The Role of Asymmetry in Building Design by Gordon F. Tully Last month's column, the first installment in a series on the basics of house design, focused on reading and understanding architectural plans. One question that emerged from that discussion is: Why are plans so much more descriptive of our world than other types of sections? The answer: Simply because we humans and the world in which we live are asymmetrical in ways that make plans and maps tell most of the story about our environment. Our Asymmetrical Environment The first asymmetry is a natural one caused by the force of gravity. If we ignore the sun's north-south asymmetry (and most houses do, regrettably), our everyday world is basically symmetrical
