Zen Design for Mass Housing?

I love the concept of Zen design for houses in the Philippines, how the character of quietude and relaxation are impressed on the design. I hope they apply that to HOUSEpinoy or Pinoy architecture. Imagine cheap row housing or crowded neighborhoods having Zen designs.

Zen design is not just Japanese architecture. It's particularly interested about the Zen mindset. Zen is a meditative predisposition in Buddhism. While I was aiming for a first dan black belt in karate (in my high school years) I learned about Zen from the books of Masutatsu Oyama, the legendary karate master. Zen builds the power to overcome difficulties with a quiet spirit. This is done through Zen meditations. Thus, the Zen design in architecture fosters a meditative life. You look at it and you feel calm and relaxed.

Calm and relaxed should not be the prerogative of the rich alone, those with more than enough money to afford a Zen house design. The masses deserve them, too. It will be a great service if the Zen character could be applied in community planning and in each individual house design. The Zen look commands a tranquil response from the soul and spirit, a powerful suggestion to respect peace and quiet. If you put that quality into a crowded neighborhood, imagine the change in people's character and attitude.

Pinoy architecture ideas like this needs more careful study. Architecture should not be a privilege enjoyed only by the rich and moneyed (which is what Philippine architecture is often about), offering best design options to a clientle able to pay the price. It's time to sit down and formulate something beneficial to mass or crowded housing, and I don't mean just providing the masses with mere walls and roof.

A Zen atmosphere promotes study, discipline, and an inclination to arts and the humanities. No, it has no power to force these on us, but it helps set the mind to think deeper about life.

Life attitude is mostly about what we see around us, how our environs influence our surroundings. Tattered houses and dirty surroundings can affect the community mindset. But with a little bit of Zen design--plus other design concepts we usually give to the rich--our crowded communities can have a meaningful transformation, no matter how slight.

How to start this? There should be new model communities built, even "crowded" ones, with design concepts possessing a touch of the sophistication that the moneyed enjoy--like Zen design. Make them affordable, but make them truly model communities--not a deteriorating quality that only ends up tattered, just the same. Some special projects are made to look thus only at the start, for the sole purpose of impressive press releases. It should be something we can truly call Pinoy architecture, HOUSEpinoy, and Asian, not just an architecture of the few.