OUR INSPIRATIONS
Superadobe:
Earth-based structures
Dzogchen:
Nader Khalili was a visionary Iranian architect and engineer for many decades. He was also a teacher and accomplished translator of the writings of the great poet and mystic, Rumi.
In his late thirties, Khalili found himself in the desert where he spent five years immersed in the alchemical familiarization and transformation of the elemental nature of earth, water, air and fire. With Rumi as his guide, the formation of Archemy was born, the marriage of architecture and alchemy.
The depth of his understanding and ongoing search for solutions related to housing, poverty and the looming ecological crisis, led him to be involved with NASA. He spearheaded a program for creating a future lunar colony. The concept and development of these lunar structures formed the basis of what would eventually be known as Super Adobe.
He would later create Cal-Earth, a place for experimentation, and teaching of his earth based Archemical building techniques in Hesperia, Californa
"We should be able to mold the earth into its best and most beautiful form without the need to cut trees and destroy the environment. It is shameful that we call ourselves made in the image of God, and yet we have to destroy everything to build our little houses."
- Nader Khalili
“A spider web is a natural structure that works by ultimate tension, and an eggshell is a structure that works by ultimate compression. Both use the minimum and the appropriate material with maximum efficiency. Just as we learn to build suspension bridges with ropes and cables in imitation of spider webs, we can learn to build domes in imitation of eggshells, building in maximum tension or compression.”
―Nader Khalili, Ceramic Houses and Earth Architecture: How to Build Your Own
"Is it really sane to follow one’s ideals and dreams and race alone in today’s world?...Midway in my life I stopped racing with others. I picked up my dreams and started a gentle walk…I touched my dreams in reality by racing and competing with no one but myself.”
- Nader Khalili
"Radical Dzogchen points at the non dual reality that is the nature of mind, the nature of our being, the nature of our every timeless moment of experience in the here and now.
That reality, or the nature of mind, or the ground of being, or however one wishes to express the non dual awareness of the now, may be pointed at by means of nine verbal formulae.
First, it is non referential; it has no point of reference, no starting point and no purpose.
Second, it arises spontaneously in a timeless moment; it has no objective existence.
Third, it is our total identity; our real 'self' is all inclusive.
Fourth, it is awareness of the here and now and as such it is a timeless instant and thus without cause or condition.
Fifth, it is nonfunctional; that moment is utter serenity and, therefore, no action or technique can induce it.
Sixth, it is completely, pure pleasure, beyond bliss.
Seventh, it is non duality, unity, and as such ineffable and ineluctable.
Eighth, it is a boundless sphere in which macrocosm and microcosm are one.
Ninth, It is the natural dispensation; it is Home.
Radical Dzogchen has no specific home in any religion or culture. Rather, every religion and culture is home to Radical Dzogchen. Although different labels may identify it in those diverse human contexts, its existential reality is the same."
Keith Dowman