Can Our Homes Make Us Better Humans? Architecture as Medicine to the Meta-crisis

Most of the buildings, like let's take the United States is all built by builders who don't give a shit and developers that literally, they could care less if the buildings are literally poisoning babies.

This is Dakota Apostolou, CEO of BioArt, a Bali based architecture firm that are creating buildings that are quite the antidote to the monotonous and life sucking concrete bunkers we see everywhere these days.

Because architecture is an art, is a mother of all the arts actually.

And this is Pablo Luna, an equally talented architect who is on a mission together with his team to bring the way we build our houses into full alignment with Mother Earth. Again, both of them understand that the buildings we inhabit have an enormous influence on the kind of people we will.

Become in a shitty conference hall all day. It's not just the depletion of the oxygen, it's also you're literally getting depleted. And that's a core thing to help.

So in this episode, Dakota, Pablo and I are unpacking how we can create buildings that call forth the very best from within us.

We have to be cognizant of the nature of reality, integrate and synthesize that so that our built environment is literally healing.

And from there, our conversation shifted to the idea of architecture as a sandbox to explore how ventures grounded in beautiful values might develop the resilience and strength necessary to thrive in today's hyper competitive landscape. This conscious green, regenerative impact machine that is powerful enough to compete in the economic system that we created right now, while at the same time regenerating on all those other levels that are true and beautiful and good. We realize that doing the right thing, if done correctly, is actually good for business.

Hey, look, if we build it in this way, it may cost a little bit more, but it's going to provide all these other levels of value. It's going to increase your business margins this much. It's going to increase your brand quality this much.

Of course, this requires a systemic approach that needs to come with a certain humility, the attitude of a lifelong learner, and to remove the walls between each other and to enable effective collaboration.

We have our own framework in the studio and it's been very useful. It's constantly being developed because every project you learn something new and you realize, okay, we need to fine tune here. And it's open source.

This conversation, I can tell you, is packed with so much goodness, confrontational and deeply soul nourishing at the same time.

How do I relate with it in the most harmonious manner and how we can create A win win.

Yeah. There's a really big potential for us to make a system change here. Really, really huge.

So let's dive into the Custodian Podcast with my dear friends, Dakota Apostolo and Pablo Luna. Pablo, Dakota, welcome to the Custodian Podcast. Super happy to have you here and to explore, I think, a topic that is very close to all of our hearts. How can we build living environments that actually call forth the very best from the people who inhabit them? You're both architects and you're doing that for a living, and I'm just passionate about this topic, and I'm looking forward to learn from you guys and to lay a little bit of a foundation for our shared conversation today. I'd love to watch a short video together with us. It's just a minute, but it gives. I love it. It gives a beautiful introduction into what, for me, is the essence of why I'm fascinated by architecture.

Everything that we design, in turn, designs us back. So we are being actively designed by that which we have designed. Okay. Our thoughts shape our spaces and shape our tools. Our tools and spaces return the favor, as Steven Johnson tells us. And so what does this mean? Well, it means that everything we are, is emerging, is unfolding, is being created by the active engagements between mind and world and the feedback loops therein. Our creative and linguistic choices transform, literally transform our minds from within. And so, again, it shows that there is a sort of space in which what is without ultimately is within, that there's a circularity that our actions matter.

That the choices we make today for our dwellings, for our museums, for our.

Institutional systems, everywhere we place the body.

Mind has to be designed knowing that.

Everything that we are designing is designing us back.

This is ontological design.

This is why it's important. And this is why we basically got.

To keep that in mind when we.

Upgrade everything from our refrigerators, to our apartments, to our cars, to our goods and services, to our smartphones. Because it's our mind we're talking about here. That's ontological design.

So if we. If we believe that we are actively shaped by our. By our physical environments, I think we are invited to rethink the spaces that we are building. Because I did a little Google search for architecture, and what came up was this. And then this and this and this. And if we see those spaces, I think it's not hard to imagine how they shape the people that inhabit these spaces. And when we compare that to how you guys are designing spaces, for example, this beautiful piece of art by Pablo, or that or that. Or that for your beautiful new office that I was fortunate enough to see. That's from the inside or here I prepared some amazing pieces that Dakota, you and BioAir created.

Yeah, I think that it's the built environment, it's being dictated by economics over any connection to the sacred. The economics are rooted in this process of how do we build the lowest cost thing and get the money back as quickly as possible. And that is dictating 95%, if not more, of the entire built environment. Doesn't matter how toxic it is or how shitty it is, or how short term it is in terms of how long it will last. That is dictating everything. And that then dictates the entire economy, including the construction industry and the legal industry and the whole legal context and framework. And so one side where the. Because we're the product not only of the environment, but also our technology and also the whole cultural construct, because we're inside of that. People often look at architectures like why are people doing this? Or building in a really unhealthy way? It's because they're kind of forced to based inside of a lack of meaning or any connection of the importance of the sacred. And so it's. If everything is being dictated on how do we build the cheapest thing for the maximum extraction, the maximum roi, then there's absolutely no attention to anything other than false symbolism. Right. So I'm going to build a house that looks like a Greek temple, that has nothing to do with anything, is completely empty and fake and cheap and ridiculous. Or I do an extruded glass concrete box and again, there is no space for is this going to destroy the environment or the health of ourselves and our children or our brothers and sisters? That doesn't even enter the frame. So if we want to, if we're going to root architecture in life and like what is the way that we engender thriving life, then we have to have a different value system that goes beyond maximum roi. And that doesn't mean we don't take into account the economics. That's one of the great thing about bamboo architecture is that it's actually quite economical. But it's not only coming from that. There's other important value that we're bringing to it.

This is true for all the components of the global meta crisis that we are currently witnessing, that they are all connected with each other. So we cannot just look at architecture by itself, we cannot just look at education by itself. We cannot just look at how we treat our bodies. All of those need to flow together. And in order to reinvent architecture we need to reinvent the. The whole economic thing that we created. Which makes the challenge a lot more daunting I would say. But it gives us the possibility to actually really build something new. If we place the topic of architecture within the broader context, it's an ever.

Developing system that has ever more relevance in the context context and the context is really important to frame because I don't know if you know Alor from Brave Earth, which I think is a really beautiful project, one of the best in Costa Rica in my opinion for intelligent conscious community. One of the things I really like he talks about is we need to be relevant to our context. If don't understand our context, our work doesn't have any, doesn't mean anything. And it's as an architecture I place a huge value on what does it take to get a building like that built? And it's hard. It takes a huge amount of analysis, a huge amount of soft skills and people skills and it's rad. And it's inside of a context where luckily we're in Bali where people value building something real. Beauty and beauty is also a science. There's a reason, there's an actual things like physics that go into why we consider something beauty and something as simple as passive design which is 90% of the time not even considered that literally if you just angle the building and create a temperature differential, you'll get breeze wow. Like one of the most simple things you can do. Most people don't give a about because they're consumed with a building having a pre arranged shape and aesthetic. And that aesthetic is being dictated by your building materials. And the building materials are inside of a crony marketplace where we subsidize certain industry materials over others. And many countries are captured by the vested interest of construction materials. And so we have a code and a building code that says you have to use certain materials because they've been captured by industry. The government isn't regulating what is best for the public good. The public isn't controlling the government and the government isn't controlling the industry. And so we have this runaway train towards complete self destruction on the planet. So it's like yes, doing beautiful buildings have an impact. It's a similar impact of like if you live in a family or in a community, if you leave a dirty dish in the sink and if everyone does that, you have a shit show or if you, you piss a little bit on the toilet seat, you don't clean it up. If Everyone does that. The bathroom's disgusting. So these things that our impact matter and our impact adds up. A certain amount of the population believes in women's suffrage also. You can have a shift in the populace where we can write. We can bring forward a more just society. So these projects do mean a lot. And in terms of how do we move architecture towards any type of systemic impact? Because if we spend our lives doing like 100 or 200 maybe, like, right, A thousand beautiful buildings, will that mean anything? It might not. We might still self terminate and not have a planet. And all of our children don't have a planet to live on. And they're the last humans. That is an extremely high likelihood. And the thing that's really badass about the built environment is that it has the kin, as you're saying. Beautiful languaging. The first kin that we have is the environment we're born into is of absolute paramount importance. Now how do we then move that into some type of systemic change? And there are like the Sarasota School in Florida or the Palm Springs Desert modernism, like coming from the US orientation, there are schools of thought that have emerged that have had major impact on culture. And I think that what is really of interest to me in this discussion is how do we as a collective inside of the context of Custodia, how do we start to bring forward a movement or a school of thought inside of Bali, which is seen as a paradise and yet half, or I don't say a quarter of the island on the south is an abomination. It's just death, like anti life by development. And it's not just like the develop. Like Chengu is a trope of like what happens when runaway misaligned economic incentives develop an area. Yeah, the same thing as Denpasar, right. With just a different cultural flavor. And so we have this context where we have this island that has a very clear carrying capacity getting overbuilt. And we can be in service to just building badass retreat centers. Okay, cool. But then how do we actually as a collective coordinate in a way that we can leverage the brand of Bali, which is hollow, it's empty inside. People come to Bali and they're. They lament the loss of what it was 30 years ago. And you can be in ubud and you smile and wave at the kids and they don't smile back. And you can go to remote Bali where you drive through and every single person is like, hello, how are you? Like beaming with joy. And then we have the. We have the law of that in these centers that are famous for spirituality in Bali as a cultural tradition that is still rooted in a deep connection to the. The spirit of the land. And animism has deep indigenous wisdom. And that's why people, they're in part drawn to this area. So I think the thing that would be very relevant for us is how do we actually move forward? And part of the whole reason of why you guys are doing the project here is how do we help instigate that and coordinate that so maybe we can emerge a Bali school of thought that is rooted in part in the built environment. It's rooted in the sacred, it's rooted in deep ecology and actually leverage the momentum. The fear of change makers or game changers or whatever you want to call the subculture of let's not die, let's actually the extinction rebellion. How do we get even beyond that? I think that would be the most useful time for us today. We're in Bali, we're super spoiled. There is an arms race here inherent in the commercialization of getting likes and attraction to your retreat center or your venue. So people give a shit about architecture, but how do we move it from it's glitzy and looks cool to it actually is healing for everybody and everything involved.

