11 Building ‘‘From the Inside Out’’ as Opposed to building ‘‘From the Outside In.’’

11  Building ‘‘From the Inside Out’’ as Opposed to building ‘‘From the Outside In.’’

2What we mean by ‘‘Building from the Inside Out’’ (Nature’s way) as opposed to ‘‘Building from the Outside IN’’ (our present method of building) will be found in the following paragraphs, together with a description of the proper modulus for such design.

3 Building from the outside in, we start by ‘‘laying off’ the perimeter of the plan in some modular division. We then are forced to consider this perimeter as the basis of adjustment. As we proceed to build inwards, we run into adjustments indivisible evenly by our exterior modulus. This method necessitates paring down or progress by destruction and waste. Inasmuch as the outside shell of a building is not ever necessary to its support, since the development of the metal industry; and since, even when containing enough material to support the house, it comprises but 10 to 15 per cent of the total cost of the building. It will be seen that we still persist in the palpable error of; adjusting the majority to the standards of an inconsequential minority. This is feudalistic. Even in our city building, though omitting the outside shell, we still in plan design from the outside in.

4 Building from the inside out must of necessity involve circular progression as the core or center of things cannot be cubistic in shape. Building from the inside out involves a modular division of the central angles of the circle with relative modular division of the radial distances from the center, which is synonymous to the fourth or time dimension and solvable by trigonometry and very satisfactory for graphic portrayal, and solutions in a manner similar to the ‘‘Mooring board’’ as used in the United States Navy.

5 Instead of the theoretical straight line modulus of plane geometry, we have angular and distance, or time moduli, in designing from the inside out. Everything fits without cutting or paring, until we come to the inconsequential outside surface (inconsequential from a structural standpoint), which may be divided also in modular units, if the space of the problem permits. If eccentric termination is desirable in the final shell, as many whole modular units are used as the limits permit and the adjustment space or spaces are filled in by pneumatic or other expanding units, particularly designed for this function. This permits of progress through creation rather than destruction and waste. It only involves stepping up the common mathematical language of the building arts and trades from failacial plane or cubical geometry to trigonometry and spherical geometry.

6 There is no use in continuing the frightful economic waste for sheer mental laziness. It is a strange paradox that the world turns up its nose at the artist’s projection of natural or fourth dimensional matter in three dimension or cubistic form, and yet goes on designing its houses about itself in this same limited cubism.