 2016: n.pag.)While environmental attunement plays a critical role in establishing and understanding of site, so too is an awareness of the history and constituent memories upon which its culture stands. As one reflects on the history of Hornby Island the connections that all peoples, indigenous or settler, have had with this area have been mediated by the arts. From the petroglyphs that still dot the island’s shores to the contemporary artistic creations that speak to Hornby’s identity today these artifacts are important agents of memory that all play a part in defining place. Since, as Nouvel notes, “time does not pass in architecture, it accumulates. If it passed, it would leave no trace - but the reverse is true. Everything around us exhibits signs of its history, its development or deterioration. All physical things, especially bodies and buildings, offer themselves to visual experience as sedimentations of actions and behaviors.” (Leatherbarrow, 2009: 82)11 12Hornby IslandHornby is a small island covering some 30 sq kilometres and has a coastline of approximately 32 kilometres. It is relatively regular in shape with Tribune Bay, on its eastern shore, forming the only major indentation. Rising just over 1000 feet, Mt. Geoffrey runs north to south and affords the island a rugged appearance. The cool Mediterranean climate of the Gulf Islands, unique in Canada, combined with the recreational and aesthetic attractions of the island’s marine setting and the natural beauty of the island itself, have made Hornby, among other gulf islands, the target of everyman’s dream cottage by the sea. From Horseshoe Bay in West Van Hornby Island is only 170 km by car but as it requires three ferries to get to can quickly become a half day’s journey. While the island has entertained various industries over the period of its western settlement including logging and whaling, there are three overarching influences that have had a disproportionate impact on Hornby’s community. These are farming, boating, and the arts. Historically agrarian the island has been home to sheep and cattle farming, the cultivation of wheat and other grains as well as numerous apple orchards. There are in fact, feral heirloom orchards, scattered around the island from days past, and it is not uncommon to see an apple tree overhanging one of the island’s main roads, growing from a ditch. After farming, one of the earliest occupations on the island was boat building. And the island certainly owes its existence to the industries and means of transport facilitated by such crafts. In 1953 the islanders took it upon themselves to subsidize the Savoie families construction of a private ferry between Hornby and neighbouring Denman; which led to much-increased access (Smith and Gerow, 1988). There were at one time many skilled boat builders on the island, including my great grandfather, who would seasonally row his handmade clinker dinghies from Hornby to Vancouver. In the mid-60’s the island began to draw a new wave of settlers. These were craftspeople from Vancouver and abroad looking for a place to develop their crafts in peace and self sustaining harmony. Still a sleeping island Hornby became a refuge for these counter culturalists looking to Figure 6. Collage - Farming 13 14run to the countryside and reconnect with the land and with themselves (Helliwell and McNamara, 1978: 451). Inspired by a growing, similarly minded community and the beauty of their environment artists such as Heinz Laffin, Wayne Ngan, Tom Burrow, Jeffery Rubinoff, and Jerry Pethick developed their works alongside the established dyers and weavers of the established conservative farming community. Figure 7. Collage - Craft 15 16Personal History Beyond the contextual framing of islands in general, it is important to highlight the personal connection between the author and the site prior to any exploration of a more widely understood historical timeline. In 1902 the author’s Great Great-grandparents, Mr. Thomas Alfred Lea Smith and Mrs. Margaretta Maria Smith came to Hornby from Ireland by way of Red Deer, Alberta and Rossland, British Columbia where they purchased a large farm and settled into an agrarian lifestyle. Both their children and Grandchildren were raised on the island. Their Granddaughter Clara, the author’s grandmother, being among the first of their family to leave Hornby for British Columbia’s Lower Mainland. Now, while predominantly a place of respite for the family descendants the island still offers a sense of connection and identity seldom found elsewhere. Such was the underpinning of the site selection, a visceral relationship with an island landscape further informed by lived insight. Hornby Island is a place of change, between shifts in demographics, economy, infrastructure, and environment the island can be seen as an experimental landscape ripe with visible and invisible liminal boundaries between extreme social and environmental conditions that are waiting to be explored. Figure 8. T.A.L. Smith (Author’s great-great-grandfather)Figure 9. Maplehurst Orchard, Hornby Island 17 18 Historical TimelinePre-Contact Before the arrival of Europeans, the Pentlatch people inhabited the island. This Coast Salish First Nation called the island Ja-dai-aich or the “outer land.” Hornby Island and the adjacent Denman Island had historically been used as summer fishing camps bythe Pentlatch and K’ómoks peoples.1791 Spanish ship Santa Saturnina, under Juan Carrasco and José María Narváez discovers the island. In honor of the Spanish Finance Minister, Don Pedro López de Lerena they named the island Isle de Lerena. 1850 Hornby Island named after British naval officer Rear Admiral Phipps Hornby, C.B. (1785-1867) by officers of the Hudson Bay Company. Officer of the Pacific Station in Valparaiso, Chile from 1847 to 1851 Hornby never saw the island himself.1850 The Pentlatch people are completely eliminated by sickness, slave raids, and movement to northern territories. 1856 Captain George H. Richards sails for the Pacific Northwest in the HMS PLUMPER, ostensibly to help with the Anglo- American Boundary Commission but also to provide a British military presence in Victoria, BC. He and his crew begin surveys of the waters between Vancouver Island and the US mainland. 1857-1862 The HMS PLUMPER is commissioned to continue its surveys of the coastlines of Vancouver Island and adjacent islands. Richards charts the waters around Hornby Island, naming several geographic features after British officers. • Lieutenant Edward D.P. Downes - Downes Point• Lieutenant Hamilton Dunlop - Dunlop Point• Lieutenant Francis Norman - Norman Point (Heron Rocks)• Master John H.T. Norris - Norris Rocks• First Lieutenant of the Marines F.E.M. St. John - St. John Pt.Figure 10. Craft Fair, Hornby Island Figure 11. Round Room, Community Hall, Hornby Island19 20 island helped bring about the development of new roads, a wharf, and a school.1899 George Heatherbell, who settled on Hornby in 1876, serves as road commissioner for the island’s development commission.1900 The early 20th century sees Hornby Island develop into a prosperous farming community.1906 Full-time island residents total 32.1910 With an unprecedented demand for lumber in the West, loggers arrive en masse. 1913 Several logging camps are set up across the island at Tribune Bay, Little Tribune Bay, Section 15, Galleon Beach, Boulder Point, and Shingle Spit.1920’s Again an influx of new residents aided in the development of formal island organizations, island tourism and the opening of First Community Hall. 1923 The Seabreeze, Hornby Island’s first “pleasure resort” is opened by Caesar and Edythe Scott. 1924 Lands near Tribune Bay were purchased the Hornby Island Lodge opened. The resort operated every summer until being sold in 1941. 1928 Based on the success of the Seabreeze and the Hornby Island Lodge, summer resort promoters purchase Shingle Spit for development. The venture, however, was premature and defaulted in 1934.1929 With the development of multiple tourist resorts on the island CPR steamer service returned to Hornby. The PRINCESS MARY and PRINCESS ROYAL calling twice weekly in summer and weekly otherwise. 1859 Captain Geoffrey Thomas Phipps Hornby (1825-1895) sailed to Esquimalt at the outbreak of the San Juan Boundary dispute in the HMS TRIBUNE. Mooring at least once in Tribune Bay.1860 Mt. Geoffrey and Phipps Point named after the Father and son Hornby.1860-1870 The island is largely devoid of inhabitants. 1870 A forest fire on the island catalyzes interest by western settlers. Fires making island clearing much easier. 1871 A whaling station is opened at whaling station bay.1872 Two English settlers would arrive to homestead on the island. Leaving their previously claimed sections in the Comox Valley George Ford and Henry Horatio Maude arrive on Hornby. Ford’s claim included 1800 acres at the island’s southernmost point. Maude settled 1400 acres further north that included Shingles Spit, Tribune, and Whaling Station Bay. • Ford’s Cove• Maude Reef 1873 The whaling company enters liquidation and its property is sold off. 1875 The island’s first land survey was completed. Surveyor noted: Ford, above the cove, had “22 acres under cultivation, a nice orchard, 100 head of horned cattle, one yoke of oxen, large barn, and dwelling house.” Maude, in the northeast corner of Tribune Bay, “has under cultivation 12 acres, a nice orchard, fine barn and milk house, small dwelling house and about 25 head of horned cattle.” 1882 First schoolhouse constructed. 1890’s E & N steamer service comes to the island. An influx of new people was brought north for the Klondike gold rush. Some of them settled on Hornby. The added social infrastructure on the 21 22Figure 12. Hornby Island Infrastructures 23 241942 - Formation of the Hornby Island Credit Union. It was in operation for al-most 25 years with a goal to provide financial assistance to local enterprises. COMMUNITYPrior to contact the Pentlatch people inhabited the island. This Coast Salish First Nation called the island Ja-dai-aich or the “outer land.” Hornby and adjacent Denman Is-land were historical-ly used as summer fishing camps by the Pentlatch and K’ómoks peoples.1850 - The Pent-latch people are completely elimi-nated by sickness, slave raids, and movement to north-ern territories .1860-1870 - The island is largely de-void of inhabitants. 1870 - A forest fire on the island catalyzes interest by western settlers. Fires making island clearing much easier. 1791 - Spanish ship Santa Saturnina, under Juan Carras-co and José María Narváez discovers the island. In honor of the Spanish Finance Minister, Don Pedro López de Lerena they name the island Isle de Lerena. 