And that's an important thing not just for the people who are booking a high price retreat there, but that is actually healing for the staff that are working there. And that is healing for the environment surrounding it, like the local village and healing for the fisherman who looks at the retreat space from the sea. I would absolutely love for us to go into the specifics of, like, if we would actually reinvent the places that we are building, what would be the materials and what would be the geometry and what, how do we place the side? And I would actually love for us to dive into all of that, but I'd love to read something from the, from the bioarch website before and maybe you can give a little bit more context on that, Dakota, because I absolutely, absolutely love that you see bioarchitecture as the use of specific materials, site placement and geometry to increase a structure's capacity to store electrical charge.

Yeah.

Can you elaborate further on that? Because I think this is a, this is a lens through. Not a lot of people are looking at the buildings. It's just like it feels like, okay, it's matter, it's concrete, it's wood, it's like it's things like that. But the more subtle relationship that we actually on a biological, physical level have with the Buildings that we. Please dive into that. I find that as an important frame for our full conversation.

There's many layers of analysis that we can bring to things. Right? Like building biology is a little bit more widely understood. Building biology relates to the health of the building, right? Like how do you design in such a way that you don't have mold filled walls or ceilings? If you don't do that, people will slowly get very, very sick. Now core, the corollary in electromagnetics is that the body all the way down to the mitochondria runs on electricity. Like we have, we have an electromagnetic field, we have a biofield, the aura, that's a real thing and they're there. You can look at certain buildings and say like there's sacred geometry, which is a hard thing to codify. But across history, all advanced civilizations have refined their sacred geometry, their sacred architecture to utilize certain geometries that have life generating properties. Now a key thing in this is you have to understand that there's the plasma. The fourth, like a couple things in physics. I'm going to be overly reductionistic here, but just for the sake of conversation, Einstein showed that energy and matter are equal, right? We know there's a root or resonant frequency to all matter. The famous example is the opera singer. She hits the resonant frequency of the glass, the crystal glass, and she explodes it. When two waves match, there's a major transference of energy. And because all matter is energy and all energy can be represented with certain geometries, those geometries are almost always vortices. So plasma, which is subatomic energy, subatomic charged ions is 99.9% of the universe. We're a little shoebox in the corner with this thing called atomized or atom based life. Hyper rare. And yet we base our entire physics on understanding the atom and phys atom, atomized life or atomic life. I mean to say, however, that's a very, very narrow view of life potential. And so if you look at, if you take a glass and put two batteries plus sides together, you start to spin a vortex. Energy tends to self organize in increasing orders of complexity. And that in the. Because the universe is not empty, there's no such thing as empty space. In outer space. It's not empty, it's all ionized gas. And ionized gas is reactive and forms into certain geometries. And those geometries go across many, many things. So the DNA has a very specific geometry. There are growth functions like geometric patterns that exist that are inherent to life. Buildings can move thermal energy, can move wind. And for instance, based on creating a differential, a difference of heat and cold and hot air rises. And so it pulls in cool air. Right. So you can think of the corollary through electromagnetic electromagnetics. So there is an electric charge potential between the sky and the ground. A building. And sacred buildings did this quite well. The Giza pyramids did this. Fucking any temple of any status from Cambodia to Thailand to, you name it all were designing in these ways to be overly simplistic, but to use electric charge and use the building as a medium for intelligently designing those charges to enhance the life of the people in the land. And you can do that by inducing plasma fields and ionizing. So when we're in the environment, the natural environment, it's ion rich. And when you're in a concrete jungle, cement actually pulls ions like a catheter, like an old tv literally pulls energy out of the human body. It literally depletes your energy. And we are energy beings.

And if you're sensitive, you can actually.

Feel that you sit in a shitty conference hall all day. It's not just the depletion of the oxygen, it's all. It's not just the toxic off gassing from the rugs or the carpet. It's also you're literally getting depleted. And that's a core thing to health. But our system currently is focused on maximizing GDP and extraction, which is the is anti life. It's not about healing people, it's completely focused on actually how do we keep people sick, how do we keep people focused in consuming. And so if we shift that and we make building, we can actually use advanced geometry to make forms of buildings actually have life engendering properties. And so that's a small summary, very overly simplified. But electromagnetics and plasma energy, plasma science are very, very important fields that should be incorporated into architecture. And it's. We operate in the world from a very Newtonian physics when quantum mechanics is not new. Everything is literally connected. Our thoughts, our biofield is thought reactive. And this is not like, this is not woo woo science, this is like real science. And as we think our. The thought waves literally impact everything around us. And our bodies are subtle electric systems. And so we need to take that into account if we want to do really advanced healing environments.

Two days ago, David and I had a movie night here where we are sitting right now and we watched Interstellar, a movie where people are going into outer space. And what you just mentioned is that like astronauts, when they go into outer space, when they are leaving the gravity field of the Earth with this unique frequency, what you just mentioned. They bring a device with them that actually. What is. That mimics the. The. The.

The.

The field of the Earth. The Schumann resonance.

Yeah.

And that's something. I think that's something we can all feel, that there's something specific, something unique to the. To just, like, sitting on the soil, to just like being under a tree, to really, like, connecting with. With Mama Gaia that is missing in a lot of lives of the majority of these 8 billion people that are inhabiting this planet right now because of the unique materials that build the places that we inhabit with. And I think we are invited to increase our own. Or I would not even increase. I would say allow our own sensitivity to feel that. Because I think most people are able to feel the difference. They just don't allow themselves to give space for that because it's like, yeah, but I. I need to earn money. I need to have my job. Like, I. I would actually love to live in a place that is. That feels in full alignment, but it's hard. It's hard to make that happen. So they numb themselves and don't allow the sensitivity of.

Oh, wow.

I have the feeling that I'm not in tune with the. With the freak frequency of. Of Earth because of the. Of the living conditions that I. That I chose for myself.

