Our philosophy

EAST ISLAND is a laboratory of ideas, projects, education, information, art, architecture, crafts, photography and biodiversity preservation. A laboratory to design and realize ecological and sustainable housing. Spaces to live and enjoy. The conservation of nature, territory, cultural and anthropological wealth are the object of research.

Anupama Kundoo

"Designing spaces to inhabit, in the broadest sense. Like bees and ants, humans need to protect themselves from the weather and a place to perform their activities. So for me architecture is a very basic profession, to provide shelter to people. We live in a world where people are bored, always need new things and only look at the surface of objects, the color, the shape... I think the challenge of architectural design is to create spaces where there’s nothing. Space, which is more important than materials, can create a mood, a sense of harmony. It influences behavior. If you live in a respectful space, you will act respectfully. It has that power and architecture should encourage and stimulate the good life.

We build buildings, but in reality life is built". "A good design is invisible. You can’t explain exactly what makes it good, you feel it. It’s like saying 'the food was amazing', but not for parsley, turmeric or garlic, for everything... synthesis is the most important thing. One of my values is to think holistically. Architecture is science or art that deals with the synthesis and harmony of all the things that compose it. Our projects must be carried out with full knowledge of the social, political, economic and environmental context. Only then can the most appropriate decisions be made. The more informed, the more values you will reflect in your work. We live in a society with economic crisis and enormous environmental problems and yet many architects flee this reality by designing superficial things without taking into account the context".

"I have rejected some projects and there are customers who have rejected me. You don’t have to do things in despair to not lose a customer. Until now I have never had to take a job that compromised my values or just to get money, even when I have had financial difficulties. Everything you do creates a path".

How can that beauty be applied to architecture?

"If we architects create a kind of beauty in a deep sense, we can help lift people out of misery. If you’re in a beautiful space you can feel it automatically. It’s powerful, it moves you, you can’t help but notice it or not care. Beauty attracts the spirit."

"Beauty as a tool to end misery".

" In Japan, even garbage bags are tied with art....".

"Minimalism suggests that we reconnect with ourselves, that we are able to link our happiness to our own being, and that that happiness does not depend on the excessive possession of things.

We are the most abundant generation in history. We have never had such wide access to food, clothing, hygiene products, means of transport or travel. Any object is now more accessible to us than centuries ago.

We never had as many things as we do today; however, we do not live in a time of fullness and happiness.

The same is true of access to education, health, security, or even improved life expectancy. We know that we are fortunate and that our present is much better than in the past, but we also feel a great sense of loneliness, emptiness, dissatisfaction and loss of interests that makes us feel increasingly lost.

The paradox of thousands of people who inhabit this planet is that, despite being surrounded by objects, we are not able to value them and, far from perceiving the abundance of our reality, we feel a great sense of deficiency, based on never having enough, never be satiated, in continuing to run in a competition where we always lose because we always lack something: we are never satisfied.

This contradiction that we live today, which throws us into a compulsive buying lifestyle where our well-being depends on buying more, confuses us and distances us from our happiness. We have moved so far away from the little things, that we walk daily through quicksand. We live surrounded by all the things we need, but we do not feel or perceive it like this.

The purchase generates in us a shock of happiness in the short term, a pleasant and positive feeling that is diluted minutes after the completion of that new acquisition and that, in some cases, leaves many people in bankrupt before just beginning the month. As we are increasingly lost, we need this short-term discharge of happiness, even if it is to feel satisfied for a few minutes".

Luis García Vagán “The art of not having to have everything”

Warm minimalism