Yesterday was a great talk with author, researcher, and talented artist Azby Brown who wrote the book "Just Enough" in 2010. So many of the topics are still very relevant today, even more than 10 years later. Azby spent many years studying the Edo period in Japan's history and offered up so many insights into the success and innovation during that Edo-Jidai era.
It was a period in Japanese history when they were able to innovate with low-tech solutions to environmental problems that made their lives more sustainable. During that period, they looked to local solutions to recover from environmental destruction. Many parallels to our current situation we are facing on a global scale.
There are so many great philosophies and examples we talked about from innovative farming techniques, a value system for human waste and the multiple positive knock-on effects of Sento public bath houses. I have put jump titles below, so you can jump to topics you are interested in hearing about.
Azby Brown is also a talented illustrator artist and the video features his drawings of the main concepts described in the book. I'd love to hear your comments and questions from our discussion.
Azby's Official Website: https://azbybrown.com/ | Listen to the Audio Podcast Version
01:18 Story of writing "Just Enough"
03:00 Sustainability + Edo Period Research
04:40 Focus on Connections between people-planet-profits
06:00 Indigenous cultures farming similarities worldwide
06:30 Cascading Farm Design - Nature's Flow
07:25 Meaning of "Just Enough"
08:00 Avoiding excess + living life undisturbed by the unnecessary 09:45 Shifting perceptions of necessary
10:23 Lack of personal freedoms, but good social bonds
11:52 Governance
12:35 Tanaka Yuko-sensei's Edo-period research
14:15 Wealth + Power Gap - not economically sustainable
15:00 Doing simply & beautifully - not doing without
16:00 Solutions from within Japan
16:30 Multiform solution
17:16 Sento Public Bath example
19:50 Sento: dealing with issues of water+energy+hygene+social+economic in combination
25:00 Refining ideas over time - reassess and improve
26:00 Gyosui - naturally heating water from the sun for tea and baths
27:00 Toilet: Reusing and creating value from human waste
30:00 Economic value of human waste
32:40 Drawings by Azby
33:20 Research thanks to efforts of many others
34:00 Site visits, research materials of others, museum information, talking with experts 35:00 Inspired by Eric Sloane
36:30 Manuals with illustrations from the government to communities
37:00 Government commissioned researchers to publish books on agriculture
37:45 Waka- aural culture of passing on useful information
39:00 Important farming + irrigation + nature (watersheds) knowledge
42:30 Irrigation channels still exist from Edo-era
43:40 Full use of all byproducts of rice
47:00 Straw as important building material with fermented clay
48:20 Kamado efficient cooking system
50:00 Kamado oven use possibilities in Zambia 50:58 Appropriate technology is not always the most high-tech 52:00 YUI cooperative labor practices
55:21 Susowake - Distribution of Excess to others in the community
57:00 Local currency idea
57:57 Long-term use of buildings and reuse of materials should be brought back
58:30 Buildings are our stories and shared identity
59:20 Azby's next talk (1/28/2021) on traditional Japanese carpentry and architecture #azbybrown #edoperiod #sustainability