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(Applause)

2
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Thank you very much.

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I have a few pictures,

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and I'll talk a little bit
about how I'm able to do what I do.

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All these houses are built

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from between 70 and 80 percent
recycled material,

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stuff that was headed to the mulcher,
the landfill, the burn pile.

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It was all just gone.

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This is the first house I built.

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This double front door here
with the three-light transom,

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that was headed to the landfill.

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Have a little turret there.

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And then these buttons
on the corbels here --

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right there --

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those are hickory nuts.

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And these buttons there --

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those are chicken eggs.

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(Laughter)

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Of course, first you have breakfast,

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and then you fill the shell full
of Bondo and paint it and nail it up,

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and you have an architectural button
in just a fraction of the time.

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This is a look at the inside.

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You can see the three-light transom
there with the eyebrow windows.

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Certainly an architectural antique
headed to the landfill --

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even the lockset
is probably worth 200 dollars.

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Everything in the kitchen was salvaged.

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There's a 1952 O'Keefe & Merritt stove,

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if you like to cook -- cool stove.

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This is going up into the turret.

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I got that staircase for 20 dollars,

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including delivery to my lot.

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(Laughter)

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Then, looking up in the turret,

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you see there are bulges
and pokes and sags and so forth.

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Well, if that ruins your life,

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well, then, you shouldn't live there.

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(Laughter)

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This is a laundry chute.

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And this right here is a shoe last --

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those are those cast-iron things
you see at antique shops.

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So I had one of those,

42
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so I made some low-tech gadgetry,
where you just stomp on the shoe last,

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and then the door flies open
and you throw your laundry down.

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And then if you're smart enough,
it goes on a basket on top of the washer.

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If not, it goes into the toilet.

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(Laughter)

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This is a bathtub I made,

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made out of scrap two-by-four.

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Started with the rim, and then glued
and nailed it up into a flat,

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corbeled it up and flipped it over,

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then did the two profiles on this side.

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It's a two-person tub.

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After all, it's not just
a question of hygiene,

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but there's a possibility
of recreation as well.

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(Laughter)

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Then, this faucet here
is just a piece of Osage orange.

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It looks a little phallic,

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but after all, it's a bathroom.

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(Laughter)

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This is a house based on a Budweiser can.

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It doesn't look like a can of beer,

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but the design take-offs
are absolutely unmistakable:

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the barley hops design
worked up into the eaves,

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then the dentil work comes directly
off the can's red, white, blue and silver.

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Then, these corbels going
down underneath the eaves

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are that little design
that comes off the can.

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I just put a can on a copier
and kept enlarging it

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until I got the size I want.

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Then, on the can it says,

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"This is the famous Budweiser beer,

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we know of no other beer,
blah, blah, blah."

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So we changed that and put,

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"This is the famous Budweiser house.
We don't know of any other house ..."

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and so forth and so on.

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This is a deadbolt.

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It's a fence from a 1930s shaper,
which is a very angry woodworking machine.

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And they gave me the fence,
but they didn't give me the shaper,

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so we made a deadbolt out of it.

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That'll keep bull elephants
out, I promise.

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(Laughter)

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And sure enough, we've had
no problems with bull elephants.

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(Laughter)

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The shower is intended
to simulate a glass of beer.

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We've got bubbles going up there,
then suds at the top with lumpy tiles.

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Where do you get lumpy tiles?
Well, of course, you don't.

86
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But I get a lot of toilets, and so you
just dispatch a toilet with a hammer,

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and then you have lumpy tiles.

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And then the faucet is a beer tap.

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(Laughter)

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Then, this panel of glass
is the same panel of glass

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that occurs in every middle-class
front door in America.

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We're getting tired of it.
It's kind of clichéd now.

93
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If you put it in the front door,
your design fails.

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So don't put it in the front door;
put it somewhere else.

95
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It's a pretty panel of glass.

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But if you put it in the front door,

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people say, "Oh, you're trying
to be like those guys,

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and you didn't make it."

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So don't put it there.

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Then, another bathroom upstairs.

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This light up here

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is the same light that occurs
in every middle-class foyer in America.

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Don't put it in the foyer.

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Put it in the shower, or in the closet,

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but not in the foyer.

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Then, somebody gave me
a bidet, so it got a bidet.

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(Laughter)

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This little house here,

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those branches there are made
out of Bois d'arc or Osage orange.

