Groundwork

The purpose of this essay is to develop an awareness and understanding of the structure of the ground so that its potential for making connection can become a part of any architecture that engages it.2 The term ground will be used in a literal sense to describe the structure and processes of the earth, but also as metaphor. Metaphorically, ground refers to the various patterns of physical, intellectual, poetic, and political structure that intersect, overlap, and weave together to become the context for human thought and action. Unfortunately, things operating in the background-including the earth-have not always been well understood or valued. It is easy to understand how the earth’s rough and bumpy surfaces, its uncertain and shifting fixity and its damp porosity, could be considered qualities that would destabilize physical, political, and even psychological equilibrium. But, it is not only the intense earthiness of the earth that proves problematic, but the whole question of how humans ground their thoughts, actions,

and structures so that effective hypotheses can be made about relationships among things. As humans become more confident in the capacity for will to shape the world, the preexisting background contexts that support these acts of will become less compelling. The consequence of an indifference to the ground is an almost terminal insensitivity to the rich subtleties of the teeming wild, the variegated forms and materials of the landscape, the nuanced patterns of urban texture, and the rituals of the every day. This is the very stuff from which special moments emerge and distinguish themselves. It also provides

the necessary complexity to promote an almost endless variety of relationships among things.