Karnak

Self-initiated, 2026. Website, interaction, art direction, motion

TEMPLUM Nº 01

A templum was the piece of sky an augur cut out with his staff, before reading what crossed it.

Client
Self-initiated
Year
2026
Type
Self-initiated
Scope
Website, interaction, art direction, motion
Live
templum.space

Brief

No client. A study in web interaction and graphic design, with type and layout working against photographs found online and transformed by cutting, sequencing and grading. The subject is modern buildings seen as temples, then the street, then empty rooms, and at last only the sky.

Idea

One gesture: every photograph arrives cut into strips, and each cut opens the way its picture runs. Four books climb from the ground to the sky, Ligne, Rue, Vide and Ciel, and the type climbs with them, Helvetica Neue from Bold to Medium Italic, Light and UltraLight. Black and white all the way up; colour returns only in the sky.

Made

103 photographs in four grades, in French, English and Chinese, in one HTML file with no framework. On the last page visitors draw their own templum on the night sky, and the site lifts it out, dates it, and lists how long they spent in each book. Live since October 2026.

01

The cut

A templum was the piece of sky an augur cut out with his staff. The site has one gesture: every photograph arrives cut into strips, and so does the word.

The opening: the word cut over the Salk Institute, then the definition.
The wordmark.
02

Book I, Ligne

Thirteen buildings measured against the screen: a dome at its full width, a slit one column wide, two axes of symmetry, nine staircases as one typology.

A dome at the width of the screen; a slit one column wide.
Nine spiral staircases, seen from above.
03

Contempler

The book ends on a tally of every view and one word, and opens the door to the next book.

The tally, Contempler, and the door to Rue.
04

The whole book

Recorded in one pass from the live page, at the pace it is meant to be read.

templum.space, book I, top to bottom.
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