Azby Brown is an author, researcher, designer, and academic who has studied Japan's Edo period for secrets into how we can apply the philosophy of that successful era to a more sustainable life, society and business in modern Japan.

https://azbybrown.com/

00:00

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