Yeah, because we're literally earthlings. Like, we literally evolved as an integral piece of the environment. Like, if you go. If you leave the, like the electromagnetic field to the Earth, you, like, you will slowly die. And, like. And it radically affects everything down to your DNA. Like, we're like, literally, literally earthlings, and we overlook that completely with this crazy, crazy economic system that we have. And it's one of the things that we have to be cognizant of is that. And people tend to oversimplify the challenge we're in. And it's so, like, we were just talking about, like, how do we. One of the things I wanted to bring up is, like, how do we actually create a coordination where we are empowering other groups and entity, other firms to develop their acumen. And we. If we build a. A certain movement and a certain relationality that people connect with, then we can actually engender really, really quick trend changes in human behavior. Like the yellow movement in Taiwan. Right? Like, have all these shopkeepers, like, putting a little yellow square that we support independence. And if you didn't have the yellow, yellow mark very, very small, then people were actually stopped buying from stores that didn't have that. And it affected Chinese companies so dramatically that it actually changed buying power dramatically. So there's like there are ways for us to create movements, go viral, so to speak, with certain aware breakthroughs and awareness that like we're literally fucking earthlings and we literally are part of the ecosystem. And so if we start to relate to that, you actually are healthier. But yeah, so anyway, I'm going on maybe a different tangent, but what I.

Want to say first is the respect and admiration for the work bioarch is doing because I have seen it through the years here in Bali. I seen Juan and all the team like really dive deep into topics that I think are almost talking about the architecture of the future. I have very little knowledge about plasma and how to supercharge a building or the benefits of sacred geometry. But I feel like you guys are tapping into something that. Yeah, almost like ancient technology and one more of these layers that we should consider. And it seemed as you were mentioning that many ancient civilizations did and there might be very meaningful reasons for that. So that is very inspiring to hear. And I love also like that diversity again because we're still humans and I feel like we're not going to get a framework or we're not trying to get to a place where all the answers are going to look alike, but it's how we can create this. Maybe school, as you were mentioning of thought but with all these different ramifications. But these core values or intention which I feel here, we all resonate that today for me, if I had to put some and maybe we can all put some would be like respect and care for the environment, social, cultural.

That's what custodianship is for me to actually care. To actually care about something beyond your own immediate well being.

Exactly. That's what you guys are doing. Trying to take and your respect. Yeah. Of how you integrate here, I would say responsibility. I think it's something that I have learned every day more profoundly like of how actually as Akota was mentioning, our buildings can have. Yeah. It's an art that can mean to take life or bring life. And we are all in the business of bringing life and. Or creating further life but also acknowledging that to create you need to destroy. So it doesn't mean also that this is a process. And I feel maybe that seeing each other as colleagues rather than competition because yeah, as we were mentioning, I feel it. That is very internal. It's really at the base of how we relate that we're supporting each other and taking each other up Even when the times are difficult because it's very easy to. And I had experience with Dakota that has been very beautiful in our projects that Dakota is reviewing where we had some challenges. And actually it's been very humbling for me, but very empowering to actually recognize that this journey is full of challenges and mistakes. But if we have the responsibility to actually bring them in and like, okay, I'm going to take full responsibility in the next project. I'm going to do much better and I'm going to consider all these further elements. And I think it's constant process as we were mentioning. Probably at 80 years old, things will come smoother, I hope. I don't know.

That's when you hit your stride as an architect, right?

Yeah. But yeah, for me today, I would say responsibility and care are listening.

You mentioned listening.

Listening, contemplation, Deep study. Deep study to back up again. It's not the inspiration, but it's information. And there is something very beautiful that I feel, we all feel that is from information from that. That when you start putting attention and you start learning even from a place or from your family, the more you learn about them, the more you care and the more you want to protect them. So it's almost from that you develop an emotional connection, even a spiritual one with the place. Because now you understand that you know there is other life happening here and you understand the responsibility of the people that are going to come live here. So you want to give your best and our lack of experience because I super young, we can pay back a little bit from being very honest with these values and from really taking accountability for our actions. And if we make a mistake, take the responsibility, pay for it or learn all the lessons, really go deep into that and go to the next level, because that's life. But maybe that could be. That would be my input into this school at. In this early.

What I hear there is a radical commitment to collaboration and not buying into the story of that. You illustrated beautifully this arms race that you perceive here in Bali. Everybody wants to have the. The newest, the. The most famous, the most liked fancy retreat place. And the next person wants to be like. It's the same race that we that like is present in Dubai with the next highest building. It's just on a slightly more conscious way, but it's still. It's still the same. And I think what. What we need to. What we need to honor is this coming from this humility and be like, wow, what can I learn from you? And what can I learn from you and how. Because I have the feeling that all the answers, they are there. It's just about. It's just about learning how we can collaborate with people who are maybe different than us and be like, create synergies where one plus one actually equals three and not be less than the sum. Than the sum. The. Of the components that are putting in. Put into the system.

Can I add two things? One is that at least for me, resonates a lot. That is not so much about the building itself we're talking here. It's not about architecture. It's about a way of. It's a way of being, a way of relating. That's what is inspiring me. Because architecture for me is an excuse to talk, live to. To live life. And the second one that I feel is not so much also about the materials or putting like, this is the right way, this is the wrong way, or this is the right material, at least for me, because again, let's look at concrete that in the context of natural building could look at the. At the bad guys. But literally, without concrete, we don't exist. Or without plastic, like, these are valuable materials. The thing is that I feel like we. We lose the balance. It got overused, but it has a value in and in different places is different materials and different responses. But again, it's, I think like this deep study allows you to use, imbalance all these innovations, all these technologies, and actually tell the story of how you got to that result. And I can walk a young person and tell them, look, this is how I thought or any human, and then he can actually pinpoint, wow. But maybe you should remember this for the next time. And all this, yeah, this is a win. This is something that we learn because architecture never ends. It's actually when architecture begins, when the people start inhabiting the buildings. So again, it's more about life for me, and it's more about how we want to relate to everything we do.

If we realize that it's about fostering collaboration, fostering community. How do we think about the buildings? How do the buildings that we create accept actually enable more collaboration, more community, instead of what is traditionally happening? Like, there's a pretty thick wall that is between me and my neighbor, and I probably cannot even hear them, even if I would be screaming inside my own apartment. Like, how do we think about buildings that actually enable us coming closer instead of moving further apart?

There's this Lao Tse quote that the reality is not in the roof and the walls, but in the space within to be lived. And it's what you're saying is like the way of being is what we're after. And that's like, that's an exalted frame of reference to the world. That's being in resonance with everythingness, which then just results in peace. It results in a deeper relationality. And so I think there's. Architects sometimes can get preoccupied by the form of the thing. And if architecture is used as a resource, as a methodology to bring communitas forward and in the process engender deep, deep support systems and collaboration and coordination, awesome. And I think the thing that's a gift is that inside of the context of the environmental collapse and of geopolitics and pandemics, and you name it, there is more opportunity than ever before to leapfrog. Because a lot of people realize that, that they're kind of up Schitt's creek when it comes to their lifestyle and they recognize that it's a trope now that you live in a cookie cutter box. But there isn't an alternative path that people can tap into. There are some that escape and come. Like the whole Bali community of change makers. It's very small, but great place to start. And so bringing people around the problem and inviting people into a story, and that's one of the things that's missing is the story of why is my life meaningful? What is the purpose and continuing Life is a pretty awesome story being. Having more impact than any other human has ever had before as a small group of people. Pretty awesome story. And I think if we can invite people into a story that holy shit. Together we actually can build massive things, not just physically, but as like a community that's in love, in love with our reverence of the nature, in love of supporting each other. And I think that's. That's the thing that's very exciting to galvanize that. That energy.

When I edited the last podcast, I needed some B roll footage and into the. Into Artlist, the tool where I get the video footage. I typed in the term Anthropocene, the. The age that we're living in, the age of the humans. And when I typed in the term Anthropocene, like all the. All the footage that I got was animals dying, forests being clear cut, polluted rivers, piles of trash. And in this moment I felt a profound sadness of this is actually our collective work. Like the age of the humans is not an age where the whole biosphere is thriving, but actually the age of the universe. Humans is an age that is characterized visually by these images that I got in this search engine and for me the story of how can we become a species that actually cares about others and in return gets what we are truly craving as well. Because if you we look at the 8 billion inhabitants of this. 8 billion human inhabitants of this planet, we are not really thriving either. Although we are optimizing for our own short term self interest. Like collectively we are not thriving. So for me, and that's the story for me about custodianship, like how can we, how can we become the species that cares for something beyond ourselves and in return as a byproduct thrives.

