This is the first posted reply to the vision project. In brief, I have asked people who inspire me through their actions to answer some questions about where their passion lies and what motivates them.
Fernando Luis Lara is a Brazilian artist, architect and professor who lives and works in the US. I first heard of him through the 365 special days project. I loved the generosity of spirit of this project, so I asked him to answer some questions for me and he graciously agreed.

This opened the door for him to talk about his greater concerns and interests. In this case, it his concerns about water management and its relationship with the built environment in terms of both flood and of drought. For more information, please refer to the manifesto of his research into urban form and flooding issues. Please enjoy his wonderful and thoughtful replies.

1. Tell me about something you are passionate about or that you have very strong beliefs about. It should be something that you are active in (rather than a wish).
   
   If you don’t mind I will talk about something else because it is more challenging and even closer to my heart than the 365specialdays project.
   

As an architecture professor, I have been concerned for a while with the terrible relationship between the built environment and water resources. We spend too much water, we do not engage with rain and snow as part of the environment. Worse, in Latin America where I am from, we have so much urban flooding that it easily amounts to one Katrina every year (more than 1000 people dead, more than 200.000 displaced). Every year, over and over. So in 2006 I started www.studiotoro.org which is a NGO kind of design workshop focused on the water and the built environment.


2. When did you first become involved in this particular thing?
   
   Hard to say, water has always been on my radar. The street where I grew up flooded at least once every rainy season. My apartment had water infiltration, we are surrounded by water problems in Brazil.
   
   
3. What are the main issues around this? (This can be political, it can be resources, it can be anything. I'm looking for the roadblocks to success or the things that need to be addressed.)
   
   For me the main issue is public awareness. To tell everybody that we can prevent flooding by not paving our backyards and conserve water by collecting it from our own roofs, instead of waiting for the government to do something.
   


4. What motivates you to continue?
   
   Water will be more and more scarce, and all the previsions around global warming talk about stronger storms. So it will become more and more of an issue.


5. What discourages you?
   
   People don’t really see how their interventions on the built environment can add up to larger problems. Even architects who should understand this tend to look at their individual building only, not much towards the city as an organism.


6. Tell me about something you accomplished in the last year and are really proud of. When you think of it, it makes your heart swell, it makes you smile or even giggle a little. (This can be related or unrelated to the previous interest.)
   
   Related to my other project: 365 special days, it is amazing to me that people in Finland, Italy, Egypt and all over the US have engaged with the project. And the fact that my drawings have somehow touched them makes me very very happy.


7. Do you have a dream that you still have not touched and would like to pursue? (This can be related or unrelated to the previous interest.)
   
   So putting all the answers above together, I wish I could use the power of the internet to disseminate an awareness about how to build better on the rainy parts of the world.


8. Do you have an image/movie/graphic that you would like to accompany this
   interview?
   
   It would be an image of a flooded building but it is what I don’t want to happen. So let’s leave it without the image.


9. Fill in the blank: If I could bring anything to the world, it would be...
   
   To get rid of the arms industry in all its forms. Of course it implies solving all the conflicts but we can start by going after the ones who make money out of so much destruction.


10. Are there some links to your work/inspiration/anything you would like to
    include?
    
    www.studiotoro.org
    www.365specialdays.com

Thank you Fernando.

Labels: inspired by others, vision project