1966 - Helliwell Provincial Park established (69 hectares) 1850 - Hornby Island named after British naval officer Rear Admiral Phipps Hornby, C.B. (1785-1867) by officers of the Hudson Bay Company. Officer of the Pacific Station in Valparaiso, Chile from 1847 to 1851 Hornby never saw the island himself.1856 - Captain George H. Richards sails for the Pacific Northwest in the HMS PLUMPER, os-tensibly to help with the Anglo-American Boundary Com-mission but also to provide a British military presence in Victoria, BC. He and his crew begin sur-veys of the waters between Vancouver Island and the US mainland. 1857-1862 - The HMS PLUMPER con-tinues its surveys of the coastlines of Vancouver Island and adjacent islands. Richards charts naming sev-eral geographic fea-tures after officers: Lieutenant Edward Downes (Downes Point, Lieutenant Hamilton Dunlop (Dunlop Point),Lieutenant Francis Norman (Norman Point), Master John Norris (Norris Rocks) First Lieutenant F.E.M. St. John (St. John Point). 1859 - Captain Geoffrey Thomas Phipps Hornby (1825-1895) sailed to Esquimalt at the outbreak of the San Juan Boundary dispute in the HMS TRIBUNE. Mooring at least once in Tribune Bay.1860 - Mt. Geoffrey and Phipps Point named after the Father and son Hornby.1890’s - E & N steamer service comes to the island. An influx of new people was brought north for the Klond-ike gold rush. Some of them settling on Hornby. The added social infrastructure on the island helped bring about the development of new roads, a wharf, and a school.1899 - George Heatherbell, who settled on Hornby in 1876, serves as road commissioner for the island’s develop-ment commission.1875 - The island’s first land survey completed. The surveyor noting that Ford, above the cove, had “22 acres under cultivation, a nice orchard, 100 head of horned cattle, one yoke of oxen, large barn, and dwelling house.” Maude, in the northeast corner of Tribune Bay, “has under cultivation 12 acres, a nice or-chard, fine barn and milk house, small dwelling house and about 25 head of horned cattle.” 1900 - The early 20th century sees Hornby Island devel-op into a prosperous farming community.1871 - A whaling station is opened at whaling station bay.1910 - With an unprecedented demand for lumber in the West loggers arrive en masse. 1913 - Several log-ging camps are set up across the island at Tribune Bay, Little Tribune Bay, Section 15, Galleon Beach, Boulder Point, and Shingle Spit.1923 - The Seabreeze, Hornby Island’s first “pleasure resort” is opened by Caesar and Edythe Scott. 1924 - Lands near Tribune Bay were purchased the Hornby Island Lodge opened. The resort operated every summer until being sold in 1941. 1928 - Based on the success of the Seabreeze and the Hornby Island Lodge, summer resort promoters purchase Shingle Spit for develop-ment. The venture, however, was premature and defaulted in 1934.1872 - Two English settlers arrive to homestead on the island. Leaving their previous claims in the Comox Valley George Ford and Henry Horatio Maude arrive on Hornby. Ford’s claim including 1800 acres at the island’s southernmost point. Maude settled 1400 acres further north that included Shin-gles Spit, Tribune, and Whaling Station Bay. Ford’s Cove and Maude Reef are named after the two. 1882 - First school-house on the Island is constructed. 1920’s - Again an influx of new residents aided in the development of formal island organizations, island tourism and the opening of First Community Hall. 1931 - Telephones were at the Maple-hurst, Bealls, Har-woods and Parnell farms. 1945 - Salt Spray Grocery opened in a converted sawmill building. The store ran for a decade before the owner’s illness necessitated its closing.1950 - The first church building and a new school are opened. 1955 - Local residents negotiate the purchase of a ½ acre of land near Tribune Bay. A building was subse-quently constructed using volunteer labor. In December 1955 the Hornby Island Co-operative Store was officially opened. 1973 - The Island Trust is created to protect and preserve the gulf islands from the impacts of development. Lot sizes are limited to a ten-acre minimum. 1975 - In the mid-70s the counter culture influx begins. Hippies, draft dodgers, artists and intellectuals migrate to the island. Arts culture proliferates. 1873 - The whaling company enters liquidation and its property is sold off1978 - Tribune Bay Provincial Park established (95 hectares) 1989 - Mount Geoffrey Escarp-ment Provincial Park established (187 hectares) 1956 - Electric power comes to the island.1970 - The 1970s saw the first real es-tate development on the island as several farms are turning into residential subdivisions.1929 - With the development of mul-tiple tourist resorts on the island CPR steamer service returned to Hornby. The PRINCESS MARY and PRIN-CESS ROYAL calling twice weekly in summer and weekly otherwise. 1938 - A 60-foot extension was made to the Phipps Point landing for greater boat access to the island1953 - Hornby Is-land resident Albert Savoie subsidizes the construction of HORNBY ISLAND V. The island’s first reg-ular ferry to Denman Island which already had regular service to Vancouver Island. 1963 - The HORNBY ISLAND V is de-commissioned due to increased traffic rendered her too small. In its place, the LORRAINE S., a six-car ferry, was built and launched.1971 - Due to increased traffic demand Savoie opts to not renew his ferry contract with the provincial government. The LORRAINE S. taking her last trip in No-vember of 1971 and management of the ferry transitioning to BC Ferries. Phipps PointShingle SpitMount Geoffrey Escarpment Pro-vincial ParkFord CoveMaude ReefNorman Point(Heron Rocks)Downes PointDunlop PointLittle Tribune BaySpray PointTribune BayWhaling Station BayHelliwell Provincial ParkSt. John PointIsland CentreGrassy Point(Galleon Beach) Tribune Bay Provincial ParkTralee PointFossil Beach (Boulder Point)Mount GeoffreyMount Geoffrey Regional Nature ParkTRANSPORTECONOMICECOLOGICALPre-1791 Early 2000’s1906 - Island Population 32 1930 - Island Population 801960 - Island Population 1502006 - Island Population 1,074Scale - 1:16,666Contour Interval - 10mHORNBY ISLAND INFRASTRUCTURES1970 The 1970s saw the first real estate development on the island as several farms are turning into residential subdivisions.1971 Due to increased traffic demand Savoie opts to not renew his ferry contract with the provincial government. The LORRAINE S. taking her last trip in November of 1971 and management of the ferry transitioning to BC Ferries. 1973 The Island Trust is created to protect and preserve the gulf islands from the impacts of development. Lot sizes are limited to a ten- acre minimum. 1975 In the mid-70s the counter culture influx begins. Hippies, draft dodgers, artists and intellectuals migrate to the island. Arts culture proliferates. 1978 Tribune Bay Provincial Park established (95 hectares) 1989 Mount Geoffrey Escarpment Provincial Park established (187 hectares) 2006 Full-time island residents total 1,074 (Smith and Gerow, 1988) (Corrigall and Arthurs, 1969)1930 Full-time island residents total 80.1931 Telephones were at the Maplehurst, Bealls, Harwoods and Parnell farms. 1938 A 60-foot extension was made to the Phipps Point landing for greater boat access to the island1942 Formation of the Hornby Island Credit Union. It was in operation for almost 25 years with a goal to provide financial assistance to local enterprises. 1945 Salt Spray Grocery opened in a converted sawmill building. The store ran for a decade before the owner’s illness necessitated its closing.1950 The first church building and a new school are opened. 1953 Hornby Island resident Albert Savoie subsidizes the construction of HORNBY ISLAND V. The island’s first regular ferry to Denman Island which already had regular service to Vancouver Island. 1955 Local residents negotiate the purchase of a ½ acre of land near Tribune Bay. A building was subsequently constructed using volunteer labor. In December 1955 the Hornby Island Co- operative Store was officially opened. 1956 Electric power comes to the island.1960 The population of the island stands at roughly 150 and consists mainly of fishermen, subsistence farmers, resort owners, and retired intellectuals. 1963 The HORNBY ISLAND V is decommissioned due to increased traffic rendered her too small. In its place, the LORRAINE S., a six-car ferry, was built and launched.1966 Helliwell Provincial Park established (69 hectares) 25 26Hand-built PrecedentsAs previously noted, the 1978 publication of “Hand-built Hornby” by AD magazine catalogued a series of constructs built on the island over the previous decade. Taking their inspiration largely from the personal standards of their owners/builders and coming together based on the availability of free or found materials / community benevolence these structures speak to a cultural ideology and related aesthetic still present in remote corners of the pacific northwest today. The following include excerpts from Hand-built Hornby and other matter. Cliff Top Mound In the early 70’s the artist Tom Burrows began construction of his “Cliff Top Mound” house on the island’s southern coast at Downes Point, west of Tribune Bay. Constructed largely using salvage roundwood members Tom built progressively, beginning with the gable-roofed portion at the back of the structure before building out the remaining sections over the coming years as time and finances could accommodate. An inhabitant of North Vancouver’s infamous Maplewood Mudflats squatter community, prior to its destruction in 1971, Burrows was a practices scavenger. He collected, “floor boards, plywood, windows, stoves, sinks, etc; purchased a $200.00 truck, and began trucking materials” (Helliwell and McNamara, 1978: 469) each time he returned the the to Hornby from Vancouver. Built as a part of the Downes Point artists cooperative, this structure speaks to the creative freedoms afforded to artists like Burrows by reasonable access to land and housing that is hard to come by today. Figure 13. Cliff Top Mound - Axonometric Figure 14. Cliff Top Mound (Construction) - Exterior 27 28Hugh’s HouseboatDesigned by Michael Mcnamara and built by Hugh Macdonald the fer-ro-cement hull of Hugh’s Houseboat was constructed on the Hornby Is-land, at the Savoie Families property near Phipps Point landing, while the majority of the above-board construction was completed in Deep Cove near Vancouver from 1974-1978. The houseboat’s timber framed super-structure is composed of natural fir pole edge beams and clad in four thin hyperbolic paraboloid shells (McNamara, 1999). Following completion it was towed to