Your Life may be the ONLY Bible Some People Read / Inside the World’s Safest House / School Calendar

A Beautiful Life
is simply
crafted.

The artistry of
simplicity
is Timeless.
The intense grief
caused by too much complexity
is abhorrent,
and makes Life
appreciative
just
to still be alive.

Life
can become so soft and Peaceful,
Heartwarming and wonderful.
.
Close your eyes,
Pray,
and just let your thoughts go
away,
enjoy the moment
and forget the time.

Let the Love,
found in the Loving and Compassionate
Word of God,
Speak
to your Heart.

As the soft wind gently moves
through the fields of Flowers,
you can feel
the Sacred Sun
in the Beautiful Sky.
.
 Among the fields
Our Lord will be
with you.

And in the Days
we have left,
let us pause among the Flowers
He Gifts to us,
and Give Thanks.

Love
is Beautiful and simply
Crafted
by acts of Kindness,
Compassion
and Forgiveness.
Such acts
keep the Artistry
of feeling
in a Timeless Dimension.

A simple
act of Love,
touches a Place
deep in the Soul.
.
Is there anything more
Beautiful?

You
are Love Incarnate.
Your Life
is Poetry,
meaningful, profound.
Nothing Today 
is close to
Love.

Yes,
you are Beautiful,
and God Loves you
Dearly.

From your Heart,
Love it all.

When your Heart is filled
with Love,
it sings, it truly Lives
and Blossoms,
giving Birth to the most Beautiful
thoughts and feelings
on Earth.

 When we hear
the Leaves
whisper gently through the
Trees,
He is Singing to us
again.

“Your Life
may be the only Bible
some people read.”

Take a deep breath,
in and out.
Take a second to realize how Beautiful
you are,
how talented you are,
how smart you are.

Don’t allow
the small things
to get to you.
.
You are perfectly
imperfect.
You are Loved.
You are worth everything.
Love yourself
and let yourself know,
that you are amazing.
.
Take good care of yourself
and be positive.

What Beautiful experiences
are tucked into the zigzag
of our adventures.
Life is fantastic.
.
 The Secret of Happiness
dwells within.
Make way
for a momentous immersion
into the Truth
of your
Being.

You
are so Blessed
to have Life,
and the Love of God.

Let God
Lead the Way
in all things.
He Knows
what He is Doing.
Love Him
with all your Heart and mind and body.
He is full of Love
and caring
for all.

Yes,
amazing images of Nature,
are absolutely a fairy tale.
.
Remember
to be grateful to the Almighty
for the precious Gift of Mother Earth.
 We need to protect
all this enchanting
Beauty.

Nature
gives you everything she has,
and asks nothing in return.

Goodnight.

BERKELEY’S NEWS • FEBRUARY 20, 2023

Inside the world’s safest house

SEAN CONNERS | STAFF

Tucked in an unassuming neighborhood in a district two miles southwest of the UC Berkeley campus, the “world’s safest” house stands boldly. And so does Eugene Tssui, a Cal alumnus and the house’s architect. In the past 20 years, the pair has challenged conventional wisdom and defied architecture’s status quo. Buying a small plot near a university built atop the Hayward Fault, in a state renowned for its earthquakes, Tssui seized the challenge to build a secure house for his elderly parents. His plan? Emulate the hardiness of a microscopic water bug.

The neighborhood fortress

From the street, the water bug likeness is uncanny. Amid a blanket of dense and colorful foliage, the rough-hewn exterior soars upward. Walls are striped with wrinkles and pockmarked with dinosaurian ridges. According to Tssui, every form has a function. The ridges each contain a black plastic tube that lets hot air flow around the house. The wrinkles magnify the effect. In the case of a fire, the striated surface would carry the heat up, out and away.

“It’s completely fireproof,” Tssui explained.

But that’s not all. The massive sailfish-like fin towering over the entrance doubles as a rain cowl and a wind breaker. Water and gusts of wind are directed away from the windows and doors (preventing indoor flooding). Though California hurricanes are rare, the house is prepared for the worst.

