Discussion: Living, Planning and Building in the North of Canada
In 1974, immediately after completing my architectural studies, I went off to the forests of Canada in search of nature and a greater sense of freedom, which I believed it was not possible to find in our industrial societies. Initially, our "paradise" was quite primitive. Using hand tools and a power saw, we tried our hand at simple forms of construction. We felled and stripped trees, cut them into beams and formed dovetail joints. We built our first log cabin. Soon, however, we were not satisfied with this idyll, and we installed a safe water supply for the winter and a wood-fired, warm-air convection heating system in a newly built timber-framed structure. We used solar energy to heat water and to generate power for lighting. Finally, the construction of a perspex shower cell marked the imminent return to the decadence of the consumer society we had left behind.
