4D Design

A building is an organism, and it meets our own organism first at the skin.

In this episode I start mapping buildings onto the human body, system by system, beginning with skin. Human skin forms from the same embryonic layer as the brain and spinal cord, which makes it a sensing organ wired straight into the nervous system. It reads temperature, pressure, texture, and threat before we ever think about it.

A building's skin does the same work. It protects us, regulates temperature, and shapes how we feel before we even walk through the door. I explore thermal mass, shade, and covered entries; why sudden transitions (think the sidewalk into a big-box store) stress the nervous system; and how architecture once honored the threshold through porches, foyers, entry gardens, mudrooms, and ceremonial procession.

We also look at the roots of the word threshold, the Latin limen, and the words that grew from it, like subliminal. From there: consent and the building envelope, zones within the home, window seats and secret rooms, and whether a space adds to you, subtracts from you, multiplies you, or divides you.

A building's skin isn't just a wall. It's where we meet the world.

Welcome to a new season, a new series, and — for the first time — video on YouTube.

I'm kicking off a new multi-episode arc where I map every system in a house directly onto your own body: structure onto skeleton, plumbing onto digestion, electrical onto our nervous system, ventilation onto respiration. Every physical system in a building has a physical effect on you — some immediate and neurological (sound, light, color temperature), some slower and chemical (off-gassing, endocrine disruption), some psychological (thresholds, liminal spaces, the basement as subconscious).

I also share the personal story behind this work: twenty years as a hospitality designer trained to control mood and emotion through space, followed by an unexpected stretch as a hospital patient — where I saw firsthand how far healthcare design still is from anything resembling healing. That contrast is the origin point for everything this season explores.

Next episode: building structure, and what actually holds a house up — mapped onto your own skeletal system.

S2 EP 5: New Series! Mapping Architecture to the Human Body...Hello, YouTube!

Welcome to a new season, a new series, and — for the first time — video on YouTube.

I'm kicking off a new multi-episode arc where I map every system in a house directly onto your own body: structure onto skeleton, plumbing onto digestion, electrical onto our nervous system, ventilation onto respiration. Every physical system in a building has a physical effect on you — some immediate and neurological (sound, light, color temperature), some slower and chemical (off-gassing, endocrine disruption), some psychological (thresholds, liminal spaces, the basement as subconscious).

I also share the personal story behind this work: twenty years as a hospitality designer trained to control mood and emotion through space, followed by an unexpected stretch as a hospital patient — where I saw firsthand how far healthcare design still is from anything resembling healing. That contrast is the origin point for everything this season explores.

Next episode: building structure, and what actually holds a house up — mapped onto your own skeletal system.

DEATH BY DRYWALL

Season 2, Episode 4

A podcast about architecture, materials, and the buildings we actually live inside.

Drywall is everywhere. It's in almost every wall of every home built in America in the last 60 years. But how did it get there — and is it actually the best we can do? This episode traces the full arc of drywall's history: from the pre-industrial craft of lath and plaster, through the wartime shortcuts that gave rise to gypsum board, to the environmental and health questions we're only now starting to take seriously. We also look at traditional wall systems from Japan — built from bamboo, rope, earthen plaster, and lime — that outperform modern drywall on almost every meaningful measure. And we close with a bigger question: why do we accept a lower standard of quality in our walls than we do in almost every other part of our lives?

• The ancient techniques drywall replaced and why they were better in many ways

• Japanese tsuchikabe wall systems: bamboo lattice, rice-straw rope, earthen plaster, and lime finish / walls that breathe, flex, and last centuries

• Augustine Sackett's 1894 invention and how U.S. Gypsum turned it into the default building material

• The four forces that drove drywall adoption: wartime labor shortages, mass housing demand, industrial standardization, and fire-resistance marketing

• What drywall is actually made of: calcined gypsum, paper facing, starch binders, foaming agents, biocides, and chemical modifiers

• Why drywall fails: moisture absorption, mold, fragility, poor acoustics, and limited lifespan

• The environmental profile of gypsum board production: energy use, landfill waste, and hydrogen sulfide off-gassing

• Alternatives gaining traction: rammed earth, compressed earth block, lime plaster, hemp-lime, and wood fiber panels

• The quality question: why we demand quality in food, clothes, and cars BUT NOT IN THE WALLS SURROUNDING US (???) In our homes????

