The Possibility of Teaching Chinese Students of Architecture to Write (A House)
Abstract
Writing, as the projection of a building, is integral to the discipline of architecture. In the specification, the architect describes the edifice from inside out so that it may materialise in accordance with the plan drawn up. There are other kinds of writing too, if not the writing of a house itself – a paper house built from words without even folding the surface of its flat ground. I propose to write this house by moving four times around my chosen site – an A4 sheet of white paper. Four times because tracing the contours of this field means turning a corner four times. Two times two, because when turning the paper itself, the writing splits across one side and the other. One times four, because writing a hole in the centre allows me to peep through this central void to charge the whole structure from within. And if, by then, the boundaryofthesitealsosplits,thenaspacewillemergebetweenitsdoublelinesandI willhavearrivedinanewlocation–possiblyanewkindofhouse.CanIwritethishouse?
References
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