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These pictures will keep scrolling
as I talk a little bit.

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In order to do what I do,

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you have to understand what causes
waste in the building industry.

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Our housing has become a commodity,

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and I'll talk a little bit about that.

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But the first cause of waste
is probably even buried in our DNA.

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Human beings have a need
for maintaining consistency

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of the apperceptive mass.

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What does that mean?

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What it means is,
for every perception we have,

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it needs to tally
with the one like it before,

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or we don't have continuity,
and we become a little bit disoriented.

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So I can show you an object
you've never seen before.

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Oh, that's a cell phone.

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But you've never seen this one before.

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What you're doing

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is sizing up the pattern
of structural features,

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and then you go through your databanks:

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Cell phone. Oh! That's a cell phone.

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If I took a bite out of it, you'd go,

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"Wait a second.

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(Laughter)

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"That's not a cell phone.

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That's one of those new
chocolate cell phones."

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(Laughter)

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You'd have to start a new category,

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right between cell phones and chocolate.

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(Laughter)

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That's how we process information.

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You translate that
to the building industry.

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If we have a wall of windowpanes
and one pane is cracked, we go,

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"Oh, dear. That's cracked.
Let's repair it.

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Let's take it out and throw it away
so nobody can use it

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and put a new one in."

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Because that's what you do
with a cracked pane.

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Never mind that it doesn't
affect our lives at all.

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It only rattles that expected pattern
and unity of structural features.

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However, if we took a small hammer,

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and we added cracks
to all the other windows --

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(Laughter)

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then we have a pattern.

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Because Gestalt psychology
emphasizes recognition of pattern

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over parts that comprise a pattern.

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We'll go, "Ooh, that's nice."

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So, that serves me every day.

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Repetition creates pattern.

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If I have 100 of these, 100 of those,

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it makes no difference
what these and those are.

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If I can repeat anything,
I have the possibility of a pattern,

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from hickory nuts and chicken eggs,
shards of glass, branches.

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It doesn't make any difference.

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That causes a lot of waste
in the building industry.

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The second cause is,

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Friedrich Nietzsche, along about 1885,

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wrote a book titled
"The Birth of Tragedy."

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And in there,

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he said cultures tend to swing
between one of two perspectives:

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on the one hand,
we have an Apollonian perspective,

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which is very crisp and premeditated
and intellectualized

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and perfect.

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On the other end of the spectrum,
we have a Dionysian perspective,

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which is more given
to the passions and intuition,

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tolerant of organic texture
and human gesture.

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So the way the Apollonian personality
takes a picture or hangs a picture is,

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they'll get out a transit

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and a laser level

176
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and a micrometer.

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"OK, honey. A thousandth
of an inch to the left.

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That's where we want
the picture. Right. Perfect!"

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Predicated on plumb level,
square and centered.

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The Dionysian personality
takes the picture and goes:

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(Laughter)

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That's the difference.

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I feature blemish.

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I feature organic process.

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Dead center John Dewey.

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Apollonian mindset
creates mountains of waste.

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If something isn't perfect,

188
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if it doesn't line up
with that premeditated model?

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Dumpster.

190
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"Oops. Scratch. Dumpster."

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"Oops" this, "oops" that.
Landfill, landfill, landfill.

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The third thing is arguably --

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The Industrial Revolution
started in the Renaissance

194
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with the rise of humanism,

195
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then got a little jump start
along about the French Revolution.

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By the middle of the 19th century,
it's in full flower.

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And we have dumaflaches and gizmos

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and contraptions that will do anything

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that we, up to that point,

200
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had to do by hand.

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So now we have standardized materials.

202
00:08:19,683 --> 00:08:22,541
Well, trees don't grow
two inches by four inches,

203
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eight, ten and twelve feet tall.

204
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(Laughter)

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We create mountains of waste.

206
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And they're doing a pretty good job
there in the forest,

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working all the byproduct
of their industry --

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with OSB and particle board
and so forth and so on --

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but it does no good

210
00:08:37,453 --> 00:08:40,526
to be responsible at the point
of harvest in the forest

211
00:08:40,550 --> 00:08:43,909
if consumers are wasting the harvest
at the point of consumption.

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And that's what's happening.

213
00:08:45,814 --> 00:08:47,526
And so if something isn't standard,

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"Oops, dumpster." "Oops" this.
"Oops, warped."