We need a story. We need to step into a collective story that actually has as real meaning for people and people want to contribute. The worst thing is to feel hopelessness and you feel hope when you can contribute and you can add your little piece into the equation. And I think that's. And it all comes down a big piece of this comes down to coordination. And architecture is an accelerant accord. It can be an accelerant to coordination. I, I believe because when you take as you're saying as a way of being this like you're generating your work through an inquiry of how do I be that in that results with a different poetic. That results with a different depth of, of of research and analysis, you know that all of those things are very, very tangible. And like we can say and I think it's quite obvious that hey guys, you'll make more money doing the things that are good for the environment. That's not rocket science. Like yeah, we can externalize the cost of industrial corn that's decimating Indonesia or all the planet. And it's pretty, it's pretty obvious that that doesn't. Those economics are whack. But we can also externalize it in people, in people's. We can acknowledge the externalization of people's depression. And so I think that's like, that's the piece that I love about projects like you're doing is that you're creating that container and we'll continue to up level the architecture that people feel held.

You know, there is a, this idea that I love that it's more liberty means more responsibility. So the more liberty you have is because you take more responsibility of what is happening around. You're choosing to engage and that gives you freedom. And I feel, I want to say three things. First is our role that I feel like we are in an age where we get the opportunity to already to engage with clients to do our own projects. We're super blessed. I see my biggest impact into supporting the young or my team or anybody that is also trying to feel empowered. It takes one person to be believe in you to change your life. So first, I think like from that very human experience, I had clients that changed my life. They believe in my capacity with very little experience. And that has brought me into this journey. And I feel like that's a very tangible action that we can do in our daily life so that we can spread this impact. Because many people come out with a lot of fear from university, from, from. And we just need opportunity. But then we start taking responsibility and care for what is happening. And that brings me to the conversation of comfort. I feel architecture and life in general is driving towards more comfort than today. I have projects where they asked me to have all the light switch here, but also there because maybe they want to go in the bathroom and turn the whole thing down and they don't want to walk 1 meter and turn the switch up. Little things, but it's like more of a bird example of what is happening in this very comfortable experience. But to go deep to create places like this, it's a bit uncomfortable to actually recycle. Take care of your waste. Anything that takes further time, go deep to create places like this, it's a bit uncomfortable and deeper conversations. And actually, so there is something there that I don't have an answer. I'm just putting it in the table where I see that we are very guided towards this more comfortable experience and living where we almost don't want to move and we want to have the. And everything is meant to do that, all the technology, in one second I can get everything I want. And I'm constantly bombarded by dopamine and all these effects. But I feel actually when you start getting real and you start empowering yourself, it gets you to this place that there is challenge, there is friction, but you can live it with grace. And actually, yeah, the things that I have experienced in my personal life as the result of going through those challenges, it brings me pride. It allows me to tell that story. Yeah, I feel grateful. I feel connected with what I have done. But I think there is of course a level of comfort, but I think again, we overdid it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Just putting out there. I think there is something there where we're losing the. We want everything so fast. We want to get. And we're always thinking in our needs and it's uncomfortable to stop looking for the other. You know what I mean?

What I hear There is a distinction between or like one of the ingredients that I would add to the list that already emerged of the items that we would definitely need to are invited to cultivate is the ability to look beyond your own current scope and actually try to think about what are the effects of my actions in 10 years and 20 years and 30 years have this like long term thinking that is for the, the. The whole picture that you painted how architecture is actually immersed in a broader playing field field containing the economics, containing the education, containing all of these other dimensions. Like there is no obvious answer, there's no obvious quick fix, there's no obvious light switch that you can't can turn right now and then the whole thing is like rebuilt. It actually takes a very broad perspective and it takes a long term thinking of like how do we really want to. To reimagine this planet and our whole, our whole journey on it. And that requires effort and that doesn't pro. That probably is not in alignment with the past of least resistance with the past of. With the path of comfort. Because it is quite literally like mentally challenging to map all these different systems out and try to come up with a response that works on that playing field where the immediate responses I have no clue what to do.

I think this is where tradition has been so useful because it tends to codify methods and methodology is really valuable. There's a critique of Frank Lloyd Wright that his work wasn't as influential. I mean he's one of the most important acclaimed architects. But many people consider that his work could have been so much more important to affecting architecture as a whole had he been more open source with his design method. He had a very specific design method. And in architecture school in the contemporary era, you don't learn design method like you used to let's say in French called the Beaux art. You have like a very specific way. This is how you do architecture, this is how you not do architecture. Well, there's a real value in that, in having methodology that you can call on and innovate on. Because without methodology it's like is that we're going to all every time learn how to paint again. And so if you look at the some of the history of let's say like the architecture follows the arts. It's the slowest shifting art because it's the most resource heavy. So if you look at the transformation in art in contemporary and contemporary era of Pre World War II, you know, a fine painter could paint with high quality, with technique and make photorealism. If you were A painter and you couldn't do photorealism, you're worthless. And then you have people like Pete Mondrian who famously moved his style from he could paint and do realism and then he moved into like the middle section of his work was my favorite, which is like the beginning of abstraction all the way to like full abstraction. And then you had other era generations of painters that lost the ability to do photoreals and painting and they could only do abstraction. And I find the corollary is it's actually really useful to maintain a certain degree of tradition so that we can innovate on it. Because if you don't have that, you don't know how to innovate on it or create new methodology. And so I think in architecture it's really valuable and I think a lot of young people coming into the field don't have access to. Here are specific methodologies With Frank Lloyd Wright, there's like a very specific use of grids to proportion buildings. It's very, very specific. And all the great architects have a method and have a set of principles they design with. And I think we want to cultivate that.

Yeah, I completely agree. I feel like there is a kind of entry level of knowledge that you want to be connected with so that you can perform this art. Because architecture is an art, it's a mother of all the arts actually. Very beautiful because it's where sculpture, dance, everything happens. But yeah, you want to be able to connect with a certain level of knowledge. And then we have our own framework in the studio and it's been very useful. It's constantly being developed and fine tuned as we learn. Because every project you learn something new and you realize, okay, we need to fine tune here. But we have our internal framework and it's open source. But then the next level that I will put together with methodology is that you have to be a storyteller because it's very human. The clients, when they come, they resonate with who you are or with your vision. They want to be in the journey with you and your team and for that they want to be part like and they're our teammates and we're co creating together. So actually telling the stories of the things that you are discovering. It has been of immense value to tell them like, look, the first four months of our framework today are just purely research and I need him to actually pay us to do this research and for him to feel that he's getting the value out of it. So we're telling the stories of how we're learning that has been and coming to that realization today. Every day we dive deeper in the story of how we are arriving to what we're arriving. So there is these different techniques like having a good creating your methodology but also tapping to this ancestral traditional knowledge that is already there. We don't need to reinvent the wheel because there are so many people already that have done the groundwork and we should be grateful for. But at the same time you can put your little own flavor and make it yours, you know, but with respect, I can not take in like before that I feel like the genius or the inspire. I don't see it going there. But yeah, different, different things to have in consideration especially if I were young today that I wish to know that I have learned now after building for a few years.

