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.