Idiosyncratic paragraphs Text-only paragraphs differ from one another only in their words. All the words are typographically the same – typeface, spacings, line-lengths piled up into long deep columns. Systematic regularity of text paragraphs is universally inconvenient for readers, who are unable to find and read once against a specific string of words in previously-read paragraphs. All readers have encountered this problem in essays, articles, novels, news reports. Idiosyncratic paragraphs assist memory and retrieval by readers, by uniquely activating the relevant neural substrates for retaining visual memories. Nearly every paragraph in this book is deliberately unique. Edward Tufte, Seeing With Fresh Eyes variation
The gentle light of shoji screens Le Corbusier, the greatest architect of the last century, noted that 'architecture is the learned game, correct and magnificent, of forms assembled in light', demonstrating to what extent light has been prioritized in the Western tradition. Tanizaki, on the other hand, spoke of the important of shadows, of extended eaves. Rather than the light that shines directly into a room, he praised the soft light that penetrates a space after being reflected off the floor, and again from the ceiling. ...In Japanese architecture, the gentle light that passes through shoji screens serves a key purpose. It reaches right to the back of the room, so that the space feels bright, even without the aid of artificial light. The soft light filtering through the white film at Takanawa Gateway Station represents a form of light that was forgotten about by Japanese Modernism. Kengo Kuma, My Life as an Architect in Tokyo In Praise of Shadows lightshadows