Tssui paid careful attention to sourcing the best building materials. The house’s structure is made of Rastra, a special concrete infused with compressed, recycled coffee cups. Rastra’s benefits are numerous, including fire resistance, flooding resistance, mildew resistance, termite resistance and noise reduction. In fact, Rastra’s sound insulation reduces sound levels by 50 dB or, in Tssui’s terms, “the difference between a jet roar and normal speech.” As for earthquakes, the house’s cavernous interior is supported by Structo-lite, a super strong plaster. Under stress, Structo-lite bends, flexes and adjusts. When the world is shaking, the house comes alive and survives.

“It goes beyond the definition of safety itself,” Tssui said. “A safe building is (by conventional standards) a heavy, rigid and monolithic building. But in nature, the strongest things are lightweight, flexible and unified. (This house) is designed as nature would design for safety. I’m absolutely sure it’s the safest thing that could be built for this disaster-prone area.”

Onlookers agree. From “most indestructible” to “disaster-proof,” the house’s accolades have held up to its miniature namesake: the Tardigrade, a beetle-like, extremophile creature. In 2007, the tiny Tardigrade became the first animal to survive outer space. In both form and function, Tssui’s meticulous translation of the little survivor’s body features into practical building designs has succeeded beyond the architect’s expectation. Recently, he replaced his house’s former, more mysterious designation, “Ojo del Sol,” with a more direct “Tardigrade House.” In spite of his best efforts, the public has been slow to catch on. ­

“Its seems to the general populace that it looks like a giant fish,” Tssui says with a shrug.

Twenty years ago, cynics thought the house would attract prostitution and drug trafficking. Over time, locals have come to call it “the Fish House near San Pablo Park.”  Now, this too may change. Originally built as his parent’s private residence, Tssui has partnered with Airbnb to rent the house to Bay Area travelers as short-term lodging. Now empty, Tardigrade House’s interior design is a striking contrast to its ashen exterior. Inside is a secret, otherworldly place with its own artistic bravado.

Swollen with sunshine

Entering the house is its own story. A flagstone path meanders from the sidewalk to the front door. The path descends in a slope, leading one into the jaws of the house. Tssui explains that he is trying to draw people into nature. At the same time, he adds, he has made the entire residence wheelchair accessible. Form, he reminds, always has a function.

The massive fin above the entrance casts a deep shadow inside the house, an altogether discrete and disorienting darkness. Through the still meandering entryway, the shadows vanish to reveal an atrium swollen with sunshine. Light filtered through a massive glass ceiling acts as the primary light source for the house. For Tssui, sustainability was key. Along with lighting, Tssui’s interior structure has made insulation and ventilation maintenance worry-free. Indoor temperatures never fluctuate.

“Year-round, you could wear shorts and a t-shirt with no heating,” he explains. “There are no fans either. And no air conditioning. (The house) is a great prototype for a zero-energy building , although it does require energy for ovens. But for heating and ventilation? Zero.”  To prove his point, he takes a sniff. “See? Mustiness does not exist.”

For an architect with a long career, reception for energy-efficient housing is a social development that is relatively new.

“LEED and energy conservation … none of that was talked about 20 years ago,” he admits. “This (house) is a success given today’s ecological goals and a pioneering effort in that. I am really pleased how everything turned out.”

The living room lies beneath the skylight. Sitting cushions flank a suspended wooden table. Hanging from the ceiling, like strings from an enormous puppet show, steel cables provide support to the atrium.

Each cable is anchored to a section of a massive spiral ramp. In the event of an earthquake, the cables absorb stress from the ramp and reinforce the entire house. Sound familiar? The mechanics were borrowed from the Bay Area’s most enduring icon: the Golden Gate Bridge.

