I consider myself fortunate for the opportunities I have had to lead a life of creativity, day in and day out, both within my salaried positions as architect and as academic, and on my own time. Through the process of designing and building, teaching, research and writing, I have often come close to capturing the happiness that Thomas Jefferson assured us all is our inalienable right to pursue, having himself distilled that profound truth from the verses of On the Nature of Things by Lucretius –the Roman poet who laid out the philosophy of Epicurus: best is a life lived in moderation, seeking well-being and shunning pain– five copies of which were nestled on the shelves of Monticello in the original Latin, De Rerum Natura.
In the Footsteps of Epicurus