Desolation Sound’s Lancelot Inlet where Mr. Macdonald established himself as an oyster farmer.Figure 15. Hugh’s Houseboat - Axonometric Figure 16. Hugh’s Houseboat - ExteriorFigure 17. Hugh’s Houseboat (Construction) - Exterior 29 30Rhythmic Log Spiral Built by Tim Biggins in the mid 60’s his “Rhythmic Log Spiral,” like many of the hippie homes built on the island, was constructed using beach poles for the structural frame. The spiral is rooted in a central log that acts as a bearing point for spiralled roof joists which sit atop the perimeter wall. These wall supports were arranged as a system of elongated trian-gles to provide lateral stiffening. In his letter to the authors Tim notes that while the structure used only $500 in materials it took four years of scrounging. “Once begun, there has been no structural compromises. There has been no hurry in construction and development, partly because there has been no financing and partially because there is so much to do and see in the world.” (Helliwell and McNamara, 1978: 457).Figure 18. Rhythmic Log Spiral - Axonometric Figure 19. Rhythmic Log Spiral - Exterior 1Figure 20. Rhythmic Log Spiral - Exterior 231 32Leaf RetreatBuilt in the 1970’s as a recreational property for two university professors the Leaf Retreat embodies the builder’s unique approach and philosophi-cal underpinning to construction. Developed by islander Lloyd House, a prolific builder on the island, he describes the structure as a “falling leaf, just settling in the forest” (Helliwell and McNamara, 1978: 478). Essen-tially constructed backwards, erecting the roof first, the 16’x18’ building’s ridge beam is supported on a single post. Both of these members were hand-picked from the driftwood that littered the island’s shores. Lloyd intentionally built the roof first as a means to better understand his sub-sequent design moves. “Trying to anticipate the space, and your reactions to it, before it is formed is a bit like masturbation in comparison. ¶ When the house is there, you can feel where to open walls and where to close them.” (Helliwell and McNamara, 1978: 478).Figure 21. Leaf Retreat - Exterior Figure 22. Leaf Retreat - Interior 33 34ProposalAs spaces of habitation, creation and communion are progressively diminished on Hornby Island due to an ageing artist community and the financial inability of their would-be successors to establish themselves on the island long term there exists a need for intervention. Understanding the present circumstances, the island’s community pursues the development of an arts village that sets the stage for continuous adaptation inline with the island’s taste for the found and the unfinished. Sited at Phipps Point, a once heavily used boat landing that now lies derelict, at the intersection of Central and Shingle Spit Roads the site was chosen not only for its picturesque location and ease of access, but also for its history as site of continual expansion and redevelopment. The landing and associated structures growing and shrinking as demand and desire have necessitated over the past 80 years. Figure 23. Proposal - Oblique 35 36Figure 25. Proposal - Oblique Detail #2Figure 24. Proposal - Oblique Detail #1 PHIPPS POINT INTERVENTIONPHIPPS POINT INTERVENTION37 38Figure 27. Context Map - Arts Infrastructure Figure 26. Context Map - Phipps Point, Hornby Island 39 40Figure 29. Site Plan - Proposal Figure 28. Site Plan - Existing 41 42Figure 31. Site Plan - RefectoryFigure 30. Site Plan - Atelier 43 44Figure 33. Site Plan - Dias Figure 32. Site Plan - Dwelling45 46Figure 35. Site Plan - Gathering PlaceFigure 34. Site Plan - Gallery 47 481m 5m 10m 20mFigure 36. Proposal - Oblique Catalogue 49 50Builder, Architecture Graduate (2022) [Female, Margot, Age: 29] - LetterHi Nan,I know I told you I’d write to you every week but I’ve been so consumed by everything happening here on the island that I’ve barely had a moment to reflect. Jack and I arrived last Tuesday afternoon but worried we were going to crash after the long trip, remember how I told you it takes three boats to get here, we pretty quickly snuck away to get our camp set up. We had a three ferry wait at Buckley Bay which I guess is just how it goes in the summer. You’re free to do pretty much anything you like here, so we could have set up anywhere we wanted but seeing an unoccupied platform on the hill side figured we should take advantage of what one day might not be an option. People have already started to adapt the spaces. Some as studios, some as dwellings, some as art themselves. Sleeping high off the ground like that in the open air is incredible. Things are pretty bare bones at the moment, the project is really just getting going so how could it not be. While there are a few completed pieces here and there, as well as foundations or other beginnings of structures to get things started, it’s pretty much a blank slate. I’m told the whole idea came from the old building ethos on the island. The woodbutcher’s art vibe. Have you ever seen that book? Jack was telling me about an old issue of Architectural Design Magazine that he’d seen chronicling Hornby Island in the 70’s. Part of it published letters from various homeowners, one of which was Tom Burrows. I guess Tom has lived on the island for decades, and starting in the early 70s built his house at Downes Point mostly out of found materials over a few years. Section by section, as it suited him or as he had the funds, he slowly built it up. A constant process. The point is, he speaks to his ambition to create a studio-living space that had no defined purpose placed on it beyond the necessary infrastructure for living and creating. Like a space that’s both designed and discovered at the same time. There are a few organizers on site working with the Hornby Island Arts Council to maintain some kind of structure, but considering development is entirely dependent on the availability of material and labour we’re not exactly working to a building schedule here. But then like I said that’s Proposal Cont.The site acts both as a catalyst for the creative arts as well as a context for the rekindling of the personal pride and dignity once embodied in manual labour. Through the speculative design of spaces of communion and creation atop a field of partially erect structures, the project proposes that the preservation of craft knowledge and freedom of action on the island is as much about one’s agency in the creation of their space as it is in the creation of their art. Through the proposal of such spaces as would catalyze the intellectual imagination of the artists and the integration of layered meaning into their crafted works the project itself will foster an aesthetic stratigraphy. Through the provision of time and space for resident and visiting artists and builders to engage with materials and develop novel forms of artistic representation by building upon the inherited craft knowledge already rooted in the island’s cultural past these interventions will cultivate a rekindling of connection to place and memory.As the site develops over time we are afforded insight into the progression of the village through a series of letters from visitors... 51 52Figure 37. Dwelling - Visualization #1 5mNE ElevationSE ElevationSW ElevationNW Elevation5m 2.5m1mFigure 38. Dwelling - Oblique/Elevation53 54the point, right? The funny thing is, it feels like inhabiting a space while you’re building it somehow helps you see it more clearly, even if it’s changing by the hour! It’s like when the space is half there, you feel where to open walls and where to close them. Our days have consisted of work in the morning, exploring the island in the afternoon, and gathering with the others on site each evening. One of the islanders working with us mentioned the cardboard box bakery, which shut down in 2019. He said that local musicians played there every friday. Sad I’ll never get to experience that. The more I learn about the changes that have occurred over the last few years here the more important I realize this idea and the modest infrastructure we have in place is to the arts on Hornby. While there’s no schedule for anything, in the short time we’ve been on here we’ve heard music played, had impromptu dances, listened to short stories being read and even had outdoor weaving classes, all in this same space. There’s something to be said about art created around a particular set of ideas, around a particular set of energies, it’s really such a powerful action. Even though no one else other than those who were there to participate in that dance or here that music played will know it explicitly, the fact that it happened and those ideas and emotions were put into the world I think somehow affords the maintenance and transcendence of those concepts and perceptions through time. Love,MargotFigure 39. Dwelling - Visualization #2 55 565m5m2.5m1mE ElevationS ElevationW ElevationN ElevationFigure 40. Dias - Oblique/Elevation Figure 41. Dias - Visualization57 58Figure 42. Dwelling - Visualization #3Resident Artist, Carver (2028) [Male, James, Age: 63] - LetterDear Arthur, You’d asked me in your last letter to explain more about my time here on the farm. Like I’d mentioned previously, it’s been a few months now since I relocated from June’s property near the vineyard and while further from the coop it’s been much easier to get over that way with the help of visiting artists and builders than it was waiting out on Central with my thumb in the air. Of course, the benefits aren’t just in expedited transportation, I feel a part of something, a part of an energy I haven’t felt in quite some time. I’ve a sense of renewed freedom and agency and it’s been reflected in my carving.The building I moved into, I’ve named him Kelly, is quite impractical - he’s long legged, high off the ground, and accessible only by long staircases from the waterfront or the road above. Like any new relationship he comes with baggage. Quirks and peculiarities the origins of which are uncertain. Developed over time with never ending redefinition, what else could one expect? But then that’s what buildings are to me, a continual growth of experimentation and expression. Following lunch in the refectory one afternoon I was able to put up a dividing wall in the barn for a work space using 4x4’s from a temporary installation back in June and supplemented with lumber from the beach. The foreshore is like a natural mill-yard, slowly but surely replenishing itself. I’ve quickly learned that this material polygamy is not uncommon, and because of it Kelly and his friends continue to consult with remarkable regularity. So, while all of the same provenance and origin