Datum№14 / Autumn 2026
drag anywhere · solar study08:24

What a building does with the sun

Issue 14 · Autumn 2026 · Shade

Issue fourteen is about shade: the brise-soleil as an economic instrument, the plinth as an act of exclusion, and why the section drawing is the only honest one.

  1. 01Envelope

    What the fins are for

    A brise-soleil is not a façade decision. It is a plant-room decision taken three years earlier, by someone who will never see the elevation.

    Mira Çalışkan · 4 min

    Plates03

    1. 01south elevation · 1:200
    2. 02section · the cut moves
    3. 03model · 1:50
  2. 02Ground

    The ninety-centimetre lie

    Every civic building in this survey sits on a plinth. Not one of the architects could say what the height was for, and the ramp was added later in all eleven cases.

    Deniz Arat · 4 min

    Plates02

    1. 01survey · 11 buildings
    2. 02approach · section at 1:1 both axes
  3. 03Material

    Concrete remembers

    Demolition is the only part of the life cycle nobody draws. A visit to three buildings being taken apart by hand, and the arithmetic of what comes back.

    Juno Mbeki · 4 min

    Plates01

    1. 01programme · weeks
  4. 04Method

    Drawing the datum

    Before anything can be measured something has to be declared level. The line is a fiction, and choosing where to put it is the first design decision on any site.

    Mira Çalışkan · 3 min

    Plates02

    1. 01section · the cut moves
    2. 02level schedule · press to re-base
  5. 05Climate

    A building is a thermal argument

    Orientation, mass and opening are the three terms. Everything else — the cladding, the renders, the award — is commentary on an argument already settled.

    Pelin Varol · 4 min

    Plates01

    1. 01west elevation · section