And the universe is fractal. And so there's, there's whatever domain. So first if we identify with our specialization, then we reduce what we do. Now the modern economy is based on this and it's based on the oversimplification and there's all the marketing schools. You do one thing right, do it well, you're not going to be find your niche, do that. And so what does that mean? You're maxim maximizing the extraction based on a hyper like a sub niche or a niche. So but in order to bring wisdom to what any discipline, the more lateral you are. And especially because the universe is fractal, as far as I believe we can understand, there is actually design method that you can apply across various modalities of inquiry. Like I really been deep in the inquiry of economics using a rather architecture orientated design method. And so that crosses over in many many different fields of study. And the more we can synergize, the more intelligence we can bring to bringing thriving life to the environment. And the environment because we're an environmental and we're in climate collapse. It's not climate change, it's climate collapse that is what's occurring regardless of whatever vested interests want to delay the awareness of that it is the case. And so if we are aware to the rate of change of the collapse, then if we all go and build a garden that's wise, we should all do that. Like we should just do that because that we dumbasses not to. Are we all doing that? No, we're not. But we know we should. Now does that make systemic change? Not necessarily. Does it move us in the. Is it a baby step? Yes, and we should make baby steps, get from zero to one anywhere we can. So the Lateralized approach of wisdom gathering so we can make environments that get outside of the trap is really key. And I think one aspect of that that we can bring into our architecture is regenerative environments. Now regenerative is becoming a dirty word. But at the core of it is the core like we need to generate a newfound health. We have a dying planet and a dying populace. Like one of the things I often talk about is like if you want to talk about plastic pollution, we should talk about the reduction of men's penis sizes. Because as an emotional charge and it's the infertility rates are skyrocketing. Like we need to relate back to what people care most about in our children, including the fertility, the ability of us to continue life. Because at the end of the day, what more is at the core than life and bringing life? Life is over unity. Life produces itself. The universe is self organizing. The universe actually falls into greater degrees of complexity. It's not into chaos, it's actually into self organization. That is, we have to be cognizant of the nature of reality, integrate and synthesize that so that our built environment is literally healing, healing in all the aspects that result with thriving life. And life is in an ecosystem. It's wildly complex. So we have to have the focus and the attention to say no, I'm not just an architect, I'm an ecologist. I'm da da da da da, the 15, 20, 30 things that I'm in deep study with and deep research with and I may culminate that and be a servant into a healthy built environment or a healing built environment. That's what I think is stewardship in that we, we all need to help move forward.

If I would bring those, those two beautiful things that you mentioned together and seeing architecture as a, as a sandbox for the, for the larger question of how do we redesign the whole civilization that we, that we currently build. We need the imagination. We need the storytelling. We need the, what you mentioned as well. We need to have the capacity to envision something that is not there yet. Because this is the spark, this is like the question of what if, like what if we would actually do this? What if we would actually do a building that looks like a manta ray? Like, you actually need to come up with this imagination, with this vision first. And then of course the methodology comes in to ground the vision, to ground the imagination, to ground the story in the current reality in order to bring it into, into existence. Because if we just sit here and think about utopian future and Talk about it. It's nice, it's entertaining, it's fun. And at the same time, it would be even nicer if we could actually move forward towards that.

Well, I think this is like in good straight storytelling, the, the main character always has a problem and they generally going about their life, they get hit with a problem, they get off track. Like the whole, like the whole. The journey. Right. It's very codified and it's very effective. And so we can use that when we invite the clients into the project or invite a community of people to. Into enhanced coordination, into an abductive. What if. Of. Yeah, what if we could change this entire bioregion? What if that made a lot more money? What if that. And so. And so on. You know, I think that's. And architects have, I think, an important role in this because they're literally trained to think laterally into a vision and to like, actually do that work, which is really, really important. Ground level. Yeah.

Let's touch quickly on the. Because what we realized multiple times today is how the economic component is a strong driver of, of architecture of the places we are building. And I think if we remember the, the. The interconnectedness of the, of the. Of having. Having a beautiful vision and at the same time bringing into reality. We cannot just say, okay, oh, let's just reinvent the same exact economic system. Today I just made a rough draft and I call a couple of people and then we have it done. How can we reinvent architecture within the current system while knowing that we. That we need to move in the current system in order to. Slowly. Because these. You said architecture is the slowest of the arts. Probably the economic system is a lot, It's a lot slow because there's so many more resources tied to that. Like, how can we. I'm super, super, super curious if you're talking to clients. Like, I think the work that you are doing, for example, taking four months just to research and asking the client to pay up front without getting any building, without getting, without even. Without even talking about the. A building that they get. Like, how can we move forwards in the direction of creating different, different, different. Different houses, different dwellings, different places for us to inhabit given the economic constraints that are currently present. How do you think about that?

Okay, I go, I go. Thank you. I feel. Well, economy is, I believe, the base you need to have. It is the base of any project. Like either you have the money to build or not. Budget is number one in conversation. It's one of the first questions we ask any client and I feel that building, how do I can back up, for example, this new framework in which we are working is by very consciously understanding the value of the research that I'm doing. Because today you can really go deep into how you can make energy efficient buildings that by understanding the ecosystem, you're going to save a lot of money to your client and to their project by understanding the materials available and having in our team we have our bill of quantities, understanding the prices, the variation, the construction techniques. That's why it's very complex. But you need to have it like you need to understand to the detail how much it's going to cost and the impact that that is going to have on the client. So again, bringing everything to monetary and financial value I think is a very good strategy in our storytelling to tell them not just look, we're going to tell a beautiful story, but also I even use it as look, this is how we're going to marketing your building through this very clear vision that is going to bring you more people and you're going to be able to charge higher. So you are seeing every move that you are doing through the economic perspective without disregarding it just to bring further value. Because yes, you need to acknowledge it. And the idea is you actually even want to create money for your client that they are not paying for you. You need to like thinking like it is from that mindset. So I feel like there is many techniques. I feel like Dakota might have some others.

I think I want to double click on that. I think it's what I hear you saying is that there's a strategy and acumen to intelligently articulate the true cost, including the life cycle cost. So you're saying, hey, look, if we build it in this way, it may cost a little bit more, but it's going to provide all these other levels of value. If we actually do a proper due diligence on this building and actually understand its context, it's going to increase your business margins this much, it's going to increase your brand quality this much.

And it saves you in the long run because now we build it properly, you have less maintenance, less huge.

And then, then it's just like, well, it's pretty obvious because we're actually just accounting for the things that are not normally accounted for. So yeah, maybe there's a little bit additional financing costs, maybe not. But in the long. And that's the interesting thing about the architect, like there's such a small percentage of the cost of construction that if you pay an architecture team an Additional three months to research and make sure your building is going to be intelligent and like be appropriate and all the things and stand the test of time. Well that's an insignificant cost. Like it's even paying the highest wages and so comparatively to the cost of construction because we're talking about lots of materials removing and firms like BIG do a really good job with this and there's more and more firms have innovated that and I think the more we can be really clear with that and I think that's one of the ways that if more and more architects have an incentive to share best practices. And one of the ironies in architecture is that in the built environment, architects are responsible for very few buildings. Most of the buildings like let's take the United States is all built by builders who don't give a shit and developers that literally they could care less if the buildings are literally poisoning babies. They just, this is not even like don't care. And so it's like architects have a value to come together and say hey, look at this. How we're convincing our clients of like, hey, because we're actually going to do proper research and really understand this is how we're going to actually make you a ton more value and money.

What I hear there is and I like, I have the feeling that for the huge global transition and this is.

How we're going to actually make you a ton more value and money.

What I, what I hear there is and I, I like that we are all envisioning it will probably not enough to just drive the, drive down the path of like the values and try to make people. I have the feeling that for the huge global transition aware, hey, let's care about nature, let's do and so on community. But there is a, there's a, there's a beautiful talk that I, that I watched recently of a guy who's, who's then who's doing impact investing and he said the values will always come after the economic viability. So if like probably BMW wouldn't just because they care for the planet just rethink how they are, how they are building their cars.

Yeah.

But because somebody like Tesla is coming along and is setting this, the trend for electric mobility, everybody's like, wow, they will probably get a lot of, get a lot of market capitalization and we need to innovate as well. And then afterwards people are probably thinking like, oh wow, like the thing that is working on an economic level. Oh actually that makes sense. Oh actually it feels like. Thank you, Pablo. It feels really like different sleeping in this building that we created compared to the building that I, that I inhabited before. But make. Making the beautiful, making the true, making the good, be able to work in the current world, I think is so important for the, for the transition because otherwise it will just get.

