Famous Quotes by Eugene

"Architecture, as we know it today, has not progressed for over 150 years! The basic components of architecture remain unchanged; steel girders or wood frames, concrete footings and beams, glass fenestration, and the proverbial square box mentality permeate the entire world! We demand innovation in every other field; computers, telephones, fashion, cars, steamships, aerospace, but in architecture, we are sadly entrenched in a world of convention, tradition, historical replication, and repetition. Why? What are we afraid of? Are we afraid that if we create something unique that we will not be able to sell it? History has proven to the contrary! If we survey the unusual, one-of-a-kind buildings throughout the world, whether they are residences or commercial buildings, we will discover that the resale value of these buildings is many times the construction cost of the building. And many times greater than the commonplace resale value of buildings in the same neighborhood. So history shows us the high financial value increase in these buildings yet, this seems, still, to not encourage the new and the unique. So what is it that we are afraid of? I think we are afraid of our own unwillingness to be ourselves! We are afraid to reveal that which makes us unique, singular, and imaginative! We say and we think we want imagination but, in reality, we fear it! We want everything to be convenient, to be measured, and predictable. The unique is different, it is unsettling and variable and we fear that! We fear it in our lives and we fear it in our architecture. We have become mired in the commonplace, the status quo, the acceptable, and we shield ourselves in this stayed mentality."

• Eugene Tssui at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England, 2004

"I am very happy to see that there is a place in the world (Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering) that is beginning to see the relationship of Nature and human-made design and how the two can mutually benefit each other. Right off, I want to put to all of you an important observation: If we create a design improvement; let's say, creating a new kind of fan blade design, based on the tail design of a whale, that allows air to be blown with greater force and volume using less energy, and we fabricate this fan out of plastic and sell a million units, that may make good business sense but it make terrible ecological sense, because that fan design will eventually fall into disrepair and likely be thrown away to a garbage dump and buried in the ground. Over time the plastic and metal components leach chemicals into the soil and water and contribute to the overall toxic pollution of the planet. I am assuming that you see the fault in this. What I am inferring is that the creation of mechanical things, even when "inspired" by Nature, must have a moral and ecological component to its creation. All of us, individually, must be morally and ecologically accountable for the things we create. This issue is absolutely imperative in the world of fabrication because, until now, we have neglected this issue altogether! We cannot allow this to happen. What we create affects the world and we must know how it affects the world; we must deeply study the consequences of what we make."

• Eugene Tssui at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, 2011

"The Strait of Gibraltar Floating Bridge design is the only viable design for a real working bridge to connect the continents of Africa and Europe, The depth of the water at this shortest distance between the two continents is 300 to 900 meters and the distance is 16.1 kilometers between Pointe Ceres, Morocco and Tarifa, Spain. To design a conventional bridge with vertical pylons rooted at this kind of water depth is overwhelmingly complex and expensive. The most intelligent solution is to avoid embedding structures on the ocean floor altogether and create a floating structure that is submerged at areas and floating on the water's surface at other areas. What I have designed is a floating tube that is buoyed in the center, at 8 kilometers from Tarifa and Pointe Ceres, with a floating island that acts as a stable dock to stabilize the bridge. In simple terms, think of a floating rubber hose that is thrown into the water and supported at the center of the Strait. Its natural gravitational behavior makes it float in the center and be submerged at the Spanish half and at the Moroccan half. The natural currents of the Strait, from the Atlantic Ocean, apply pressure against this hose to make it bend into a catenary arch sideways. This is the natural shape that Nature's ocean currents create. When this shape is achieved, this flexible hose is then locked into this catenary position to forever be stabilized by the ocean's current. Nature and humanity are truly working together to create something natural, meaningful, and with purpose!"

• Eugene Tssui at the City Hall Auditorium, Office of the Mayor, Tarifa, Spain, 2007

"Mankind continues to expand its ambitions, first, from continent to continent, and now, from planet to planet. We seem to have an insatiable lust for exploitation and acquisition; first, for the Moon, and now, for Mars and other planets. And do we fully understand our own planet? Do we understand our deserts? Do we understand our oceans? We have only explored 5% of our oceans and 75% of the earth has not been explored. So why are we enamored with other planets? Because man is voracious! Man wants to control and dominate. Our history is replete with acts of unspeakable violence and slaughter of other human beings and of animals and marine life. We want to cast our net of ownership, domination, and consumption in ever-widening circles and if we could sell the clouds and rainbows and fragrant breezes, we would! Exploration is good. Discovery is good. But when profit-making defines value it obliterates conscience and educational value. We can learn so much from Nature, from plants, animals, from microbial organisms and environmental relationships. But in the end, profit-making casts a dark shroud over the actions of mankind. And where are the human voices that take a stand for the silence of Nature's creatures? If we are to have a productive future then we must preserve and study the intelligence and creative genius of Nature. Our survival depends on it!"

• Eugene Tssui lecture, NASA Ames Research Museum and Laboratories, for Eugene Tssui's one-man exhibition titled: The Evolutionary Architecture of Eugene Tssui. Moffett Field, Mountain View, California, 1998.

"Why isn't the world making buildings like mine? Buildings that have no need for heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems and aren't polluting our air, water, and soil with their embedded energy fabrication of materials? The answer is that our entire academic and professional system of education is based on the translation and transport of facts from teacher to student based on the accepted norms of the times. These norms are not questioned and the economic, profit-making mechanisms of architects are based on them. Architects do not want to change this because their profitability is entrenched in it and our architecture schools, worldwide, do not address it. In fact, the business of practicing architecture is a class that is shamefully missing in school curriculums. Making the world a more habitable place that does not destroy the environment that sustains us is not as important as financial gain, and that is why our world is dying! Even the United Nations has failed miserably in achieving its 2023 goals of sustainability. When decisions are based on economic gain then doing no harm to the environment can never be attained!"

• Eugene Tssui at the Berkeley Historic Society Museum, July 9, 2023

"There will come a day when all of us will realize that there is a primal connection between the natural world and our built world and the closer this connection becomes the more we will benefit from it. It is most unfortunate that our architectural world is so disconnected to the natural world. Our schools of architecture--and I have been to many of them--propagate a viewpoint that architecture is meant to keep Nature out, not to intertwine with it. And so, we have an architecture that is sterile, clumsy, brutally severe, and alienated from the emotional, sensual, and tactile experience of being human. Architecture is a "thing", not an extension of our human experience, our human condition, a "Machine to be lived in" as one of our historical architects has written. And so it is, "a machine to be lived in", and just as with any machine, it runs for a single purpose, to contain our lives and shelter it. Thus, our lives are spent in and around architecture with what effect? I dare say the effect is to desensitize us and withdraw us from the beauty of natural materials, the changing colors and hues of the sky, and the aromatic diversity of smells and sounds. Architecture's heavy-handed and dark roofs blind us from the day's changing sky colors and textures--we have no sense of the sky changing from dawn to dusk and the richness and warmth of sunlight, the gentle breeze, the perfumed blossoming flowers, and sounds of bird's songs and animals scurrying among the limbs of trees--all are harshly blocked by the endless walls of steel, concrete, painted wood, glass, air-conditioned cells and fences of the cacophony we call our cities and our neighborhoods!"

• California Academy of Science, San Francisco, California, USA, 1996