each structure on the property is unique. The utility and functionalism behind these spaces leaves more time for creative practice. Each of which is a simple framework capable of regularly adapting to their many jobs in this small collective community. I find their modesty compelling. It’s what Lloyd House might have called peasant architecture. He always said, “trying to anticipate the space, and your reactions to it, before it is formed is” a fool’s errand.What’s become a real joy however is being able to share and discuss my 59 605m5m 2.5m1mSE ElevationSW ElevationNW ElevationNE ElevationFigure 44. Atelier - Oblique/Elevation5m5m 2.5m1mNE ElevationSE ElevationSW ElevationNW ElevationFigure 43. Refectory - Oblique/Elevation61 62Figure 45. Atelier - Visualization5m5m 2.5m1mNW ElevationSW ElevationSE ElevationNE ElevationFigure 46. Gallery - Oblique/Elevation63 64Figure 47. Gallery - Visualizationwork with others. While the market has been helpful in sustaining myself financially over the years I’m finally able to scale up my pieces for display in a way I was incapable of before. There’s a gallery space here that was one of the first structures built. While it had originally served as a work area for construction it has now changed its stripes. A gallery space is critical to the maintenance of the community in this place. It’s a space for connection and engagement through craft. I suppose that’s what this whole place is really, in different ways. Curiously enough, I’ve become an informal teacher here. Hard to believe I know. I’ve been speaking to kids who come through and are interested in exploring carving as a form of expression. There’s a simple structure fixed to the old boat launch where there’s scheduled classes or discussions sometimes. I’m still so surprised anyone would look to me for guidance. In all honesty, I feel like I’m still figuring it all out myself. All the best,James65 665m5m 2.5m1mE ElevationS ElevationW ElevationN ElevationFigure 48. Gathering Place - Oblique/Elevation Intern Artist, Weaver (2032) [Female, Ingrid, Age: 32] - Journal Entry31.08.32 (Tuesday)While the first time I came here three summers ago was productive I realize now it was uninspired. The studio space I occupied in the barn in 2030 was perfect but the way in which I adapted it was somewhat derivative. I had partitioned it in two, one side for production the other for planning, with a narrow loft space above. But I realize now that my weaving is as much a structural component as the timbers themselves. These spaces aren’t defined by their hardened boundaries alone but rather by the creations they realize. My work is a piece of this place and vice versa. It’s almost labour day, soon most all of the seasonal tourists will leave for the year and we’ll have the island to ourselves again. I’ve always appreciated this time of year, when things cool off a bit. I’ll be heading over to see Cedar Wallace tomorrow to discuss plant based dyes. I’m so excited we’ll finally be able to connect after all these years. I’ve learned so much from other artists on the island during my time at the farm but the presence of the arts, particularly weaving, in the community itself is what makes this place so incredible. To think on it now it’s like all those quilters, over all those years knew they were doing more than just making a quilt. They were making culture.67 68ConclusionIn pursuing an adaptive, malleable program framework this project works to pursue the maintenance of the critical cultural role of the arts in this community through both crafted artworks and crafted buildings. The spaces presented in this project were designed to be robust and, beyond key aspects of their foundational superstructures, built largely using unskilled labour. In this way these interventions act to celebrate the materials from which they are made and cultivate a richness of character seen in the hand-built structures once scattered around the island. However, this work also aims to highlight the necessary preservation of the cultural fabric that constitutes the rural identity of places such as Hornby Island. While prior to the covid 19 pandemic Hornby’s housing prices were already out of reach for many, 41% of the island’s population requiring affordable rental (Housing Needs Assessment: Northern Region of Islands Trust, 2018), now as wealthier people from the city realize work from home can be done most anywhere and they transition towards purchasing in more rural, idyllic locations this difficulty is compounded. With the potential of this added strain on the island’s culture through these shifts it’s critical that the island maintain its stance, now more than ever, against the ultimate spinach. 69 70BibliographyAllen, S. (1997) ‘From Object to Field’, Architectural Design- Architecture After Geometry. 1st edn. Edited by M. Toy. Academy Press, 67(5/6), pp. 24–31. Available at: http://lostritto.com/risd2013spring/wp-con-tent/uploads/2013/04/allen1.pdf.Berry, W. (1990) ‘The Work of Local Culture’, in What Are People For? Berkeley: Counterpoint, p. 210.Corrigall, M. and Arthurs, V. (1969) History of Hornby Island. 1st edn. Comox: Comox District Free Press.Daou, D. and Pérez-Ramos, P. (2016) ‘Island’, in Daou, D. and Pérez-Ramos, P. (eds) New Geographies 08, Island. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 6–9.David Gerow, E. and Smith, E. (1988) Hornby Island: The Ebb and Flow. Seattle: Ptarmigan Press.Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1987) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. 2nd edn. Minne-apolis: University of Minnesota Press.Helliwell, B. and McNamara, M. (1978) ‘Hand-built Houses of Hornby Island’, AD Magazine, pp. 450–479.House, L. (1968). Interviewed by Imbert Orchard for CBC, Available at: BC Archives, Royal BC Museum, Victoria BC (Accessed: 30 October 2019).Housing Needs Assessment: Northern Region of Islands Trust (2018). Available at: http://www.island-strust.bc.ca/media/346025/lpc_2018-06-21_northern_hna.pdf (Accessed: 25 November 2020).Leatherbarrow, D. (2009) Architecture Oriented Otherwise. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.Manley, C. (2016) Constructing Nature. Available at: https://chadmanley.ca/Constructing-Nature (Ac-cessed: 21 February 2019).McNamara, M. (1999) Hugh’s Houseboat, Blue Sky Design. Available at: http://www.blueskydesign.ca/portfolio/7/ (Accessed: 20 October 2020).Nora, P. (1989) ‘Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire’, Representations, 26(Special Issue: Memory and Counter-Memory), pp. 7–24.Ponte, A. (2017) ‘Mapping in the Age of Electronic Shadows’, in Girot, C. and Imhof, D. (eds) Thinking the Contemporary Landscape. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, pp. 208–227.Staniscia, S. (2016) ‘The “Island Effect”: Reality or Metaphor?’, in Daou, D. and Pérez-Ramos, P. (eds) New Geographies 08, Island. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 50–55.Transcript of short essay Discovering Hornby, 1991-1993, Box 1, Correspondence and Ephemera, Re: Fundraising and Events, Hornby Island Archives, Hornby Island, British Columbia, Canada (Accessed: 29 October, 2020).71 72Illustrative CreditsFigure 1. Helliwell, B. and McNamara, M. (1978) ‘Hand-built Houses of Hornby Island’, AD Magazine, pp. 450–479. Figure 2/3. Helliwell, Bo, Architectural Association School of Architecture. (Accessed: 30 September 2018). Figure 4. Cain, B. (2014a) Kiln Inspection, Photos from Hornby Island. Available at: http://www.rcainpho-to.com/2014/03/06/kiln-inspection/ (Accessed: 20 November 2020). Figure 5. Birch, P (2020) ‘Context Map - Georgia Strait,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 6. Birch, P (2020) ‘Collage - Farming,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 7. Birch, P (2020) ‘Collage - Craft,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 8. Cain, B. (2018) Hay, Photos from Hornby Island. Available at: http://www.rcainphoto.com/2018/12/31/hay/ (Accessed: 20 November 2020). Figure 9. Cain, B. (2014b) The Orchard, Photos from Hornby Island. Available at: http://www.rcainphoto.com/2014/09/21/the-orchard/ (Accessed: 20 November 2020). Figure 10. Cain, B. (2017) Craft Fair, Photos from Hornby Island. Available at: http://www.rcainphoto.com/2017/01/25/craft-fair/ (Accessed: 20 November 2020). Figure 11. Cain, B. (2012) The Round Room, Photos from Hornby Island. Available at: http://www.rcain-photo.com/2012/01/25/the-round-room/ (Accessed: 20 November 2020). Figure 12. Birch, P (2020) ‘Hornby Island Infrastructures,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 13. Birch, P (2020) ‘Cliff Top Mound - Axonometric,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 14. Burrows, T. (2008) Tom Burrows, Bio, art/today/yesterday. Available at: https://tomburrows.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/tom-burrows-bio/ (Accessed: 20 November 2020).Figure 15. Birch, P (2020) ‘Hugh’s Houseboat - Axonometric,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 16/17. McNamara, M. (1999) Hugh’s Houseboat, Blue Sky Design. Available at: http://www.blues-kydesign.ca/portfolio/7/ (Accessed: 20 October 2020). Figure 18. Birch, P (2020) ‘Rhythmic Log Spiral - Axonometric,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 19/20. Helliwell, Bo, Architectural Association School of Architecture. (Accessed: 30 September 2018). Figure 21. ‘Project Hornby’ (2015) Omitka Natural Finishes. Available at: https://omitkanaturalfinishes.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/project-hornby/ (Accessed: 18 December 2020). Figure 22. Olsen, R. (2012) ‘Most Beautiful Handmade Houses,’ HUFFPOST. Available at: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/most-beautiful-handmade-h_b_1464514?slideshow=true#gallery/5b-b61444e4b039c295682303/6 (Accessed: 18 December 2020). Figure 23. Birch, P (2020) ‘Proposal - Oblique,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 24. Birch, P (2020) ‘Proposal - Oblique, Detail #1’ Unpublished Image. Figure 25. Birch, P (2020) ‘Proposal - Oblique Detail #2,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 26. Birch, P (2020) ‘Context Map - Phipps Point, Hornby Island,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 27. Birch, P (2020) ‘Context Map - Arts Infrastructure,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 28. Birch, P (2020) ‘Site Plan - Existing,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 29. Birch, P (2020) ‘Site Plan - Proposal,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 30. Birch, P (2020) ‘Site Plan - Atelier,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 31. Birch, P (2020) ‘Site Plan - Refectory,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 32. Birch, P (2020) ‘Site Plan - Dwelling,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 33. Birch, P (2020) ‘Site Plan - Dias,’ Unpublished Image. 