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If you buy a two-by-four
and it's not straight,

216
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you can take it back.

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"Oh, I'm so sorry, sir.
We'll get you a straight one."

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Well, I feature all those warped things

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because repetition creates pattern,

220
00:09:01,834 --> 00:09:03,839
and it's from a Dionysian perspective.

221
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The fourth thing

222
00:09:05,169 --> 00:09:08,895
is labor is disproportionately
more expensive than materials.

223
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Well, that's just a myth.

224
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And there's a story:

225
00:09:11,619 --> 00:09:15,178
Jim Tulles, one of the guys I trained --
I said, "Jim, it's time now.

226
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I got a job for you as a foreman
on a framing crew. Time for you to go."

227
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"Dan, I just don't think I'm ready."

228
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"Jim, now it's time.
You're the down -- oh!"

229
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So we hired on.

230
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And he was out there with a tape measure,
going through the trash heap,

231
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looking for header material,
or the board that goes over a door,

232
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thinking he'd impress his boss --
that's how we taught him to do it.

233
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The superintendent walked up
and said, "What are you doing?"

234
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"Oh, just looking for header material,"

235
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waiting for that kudos.

236
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He said, "I'm not paying you to go
through the trash. Get back to work."

237
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And Jim had the wherewithal to say,

238
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"You know, if you were paying me
300 dollars an hour,

239
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I can see how you might say that.

240
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But right now, I'm saving you
five dollars a minute.

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Do the math."

242
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(Laughter)

243
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"Good call, Tulles. From now on,
you guys hit this pile first."

244
00:10:01,367 --> 00:10:03,842
And the irony is that he wasn't
very good at math.

245
00:10:03,866 --> 00:10:07,272
(Laughter)

246
00:10:07,296 --> 00:10:09,947
But once in a while,
you get access to the control room,

247
00:10:09,971 --> 00:10:12,080
and then you can
kind of mess with the dials.

248
00:10:12,104 --> 00:10:13,669
And that's what happened there.

249
00:10:14,438 --> 00:10:16,837
The fifth thing is that maybe,
after 2,500 years,

250
00:10:16,861 --> 00:10:20,179
Plato is still having his way with us
in his notion of perfect forms.

251
00:10:20,203 --> 00:10:24,375
He said that we have in our noggin
the perfect idea of what we want,

252
00:10:24,399 --> 00:10:27,376
and we force environmental
resources to accommodate that.

253
00:10:27,400 --> 00:10:29,858
So we all have in our head
the perfect house,

254
00:10:29,882 --> 00:10:32,112
the American dream, which is a house,

255
00:10:32,136 --> 00:10:33,723
the dream house.

256
00:10:33,747 --> 00:10:35,526
The problem is we can't afford it.

257
00:10:35,550 --> 00:10:37,526
So we have the American dream look-alike,

258
00:10:37,550 --> 00:10:38,862
which is a mobile home.

259
00:10:38,886 --> 00:10:41,176
Now there's a blight on the planet.

260
00:10:41,200 --> 00:10:42,454
(Laughter)

261
00:10:42,478 --> 00:10:44,198
It's a chattel mortgage,

262
00:10:44,222 --> 00:10:46,199
just like furniture, just like a car.

263
00:10:46,223 --> 00:10:49,355
You write the check,
and instantly, it depreciates 30 percent.

264
00:10:49,379 --> 00:10:52,586
After a year, you can't get insurance
on everything you have in it,

265
00:10:52,610 --> 00:10:53,881
only on 70 percent.

266
00:10:53,905 --> 00:10:55,654
Wired with 14-Gauge wire, typically.

267
00:10:55,678 --> 00:10:56,846
Nothing wrong with that,

268
00:10:56,870 --> 00:10:59,716
unless you ask it to do
what 12-Gauge wire's supposed to do,

269
00:10:59,740 --> 00:11:00,943
and that's what happens.

270
00:11:00,967 --> 00:11:02,448
It out-gasses formaldehyde --

271
00:11:02,472 --> 00:11:06,613
so much so that there is
a federal law in place

272
00:11:06,637 --> 00:11:11,201
to warn new mobile home buyers
of the formaldehyde atmosphere danger.

273
00:11:11,225 --> 00:11:13,271
Are we just being numbingly stupid?