"Drywall didn't replace inferior systems. It replaced better ones because it was faster and cheaper."

Before paper-faced gypsum board, builders across cultures constructed walls from bamboo, rope, earth, and lime. These materials managed humidity, flexed under seismic stress, and lasted generations. The Japanese tsuchikabe wall system is a working example of what we traded away for construction speed. Drywall solved an industrial problem. It was never designed to solve a human one.

We've learned to look deeper in almost every other domain. We ask where our food comes from. We think about the fibers in our clothes. We care about the engineering in our cars. But inside the very structure that surrounds us every day, we routinely accept the lowest common denominator.

The wall is one of the largest material surfaces in a home. It defines how a building manages moisture, sound, air quality, and durability. As architecture moves toward healthier, longer-lasting building systems, the question isn't whether drywall is cheap and convenient - it clearly is. The real question is whether we're willing to apply the same standard of quality to our buildings that we already expect everywhere else.

The History of Drywall (Wikipedia)

A solid overview of drywall's origins, manufacturing process, and fire-resistance properties.

→ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drywall

Augustine Sackett — National Inventors Hall of Fame

The story of the man who invented Sackett Board in 1894 — the direct precursor to every sheet of drywall installed today.

→ invent.org/inductees/augustine-sackett

Drywall: EWG Healthy Living Home Guide

A detailed breakdown of what's actually in drywall and joint compound — including biocides, formaldehyde, crystalline silica, and synthetic gypsum made from coal plant waste.

→ ewg.org/healthyhomeguide/drywall

A Brief History of Drywall — Hackaday

A concise and readable account of how drywall went from wartime shortcut to universal construction default.

→ hackaday.com — Brief History of Drywall

If you found this episode useful, share it with someone building, renovating, or thinking about what's actually inside their walls.

AK links:

Four D Design – Organic Architecture

www.fourddesign.com

Star Tile – Fractal Ceramics

www.star-tile.com

Star Tile Studio - Joshua Tree, CA

https://g.co/kgs/DUMmCLh

Contact:

[email protected]

Today we dive into the world of how we build and why. And why are we all getting so sick?

It's time to look at our building envelope the same way we look at food labels - we are being poisoned while we work and sleep.

This is a re-presentation of a talk given at CIRSx in Phoenix / Tempe in June 2025.

Original Slides Here:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/j7zhgh0q4ctkkwormt3mf/CIRSX_Magis.pdf?rlkey=kfdoki5xbu8gga5g8gyjwjaok&dl=0

Powerpoint Lecture - The Future is Fractal (SLIDES)

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6r0gh59jfcxpwah7njmyv/CEU1_THE-FUTURE-IS-FRACTAL_Star-Tile-ICFF.pdf?rlkey=4t74xey38eu1nzh3c7ep6p7hy&st=a5nzagd0&dl=0

https://www.interaliamag.org/articles/fractal-patterns-in-nature-and-art-are-aesthetically-pleasing-and-stress-reducing/

https://www.unmpress.com/9780826352026/fractal-architecture/

African Fractals

https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/african-fractals/9780813526140/

Gothic Fractals

https://churchheritage.eu/science/why-gothic-cathedrals-are-so-fascinating-is-all-about-math/

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00004-014-0187-7

Frank Lloyd Wright and Fractals

http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/EMIS/journals/NNJ/98/Eaton.html

Gaudi and Fractals

https://parametric-architecture.com/gaudi-architecture-science/?srsltid=AfmBOooFTADY9NfoTl9u6D50WYu-7lSlXkY3eFczMcTGHdojT5TqSfke

13:9 Group - Modern Fractal Designs

https://www.13and9design.com/design/fractal-fluency-collection/

Dr. Richard Taylor - The Physics of Fractals

https://authenticationinart.org/pdf/literature/Taylor-Richard-A-fascination-with-fractals-In-Physicsworld-September-2013.pdf

https://blogs.uoregon.edu/richardtaylor/

Science In Design - Certification Course

https://scienceindesign.com/

Bob Browning / Terrapin

AK links:

Four D Design - Organic Architecture

www.fourddesign.com

Star Tile - Fractal Ceramics

www.star-tile.com

Star Tile Studio - Joshua Tree, CA

https://g.co/kgs/DUMmCLh

Contact:

[email protected]

EPISODE 25 - ORNAMENT

Ornament has always had an important meta function within the human psyche. It has been "outlawed" for the past 100 years.

