BEING ON THE FRINGES: Excavations from a Life in Architecture

Before a shovel enters the ground in a paleontological search for fossils, ethical standards, the right equipment and considerations of site safety are required. In opening up the 40 trenches contained in this book, tools are different – those of memory – an inward journey reconstructing experience. Much is no longer well-lit or defined; similar to excavating terrain where fossils may lie hidden. The journey is shaped by twists and turns, successes and setbacks, along with periods of partial or total detachment when life eclipsed architecture. As a result, the book may offer insights with value for young or aspiring architects. That purpose alone has justified the endeavour.
 

HAPLŌS IN PARADISE: Silent Dialogues

Based on the idea that things in life always seem to be crisscrossing between viewpoints of Haplōs (frank, generous, open, simple, sincere) and those of Hapless (doomed, jinxed, pitiable, unhappy, unlucky), 185 pieces are assembled on 14 stages: CHOOSING ANTENNAE, AFRICA, ONE PLANET, NATURE AND THE ANIMAL WORLD, HUMAN BEHAVIOUR, MOVEMENT, WANDERINGS, ETHICS, IDEAS, DID YOU SAY HISTORY? DID YOU SAY CULTURE? DID YOU SAY POLITICS? DID YOU SAY THE FUTURE? coming to the implausibility of there being a new starting point with ILLNESS + DEATH.

​

THE MIRACULOUS CITY OF SEMPITERNITY

Within the largest megalopolis this side of heaven, stretching a thousand kilometres along a tropical coastline, twelve individuals pit their wits against a city of half-a-billion. From the first ten thousand heralds of post-rural life in Çatalhöyük to today’s forty-million-strong Tokyo, the scale of human settlement has undergone a three-thousand-fold increase. Countless histories and interpretations have emerged to help make sense of this dramatic growth – people shaping their lives within ever-expanding metropolises. But there’s never been anything like Sempiternity.

​

THE FUNDAMENTAL EQUATION OF EQUIVALENCE

Having sustained human life for three hundred millennia, Planet Earth is turning against mortals. Intent on arresting climate tragedy, one man has set about reshaping geopolitics. His friend Valentina Virtuosa has completed an eight-episode movie about violence, which her backer believes underpins reality. It has blazed across global media.

An unpredicted, once in a million Coronal Mass Ejection erupts from the sun, its invisible ferocity heading directly for Earth, set to amplify hardships in an already turbulent year, a further brake on the pursuit of human happiness. With plasma engulfing the planet, satellites are de-activated, military surveillance blind. During the ensuing blackout, terrorists hijack an intercontinental ballistic missile and nuclear-nerve-gas bomb. When mated, ten percent of the world’s landmass will be devastated. Amidst increasing panic, the weapon is not located. After the success of her movie, Virtuosa is at work on a sequel. Lured away to avert nuclear catastrophe she fails that mission, confronted with the awful truth that the mastermind of the ensuing cataclysm is hiding in plain sight. Giving due place to the outlandish, The Fundamental Equation of Equivalence weaves violence, climate urgency, catastrophe and terrorism with personal betrayal and survival.

​

TEMERTITY TRAIL: The Art of Glad Partings

Disconnected from humanity for thirteen weeks, nine mariners wayfind a canoe across the Pacific. Without detectible rhythm, time is becalmed or alive; sleep patterns tuned by the continuous watches of the eight seasoned crew, their combined two hundred years of exposure no preparation for the final week’s onslaught. As the ocean rises in anger, the mariners oscillate between awe and terror. Seen as a portent, an albatross flies low across the bow as the tumult reaches its crest. In east Bengal nine decades before, life for the ninth mariner had started in deepest poverty. But, as a child, she’d learned to move blockages with the song of a nightingale. At every twist and turn since, her sense of value had been earned by skirting around forces of denial with temerity. After the 10,000 kilometre-transit, Valentina Virtuosa is at home on Aratua Island.