CULLINAN THROWS A CURVE

As the sun rises on a damp, misty morning in the heart of England's South Downs, you can hear the large shimmering giant creak as it awakens. These organic curves are a rarity — the Downland Gridshell is only one of five such structures in the world. It was designed by Edward Cullinan Architects, engineered by Buro Happold, and short-listed for the 2002 Stirling Prize.

2X4 SPACE SCULPTURE

In the summer of 2002, the Center on Contemporary Art in Seattle hosted an exhibit called "Blurred," featuring work that blurs the boundaries between art and architecture. As an experiment for the show, designer James Harrison built a room-size structure by stacking short lengths of wood. Every piece was a two-foot long 2x4 (3.8 by 8.9 by 61 centimeters). "The idea," says Harrison, who was trained in both architecture and sculpture, "was to see how much plasticity I could achieve out of a regularly repeated module." It took him two days to cut the blocks and five days to stack them.

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