The spiral ramp — also wheelchair accessible — provides access to the residence’s second-story living quarters. Along the path, the interior walls are riddled with orbs of stucco and inter-coiling, tendril-like carvings. Halfway up the ramp, a hemispherical window, like an enormous eyeball, bulges out. Like a silent guardian, Tardigrade House keeps watch over the Berkeley skyline.

In fact, every window in the house is circular. Shape, an often-overlooked component in window design, can be the deciding factor leading to irreparable property damage.  According to Tssui, “One of the things commonly seen after an earthquake is cracks on the windows. This is because square windows cannot take strain and bunches stress at the corners. For (my) windows, forces are taken tangentially around the circles, so there is absolutely no cracking.”  Referring to the window’s submersible semblance, he, for good measure, adds, ” There is no reference to Jules Verne.”

On the second floor, bedrooms are decorated with maritime motifs. Shelves built into the walls have rounded, rippled edges. Carvings of spirals and parabolas crisscross. Squint. Some of the walls contain mica chips. Squint again. They glisten like starlight.

A new dimension of living

Architecture’s many episodes of history, from ancient Greek to art deco, bear little resemblance to the Tardigrade House. For Tssui, today’s challenges must be solved by 21st-century solutions.

“Architects and architecture are frozen in the past,” he said. “But past architecture has not even answered the problems of the past — like disaster situations. Our expectations of architecture (should be) to come up with new answers to very old problems.”

And they must also address quite a few new problems. While the house is prepared to confront short-term natural disasters, it doubles in being eco-friendly and energy-efficient. In a voice bordering on prophetic, Tssui adamantly describes the danger of global warming and environmental pollution.

“We are entering into what we call the ‘era of reckoning’,” he said. “All the mistakes we have created in the past we have to figure out and resolve. We have to take care of these mistakes. The last generation has turned Earth into a garbage dump, and we have to fix this. ”

At 58 years old — or “58 years young,” as Tssui jokes — the architect is remarkably future-conscious. By applying the  principles of modern life science to an ancient profession, Tssui pioneers a new family of architecture. He even has a name for it: the “Biologic Movement.”

“When I first designed this house, I asked, “How would nature design the house with these requirements?’ If you think how nature thinks, you are guaranteed not to destroy the planet.”

The Tardigrade House is located at 2747 Matthews Street in Berkeley, Calif.  This article is part of a series on Eugene Tssui.

Image sources: Sean Conners, staff

Contact Alex Mabanta at amabanta@dailycal.org.

 

Since 1871

Copyright © 2023 The Daily Californian, The Independent Berkeley Student Publishing Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy.

Love
is
Life.

Knowledge is power
and LIFE.

School Calendar

2022-23
Please check back regularly
for any amendments that may occur.

First Semester
Sept. 6 – December 16   2022

Sept. 6 (TUESDAY)               First Day of First Semester
Oct. 10 (Monday)                   Columbus Day Holiday
Nov. 21 – 25                           Fall Break (and Thanksgiving)
Dec. 16                                   Last Day of Fall Semester

Second Semester

Jan. 3 (TUESDAY)                 Second Semester Begins
Jan. 16  (Monday)                  Dr. Martin L. King Holiday
Feb. 20  (Monday)                  Presidents’ Day Holiday
Mar. 13 – 17                           Spring Break Holiday
April 7 & 10                           Good Friday and Easter Monday Holidays
May 26                                    Last Day of Spring Semester

Lyrics/songs texts/paintings/articles

are property and copyright of their owners
and provided for educational purposes.

Copyright Disclaimer
– Section 107 – Copyright Act 1976,
allowance is made for “fair use”
for purposes such as criticism, comment,
news reporting, teaching, scholarship,and research.
Fair use is permitted by copyright statute.

Non-profit, educational or personal use
tips the balance in favor of “fair use”.

© Copyright 1995-2023
The Anderson Private School.

“He who opens a school door,
closes a prison.“
– Victor Hugo

I wish you all
 Peace.

Hang on
to your Faith.
You will get there.

The most Precious Gift
is Life.

.

.

.

.

.