73 74AppendixFigure 34. Birch, P (2020) ‘Site Plan - Gallery,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 35. Birch, P (2020) ‘Site Plan - Gathering Place,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 36. Birch, P (2020) ‘Proposal - Oblique Catalogue,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 37. Birch, P (2020) ‘Dwelling - Visualization #1,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 38. Birch, P (2020) ‘Dwelling - Oblique/Elevation,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 39. Birch, P (2020) ‘Dwelling - Visualization #2,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 40. Birch, P (2020) ‘Dias - Oblique/Elevation,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 41. Birch, P (2020) ‘Dias - Visualization,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 42. Birch, P (2020) ‘Dwelling - Visualization #3,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 43. Birch, P (2020) ‘Refectory - Oblique/Elevation,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 44. Birch, P (2020) ‘Atelier - Oblique/Elevation,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 45. Birch, P (2020) ‘Atelier - Visualization,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 46. Birch, P (2020) ‘Gallery - Oblique/Elevation,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 47. Birch, P (2020) ‘Gallery - Visualization,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 48. Birch, P (2020) ‘Gathering Place - Oblique/Elevation,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 49. Birch, P (2020) ‘Context Map - Hornby Island Ecosystems,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 50. Birch, P (2020) ‘Collage - Boating,’ Unpublished Image. Figure 51. Birch, P (2020) ‘Hornby Island Pre-emptions,’ Unpublished Image. 75 76Figure 49. Context Map - Hornby Island Ecosystems Figure 50. Collage - Boating77 78Figure 51. Hornby Island Pre-emptions [binary] Paradise they named Hornby Island In this beautiful Gulf of Georgia Lies an island so splendorous and fairIts scenery so charming with beautyFor we searched and searched everywhereFor a place I could feel and see heavenA place where I’ve always longed to beAway from the presence of this troubled worldAnd enjoy my life by the seaAs I write this poem on this spring morningI am thinking how lucky I beTo hear those spring birds singing their songsIt seems they are signing for me Is so enchanting to see those early spring flowersThat seem to leap with joy from the groundAnd to sit and listen and watch for wildlifeWith gods will they still abound This island brings joy to visitorsAnd all do long to stayOn this lovely island of paradiseWith its beautiful Tribune BayAnd so do I pray to our lord in heavenAnd thank him for what he gave to you and meThis island of peace and splendorAnd his touch to the trees, flowers and seaSammy Sammy, April 5th, 1982 (Poem painted at the intersection of Central Rd. and Bond Rd.) 79 80Discovering Hornby IslandWarning! This isn’t a guide to Hornby. Well, not in the way we usually think of guides. Nothing about restaurants, or where to dig the best clams, or how to get to sandy beaches. It is, though, about Hornby Island. What is Hornby Island?To the native people, the Salish Pentlatch, it was “the island that rose from the sea”, a spring to autumn camping ground that provided them materially with all their needs. It was a holy place where shamans gathered and young people sought their spirit guide.To the Spanish, who “discovered” but did not stay, it was “La Isla de Lerena”, the island of the Queen. (?spelling? translation)To the first settlers, it was a place to clear and to farm. An island in which to plant their dreams.And for us today? What is Hornby Island? Besides our dreams, each of us when we come to Hornby, whether we come as a visitor or to settle, brings with us our own individual baggage of cultural programming. Our dreams and our programming are proclaimed by what we do, how we affect the territory we claim, and how we interact with Hornby society.The polyglot of houses, some in subdivisions, some up hidden driveways, speak out our differences. But beneath and around our differences there is a real world of Hornby, and with or without us, it is carrying on. The real world of Hornby is its whole natural panorama of sea and beaches, forest and meadow, rocks, weather, and wildlife. A Mornby in some ways static and eternal, in other ways always changingConsider, for example, the Community Hall. The present hall, stack-wall and sod roof, was built a decade ago: a community effort of visions, skills, and labours, the entrance, a cedar root from a Helliwell beach, had been for hundreds of years previously the root system of a mighty tree somewhere to the north.Beneath the floor there are the foundations of the previous hall, a conventional wooden building painted red, dating from 1928. Islanders went on using the first hall, while the present hall rose around them.Beneath the foundations there is soil, the detritus of the last ten thousand years of vegetation, plus clay and sand left behind in the ice ages. Further down again there is conglomerate rock, ancient cobbles cemented into a matrix of sandstone sixty-five million years ago. The cobbles themselves were ground from rocks created hundreds of millions of years before that, Finally there is the basement rock, our tectonic plate, remnants of the ancient arc Wrangellia, which began unimaginably long ago in the South Pacific,Change is happening all the time. The island, over eons of time, has had many shapes and many sizes. It has risen and fallen beneath the seas. It has been scrubbed clean of vegetation, then grown again lichens, grasses, plants and trees. It has been tumbled by earthquakes, and shifted by tectonic action. It has not always been an island. The rocks are fluid, just as we ourselves are fluid. This lush beautiful world we think of as “Hornby Island” will undoubtedly become something quite different in some distant future.Why then, if all is change, should any of us be concerned about Hornby today? Why not let the urban world move in, let the treeless technological world take over, since anything will only obscure the living breathing island for a brief period of time?The answer, of course, is that we are not living in geological time. The only time really important to us is the “here and now, and the “here and now for our children. And here and now we see increasing urbanization treed areas becoming “developed” lots; traffic jams at the Co-op corner, cable television, … We ask you, whether you are a first-time visitor or a long-term resident, to think about the effect you are having on the island. Yes, change will happen, but what changes?Tune in to this beautiful islands to the seasons, the sun and moon cycles, the tides. Pay attention to the trees, the wildlife, the flow of water. Be aware! If we work sensitively without island--from the ground-up-change will not destroy the beautiful place we chose to come to.Transcript of short essay Discovering Hornby, 1991-1993, Box 1, Correspondence and Ephemera, Re: Fundraising and Events, Hornby Island Archives, Hornby Island, British Columbia, Canada (Accessed: 29 October, 2020).81 82Interview with Lloyd House The below transcript, documented in October 2019, was taken from a recording that is part of the Imbert Orchard fonds stored at the BC Archives at the Royal BC Museum in Victoria BC. The scope and content is described as such: TRACK 1: Mr. House discusses why he came to Hornby Island; his philosophy about building; art; lifestyle; personal growth and society. He talks about pollution and his vision for the island. TRACK 2: Mr. House continues with his views on industrial society, love and human evolution.Item AAAB0931 - Lloyd House interview - 1968 (Recording # 1 - T0839_0001_1 - 00:31:15)Interviewer: Imbert Orchard (IO)Interviewee: Lloyd House (LH)IO: What brought you to the island here? And uh — or when did you first hear of it and you know, what attracted you to it? And sort of, kind of thing, as a place to live? LH: Well the thing that brought me to the island was largely discontent with the city.IO: Where were you living?LH: West Vancouver.IO: And uh, how did you hear about Hornby and how was it arranged that you were able to come here?LH: Well uh, I was looking for a place that um, where there could be some farming, you know, a farm scene. Where there were farms. Where there was a good climate. Near the Ocean. And Hornby Island seemed to fill the bill.IO: How’d you hear of it first and how —LH: Um, Oh — (sighs) I think the first time I heard of it I saw it in a BC Autumn Motorist Magazine or something and uh, it looked nice, it looked pretty. And uh, then I was talking to some friends in Victoria and they said Hornby Island would be a good place to go and see (inaudible) for what I was looking for.(Inaudible as Imbert Orchard calibrates recorder.)IO: Fine, these ruddy machines — come off the thing to damn — annoy me very muchLH: Yea, quite.IO: Suppose part of thing I’m trying to say, this general sort of pollution of air and (laughs) sounds and smells and everything LH: Mm-hmm, well I think that the thing that a place like this means most in relationship to pollutions and what not is that, from here you get away from a certain amount of it so that the perspective alters. Instead of looking at pollution from in pollution you look at pollution from outside of pollution and you can get a better idea of its growth and its uh its characteristics, its destruction and so on. IO: Uh, well then, when did you come up here? How long have you been up here? LH: Oh about uh, a year and a half I guess.IO: Had you done any farming before?LH: No — I’m not actually a farmer now. I’ve just a cow and a vegetable patch. IO: You — 83 84LH: And uh farming isn’t exactly my cup of tea. I’m a builder. And uh, that’s what I like to do. But I like to do it in a setting where I’m allowed to um, be alive in my building. I don’t like to just fill in a formula. And anybody who’s working to a plan underneath the uh, the official eye of restrictions and restrictions, building restrictions and all kinds of things like that. They can’t, they can’t live and build. They’ve got to be a robot. And uh, I don’t choose to be a robot. IO: So you want to be free to sort of express yourself in building uh-ah both as a builder and both as an architect I suppose.LH: That’s right. I really, uh actually consider myself more of, more to be a sculptor. If I had