Beirut Rooftop

Somewhere between the stereotomic stonework of classical architecture and the “service cavity” logic of the modern plenum wall lies a different conception of solidity, in which the whole casuistry of modern comfort is intentionally destabilized by the energetic storage capacity of thermal mass.

When placed in conversation with sunlight and air, thermal mass obliterates the sovereignty of program by tethering existence to the dynamism of ever-changing interior thermal properties, which lag always behind exterior conditions...The concept of an energetically unprogrammed architecture emerges, founded on active bodies living amid active surfaces in a deregulated interior, where life wells up in various spaces at various times—never establishing itself with permanence in any one location—coalescing for the duration of a spectacle saturnalia, dissipating later into the intimacy of solitude.