Opprotunity: The Chickens are Roosting

Today Malibu is on fire. The Chapperal, local bushes equal in flammability to their weight in gasoline, are bursting into flame as they outgas and the gasses touch flame. The fire is beeing fed upon the Southern California "Devil Winds" and are creating their own faster winds as fires in hillsides do.

This fire is resulting in a terrible loss of millions upon millions of dollars in homes. It's natures way of shaking off the ugly. yeap I said it, shaking off the ugly.

A quarter Century ago, my buddy Mike Canfield and I had this idea of developing much of the then undeveloped land in Malibu. Being an Organic Architect, I wanted to do a bunch of nearly invisable Earth Sheltered Sod roofed homes cast in concrete with cantilivered concrete decks and wildflowers on the roof. Mike was a salesman. He wanted nothing to do with that Earth sheltered stuff, can't see it from the highway, doesn't announce itself, No he wanted BIG Showy white or pink stucco wood frame houses on the TOP of the hill where they would really SHOW. We never did get investors and never did build in Malibu, but the people who did build, agreed with Mike. They built BIG, they built traditional, they built wood framed white or pink stucco monstrosities.

Today those hillside monstrosities are buring. Millions of dollars in bad ideas are evaporating before our very eyes on television. Here is an opprotunity for Malibu and Southern California. People can rebuild safer, more fire and earthquake resistive, better to live in homes that act in concert with the local environment and local conditions. They can build lovely earth sheltered fire resistive homes, or they can again make the mistakes of graniosity.

We shall see.