to describe the nature of the buildings that I do I would say I’m a sculptor...because I start off with a vague picture in my mind and then the building more or less constructs itself and I just enjoy the whole process. Which is uh, kind of new to me because I came out of the system. I learned the skills and everything within the system of regimented building and uh — uh it’s really much much more lively and uh thought provoking and uh there’s a lot more self realization. Uh a lot of things happen when you free yourself from other peoples formulas. IO: You in other words have had training in the orthodoxed building skill and things-LH: Right. Correct.IO: Have you done any artwork? Sculpture or things like that or is this just a sort of concept more?LH: Well, not in a strict sense. Like I never put anything in front of the Bank of Montreal, or anything like that.IO: (Laughs) Or for your own private amusement then?LH: Yes, yes, sure. Everything is sculpting you know, if you — it’s just a question of loving the thing that you’re doing, that’s all. If you’re building a barn or a pigpen or a fence or a gate or if you, if you care about the land and if you care about the effect that you’re going to have on people when you do something, like you’re going to impress peoples minds, then uh, then everything becomes art. Every building is art. A barn can be as much of a sculpture and a question of balance with the landscape and balance with itself as anything that ever stood in front of the Bank of Montreal.IO: I think that’s very true. Or-wel-if-yo-know (laughs) a hundred percent. If we just had a little bit more of that. The trouble is, within the city you almost cannot do that at all. Um, It’s almost a Japanese concept of building, isn’t it, of uh building as part of nature. It — something that belongs, comes out of it, a Japanese garden or even the building itself, its relationship to its environment. LH: Well, I don’t think it’s a japanese concept, I think th-th-the Japanese just happen to be amongst the first to discover it. But lots of people built in harmony with their surroundings. I think lots of the primitive uh inhabitants in Africa, North Africa and all over the place uh reflect harmony between their environment and themselves and so on. Which it what the Japanese have done. They’ve done it in a climate where there’s bamboo and things like that to build with (fly buzzes). Where as in this country, uh there’s, the harmony has been mechanized out of existence. There’s nothing harmonious about detroit sprawl. There’s nothing harmonious about um, about um asbestos board and plywood, you know? Not that I’m against modern technology, I’m not. I think it’s great stuff. But it’s — we’ve got to learn how to use it.IO: It’s who’s behind it. Not what’s behind it. In other words it’s the person that’s doing it.LH: This, the motive! It’s the motive.IO: Which is in a person of course. There’s not a motive in a machine. There’s not a motive in a — LH: No there’s an inertia of motive. Like if-if the original motive, like if-if a system is set up because it, of the motives of the people that set up the system then all who follow will live out the motivations of the original. Of the original motivator as it were. So systems have motives. IO: Carrying us a little bit further, either in connection with this 85 86island or in connection with anywhere else um, as a possibility do you feel that you are, uh, starting a nucleus of something which um, well you’re — of course many people feel this way but some people are doing something about it and some (laughs), most are not. But do you feel that by doing something about it here you’re establishing something which can help to grow out from here as a, as a concept of living and dealing with building in any locality? LH: Uh, I couldn’t, I couldn’t possibly claim any kind of originality because (laughs) um I’m living my own life my own way and that’s got to be original, you know, for me. Um, but — no I don’t have any ideas about starting anything for everybody else to follow or anything like it.IO: I don’t really mean about anybody following, I guess we don’t (inaudible - laughs) that would be besides the point entirely. No I mean that um, that uh, that it-do you have any sort of s-is, it-does it pretty well end at being here, doing what you feel is right for you and so forth or do you feel that this has any possible bearing on the future, on our future life? LH: Well, since I became aware of growth, like personal growth, personal expansion which comes through uh — I guess, you know, living, uh — uh, I’ve been aware of misconcepts that I had to growth through or out of. And when you step out of misconcepts and step into other concepts they may be misconcepts to and you have to grow through them. At least that’s the way I feel about it. So my paramount interest in, is in the-what kind growth I can go through. Now I recognize that I’ve gone through a lot of things and realized a lot of things that other people don’t realise yet. And if-if I leave a mark like everybody leaves a mark on the world (fly buzzing), you know, regardless it’s just a question of the size of the mark they leave and it - each mark says something, it’s a piece of mind that says something. And if by growing the marks that I’m making express the growth and show somebody else um-uh, make something that’s invisible visible then — that’s nice! (laughs) you know, that’s a by-product. I’m, I’m very selfish. I’m interested in myself. I wish everybody else was as selfish as I am!IO: But, from the self (LH laughs loudly) Well! Yes, alright. Let’s start there. I-I-I, you know, I know what you’re getting at. The the uh, if you — uh, does this relate though to one’s family or people who join, to come and live here. Uh, do they have any uh, does this mean the same thing to them? Does a community, do you feel that a community would be-it would be nice if a community grew around this? If a family life grew around this? I mean looking at, you know, extending the self a little bit further and that.LH: Yeah well like I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future but I could say that — about what has happened. That I’ve tried everything, I’ve tried mmm, creating a community, I’ve tried letting one grow, I’ve tried all kinds of things and uh it looks to me that any kind of a community formed in opposition to any other community is gonna botch up. Because all it is is an extension of the problem. The problem creates the need for a community so the community that results is just an extension of the problem. If you create a community to try to solve the problems of say, North America’s mechanized robots-ville. If you try to form a community to solve those problems that community is-is-is generated out of the problem and never solves the problem and never escapes from the problem. So communities, I don’t know anything about them. I mean as far as I’m concerned —IO: Yeah in other words if you react to something, uh, you are tied to that thing that you react to. LH: Well nothing is new, uh no reaction is new-like if you react, then you-your action that you call your reaction is founded in the old. There’s nothing new about it. There can’t be new. Can’t be new. Any community that’s formed is, is gotta be uh, if it, if it’s formed in reaction it’s old. IO: So you feel that you yourself here personally are not reacting to something in so much as coming here and possibly starting fresh with yourself. Is th-in other words uh, it’s not a question of-it’s just a question of finding the environment that you belong in so to speak rather than reacting to something in the past. LH: Yeah, sure. I like that! Finding an environment that I belong in because I don’t believe that, just looking at the human anatomy, that it belongs in the city man. It just seems ridiculous to choke down carbon monoxide and stinky fumes and chemical plants and industrial wastes 87 88and you can’t even swim in the sea. Nobody belongs there! Like nobody that’s got an anatomy. And I think most of them have (fly buzzing).IO: Yeah well now, (laughs) what happens though if, if-if-if-if thousands and millions of people believed this and scattered out of the cities, ah you know that I mean, just following this to a hypothetical point (laughs) is it too hypothetical to think about that? In other words, supposing that did happen um, in other words, even on this island supposing there were quite a lot of people, say even a hundred like yourself that came here and began to eventually take over the island would in-would it be a, uh, would it make something here? In other words, alright let’s go back a bit (laughs) uh cause I’m groping —LH: Yes.IO: — the uh, uh, if uh- let’s start with this! What do you think, looking from this vantage point here. What do you, when you look around the island, not looking at the city but looking at the island as it is now, either the way it’s going or the way it’s, uh what it was, what it is today, what it’s going into what are its potentialities? LH: Well, (sighs) um, when you move into that kind of a scale and that kind of a context you’re talking about social evolution. You’re talking about mass movements, ya know? The changes of-shifts, major shifts in population you know, maybe I’m part of something like that but it’s just as an individual. Now maybe there are a lot of individuals that would like to become, who’d like to make the move out to the country. Under the existing circumstances I can’t see anything but disaster for the country because the uh-in the first place, the first thing that would happen is the entrepreneur would move in to make some kind of a, something out of it for himself and he would cut the country up into little city blocks (laughs) you know? Which is what they’ve gone. And the best parts of it would be hacked and chopped up for the benefit of his bank account. And uh, the country that people went to go uh, wanted in the first place would be destroyed upon their arrival uh — IO: Now this is what’s happened of course and what’s happening, of course, quite literally. LH: Yeah sure, that’s what’s happening because the motive, the motive necessitates it. The essential motive in society is for the uh personal aggrandizement of any individual who can manage it. By any method whatsoever. An uh one of the more aggrandizing things there is lots and lots of money. And with a motive like that, why the country just becomes a place of plunder. Where people plunder for money with disregard for nature and the country itself. You know no ones, no ones to fault. I wouldn’t fault any of them, they don’t know any better. If they know better they’re in real