Jaco Booyens Architect
  • Projects
    • Buffelsdrift Gold Medal Domus International Restoration Awards
    • Contemporary Mud House Buffelsdrift
    • Buffelsdrift Renovation
    • Buffelsdrift Staircase
    • Buffelsdrift Pumproom
    • Subsistance Farm Rysmierberg
    • Damaraland Clay Project
    • Big Tiny House Glencairn
    • Project Phoenix
    • Walvisbay Container Terminal Entrance
    • CAM Plywood Structure
    • Fort Haasbroek Swakopmund
    • Rammed Earth Desert House Swakopmund
    • Off the grid house Prieska
    • New BP Green Headquarters Cape Town
    • African trade mission in Rome
    • Vertical Village on the River Tyber
    • Staircase house du Plessis
    • Olijven Hof brick vault Montagu
    • Cape Town Offgrid Scyscraper
    • Furniture design
    • Thesis 1996 - Emergency center for earthquakes
  • Design Philosophy
  • About
  • Publications
  • Sketchbook
Manifesto

Nature does not intend to be beautiful. 
It is focused on survival by accurate problem 
solving. It has the ability to create both 
complexity and simplicity into a perfect adaption
between organisms and habitat. 

The built world is a manmade  inclusion in a 
global natural ecosystem. During the design 
process, symbiotic and specifically mutualistic,
relationships between the built world and this 
natural global ecosystem should be formed. 
There are many clues available in the sciences. 
( Chemistry, physics and biology ) 

A good building should be in harmony with its 
climate similar to a whale in the ocean, an 
albatross on a long flight or a cheetah on the 
Savannah. Although the purpose of adaption 
is survival and not creating beauty strangely 
this is the ineluctable result.

To be self sustainable and or self sufficient is an 
interesting challenge and the change of 
perceptions of people is the key. Working with 
materials to their optimum ability is part of this 
objective. To be able to enclose a space with 
the least amount of material by understanding 
structure and the process of design, 
manufacture and assembly. 

So what is a building then? It is a contained 
space created by humans. A space to protect,
store and support man's activities. In its most 
reduced form it is a constructed microclimate. 
A space where the climate inside is more 
comfortable than outside. In a harsh climate 
the absence of a shelter may mean death. 

The act of architecture should not be reduced to 
only art or a stylistic packaging exercise. 

"Buildings, too, are children of earth and sun" Frank Loyd Wright


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  • Projects
    • Buffelsdrift Gold Medal Domus International Restoration Awards
    • Contemporary Mud House Buffelsdrift
    • Buffelsdrift Renovation
    • Buffelsdrift Staircase
    • Buffelsdrift Pumproom
    • Subsistance Farm Rysmierberg
    • Damaraland Clay Project
    • Big Tiny House Glencairn
    • Project Phoenix
    • Walvisbay Container Terminal Entrance
    • CAM Plywood Structure
    • Fort Haasbroek Swakopmund
    • Rammed Earth Desert House Swakopmund
    • Off the grid house Prieska
    • New BP Green Headquarters Cape Town
    • African trade mission in Rome
    • Vertical Village on the River Tyber
    • Staircase house du Plessis
    • Olijven Hof brick vault Montagu
    • Cape Town Offgrid Scyscraper
    • Furniture design
    • Thesis 1996 - Emergency center for earthquakes
  • Design Philosophy
  • About
  • Publications
  • Sketchbook