The picket fence There was a fence with spaces you could look through if you wanted to. An architect who saw this thing stood there one summer evening. Took out the spaces with great care and built a castle in the air. The fence was utterly dumbfounded, each post stood there with nothing round it. Christian Morgenstern, The Art of Looking Sideways www.andrew.cmu.edu spacearchitectureabsurdity
Economy of material and labor Whatever the comparative merits of [various bed framing methods], what is clear from Aristotle's Mechanica is that economy of material, and labor, was as much an issue in ancient times as it is now. Henry Petroski, The Evolution of Useful Things The requirements of economyThe art of not constructing simplicity