Time binding

In order to provide a sense of connectedness with a space and its context, it is essential that its boundaries should in some way be sensitive to the passage of time and to the processes that have occurred within that space.

Soft tile and brick can be used on ground level surfaces in order that, through the natural processes of wear, they should record the activity of the building as a living entity. Such materials, intermediate in character between the building and the earth, emphasize the connectedness with the earth in a manner impossible for artificial materials that are perceived as impervious and alien.

The transactions of the group, especially with the outside world, can be conducted in such a way that some meaningful and continuing trace is left of its connections with its historical context and with the manner of its own development. This is to be contrasted with groups who only maintain impersonal records, if any, and have little sense of their own historical continuity.

In the development of a conceptual space from its relatively unformed beginnings, a sense of continuity and connectedness with that original level of understanding can usefully be cultivated. This tends to correspond to that of the wider conceptual context within which the space is embedded and to which it must continue to relate if its development is not ultimately to be inhibited.

In the process of individual development it is useful to maintain a sense of continuity with the earlier states of awareness from which the present forms have emerged. This is to be contrasted with efforts to cut-off or repress any recollection of the past in which present and future development is rooted.