Mark R. LePage interviews Toby about his book Supersizing Bliss
Mark R. LePage had a wonderful conversation with Toby about Supersizing Bliss on his EntreArchitect podcast. In their lively discussion they explored the richness to be had in the homes we create for ourselves and how to shift the housing industry toward the value of design.
“I love people and I want them to have a better life.”
Listen to it on your favorite platform:
Some Excerpts
Mark: “The title of the book again is Supersizing Bliss - How we have betrayed our homes and the happiness we seek. The subtitle is the thing that gets me. I think we all are seeking happiness. Right? But the “betrayed our homes” - can you dive into that a little bit? What's the book about and why is that your subtitle
Toby: ”I love what I do and I love sharing with folks - to provide them with the richness that I see is possible, and to allow them to go on a journey that will be truly enriching for them.
And there's a lot of forces coming at us that kind of make that difficult. So it takes a minute to concentrate on what I think is important and enables you to stay steadfast.
”I love what I do and I love sharing with folks - to provide them with the richness that I see is possible, and to allow them to go on a journey that will be truly enriching for them.”
I spend some time in the book trying to lay out what I see to be a landscape of cold, heartless homes that we try to make a life in, or set up a home in. And that landscape of houses is really an industrialized system where the importance is to make money for a precious few people. And so their task is to figure out how to build houses, create square feet, the cheapest, and sell them for as much as they can. And they have the upper hand. Thousands of homes are being added to the landscape every year nationwide. And so that's the only choice we have.
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I think we are unhappy in our homes. In one chapter in the book I write about the Pandemic, how we were forced to stay in our homes and realized we hated them. We have no chance to find rest or repose in our homes, to have moments to ourselves or meaningful moments together - have this richness, and ups and downs of a daily life met with a stage and built environment that plays along, that aggrandizes it, that makes it better, that inspires it. None of that was given to us. And so I think that's the world we live in. That's how we have betrayed our homes. We have given up on them. We've handed them over to industrialized sized builders and developers.
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We have to ask ourselves, as homeowners, what is it we want out of these homes? And we have to be more curious and have our eyes wide open to what's possible out there. In my book, I pinpoint four specific areas. One is the space.
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I write about a couple of spaces. One I think most every American can relate to is the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC. And for me - I have no relationship to that war or any of the names on those walls - but the physical setup of that, just these two granite walls cut into the ground as you descend into the earth - it gave me shivers down my spine every time I've visited.
All I want to do is sort of curl up in a fetal position, ball up on the ground, and sort of burrow myself there into that fold of the earth. It's that powerful of a physical surrounding. And so those are the type of qualities, I think, we need to ask for.”
Mark: “I think there's a massive opportunity for a developer to focus on things other than square foot and zip code and differentiate themselves. Similar to what you did with your company, right? I think that there is an opportunity for a big developer to take that chance and shift the language, shift the story. But I also think that it's also our responsibility as individual architects. You're specifically doing that with your book, right?”
Toby: “Yes. I love people and I want them to have a better life. And I hold possibilities within me for one tiny slice of what influences their lives. And I yearn to help everybody in that way. We have so much to give, so much to share, so much goodness to bring to our clients. It is upon us to share, to bring that forward, to just make it available, make that goodness, that richness, the possibilities available to our clients. And we have to communicate.
The word that just popped in my head is “emancipation”. With my book I wanted to allow my clients to have the emancipation - to be allowed the growth or the beauty and richness that is available to them.
These considerations are universal, and I think everybody can benefit from them.”