trouble!IO: That’s right (laughs). They’re probably heading (laughs) for some kind of mental institution. Because, (laughs) otherwise they keep staying unhealthy by just acting out these instincts and within their (laughs) I know what you mean. They don’t know better. It’s part of the whole machine, that’s — it’s a kind of a creeping kind of paralysis that’s coming over things and this is what I wonder, um just how long, just even this landscape here in BC, it’s going to be possible to find th-the haven. Obviously you’d certainly don’t have any sense of even beginning to stem any tide. You’re not sort of preaching anything at all. You’re not-you’re just doing something.LH: Yeah, sure.IO: As far as that’s concerned. There’s no basic theory about this as an awareness but now- (laughs) it’s not, there’s no philosophy particularly. LH: Right, like if there’s, if there’s any theorietician uh he’s uh he’s invisible, like I can’t see him (laughs). IO: How’s it possible economically for most people who feel this way? After all, if you have a good deal of money, the average person who has a good deal of money is going to stick around the system and sort of uh, he’s going to stick around the city and uh he’s going to look for all kinds of panaceas with that money. That you know, to sort of make it possible for him to live there and thinking he’s living a grand life. But largely speaking, uh-most people who feel this way often do it because uh they’re at the end of the scale where they haven’t got the money and they can see what happens to people with money, they’re almost outside the picture because of that very fact (deep inhale). And they themselves would want 89 90to come and live uh, in a place like this. How is it economically possible for them to do so? Because can they- can you earn enough to eat and this sort of kind of thing? Or do you have to have money from the outside or what can you do about it?LH: Well, it seems to me th-that uh oh that question um, but it flashes in my mind when you ask for a solution to that, you know, how, how, how is it to be done. Uh, you ca-it cannot be done within the existing system. And there’s no possible way that it can be done within the existing system. Because um, well first of all there’s th-that that faulty motive to start with. Um — and uh because of it, the system will never structure itself so people can move into the country and can live in the country. There’s no way. It can’t be done. It’s, it’s all I can see.IO: In the case of your situation here do you think you can make uh, enough to go on (fly buzzing)?LH: Yeah, yeah but I’m a freak. Really. Like I’m young and I’ve had enough money and enough good fortune to land here. I’m skilled, and I like what I do um (laughs) I mean what could be freer than that (laughs).IO: Yeah, that’s right, that’s right uh this is really what I, what I was getting at (laughs) I wanted you to say it.LH: Yeah well, there it is and uh...um I uh, I can dream. I mean everybody’s a dreamer. Well, everybody ought to be. I can dream, I can dream of solutions. I don’t thi-I think the world could be a groovy place. I think the world could be um, I almost think the world could be saved! Uh i-if-if, it’s sort of getting to be really 50/50 about whether the world can be saved or not. Umm, what I mean by saving the world is reversing the biological, the- reversing the ecological deterioration of the globe. Which is very very fast coming down on us. Uhh, the Rhine River is a dead river flowing into the North Sea. Poisoning the North Sea, cutting off the food supply in England, ahmm the Rhine Rivers just one river. The Hudson River used to be a beautiful river full of fish and all kind of thing, now it’s a muddy muddy chemical... sewage is all it is. And it’s not ever sewage, because sewage is alive! Th-this is um, it’s brown muddy death. Flowing into the atlantic ocean and it’s killing off all the algae in the ocean. And the algae in the ocean is a major supply of oxygen for the universe, for the, for the world! And for our existence. So the present rate of industrial — plunder is the only word that seems to satisfy, um, we are killing ourselves off. We are making the world uninhabitable. Uhh which is where things get interesting actually (laughs).IO: Now was it-just to follow this precisely, and this is a reference to my program of course that I’m thinking about (laughs). Uhh, I don’t know whether this is a carrier thing, but can you carry this thought through to the fact of this island? Does this island have any bearing in this for you?LH: For me personally?IO: Yeah.LH: Sure. If they’re, if they’re going to, i-if the destruction of the world is what’s at hand, you know, chemically poisoning the air and so on, just as a human being I’d like to move into a space where there’s not quite so much poison and live out my life, that’s all.IO: And that’s what Hornby represents to you at the moment?LH: Yea, sure. From a very personal-that’s one aspect. There’s jus-I could-there isn’t anything that isn’t interlated. There is no separation between anything in this world. You cannot name two entities whether it’s a star or ah a baby on the southern tip of South American, and it’s related. Everything is interrelated. That star shines on that baby. Everything is related. We’re all part of the same field of energy. IO: There’s no escape here. In other words, to you this is as much a part of anything else, being here with everything else?LH: Yea, sure! So like if I say wh-uh, uh something about why I’m here then I have to say it in context. Okay, the personal life of, of myself. Well, um, I’m here because I can have more fun. Cause I can breathe better air. Cause I don’t wake up at night and have to turn off my nose to what is. I can turn my nose on, you know! And I smell the cow shit and it’s real good. I bet that don’t get on the air (laughs).91 92IO: How much would you bet?LH: Alright (both laugh). They’re good smells compared to smells that you know, that you know are doing in your system. For example how can you explore your system with a free consciousness if you know that you’re going to explore a system that’s being poisoned and killed because you’ve neglected to face facts. The facts that you live within a system that’s killing it, you know? So you can’t even explore your own anatomy, imagine! You live a whole lifetime and you don’t even know your own anatomy. IO: Yea, well uh, (inaudible) uh, I don’t know, and uh this kind of life would, would preserve it.LH: Would you like a dream solution? IO: Yes.LH: Alright, dream solution. Um I think high-rise apartments, now would you imagine that, our high-rise apartments-because in my experience there isn’t um, there isn’t a more private thing to live in-than is, than a high-rise apartment. I like to see a high rise apartment facing out onto the ocean so nobody can look in. Then a person would have privacy. Uh, it’s the most economically feasible kind of a structure. It doesn’t ruin the land. Umm, in every way it adds up, and people are social creatures- most of them! They’re social in one way or another. They like to be together, they like to be alone. Now there are some people who like to be alone all the time so you don’t have to have just high-rise apartments. For those people there could be isolated cabins here and there like on a setting where it’s appropriate. But the important thing, the important thing is love. Is to love people. To love what we are. And to love the world. And to love the earth. And to love this island. And if you love it, and if the people who love it could, could work on it then we could create something that everybody would love! And those who don’t know what love is and um I’m afraid that’s most people, uh could find out. Cause they could have a look at it. They could have a look at a piece of, of topography or an island where someone cared. Where the people who ran it cared. And cared about the island, loved the island, loved the shape of it, loved the topography, loved the trees, loved the ground and worked in harmony with it. And we could all draw a living off it. There’s enough good ground down there to feed 200 people. But you know it’s not economically feasible. Now isn’t that ridiculous? Why couldn’t there be? People love to come here and I’ve had to chase them away because I can’t carry the burden, you know, personally. And, why couldn’t there be a small apartment on this, on this property? Why couldn’t there be, um 30 units, hey? Made out of concrete there for good. No one ever have to work on it again. And uh, th-the the replenishment of fire wood it growing, like alder could replenish the fire wood and never run out. Why couldn’t that ground be uh fed biologically? Why couldn’t it? Why’s it, why, why it wouldn’t have to have industrial fertilizers. We could stop poisoning the atmosphere. We could take the manure and the residues and the seaweed that washes up on the shore and we could grow enough food there for those people that live in those 30 apartments, and nothing has to be spoiled! And those 30 people would take up residence and not damage this topography one little bit. We’d all have the forest to walk in. The deer would still be there. All those things would still be there. And tribune bay, another place. Why couldn’t there be an apartment block there for 200 people? And tribune bay wouldn’t be ruined. But that’s not what’s going to happen. Tribune bay’s gonna be hacked up into a lot of duroid roofs. That’s what’s gonna happen. Either that or th-there, it’ll be a place that only the wealthy can go. IO: It’s a sense of developing a thing as a controlled park. In a sense it has to be controlled- you’ve gotta bring in tremendous-well you’ve got to bring in a lot more population, particularly with your high-rise and this sort of kind of thing. The-the, you’re going to have to then make sure that there’s not an increase in litter and all these kinds of things which are going to happen with the typical human being that you have right now. Uh the, it’s going to be still possible to control, to keep areas as you say for isolation but you build, you build your high-rise around the-you mix up the modern, the very modern and all the technique that you have and you relate that to nature.LH: Mm-hmm — love man! That’s the key. It unlocks the whole thing. It unlocks like, tech-if we love the world with technology we can make a beautiful world! It’s as simple as that. If you love the ground and you don’t go on and uh, and destroy it.. do ya? But look what’s happened to the state of Vancouver. Man if that’s not destruction I’ve never seen it. Look at Lulu Island. That’s complete destruction. It’s agricultural