274
00:11:13,295 --> 00:11:15,102
The walls are this thick.

275
00:11:15,126 --> 00:11:18,103
The whole thing has
the structural value of corn.

276
00:11:18,127 --> 00:11:20,010
(Laughter)

277
00:11:20,034 --> 00:11:22,606
"So ... I thought Palm Harbor
Village was over there."

278
00:11:22,630 --> 00:11:24,668
"No, no. We had a wind last night.

279
00:11:24,692 --> 00:11:26,264
It's gone now."

280
00:11:26,288 --> 00:11:29,526
(Laughter)

281
00:11:29,550 --> 00:11:31,951
Then when they degrade,
what do you do with them?

282
00:11:32,359 --> 00:11:34,063
Now, all that --

283
00:11:34,626 --> 00:11:37,374
that Apollonian, Platonic model --

284
00:11:37,398 --> 00:11:39,961
is what the building industry
is predicated on,

285
00:11:39,985 --> 00:11:42,661
and there are a number of things
that exacerbate that.

286
00:11:42,685 --> 00:11:45,203
One is that all the professionals,

287
00:11:45,227 --> 00:11:46,894
all the tradesmen, vendors,

288
00:11:46,918 --> 00:11:49,296
inspectors, engineers, architects

289
00:11:49,320 --> 00:11:50,966
all think like this.

290
00:11:51,438 --> 00:11:53,644
And then it works its way
back to the consumer,

291
00:11:53,668 --> 00:11:55,112
who demands the same model.

292
00:11:55,136 --> 00:11:57,955
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
We can't get out of it.

293
00:11:58,271 --> 00:12:00,847
Then here come the marketeers
and the advertisers.

294
00:12:00,871 --> 00:12:03,295
"Woo. Woo-hoo."

295
00:12:03,319 --> 00:12:06,526
We buy stuff we didn't know we needed.

296
00:12:06,550 --> 00:12:09,082
All we have to do
is look at what one company did

297
00:12:09,106 --> 00:12:11,097
with carbonated prune juice.

298
00:12:11,121 --> 00:12:12,526
How disgusting.

299
00:12:12,550 --> 00:12:14,342
(Laughter)

300
00:12:14,366 --> 00:12:15,674
But you know what they did?

301
00:12:15,698 --> 00:12:18,774
They hooked a metaphor into it
and said, "I drink Dr. Pepper ..."

302
00:12:18,798 --> 00:12:21,792
And pretty soon, we're swilling
that stuff by the lake-ful,

303
00:12:21,816 --> 00:12:23,527
by the billions of gallons.

304
00:12:23,551 --> 00:12:26,688
It doesn't even have real prunes!
Doesn't even keep you regular.

305
00:12:26,712 --> 00:12:28,472
(Laughter)

306
00:12:28,496 --> 00:12:30,526
My oh my, that makes it worse.

307
00:12:30,550 --> 00:12:33,746
And we get sucked
into that faster than anything.

308
00:12:33,770 --> 00:12:36,479
Then, a man named
Jean-Paul Sartre wrote a book

309
00:12:36,503 --> 00:12:37,988
titled "Being and Nothingness."

310
00:12:38,012 --> 00:12:40,934
It's a pretty quick read.
You can snap through it in maybe --

311
00:12:40,958 --> 00:12:42,022
(Laughter)

312
00:12:42,046 --> 00:12:43,198
maybe two years,

313
00:12:43,222 --> 00:12:44,954
if you read eight hours a day.

314
00:12:45,550 --> 00:12:47,863
In there, he talked
about the divided self.

315
00:12:47,887 --> 00:12:50,965
He said human beings act differently
when they know they're alone

316
00:12:50,989 --> 00:12:53,049
than when they know
somebody else is around.

317
00:12:53,073 --> 00:12:55,375
So if I'm eating spaghetti,
and I know I'm alone,

318
00:12:55,399 --> 00:12:56,867
I can eat like a backhoe.

319
00:12:56,891 --> 00:13:00,105
I can wipe my mouth on my sleeve,
napkin on the table,

320
00:13:00,129 --> 00:13:03,446
chew with my mouth open,
make little noises,

321
00:13:03,470 --> 00:13:05,447
scratch wherever I want.

