Optical Glass House A Building by Hiroshi Nakamura www.archdaily.com Show image 0 Show image 1 A façade of some 6,000 pure-glass blocks (50mm x 235mm x 50mm) was employed. The pure-glass blocks, with their large mass-per-unit area, effectively shut out sound and enable the creation of an open, clearly articulated garden that admits the city scenery. To realize such a façade, glass casting was employed to produce glass of extremely high transparency from borosilicate, the raw material for optical glass. The casting process was exceedingly difficult, for it required both slow cooling to remove residual stress from within the glass, and high dimensional accuracy. Even then, however, the glass retained micro-level surface asperities, but we actively welcomed this effect, for it would produce unexpected optical illusions in the interior space. wabi-sabi
Japanese Death Poems A Book by Yoel Hoffman www.goodreads.com The haikuSpring snowAn entrance, an exitPoppiesCoolness will rise+4 More Graceful Exits: How Great Beings DiePoems of an Indian summerHe only who has lived with the beautiful deathpoetrynaturemelancholyzen
The haiku The haiku describes a single state or event. The time of the haiku is the present. The haiku refers to images connected to one of the four seasons, poetry
An entrance, an exit Empty-handed I entered the world Barefoot I leave it My coming, my going Two simple happenings That got entangled death
Coolness will rise When you have vanquished your selfhood, coolness will rise even from the fire. identity
The way of things It is when one forces principles on the world that one interferes with its natural workings. How things ought to be wisdomnature
Autumn breezes blow One day you are born you die the next – today, at twilight, autumn breezes blow. zen