Church on the Water, Hokkaido, 1985–8 At the edges of the outer walls to left and right, the slate floor is held back, creating a shadowed slot into which the concrete wall slips out of sight. Because the wall does not meet and bear upon the floor, as is usual, the relationship of the wall to the ground is uncertain, and the rippling surface of the black slate floor appears to float free of the walls, merging with the rippling surface of the water. Robert McCarter & Juhani Pallasmaa, Understanding Architecture weight
Lightness & Heaviness "Lightness is born of heaviness and heaviness of lightness, instantaneously and reciprocally, returning creation for creation, gaining strength proportionally as they gain in life, and as much more in life as they gain in motion. They destroy one another also at the same time, fulfilling a mutual vendetta, proof that lightness is created only in conjunction with heaviness, and heaviness only where lightness follows." — Leonardo da Vinci Robert McCarter & Juhani Pallasmaa, Understanding Architecture materialweight
Buttresses Buttresses, Ruskin writes, are structures against pressure: a cathedral’s walls want to fall outward, for example, pushed aside by the relentless weight of the roof. But this gravitational pressure can be stabilized by an exoskeleton: a sequence of buttresses that will prevent those walls from collapsing outward. However, Ruskin points out, there is a similar kind of pressure from the waves of the sea. Think of the curved hull of a ship, he writes, which is internally buttressed against the “crushing force” of the ocean around it. It is a kind of inside-out cathedral. Geoff Manaugh, BLDGBLOG www.bldgblog.com weightarchitecture
Here Be Dragons Dragon hole in Hong Kong by Tim Hill. Such “dragon gates” are designed to let these mythical flying beasts pass from their hilltop homes down to the water each day and then return again each night. Considering the flow of dragons, air and energy is just one part of a much larger phenomenon: feng shui. Roman Mars & Kurt Kohlstedt, 99% Invisible 99percentinvisible.org A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams