A Living Tradition [Architecture of the Bahamas]

Location: The Bahamas. book

This book is a graphic architectural code that makes the unusual proposition of directing itself to the population of the Bahamas at-large rather than just to the architects. This book follows the instructions for each pattern with an explanation of "We do this because..." It is believed that by opening up the rationale for architecture again, an entire culture might come to understand why they love what they love, just as their grandparents and those before them did.

New Urbanism has figured out excellence in architecture in its best developments, but adversaries often complain that those places lack vitality in their architecture. The greatest places all exhibit great variety in a narrow range, but new urbanists have not yet done as well as our ancestors in creating great varieties within that range.

The book is polemically ecological. Each pattern that contributes to one or more LEED credits spells out the details of how the credits may be earned. It also points out the ecological contributions of many patterns that are currently outside the scope of what LEED recognizes to be green. The book is also comprehensively Transect-based, calibrating each pattern of the architecture directly to the Transect. The Transect coding of each pattern is also calibrated across the Classical/Vernacular Spectrum from Refined to Organic.

Lessons learned: That the transmission of knowledge in the realm of place making historically has been passed down from generation to generation, with the phrase "we do this because..." applied to each language of architecture. The author believes this allows us to answer how townspeople have built better places than we have been building. This transmission device allows everyone to think again about our built environment and come up with novel ways of satisfying the same principles. It also is a mechanism for delivering buildings more affordably. Finally, they also learned that living traditions, because they inherently have the power to persist for centuries, are actually the only proven delivery mechanism for true sustainability.

Transect Zone(s): T2 reserve, T3 sub-urban, T4 general, T5 center, T6 core.
Status: Proposed
Guiding Charter Principle(s): Principles 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,
Project or Plan's Scale: Street
Features: Affordable/subsidized housing.
Total built area (in sq. ft.):
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Retail area (in sq. ft.):
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Project team designers: Stephen A. Mouzon
Project team developers: Stephen A. Mouzon

Previous site status: Undeveloped greenfield

Starting/Ending date of construction/implementation: -