Concrete, Stilled: Tactile Encounters at the Pulitzer Foundation

There are buildings that impress, and then there are buildings that quiet you. The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in St. Louis — designed by Tadao Ando — is the latter. I visited it not for spectacle, but for stillness. Ando gave me both.

The architecture doesn’t scream. It breathes. And its primary language is concrete.

The Weight of Silence

The moment I stepped inside, the world slowed. What struck me first wasn’t the form or function — it was the weight of the quiet. Ando’s concrete isn’t brutish or cold. It’s monastic. Still. Thoughtful.

Each ply-formed surface reads like a fossilized imprint of craft — a record of time, pressure, labor, and intention. The material holds memory in its grain. It receives light in a way that feels deeply human.

Concrete as Skin

This isn’t the concrete of parking garages and freeways. This is concrete made tactile — not to be touched, but to touch you.

In the Pulitzer’s galleries and corridors, the concrete walls glow under filtered daylight, their surfaces softened by shadow. The edges are precise, but the experience is sensory. I didn’t just see the concrete. I felt it in the way it held space.

It reminded me that materiality is not just a question of aesthetics or durability — it’s an emotional register. A medium of mood.

A Material Lesson

As a designer, I’m always looking for how materials speak. At the Pulitzer, the concrete didn’t shout. It whispered. It invited stillness. Reflection. Reverence.

Ando’s approach reaffirmed something I return to again and again in my own work: the power of restraint. That space doesn’t always need to explain itself. Sometimes, it just needs to hold you — gently, firmly, silently.

Closing Reflection

Tactile Tuesday is about more than surface. It’s about experience. And this one stayed with me.

“You don’t touch the concrete — not literally. But it touches you.”

— Architecture Speaks Volumes

Have you visited a space that made you feel something — not for how it looked, but how it held you? I’d love to hear.

Leave me a comment on instagram → @architecturespeaksvolumes

Atelier DIARIES 001 - THE FIRST MARK

A line on paper can hold weight — the suggestion of a wall, a threshold, a beginning.

This diary begins with such a line.

A Practice of Noticing

Atelier Diaries is my monthly ritual — a week of creative entries shared from inside my studio, beginning on the first Monday of every month.

Seven days. Seven creative gestures.

Each one a way of noticing what surrounds me — and what moves through me — in the act of making.

It’s a way of shaping my creative practice.

A rhythm I can return to.

A living record of my process — marks, materials, memories, meanings.

Why I Started This

We live with a constant need for speed.

Fast content, fast commentary, fast consumption.

But architecture — and creativity — aren’t built that way.

They need stillness.

They need time.

So I made a structure to hold that time.

A scaffold for attention.

Atelier Diaries is how I remember to slow down.

To shape, not just produce.

To process, not just present.

The Shape of the Week

Each month, beginning on the first Monday, I post seven entries — one per day. Each post builds on the facets of a creative practice :

• Mark Monday — gesture marks a beginning

• Tactile Tuesday — the body of memory

• WIP Wednesday — process over polish

• Threshold Thursday — liminal moments

• Feature Friday — finding a voice

• Studio Saturday — the work behind the work

• Story Sunday — the quest for meaning

Together, these entries become a visual zine of sorts.

A sketchbook.

A diary in blueprint.

Atelier Diaries 001: The first mark.

The first issue is an invitation.

A soft landing.

A pause before movement.

I don’t expect this series to explain anything. Only to offer a way of looking — and being — a quiet glimpse into my creative process.

Atelier Diaries is not chronological. Its intuitive.

This first mark is both literal and symbolic.

A gesture toward a slower practice.

This diary is how I strive to stay connected to the core of my work —

the part that doesn’t rush.

The part that listens.

If you are curious - Join the Rhythm

View the full series on Instagram → @architecturespeaksvolumes

Or subscribe to my newsletter receive a new studio diary each month.

A new diary begins the first Monday of every month.

I hope you’ll follow along or return to the diary when you need a slower moment.

Until then, I leave you with this:

Which day of the week speaks to you this month?

I’d love to know.

Leave me a comment on instagram → @architecturespeaksvolumes

Architecture Speaks Volumes

August 2025

WHY ‘ARCHITECTURE SPEAKS VOLUMES’?

Some buildings whisper. Some shout.

But the ones that matter—speak volumes.

Architecture Speaks Volumes was born from that idea: that spatial design isn’t just about structures or style—it’s about memory, movement, silence, and story. It’s about how space makes us feel, what it helps us remember, and what it says about who we are.

This is my corner on the www to speak that language with purpose.

A Voice Through Design

I’ve spent almost two decades immersed in architecture—drawing, building, teaching, wandering. I’ve walked streets emptied by earthquakes, sat under trees older than empires, stood still in rooms where light alone told the story. These moments have shaped how I see space, and why I believe it’s never just background. Its presence.

After years of holding this vision quietly, I launched Architecture Speaks Volumes LLC DBA Design Speaks Volumes to give it form. This is more than a design studio—it’s a way of thinking, a way of creating, and a way of connecting.

What Lives Here

ASV is made of many parts, each with its own voice:

• Design Speaks Volumes : A creative services wing of Architecture Speaks Volumes LLC that is dedicated to thoughtful, intentional design projects.

• The ASV Vlogs | Where is Janice? : Visual stories about travel, design, space, and creative process.

• The ASV Edit: A boutique featuring scarves, photographs, and curated objects.

• The ASV Blog: This space—a place for ideas, reflections, and untold stories.

• The Book: A memoir in progress, shaped by my time in Japan during the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Together, these threads form a practice that values design as storytelling—and storytelling as a kind of design tool.

What to Expect From This Blog

Here, I’ll share thoughts on spatial design, place, and materiality—sometimes poetic, sometimes practical. You might find travel stories. Sketches. Design musings. Reflections on silence, sound, memory, and form. Maybe even fragments from the book I’m writing.

This isn’t just a blog. It’s a journal. A window. A conversation.

Let’s Build This Together

Thank you for being here at the beginning. Whether you’re a fellow creative, a design enthusiast, or someone who just believes that space matters—I’m glad you’ve arrived.

There’s more to come, and I hope you’ll stay a while.

Subscribe, reach out, share a thought. Let’s see where this story leads.

Because when architecture speaks volumes,

it’s not just my voice—it’s ours.

Welcome to ASV.

Janice Ninan

Founder | Creative Director

Architecture Speaks Volumes