Even with magic, there's a good chance Hogwarts wasn't built in a day. Nor was human society . . . and obviously, the systems we put in place to make life easier and their subsequent effects will not be reversed in a day, either.
For example, we can't just vanish trash. At the rate trash is building up, if we're to survive, we have to start reclaiming it: first, to stop seeing trash as "trash", and then, work magic to change it into something beautiful. Down in New Mexico, one Earth warlock by the name of Mike Reynolds has been doing just that for decades, but in ways on a grander scale than I have seen the trash-to-treasure concept taken by almost anyone else.
Reynolds uses common discarded items to build fantastic, organic, and sometimes castlelike living spaces of amazing creativity and beauty. These materials include old tires, plastic vessels, aluminum cans and, yes, glass bottles.
Reynolds calls his habitats "Earthships" and indeed some of them appear ready to lift off the ground. More important than physical lift, of course, is the potential of his ideas to carry home-building into a sustainable future for all of us.
But far greater than any challenge of molding mud and garbage into these stunning caverns of crystalline light is that of fighting the inertia of human fear. In Reynolds' case, it manifests as the Ministry of Magic of the architect's world: state building codes.
Reynolds has been fighting building codes for decades. As with many systems, the codes that were originally set up to protect people from unsafe homes quickly become a tool to benefit corporations and contractors at the expense of affordable housing and, just as importantly, innovation. Building methods are quickly becoming ossified and outdated in the face of the rapidly changing needs our species faces to ensure its own comfort and even survival.
In his own state, after much work, Mike won. He got a building code provision passed to allow experimental building within certain parameters. It's baby steps in an industry very reluctant to change due to those in power, but any progress is better than none. Perhaps one day, buildings of such eye-boggling creativity and appeal will be not an exception, but a norm . . . if only because at the rate we're going, we'll leave ourselves with few other choices.
Personally I love the idea of living in such an organic, pleasantly-shaped structure! Better yet would be the experience of building it myself, which may be something I could learn from Mike's work and programs.
Of course, with a home like this you'd have everyone stopping and gawking if you were anywhere in sight of a road. But perhaps the inspiration others gain from the sight is worth it: "What a cool house!" "I didn't know that was possible!" "Does a wizard live there?"
"Ships" of dreams, rising from the Earth like living things. I want to learn to build like that!
Don't forget the necessities! But here, you're bathing in style. It feels almost like a holy space, filled with stained glass, but of a different sort --- old glass bottles of every shape and size, woven with mud into a wall. Glass bottles naturally fall into that stable, "hexagonal closest packing" formation, like honeycomb.
The creator of these homes, Mike Reynolds. What all those hands of his have done!
Because if Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. (I'd own this sculpture now, except she's expensive!)
So be it.
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