322
00:13:05,471 --> 00:13:07,331
(Laughter)

323
00:13:07,355 --> 00:13:08,802
But as soon as you walk in,

324
00:13:08,826 --> 00:13:11,304
I go, "Oops! Lil' spaghetti sauce there."

325
00:13:11,328 --> 00:13:13,181
Napkin in my lap, half-bites,

326
00:13:13,205 --> 00:13:15,438
chew with my mouth closed, no scratching.

327
00:13:15,462 --> 00:13:20,397
Now, what I'm doing
is fulfilling your expectations

328
00:13:20,421 --> 00:13:22,303
of how I should live my life.

329
00:13:23,819 --> 00:13:25,601
I feel that expectation,

330
00:13:25,625 --> 00:13:27,041
and so I accommodate it,

331
00:13:27,065 --> 00:13:30,311
and I'm living my life according
to what you expect me to do.

332
00:13:30,335 --> 00:13:32,606
That happens in the building
industry as well.

333
00:13:32,630 --> 00:13:35,485
That's why all subdivisions look the same.

334
00:13:35,509 --> 00:13:39,625
Sometimes, we even have
these formalized cultural expectations.

335
00:13:39,649 --> 00:13:41,526
I'll bet all your shoes match.

336
00:13:41,550 --> 00:13:43,735
Sure enough, we all buy into that ...

337
00:13:43,759 --> 00:13:45,409
(Laughter)

338
00:13:45,433 --> 00:13:47,858
And with gated communities,

339
00:13:47,882 --> 00:13:50,258
we have a formalized expectation,

340
00:13:50,282 --> 00:13:51,860
with a homeowners' association.

341
00:13:51,884 --> 00:13:53,582
Sometimes those guys are Nazis,

342
00:13:53,606 --> 00:13:54,953
my oh my.

343
00:13:55,930 --> 00:13:58,906
That exacerbates and continues this model.

344
00:13:59,712 --> 00:14:01,619
The last thing is gregariousness.

345
00:14:02,408 --> 00:14:04,321
Human beings are a social species.

346
00:14:04,345 --> 00:14:07,043
We like to hang together in groups,

347
00:14:07,067 --> 00:14:08,947
just like wildebeests, just like lions.

348
00:14:08,971 --> 00:14:10,627
Wildebeests don't hang with lions,

349
00:14:10,651 --> 00:14:12,301
because lions eat wildebeests.

350
00:14:12,690 --> 00:14:14,136
Human beings are like that.

351
00:14:14,160 --> 00:14:16,256
We do what that group does

352
00:14:16,280 --> 00:14:18,136
that we're trying to identify with.

353
00:14:18,682 --> 00:14:20,665
You see this in junior high a lot.

354
00:14:21,291 --> 00:14:25,662
Those kids, they'll work
all summer long -- kill themselves --

355
00:14:25,686 --> 00:14:29,894
so that they can afford
one pair of designer jeans.

356
00:14:29,918 --> 00:14:32,176
So along about September,

357
00:14:32,200 --> 00:14:34,177
they can stride in and go,

358
00:14:34,201 --> 00:14:38,415
"I'm important today. See?
Don't touch my designer jeans!

359
00:14:38,439 --> 00:14:41,276
I see you don't have designer jeans.

360
00:14:41,300 --> 00:14:44,996
You're not one of the beautiful --
See, I'm one of the beautiful people.

361
00:14:45,020 --> 00:14:46,208
See my jeans?"

362
00:14:46,232 --> 00:14:48,618
Right there is reason
enough to have uniforms.

363
00:14:49,185 --> 00:14:52,219
And so that happens
in the building industry as well.

364
00:14:52,678 --> 00:14:56,897
We have confused
Maslow's hierarchy of needs,

365
00:14:56,921 --> 00:14:58,526
just a little bit.

366
00:14:58,550 --> 00:15:01,904
On the bottom tier, we have basic needs:

367
00:15:01,928 --> 00:15:05,462
shelter, clothing, food,
water, mating and so forth.

368
00:15:05,486 --> 00:15:07,824
Second: security. Third: relationships.

369
00:15:07,848 --> 00:15:10,866
Fourth: status, self-esteem --
that is, vanity --

370
00:15:10,890 --> 00:15:13,488
and we're taking vanity
and shoving it down here.

371
00:15:14,343 --> 00:15:15,749
And so we end up

372
00:15:16,827 --> 00:15:18,803
with vain decisions,

373
00:15:19,605 --> 00:15:21,797
and we can't even afford our mortgage.