RESOURCE LINKS

https://www.gadarchitecture.com/en/ornament-in-architecture

https://www.artforum.com/features/louis-sullivans-ornament-209337/

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1354067x13515937?journalCode=capa

https://medium.com/the-thinking-of-design/ornament-as-an-abstraction-of-society-853bb29cdf08

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmydPmwrKA

https://dreamswork.co.uk/portfolio/how-ornament-is-functional/

https://designmanifestos.org/adolf-loos-ornament-and-crime/

AK links:

Four D Design - Organic Architecture, Geometry of Nature

www.fourddesign.com

Star Tile - Multidimensional Ceramics

www.star-tile.com

Star Tile Studio - Joshua Tree, CA

https://g.co/kgs/DUMmCLh

Contact:

[email protected]

WHY DO WE USE ORNAMENT? - SIGNIFIER

Social signaling - and this changes over time! Example tattoos - British nobility 1900-1920

Historically it was the demarcation of class and status - governments had rules about what colors and types of clothing could be worn, so that people could never be socially mobile-

Ornament on clothing has always been important for the military and in battle, people wore family crests / telling others who they were

The same went for houses - all ornament had meaning that could be learned (this is western)

Heraldry

WHY DO WE USE ORNAMENT? - SOCIAL & PSYCHOLOGICAL

Belonging is so important that people will go into debt to buy clothing that lets them fit into a social group, or a car, or jewelry etc - people are wildly craving belonging, and ornament is a way to show your tribe.

OTHER REASONS:

Repetition causes peace - relaxation of the nervous system

By creating the ornament, the maker can embody the energy of the thing that might be feared

Establish historic continuity - memory, legacy.

Spiritual Side of Ornament - Adornment, Defense, Totems, Enhancing Consciousness. META FUNCTION, embodied practice

Adorning parts of us that are vulnerable - defensive and actively stating who we are / calling in our guides.

HISTORY OF ORNAMENT

Industrial Revolution - 1851 - now possible to make cheap ornament / mass production

Attempt at standardizing the language - Owen Jones "Grammar of Ornament" - huge interest in revival of styles / what we would now call Cultural Appropriation.. started with Archaeology around 1750, people discovering ruins, Marie Antoinette wearing toile / chinoiserie

In victorian era, people started ascribing a moral judgment to the ornament -

Augustis Pugin: ornament should be flat if the floor is flat, not 3d etc.. can't be inappropriate. He was a CATHOLIC in England - super religious, championed gothic revival because it was faith-based

John Ruskin - wrote on architecture but also on geology, botany, ornithology etc - polymath

Said that the moral condition of a society could be determined by the ornament - ornament was being incorrectly applied-

Shows what is leading up to the birth of modernism, nothing happens in a vacuum.

What Happened - Loos, Modernism and the 1920s

As both Sullivan and Lévi-Strauss indicate, ornament (as well as other factors) becomes a language of social structures, social experience and even social contradictions. It signifies the status and position of the building, which is itself a representation of the importance of its "owners" and users. Here the manipulation of the image, or in architecture the adding of ornamental beauty to a structure, may increase its relative desirability and value. For buildings are models of ourselves and our society, communicating through form and organizational system the character of that society.

BUILDINGS REFLECT THE VALUES AND VALUE OF THE OWNER.

MODERNISM - WHAT HAPPENED?

