What mashrabiya has in common with Japanese Tea Houses

Just as the Tea House in Japan is rooted in cultural, spatial, material, procedural and philosophical considerations, the Mashrabiya cannot escape the history of several hundred years that it emerged from. While a rather simplistic evaluation might suggest that it is a construction that is meant to maintain a boundary, we see an advanced evolution, avant-garde by some measures, that began to embed other considerations over time, including ventilation, daylighting, air cooling and humidity control.

Again, similar to the Tea House, you become aware of yourself and your proximity to spaces and the spaces become aware of you. In looking at the parametrization of the cultural conditions surrounding the Mashrabiya and its specific functionality, we hypothesize a new digital tectonic that mediates between the traditional culture and contemporary manufacturing. Ko and Liotta (2013, 329) posed a similar question when thinking about the Digital Tea House: “What would this diagrammatic and methodological approach produce when combined with a culturally meaningful function?”