Now you can't. A friend once said, if you're ahead of your time, you're irrelevant. You gotta be of your time. You're not in your time. And the thing is like we have this insane economic system that's based on murdering the planet and ourselves. And so we have to relate to the economics. And so I think that's a good foot in. And it's pretty obvious that hey, if you do the ethical and morally correct thing, it actually also makes money. Like, you know, poisoning the environment in a way that, what is it saying? You're socializing the cost and privatizing the gains. Right? You get all the money and you have no risk and you, everyone else is suffering. So everyone you have subsidized. Like so on my drive here today, every single river I pass was cloudy, full of, of. Of. Of death poisons. Right. Because Indonesia is helping to subsidize spraying of the rice fields that all drain into the rivers. And it's being subsidized and every country is being subsidized because there's been state capture. And so we have to start with the economics because that's the water wherein we swim and show that. Yeah, actually it makes a hell of a lot more sense. And we can actually structure our water up terra up in the Bay Area. They're doing there. There's many companies doing water structuring. We're doing it as well. There's really far along in industrial ag and they're showing 50% farm yield increase with structuring water. There's just fucking structuring water. That's it. And so no pesticides, no death chemicals needed, none of that, no subsidies. But then how do we actually implement like in the US where there's a, like everywhere, a lot of state capture. How do you ever get beyond that? Well, 150 years of lost technology hasn't been able to bring to market because the vested interests have captured the state. So then inside of that context, that's the reality we have to relate to, otherwise we're being naive. And so inside of that context, yes, architecture firms, we can get better at communicating the externalized values. We can articulate the economic values of U.S. accounting for the real impact of the building and actually capitalize on them by being a service to the world. And that's actually good for your business, especially if your business is. Has anything to do with wellness or retreat centers or yada yada. So. But we can't be naive and ignore the reality that we have a captured system because nothing goes forward. And then we'll just be another group of good do gooders that didn't do anything. So it's like inside of that, okay, so we're in Indonesia. There is a different level of development that allows for certain things to move forward. For instance, bamboo architecture in the United States. No fucking way. Why? Because the built environment has been captured by the interests of construction companies and the whole country is ran by the insurance companies. And so you bring in a new building material that is radically hard to get to market. It's possible and some people are slowly, slowly making headway, but it's basically no progress. Even though it's the most intelligent building material after him in that. In that area. So what do we do then? Well, that. What is that saying the small pockets of sanity can have. What is that saying you shared the other day? There's a.

There's maybe small islands of coherence and a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order.

So that right there, I think is the languaging that we need to hold center. And then it's just like, then it looks at. Okay, how do we coordinate? We have three different entities here that we're representing. How do we three coordinate? Extremely well and up level each other and then build more gravity as a collective and accelerate each other's work, not in order to build more shit. Like the thing that's interesting is when as energy gets more efficient, we use more of it. Yeah, we. If we make buildings cheaper, we will build more buildings. So we can transform all of Bali into bamboo buildings and we still fucking cut down all the forests and murder the island. So we, we have to get. That's another context we have to be honest with. Otherwise again, it's just we're missing. Missing the ball. Yeah, yeah.

There were so many things that I would like to touch on. Maybe one thing first. In permaculture, there's this beautiful lens of dividing between different forms of capital. And what we are thinking a lot about here at Custodia is how can we. And I think this is at the essence of what you just shared. How can we regenerate on all forms of capital? How can we regenerate on the natural capital, meaning the whole environment? Surrounding my building, surrounding the place where I'm living at, is actually better off through everything that I'm doing. At the same time regenerating on the human capital level, regenerating on the intellectual capital level, and at the same time regenerating on the financial capital level as well. Because I think if we would leave that out, if we would just say like, of course, okay, let's use all the financial capital, let's use all the money in order to regenerate the planet, in order to regenerate like the, the damage that was done within human beings and we leave this, like, we leave this whole financial viability of our endeavors out. I have the feeling it will be hard, but actually what you both beautifully described is through actual true accounting on how the benefits of the money that you invest right now in the buildings, the, in the building that we are trying to bring into existence together, how that will save you money in the long run and will increase your brand and all of that can be financially a more sensible decision than just building a concrete bunker. That. Yeah, like how, how it was done in the past while at the same time regenerating on all the other capital levels as well. So, and I think these are the questions that we need to ask, like how can we, and this is the antidote to separation, not be like, okay, we only want to focus on this and this is bad. Like how can we bring all of that together and enhance the playing field for all the capitals and through that create this conscious green regenerative impact machine that is powerful enough to compete in the, in the economic system that we created right now, while at the same time regenerating on all those other levels that are true and beautiful and good. I think that's so important.

And widely publicize it and widely publicize it and use it as like. And I think it's, it's interesting because there's, there's, there's economic over unity opportunity there, right? Like we can, the more we can do that, the more we can actually accelerate business to each other economic value. Now again, that's a bonkers measurement to compare against, right? Because that equals the destruction of the planet. So we have to like obviously hold that in our awareness, but we won't. If we don't deal with the financing, nothing moves forward. We have to be really, really pragmatic with that. And like we can, we are showing people, we're all three of these organizations are showing people, hey guys, this actually makes sense to invest in. This actually makes sense to allocate Resources in and it's not actually rocket science. It's pretty obvious, honestly. You know, like this is the right and moralistic thing to do. So then how do we tell a story as a squad to start off with of like hey yo. Like we're actually supporting each other and we care because we're in this magical place called Bali that has a really important indigenous culture that we want to be of servants to and support as well. And we also are bringing in something new and we're also innovating. And so if we can find that balance where we're honoring tradition, we're being relevant to the traditional and we're innovating. And we're innovating from a way of being this with a heart centered intelligent financialization model. We're financializing in the same way, if we can financialize in the same way Wall street does to murder the planet and reuse that to accelerate each other's businesses. Awesome.

And this begins with, I think Pablo is very good at that to get the word out and to actually share the, what you are doing and why you are doing that. I, I have the feeling looking from the outside and this is how I got connected through your work, through your Instagram account and all the I think 180000 followers that are already present there for like an architecture firm in Bali, which is insane, but I think most of the people are not like that are following you, are not like, wow, I'm looking for an architect. But actually I take something, I get inspiration from the beauty of those buildings and from the level of care and from the attention of, to detail that these guys put into what they are doing. And that's why, that's why I'm following them. And I think sharing, sharing that and making it visible and making it like transporting it to somebody maybe on the other side of the planet and impacting their behavior through, through the way you are thinking about architecture. I think this is for me is a crucial ingredient.

Two things to say about that that I resonate with is one is about the little wins for me, for example, taking on a new project that there is already a client or certain developers. And if they choose me or they choose us, I feel like the project is still going to happen with us or without us. And I like to take the responsibility. And some of our projects, a little win is just going from they wanted 50 villas going to 35, 30 reducing but bringing higher value into those designs. This is in the context of course of Bali and retreat centers and a little bit the work that we do. And the second one I would say is, yes, that we celebrate those little wins with everybody, like for our Instagram or our social media. And that maybe is what has allowed us to get this engagement. But at the same time, and this is maybe a topic that I feel that I'm not clear. But for me, you know, when I say see the world and even when I see, I don't know, put Wall street, put places that are highly developed, like, I. I don't see them as the bad guys. You know what I mean? And I don't see that we have the solution or I don't see. I tend to believe that the world is. If it happened, it had to happen for some reason. And I have to take from one place to another. I'm also supporting that. Yeah. And that is also supported everything that we have.

Yes, we are part of that.

Yeah, we're part of that. Supporting that. And that is also supported everything that we have.

Yes, we're part of that.

Yeah, we're part of that. So it's like, very easy to create. And I feel like what has allowed us to reach a wider audience has been that we're not positioning ourselves as we're the best or we know everything, because we don't. And we're just celebrating and sharing the knowledge that we have earned through that journey. And being all is like, very easy to. To create. And I feel like what is very open to criticism in my studio, we sit also, like here in circle. They can tell me even has allowed us to reach a wider audience has been that. That we're not positioned. How I lead. If they feel like it's always reciprocity. You know, there is no hierarchy here. It's not because it can happen very easy that we try to put ourselves a little bit higher than even unconsciously, but it's how we can connect with that because there is value there. Also, like, they do create a lot of jobs. A lot of people find their meaning there. They create a lot of wealth. Do I resonate with that? Some part. Yes, Some part. Mostly not because I feel like the drivers or the intentions are not super clearly defined or maybe we got in the wave. But I do want to connect with those hearts and also understand the wisdom that they are carrying, maybe the financial wisdom that sometimes I like and I'm trying to dive deeper. Yeah. And that has been the. Actually when you ask the question, that has been. I felt what has allowed us to reach more people and to start conversations and this pinpoint of Ideas and I feel excited about it of what can happen from there. I don't have like a concrete solution to stopping that because I feel like it's also a big. We are architects and we are in Bali. We I think is our impact as I want it to be wide and I want to touch as many hearts as possible. But at the same time not, you know, I want to. I want to remain centered because also the expansion, I don't know, I'm conflicted.