Adolf Loos

Ornament and Crime

The evolution of culture marches with the elimination of ornament from useful objects", Loos proclaimed, thus linking the optimistic sense of the linear and upward progress of cultures with the contemporary vogue for applying evolution to cultural contexts.[2]

"The child is amoral. To us the Papuan is also amoral. The Papuan slaughters his enemies and devours them. He is no criminal. If, however, the modern man slaughters and devours somebody, he is a criminal or a degenerate. The Papuan tattoos his skin, his boat, his oar, in short, everything that is within his reach. He is no criminal. The modern man who tattoos himself is a criminal or a degenerate. There are prisons where eighty percent of the inmates bear tattoos. Those who are tattooed but are not imprisoned are latent criminals or degenerate aristocrats. if a tattooed person dies at liberty, it is only that he died a few years before he committed a murder."

Where do we go from here - how do we start?

(HUMANS ALWAYS START OVER WITH FORMS FROM NATURE)

Architectural adornment or ornament, like cooking—that most basic transformation of nature—is a way of being in and representing the world simultaneously, a world that in Sullivan's words "procreates man's own personality, that fits him, that he might feel at home with himself," a world of natural objects transformed by the hand of man. This is why Sullivan defined the architect's task in a manner that reveals his belief in man's transforming power: the architect as the agent who brings nature into community.

James Trilling - The Language of Ornament

Harvard-trained art historian, former Textile Museum associate curator, and independent scholar James Trilling expands here on many of the highly original themes that appeared in his The Language of Ornament (2001). He offers intriguing new views of the modernist movement in art and architecture, its puritanical hostility to ornament, and its manifold relationships to the history of technology, science, and industry in the phenomenon known as modernization. Trilling is a passionate advocate of ornament, and he makes a fervent plea for its revival, largely on the grounds that it gives pleasure and "makes people happy" (p. 227).

Ranging widely across cultures, time periods, disciplines, and topics, Ornament: A Modern Perspective is a densely layered book of formidable learning, imagination, and complexity. The argument is deceptively simple and difficult to summarize; as Trilling writes of Comte (p. 177), "it is rarely possible to give the bare bones of a utopian vision without making it sound naive."

Ornament for Trilling is a specific, intricate concept. He spends part 1 of his two-part book explicating this concept, by which he means the use of motifs and patterns by skilled artists/craftsmen, "the art we add to art" (p. xiii), in the creation of one-of-a-kind objects laden with cultural meaning and symbol, esteemed as art by collectors, connoisseurs, and knowledgeable art historians.

In part 2 Trilling traces the links between modernism and the rejection of ornament. Though the focus is on the period since the pivotal Crystal Palace exhibition of 1851, his book includes an impressive intellectual history [End Page 418] of the many ways in which ornament was repudiated as idolatry and artifice in numerous societies long before modernism. But after the triumph of mechanization and the ascendancy of efficiency, materialism, and positivism, the leading theorists of modernism thoroughly devalued and assaulted ornament. The most famous instance was Viennese architect and critic Adolf Loos's 1908 essay that seemingly equated ornament with crime.

Modernism's visionaries instead exalted functionalism and simplicity in architecture and design. They saw ornament as wasteful, inefficient, and, after the Industrial Revolution, as the product of dehumanized, debased workers far removed from the ideal of the skilled artisan/craftsman of the prefactory era. Modernism's subsequent long reign among intellectual and cultural elites (despite the thin, pale revolt of the postmodern movement), Trilling argues, has now all but blinded us to ornament, erased it from our collective memory and from art. Early modernist theorists sought to jettison the wealth of inherited patterns and motifs rather than welcoming their incorporation and reworking, as traditional crafts had done. (Ironically, one of Trilling's most original arguments is that modernism in fact had its own ornamental style, employing materials that had pattern and texture and creating art rooted in indeterminacy, "labile, ambiguous, unpredictable" [p. 217].) Trilling's mission is to restore understanding and appreciation of the rich, lost world of artisanal ornament. His book addresses artists, architects, designers, their clients and collectors, art historians—tastemakers and all who care about taste.

