“When dwellers control the major decisions and are free to make their own contributions in the design, construction, or management of their housing, both this process and the environmental produced stimulate individual and social well-being.”

Life is a work in progress, a process of uncovering our natural openness, uncovering our natural intelligence and warmth. I have discovered, just as my teachers always told me, that we already have what we need. The wisdom, the strength, the confidence, the awakened heart and mind are always accessible, here, now, always.

Participation is not only a mental or intellectual event, but physical as well, nourished from human warmth. As such exchange intensifies – and wears thin, becomes sharper, gets layered – the interaction gets more and more stimulating and its outcomes can’t be foreseen anymore, because they depend on the interlocutors, who always vary, thus making the process-project they’re taking part in unique each time. That’s why there’s no recipe for participation. As participants and the reasons for which they met change, so does participation: we have to invent and experiment with it, everytime anew.

It is not the beauty of a building you should look at; its the construction of the foundation that will stand the test of time.