It's the same. It's the tradition honoring that and at the same time it's the innovation. It's like pulling from both sides. It's about developing and growing and like.

Yeah.

Increasing your reach and at the same time staying grounded in that. And yeah, yeah.

But as Agota was saying, it's also not about being naive, you know, like it's also not acknowledging what are the facts of what is happening. But I think it's okay. This is happening, but I'm not interpreting it. It's from a place of. No, I have the correct. If this happened, it had to happen for some reason now. Okay, how do I relate with it in the most harmonious manner and how we can create a win win there. And that's super interesting. And I think it happens all the time because our relationship, A lot of our clients are actually big corporations or big. Maybe not corporations, but organizations that are actually having a wider impact than even our own studios.

And they have the capital to deploy and the capital to build beautiful things that can inspire people. I mean it's a fine, I think it's a fine line right now in. On the planet because we, as far as I can tell, we're on the precipice of extinction like real possibility right now. It's also such that evolution is really slow until pressure is really high and then there's spikes in evolution. And so we're getting this kind of chosen this opportunity this round to really get to experience this and be in this, this transition, this part of this transition phase. And so it's like one of. One of my core life principles is everything is working out better than you could ever possibly imagine. And it's. And I think it's actually, I really do believe that it's the case and, and it doesn't mean that sometimes people relate to the gravity of the meta crisis one is just overwhelming. I just check out it's too hard for me to think about or it's too scary. And fear reduces the neural net and the network and actually just shut down and so it takes a lot of bravery to acknowledge from a place of wisdom that it's all beautiful and instant perfection. And we also have a calling. There's a call for us as human beings, as men, as creators, to be of expanded impact. And there's also something I really hear and want to acknowledge in what you're sharing. It's what I hear is the kind of. The reminiscence reminds me, I mean, of the art of mastery, which is you love the process. Every day you just work in the process, and over time, you just. You happen to get better. But the art of mastery comes from that humility. And there's great, great wisdom in that. And so I just really want to acknowledge that.

To add to that something I felt through the years is very interesting that, you know, I started 10 years ago, like, with nothing. And I've been in periods where we're literally on the street. And now my studio has grown. But I don't know, maybe in a few years, that studio does not exist, and life is like this. But for example, we recently built. I built my first building for myself, our studio that actually Robert came and it was super incredible experience to actually, wow, like this journey. I have something that I. That is mine, that is my space. Like, my team is there. We're vibrant there. But it has come to me that the more somehow that puts you now having these things, and they say the money, the power can put you in a position of very easily. You can jump into superiority from both ends of how people treat you and how you relate to other people. But I feel the beauty is. And the people that I love the most are the people that, yeah, through hard work, have I get all these blessings from life, having a house, building Custodia. But actually, the more power or the more blessings, the more humbleness, the more, like, respect, the more humaneness. Because that actually is the beauty of it. It's a blessing. And it's kind of our joy to share this, to share Custodia with other people and that they can resonate with how you're living instead of, again, very easily thinking that you did it, that you're incredible, and that you got these answers. It's also the humility to go and again be the mediator, put the other people and let those bosses rise or let your team. Today, my studio, sometimes we all propose different ideas after the research. And many times my idea is like, boss, that is not so good. And I'm like, you're right. You know, this is a better idea. Let's follow the idea that makes the most sense, that is going to bring the best, the more life. But actually that means constantly checking in with me and saying, look, hey. I tell myself like, hey, I'm enough. I'm enough. I don't need to prove anything to anybody. I don't need to do a huge building. I don't need to tell somebody what they need to do. And I have a support system to remind myself of that because it's very easy to feel because life is challenging. You have the money, the fears. Sometimes, like, that's why we build walls around ourselves. So that's why I believe it's a life journey. And I really feel like we're all kind of diving together into that. And that's what excites me the most, you know, like, yeah.

I want to honor you guys for, from this humility and from this place of care and of service, being out there, being in the arena of the global, global situation that we're currently at, and taking that not as an. As an excuse to avoid and to, to, to decrease our power and to succumb to fear, but actually as an, as a call and as an invitation to contribute. And in the end to surrender and let the shits fall. And we don't know how to this whole thing will unfold and what will the Future be in 10 years and 15 years and 20 years? We don't know that. And still we choose every day to, to contribute what we can contribute today. And before we close, there's one thing that I, that is that I'm very, very curious, like, understanding your individual journey that you are on and your deep desire, and that was very obvious today, your deep desire to contribute to a beautiful future, not just for us, but for, for all living beings on this planet. How do you envision your home tying back to architecture? How do you envision your ideal home that actually enables you to play at your individual highest level in order to contribute as powerful as possible to this shift that is unfolding? Like, what is your, what are your individual visions for? This is my sanctuary that supports me in playing as big as possible, but staying rooted in, in my heart, in humility, in, in, in care and service. Are there any, any visuals or any feelings or how do you see that? Anything that comes up.

Probably for me, it's a house that is not too far from my family and my friends. It's a house that, yeah, can, can have my basic needs, you know, like a bedroom, kitchen, etc. But more importantly that has certain spaces for Rituals like having tea. Places that bring me to slow down and connect to what is happening outside. Hopefully it's a place within nature or with a garden or even if it's some plants around.

Yeah.

But I see it very simple. Very, very simple. Yeah.

No fancy shapes.

No, no, no. Very minimal. Like every day, I understand is the more minimal the better. I think if. If I do a fancy shape, it's because it's in response to the sun that I want to bring in or a breeze that I want to highlight. And yeah, that's how I see it today.

What a beautiful question. Yeah, great question, man. The thing that came in was a circle, a circular shape that is with a large courtyard in the middle that is representative of the life. And kids. Lots of playing kids. That was the piece. I like gardens and children, man. That's what really came in strongly. Yeah, that's beautiful.

That's beautiful. From my experience, what I can say, the way that I think about my place when children enter the. The whole perspective changed so much. Changed so much. Because like, for example, the fact that we are sitting on floor chairs right now is because of Leonel. Because when I'm eating, I don't want to be elevated and him to be in a little child chair where he cannot move or otherwise be. Be separated from the whole thing that's going on. I want to him to be around. So I have the feeling that this whole way of thinking about places when children are involved changes so much. Changes so much. Yeah. Yeah. And in the funny. In a funny way, the moment we optimize our places for the little ones, we optimize them for ourselves sense because of course it would be a lot more comfortable to have this huge lounge chair where you can like fully relax and so on. But for my body sitting like this and moving all the time, because being in one position for like two hours on your laptop, T. Rex, like gets uncomfortable. It's actually better for my body too. Although it's not the path of comfort, so.

Or it's a path of deep comfort.

Yeah. Nice. Thank you for the space and I got a. Lovely to meet you. Really cool. Really cool. Yeah. Yeah.

It was a huge pleasure talking to you. Thank you guys. Looking forward to see what will emerge out of co creations like that.

Likewise, guys. Likewise.

Yeah.

Many blessings. Yes. Fantastic stick. Yeah. I love having conversations where we can get really heady into. Into these. These issues. And then also in the context of architecture.

The funny thing is I have the feeling that like, like the more of those conversations I'm Having the more I'm realizing it needs a lot of. Have a lot of space, a lot of time for that. I'm like, my favorite podcast would be the whole day. Okay, let's take a break. Let's have some lunch, then connect, sit. Like, let's really let. Marinate all of that because I think there were some beautiful, beautiful sparks and a beautiful realizations. And at the same time, if we give that an hour or two or jump in the river, text and then come back and connect in a different setting, maybe bring someone else to the table, whatever, and really like, I think then beautiful things can emerge that cannot be like in this quick two minutes. Flashy content. Yeah.

This is what I love so much about doing cohere is like doing that for a topic for like a month and just like so much more richness. And it's just like, it's the challenge I had with that is like, what's the business model?

Yeah.