374
00:15:21,821 --> 00:15:24,575
We can't afford to eat
anything except beans;

375
00:15:24,599 --> 00:15:28,170
that is, our housing
has become a commodity.

376
00:15:28,813 --> 00:15:31,472
And it takes a little bit of nerve

377
00:15:32,123 --> 00:15:34,526
to dive into those primal,

378
00:15:34,550 --> 00:15:36,753
terrifying parts of ourselves

379
00:15:37,550 --> 00:15:39,494
and make our own decisions

380
00:15:40,002 --> 00:15:41,979
and not make our housing a commodity,

381
00:15:42,003 --> 00:15:45,526
but make it something
that bubbles up from seminal sources.

382
00:15:45,550 --> 00:15:47,327
That takes a little bit of nerve,

383
00:15:47,351 --> 00:15:50,076
and, darn it, once in a while, you fail.

384
00:15:50,973 --> 00:15:52,764
But that's okay.

385
00:15:53,180 --> 00:15:54,968
If failure destroys you,

386
00:15:54,992 --> 00:15:56,222
then you can't do this.

387
00:15:56,246 --> 00:15:58,752
I fail all the time, every day,

388
00:15:58,776 --> 00:16:02,488
and I've had some whopping
failures, I promise --

389
00:16:02,512 --> 00:16:05,526
big, public, humiliating,
embarrassing failures.

390
00:16:05,550 --> 00:16:06,990
Everybody points and laughs,

391
00:16:07,014 --> 00:16:10,110
and they say, "He tried it a fifth time,
and it still didn't work!

392
00:16:10,134 --> 00:16:11,514
What a moron!"

393
00:16:11,538 --> 00:16:13,526
Early on, contractors come by and say,

394
00:16:13,550 --> 00:16:15,313
"Dan, you're a cute little bunny,

395
00:16:15,337 --> 00:16:17,495
but you know,
this just isn't going to work.

396
00:16:17,519 --> 00:16:19,850
What don't you do this?
Why don't you do that?"

397
00:16:19,874 --> 00:16:22,380
And your instinct is to say,

398
00:16:22,404 --> 00:16:24,071
"Well, why don't you suck an egg?"

399
00:16:24,095 --> 00:16:25,526
(Laughter)

400
00:16:25,550 --> 00:16:27,214
But you don't say that,

401
00:16:27,238 --> 00:16:29,344
because they're the guys you're targeting.

402
00:16:30,191 --> 00:16:33,170
And so what we've done --

403
00:16:33,194 --> 00:16:36,587
and this isn't just in housing;
it's in clothing and food

404
00:16:36,611 --> 00:16:39,464
and our transportation
needs, our energy --

405
00:16:39,488 --> 00:16:42,063
we sprawl just a little bit.

406
00:16:42,996 --> 00:16:45,526
And when I get a little bit of press,

407
00:16:45,550 --> 00:16:47,510
I hear from people all over the world.

408
00:16:47,859 --> 00:16:50,678
And we may have invented excess,

409
00:16:50,702 --> 00:16:54,119
but the problem of waste is worldwide.

410
00:16:55,184 --> 00:16:58,161
We're in trouble.

411
00:16:58,185 --> 00:17:01,239
And I don't wear ammo belts
crisscrossing my chest

412
00:17:01,263 --> 00:17:02,633
and a red bandana.

413
00:17:03,375 --> 00:17:04,995
But we're clearly in trouble.

414
00:17:05,598 --> 00:17:09,526
And what we need to do is reconnect

415
00:17:09,550 --> 00:17:13,187
with those really primal
parts of ourselves

416
00:17:13,211 --> 00:17:15,257
and make some decisions and say,

417
00:17:15,281 --> 00:17:20,010
"You know, I think I would like to put
CDs across the wall there.

418
00:17:20,034 --> 00:17:21,398
What do you think, honey?"

419
00:17:22,011 --> 00:17:23,706
If it doesn't work, take it down.

420
00:17:24,859 --> 00:17:27,835
What we need to do is reconnect
with who we really are,

421
00:17:28,462 --> 00:17:30,438
and that's thrilling indeed.

422
00:17:31,483 --> 00:17:32,666
Thank you very much.

423
00:17:32,690 --> 00:17:36,550
(Applause)