there, it was 93 94never meant for people to live on that where they can’t see anything but their neighbours back window. And the people themselves have all been brainwashed into thinking that’s what they’ve gotta have in order to be human or to be um whatever it is they’re trying to be. I don’t think they’re human. I think they’re just people. IO: If you have all these apartments there though, just to be (laughs). This is a wonderful dream which I-I-I sympathise with quite a lot as a matter of fact. But uh what, what are they’re going to be doing if we’re getting to a stage in life when it’s not necessary to think of uh, in other words, how are you going to-to economically work a thing? Just take an island like this which hasn’t got any industry a-and would you put industry on the island? LH: Yes I’d put industry on the island but not industry in the normal concept of what, what they call industry. For example the industriousness of people, you know, that’s what people really ought to be doing like-see people they, they have, they have basic needs hey. They need food, clothing and shelter hey. Pretty simple. And the fourth need is they need to grow. They need self-realization. They need to know what they are. They need to expand and have a sense of expansion. And that can be accomplished and is accomplished through being, through being productive in one sense or another. Either you can be productive as a musician if you see the smiles you put on peoples’ faces. You can be productive as a potter if you can express yourself through pottery. And a lot of people like to join the productivity of nature and work in a garden. And uh, to them they are part of it and it is part of them and that’s an expansive feeling. Umm, and asides that it’s really no problem because people have been denying themselves all the things they really want to do because they’ve been told that they shouldn’t do all those things that they really want to do. Cause what they really want to do is hug and kiss and fuck. That’s that they really want to do when it gets right down to it. But that’s all been replaced. Man’s cock has been replaced by Detroit’s car. That’s what’s happened. And he doesn’t have his cock anymore, you know. He runs out and stabs everyone once in awhile to try to turn himself on but he’s a pretty dead creature because he sold it. He sold it for a factory job. So what people are gonna do that’s no problem. They’re gonna, they’re gonna enjoy being people (laughs).IO: I don’t know. There’s so much of society uh that’s-that grows to create even a concrete building for people to live in that would not-would have to be produced industrially somehow, somewhere. I can see at the simple level if we’re going to live in cabins and things like that, then this works. But once you begin to get this modern concept of things coming in you’ve got to, a whole section of people can’t live here when you produce that thing there’s going to be a sort of conglomerate of them elsewhere. That’s going to produce the almost heavy industry in a sense.LH: Yes, that’s-that’s true and it’s no problem. Do you want to change the tape before it — (Recording # 2 - T0839_0001_2 - 00:08:52)IO: Yea, well now we’re just about to embark on this so (laughs) my question with regard to the, the uh, the bigger industrial side of society again and how it relates to possibly relates to living here where it’s easy to be a potter, or a carpenter or something like that.LH: Well, um, I don’t see this as any problem because I’ve known people who have expressed their love through machine. Like I know men who have loved a machine. They have-they, they have uh, they’ve loved their uh, their engines. And an engine is a beautiful thing if it’s working on behalf of your fellow man. If the engine that you’re working on it to destroy your fellow man-destroy the world, it soon sours. Or if the engine that you’re working on is something that you’re shackled to, and that you’re not there, at of your own free will, then [it’s] once again destructive. So human beings participating in-in industry and i-in, indust-, in heavy industry is not, needn’t be a dehumanizing experience. It’s a question of motive again. If the motive behind the industry is humanist then the industry will be humanist. If the motive is not then the industry won’t be. IO: These people are still gonna have to live in a much tighter community. Much closer together than living, what was for you an ideal life here. But what you’re really saying I suppose is that well (laughs) answer that yourself maybe. LH: Well, uh, sure, I can see uh there’s no static. There’s no one solution you know. There’s no- mankind is never gonna find a formula 95 96and plug himself into it. Not communism, not capitalism, no formula, none will ever work. Because (laughs) the weather will change, you know, things will change and uh formulas will become obsolete immediately. There’s only one continuously evolving formula which always works, and that’s love. Find that and you got it.IO: Course love means, love means 10 different things.LH: Well, 10 different things... yea sureIO: I mean it’s just a word.LH: Everybody can see what it isn’t, but you try and find someone who can say what it is. I can’t say what it is. Can’t get my mouth around it. IO: I mean, there are many kinds of love. There’s destructive love, there’s egotistical love, then there’s everything else in that sense. Unless we’re referring to something that’s more precise. LH: Yea well we’re speaking within the context of the ideal island, you know. So speaking within that context or say the ideal world uh the only ideal which is, which is undeniable is the ideals which flow from mens’ hearts. Or from love! From loving the world, from loving your fellow human. And whatever you do, if you love the world and you love human beings then whatever you do is going to be um, um whatever facet you manifest in that it’s going to be for a beneficial growth thing. Now, if you want to move into larger contexts like universal, causal forces and the um, the-the polarization of human thought in certain individuals and the, uh hatred side of love and hate, if you like. Or the, the people who love to kill um, those are a lot of misconceptions I think. Like the guy that’s sitting in the pentagon who’s uh Dr. Strange Love, and he’s real, every once in awhile he comes out and blurps and the pentagon gets all red in the face and says it isn’t so or he meant something else or something or other. But he’s sitting there and he knows that what we’re conf- and he’s seen god, he knows what we’re confronted by. We’re confronted by- from his eyes the rising tide of heathen uh atheist who will destroy the magnificent world that we’ve created that’s so fantastic that we’ve actually entered the cosmos with our science. And he is the protector, in fact he’s god’s man on earth who can put an end to this growing tide of of of um, of of evil that’s manifesting itself even in the young of north america. That’s the way he views it. And he’d be glad to expunge the earth from its present dilemma by pushing the button as god’s messenger here, you know. So like uh he’s actually a man of god, you know. You can’t put him down (laughs) Groovy cat. Doing his thing. So you shift contexts there hey? You shift context into universal forces you know. And w-wh-what is this great tide of human evolution anyway? What is this, this, these forces within man which on one hand can create a utopia and on the other hand can create something which is diametrically opposed and unfathomable, in terms of riddle solving. And we could never solve the riddles of how all this works. But you can see it. You can see these evolutionary processes in the entire history of man from the garden of eden to our present “armagideon” I think it was called, wasn’t it? Some bible prophecy?IO: Armageddon, yea.LH: Armageddon. Well so you shift contexts there to, to um, to uh the ebb and flow of uh of consci-of human consciousness, like the tides of human consciousness. So human consciousness has experienced this being, you know. Hasn’t it? For, for how many thousand years? For a few thousand years? 50 million years? I don’t know. Scientists could tell you how long on a calendar. But these experienc-this being-well if this being is going to be expunged then that means that we’re going to go into a different um, ah, a different type of existence. Now the infinite, like infinity is unlimited. There’s no limit on infinity. Which means that you may go one way and I’ll go another and there’s no module, there’s no module, there’s no set pattern of wh-for example you might die and be reborn again in the next second, and to a whole world in which you had never even known your death. Can, can you feature that? IO: Yes.LH: Can you feature that if you die in an animal sense all you do is go back into this material world where you may rest for a hundred thousand years or maybe two-hundred thousand billion years while the earth goes through a whole new heat change and a whole new biological order comes into being and a whole new world is reborn and that would all happen in an instant in terms of your conscience-consciousness, you know. So there’s no limit! On what, what may possibly befall mankind 97 98armageddon or whatever it is, that, that cat thinks that he’s gotta go. So th-he you know (laughs) you know? So you move into different contexts all the time. But if you’re talking in contexts of saving the world and whenever I talk about being a human being here on earth then I always like to look at it from the point of view of, gee it’s repairable, you know. Sure I can see the mess. I dig it. Sure, maybe the price we had to pay to-to-to have the industry we have the industry we have, maybe we had to poison a bit of the earth to know the power that we have. But now we’ve got the power and I think we’re just right on the threshold of either passing through to a uh, a uh, into another consciousness uh, some people, you know, believe in gross materialism, “there’s nothing here but dirt,” you know, “and when you die you’re dead.” (lowers voice to emphasize shift in character) Well, they can have it, you know. That’s their thing (laughs). IO: Just a minute, would you say that again? (laughs)LH: No, I don’t want to-IO: Oka-07:54 min[End of recording] House, L. (1968). Interviewed by Imbert Orchard for CBC, Available at: BC Archives, Royal BC Museum, Victoria BC (Accessed: 30 October 2020).99 100
Graduating Project
Hornby Island (B.C.)
eng
Unreviewed
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Graduate
University of British Columbia. ARCH 549
Island, Arts, Memory
Against the Ultimate Spinach
Text