You know, but it's like when people, in terms of the context of like the gravity of the situation, what's more valuable to be spending our time with? Not to say that we don't like, continue in bringing in finances and we all have our calling and being philosophers all day is great. And there's a time and place for that, but that's where like, I always yearn for like the, the action items. This is so ingrained in my, I don't know, my demeanor. Yeah. And so I feel like that's really, like, as these podcasts grow and like now that, like, it's really great to meet you, man. I definitely feel deep resonance and just really, really respect what you're doing and how you're going about it. And it's like really feel your embodiment of that and, and it shows not only in your demeanor, but also in the physical work and also like, as an architect, I understand what it takes, at least to a certain degree. Yeah. And it's. And it's awesome. And I just. Yeah, I absolutely love it, man. So I'm really, really appreciate you cultivating the community of, of connection and looking forward to like the, the, as I said before, like, the tactics. I know, like, I can rush to that too soon. Soon. But it is. I wanna. I'm excited to see what emerges and.

I'm very much like you. Like, okay, what are the next steps? Like, how do we get it done? And. But one next step that. Yeah, one next step is that I would like to have this conversation in my studio and invite you both guys so Let me organize that one of our Fridays. Maybe like in three weeks from now. I think could work if you guys are around. Yeah. And at least being part of that community, we have that going. You have this going here if bioarch is doing something. Because I feel like we need to get to know each other more. And like, you know, when you start speaking about the other in conversations and the connections start to happen naturally.

Yeah. And then together, like, so as two architecture firms in Bali, we could fall into a trap of competition.

And I think that's happening already. After talking with some, like, I find that so beautiful how. How the two of you are. But I talk to others and I have the feeling of like everybody's doing their own thing and tries to have the most famous building whatever. But that's actually not serving anybody.

And it's completely irrelevant. Like it's radically irrelevant. And so the thing is, like, from a business perspective, we can actually always grow a bigger pie. From like a moral perspective. Well, there's a more important mission to do that is. Is that it could be the calling and then.

Then the.

The comp. Like, and there's no shortage of work. Like, I know. I'm sure for both of us. I know for us, we're over and they didn't work. I have too many projects. I don't want any more projects, you know, so. But I do want more depth and I do want more camaraderie and I do want to cultivate in our. An articulation that we can collectively share to the world around what the we're up to in like 180,000 people on your following, we should make that 1.8 million because like the work that you're doing, I want the world to know about. Yeah. And so it's like I. That then it's just like. And that's when like we can get to really cool things of like, okay, obviously, yeah, we can maximize SEO and backlink. Okay. Dope. But like we can do those. All those little things actually add up, especially as we grow.

Yeah. Or sharing opportunities if there is an important conference inviting. Or like. Yeah. Or even co creating. Because also I can only take like seven projects a year and I'm trying to bring it to five. Like, I'm actually descaling as much as I can because it's difficult to go today in the studio that I would love. Well, you came already. But in my, you know, through the years also our priorities and our focus changes and you want your career to allow for those things to happen. And that has been very nice. That architecture. Architecture is such a broad. The end result is a building. But it's such a broad spectrum of how you can connect with people through architecture. Like now I open an education company and we launch our master classes and we're sharing what we know. And now my dream is to create a community. Now we have the community events. Because I'm more towards this, towards sharing. That's where I feel the passion. And in my studio there is four people building their own studios. And I'm not taking anything from and getting them clients to the four of them, because I can only take. I want less projects and I want them. They already said they are different beings, so they're gonna have their own flavor. But we are sharing a vision like the one we're sharing here because we are also talking. And that makes me so proud. If today I could say what I'm the most proud of is that. Is that in my studio there is four people building their company. And I have helped them with the marketing, with the finances, with getting them the clients. And just because. Not because I got them for they did it. They have to do the work. You know, it's again, it's like it takes one person to believe in you for you to be. And I had those people in my life. And when you can do that for whoever being for your kids or your friends or what I saw rewind and today I understand. That's what I want for my. That is what makes me feel proud of my life. The buildings. Yes, it's an ongoing process, but it's more like the human relationship humans. So it's fun that these practices allow also like education, being a teacher, that is also something that I don't know for me resonates. Or creating these exercises where you can explore. Explore new ways of thinking. And so yeah, super cool environment in which we are. And living in Bali, we're so blessed. That's the thing. Even though I do see that it's becoming more hectic every day and traffic. You still have spots like this that you can go in 30 minutes, one hour. And like. Yeah. And there is a special people here in Bali. I always see it as the New York of. Of days. Like the people that are coming are like, bro, your story is incredible. Your story, like. And all the community that we have is really inspiring.

Yeah. There's a really big potential for us to make a system change here. Really, really huge. And like, I think that being a generator, like having your architecture firm be a generator for more Architecture firms is what is a critical piece piece of creating a school, a school of thought. Because the beyond architecture like yeah, not.

School of architecture but actually school of shared value system that manifests in architecture, that manifests in other areas as well.

And that's where like and that's when we, if we coordinate well then we start to build alternative economies. Right. Because okay, we've got a couple badass architecture firms. We scale that to 30 architecture firms and we get more of the island built at least with sustainable materials and ideally with like really, really high tech bioenergetic integrations. Awesome. So we get that going now we now just scaled and if all those firms have the technique on how to explain to people why the from an economics perspective for their own base needs, they should be building in a morally and ethical, equally correct way. Awesome. Now all of those businesses that those 20 firms are supporting have a lot of now there's a lot of people directly connected. And now if we now we can start yellow movement like the yellow tag movement pretty easily. And now that's when we can start to incubate those new go to now we can provide go to market market share for all sorts of new new businesses that are regenerative.

In building the first phase here at Custodia, there were so many small decisions we needed to, we needed to make. And one of them was we need to get umbrellas. And I was like I don't want to buy umbrellas because I have a feeling that all umbrellas suck. And then this yellow tag thing was I just, I just checked with ChatGPT. What umbrella companies are there that are certified B corps?

Yeah.

As a turned out it's just one. And I bought the umbrellas for like 100 bucks per umbrella because I have the feeling that they will last for 20 years.

Yeah.

And in the end it makes econ economically sense compared to going on toedia and buy one for five bucks. Already some like energies moving in that direction. But I think of course it needs to be expanded on.

Yeah.

But like the.

I see that in myself.

Like I want to, I only want to buy from companies who are doing their work in an ethical way. Yeah, I hate not doing that. That's why I got the, that's why I got the fair phone and I ditched my iPhone even though it was a, it was a. Like I love the iPhone and it's a beautiful customer experience and like everything is nice and still I don't want to support the company. So I got a different one and I want to do that in every.

What do you mean?

It's fairphone, it's from a Dutch company company.

It's modular. You can open it, you can replace.

The camera by yourself. And I want to do that in every area of my life. And every time I'm not able to do that because there is no alternative.

I hate it.

I hate buying something that I don't believe in.

Well, that's where we need it. And if we, if we have a. Just a little, a big enough community, we can provide go to market market share and then internally we can jump start whatever company. We can all put in 100 bucks and help someone get going.

Yeah.

And if we can guarantee they have the go to market share share and they're vetted and competent, well then the business is probably going to be successful. Because the hardest part is the first couple, the first five years.

Yeah, I would love to continue, but I need to transfer the data because he needs to leave soon.

Guys, thank you so much.

Thank you, man.

So good.

Yeah.

Looking forward to the next one.

My guys. Yes.

What a beautiful conversation with Dakota and Pablo that provoked many different avenues of exploration that want to come next with the two of them and with other red minds and big hearts that we're gonna invite into the Custodian Podcast in the upcoming weeks. So make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and our Spotify podcast to be notified about the upcoming episodes. And if you want to dive deeper into the Custodian Collective and walk this journey of embodying the custodians that Mama Earth calls us to be together with us and with all our amazing guests, follow the Custodian Collective on Instagram. Many beautiful things will come there in the future. And if you want to continue your exploration into this whole narrative of what it means to be a custodian and the unique moment in time that we are living in right now, then I can highly recommend you to dive into my book, Gaia's the Emergence of a Novel Kind of Human that I wrote in 2023 and 2024. It's living fully in the gift. You can just download it, dive in the ebook or into the audiobook and sense for yourself what you'd like to contribute. It was a huge pleasure to write this piece. The link is in the show notes as well. With that being said, thank you for all shared time today. Looking forward to connect with you again in our next episode. See you then. Sending love from Bali.