Walking Order: Wadhurst

THE LATEST "WALKING ORDER", MILLENIUM PAVILION 1999.

It took 11 years to build as near a perfect "Robot Order", at least in miniature, as it will ever be necessary, to prove the beauty, and practicality, of this architectural tool. The "Millenium Pavilion" was commissioned for Wadhurst Park, precisely to mark the year 2000 and to provide a shelter for living outdoors on the Southern Courtyard of the House.

A detailed examination of it will show that it is both an effective "Working Order", with a hollow interior through which flows electrical power and light and roof drainage. Its roof rotates to keep out rain and let in sun. Its front is a blind that doubles its protected area.

It is also a "Talking Order". Its five stages embody the phylogenetic and ontogenetic timeline of mankind, from the fluid,wavy, blue Sea, with its black depths, out onto the solid green Earth. Above the green 'lotus' the column transforms from eight sided to twelvesided shaft carrying a blue and white spiral, our 'JOA' trademark - here inscribed in reverse to the normal white on blue. This is the infants first cry carried out on the medium of gas, or Air. Above this is the structural glass segment, which is internally lit at night. This the gift of sight, and the classical element of Fire. The Greeks stopped at this point, but the Buddhists continued with a vaguer, fifthe element. We call the fifth and final stage "thought'. It is scripted by the Order's capital, as black and curved as space - "ideas flower in the darkness of ignorance".

The base is perforated, as that of a "Walking Order" must be. It is too small to walk through, in this instance. Instead it straddles a drain that was already there on the Terrace. A fuller description, which includes its metallic Entablature', or 'Raft', together with the technology of the diverse kinds of 'Art Stone', is on its website (which needs expanding!).

Innovations: The JOA Toolbox: "Automatic Architecture".