EPISODE 24 - HOW TO BUY PAINT

Take ALL the Paint Chips! Do not be shy - take them all and I mean all of them

Paint Decks - Good option if you're serious about color

Paint Brands - what is available in your area?

https://www.lifestoryresearch.com/2024-best-paint-ranking-review

Sheen - This is a huge decision. When in doubt choose Matte

https://www.houselogic.com/remodel/painting-lighting/paint-sheen-guide/

SAMPLES - Actual Paint and Stickers / Visualization

https://samplize.com

https://store.benjaminmoore.com/storefront/us/en/color-samples/samplize/peel-and-stick-paint-sample

Refinement - YOU HAVE TO DO THIS / DON'T GO FAST

Stomach vs mind - immediate decisions vs emotional / somatic decisions

AK links:

Four D Design - Holistic Design

www.fourddesign.com

Star Tile - Multidimensional Ceramics

www.star-tile.com

Star Tile Studio - Joshua Tree, CA

https://g.co/kgs/DUMmCLh

An assortment of resources / stories about Paint.

https://www.earthdate.org/episodes/the-colorful-history-of-paint

History of Pigments - they all have a specific time period

Can look at the history of art through pigments

Basically people always paint if they can!

https://www.webexhibits.org/pigments/intro/history.html#google_vignette

Things not always good for you! (or even will kill you or destroy your internal organs: Lead White

https://zotapro.com/blog/lead-paint-history/

https://www.paint.org/about/industry/history/

Pigments are Organic or Inorganic - and now we have Synthetics.

https://burnaway.org/magazine/a-history-of-paint-part-one/

https://www.greenbuildermedia.com/blog/a-deep-dive-into-non-toxic-paints-and-vocs

https://www.roepaint.com/everything-need-know-alkyd-paint/

https://www.greenmatch.co.uk/blog/is-paint-bad-for-the-environment

https://www.earthpigments.com/natural-earth-ocher-pigments/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw_ZC2BhAQEiwAXSgClnbwPlFU_PivAwZXUEDpoKvJxwIMjW9w6zgntUXe2LKt-iLlpmfBNxoCgsQQAvD_BwE

AK links:

Four D Design - Holistic Design

www.fourddesign.com

Star Tile - Multidimensional Ceramics

www.star-tile.com

Star Tile Studio - Joshua Tree, CA

https://g.co/kgs/DUMmCLh

Email Me:

[email protected]

Choosing color shouldn't cause a panic - it can be a fun adventure, and it just requires meticulous attention to bring any beautiful color range into your design. Today's episode gives you professional advice for choosing colors and constructing palettes.

The next 2 episodes will be all about paint and how to work with paint chips!

Pro Tips (Summary)

1. Broad Categories - Color is not just one tone - have one part of the palette that is Broad / 3 tones - even better, multiple parts of the palette are 3 tones.

2. Everything has color - even Wood and Metal / have to be carefully considered.

https://artbeadscene.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-color-of-metal.html

https://novacolorpaint.com/blogs/nova-color/metallic-colors-and-their-shades

https://www.minwax.com/en/wood-stain-color-guide/browse-color-stains

3. Choose Colors from photographs - use Technology

https://color.adobe.com/create/image

https://coolors.co/image-picker

4. How to Structure a Color Palette and Give Proper Weight

https://www.homesandgardens.com/interior-design/color-rules

https://www.thespruce.com/timeless-color-rule-797859

5. How to Distribute Color in the room / 3x Rule

https://wideplankflooring.com/blog/home-decor-in-3s

https://www.homesandgardens.com/news/rule-of-three

6. Know your Whites - have a Go To shade - note people have a lot of opinions on this one!

https://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/color-overview/color-palettes/color-families/white-paint-colors

https://www.jennasuedesign.com/the-10-best-white-paint-colors-as-chosen-by-designers/

https://lovegrowswild.com/2023/08/favorite-white-paint-color/

7. Create a Palette and take the colors with You!

AK links:

Four D Design - Holistic Design

www.fourddesign.com

Star Tile - Multidimensional Ceramics

www.star-tile.com

Star Tile Studio - Joshua Tree, CA

https://g.co/kgs/DUMmCLh

Email Me:

[email protected]