Finding Balance in the Dualities of Architecture

By Nikola Radanović and Camila Molano

Architecture is full of dualities. We constantly move between intuition and reason,
permanence and change, tradition and innovation, lightness and weight. These conditions are
often presented as choices, as if one must take precedence over the other. Yet some of the
most interesting architecture emerges when neither side has to be left behind.

The work of Practice on Earth offers an interesting way of looking at this. Across their
projects, these dualities appear repeatedly, not as a fixed formula, but as relationships that
give their architecture its character. They can be found in the way Cloe Yun Wang and Stewart
Haotian Wu work together, in their understanding of context, and in the material contrasts
that define some of their projects.

It begins with the two of them.

Cloe describes her way of thinking as more intuitive, while Stewart tends to rationalize ideas
and consider how they can work. Their collaboration grew from this difference, which they
explored in their thesis Guessing Consciously, Gauging Unconsciously. But what is
interesting is that this difference did not disappear as they established their practice. It became
part of it. An intuitive idea can exist alongside a rational one, and the project can become the
result of their conversation rather than a decision to follow one way of thinking over the
other.

This relationship between guess and gauge is perhaps a useful way of understanding their
architecture more broadly. There is space for an idea to be unexpected, attractive, or intuitive,
but also a need for it to make sense and respond to the realities of a project. They described
their ambition as achieving both: architecture that is intuitively powerful while also being
able to solve the problems it encounters.

The relationship between old and new appears in another dimension of their work. Their
projects in China engage with historical environments, local materials, and established ways
of making, while bringing them into conversation with contemporary architectural
possibilities. A material or practice rooted in a particular place can therefore become part of
something new, not by simply reproducing the past, but by finding another way for that
knowledge to exist in the present.

This same search for balance appears in the physical language of their projects, where very
different material qualities are often brought together. Their inflatable structures, for instance,
are placed alongside heavier and more permanent elements. The contrast is not simply visual;
it gives each element a different presence. The lightness of the inflatable becomes more
apparent against the weight of the structure, while the solid element gains a different
character through their relationship.

Their own trajectory carries another form of balance. Having studied at MIT and developed
their practice in China, they move between different architectural cultures and experiences.
What they learned in one context does not remain separate from the other; it becomes part of
the way they understand and make architecture today. Their practice brings together the
technologies and methods they encountered abroad with the specific realities of working in
China.

Across these different scales, the same idea keeps returning: different qualities do not
necessarily need to compete. They can make each other stronger. Guess and gauge, old
and new, soft and hard, and the different perspectives that Stewart and Cloe bring to their
work all become part of a practice that finds value in their coexistence.

For us, this is perhaps the most interesting lesson in looking at Practice on Earth. Architecture
is often presented as the search for a clear position, but their work suggests that clarity does
not have to come from choosing one side. It can come from understanding the relationship
between different ones.
Balance is not about making things equal or finding a neutral middle. It is about knowing
what each condition can contribute and finding the moment where they begin to work
together.

In Practice on Earth, the dualities are not something to overcome. They are part of what
makes the balance of architecture.