'Why' is not important at this exploratory stage (I keep telling myself). The more important question at this point is 'How?'
How big should the Granny Brick be? How do I turn a four-inch crocheted square into a sizeable building block? How will I achieve the necessary rigidity and tensile and shear strength? How will it look as a cube? How will I attach the bricks?
It's all hurting my brain, as illustrated here by the figurine — tucked in there to convey scale but I see it works as an emotional statement too.
There is a nice dynamic between the loose, radiating pattern framed in by the square. That contained semi-chaos is a recurring theme. (An artist friend recently described my home as 'organized chaos.')
Adding the figurine moves the Granny Brick into architecture — a utopian architecture, to my mind: sturdy but organic; designed by humans for human groups in contrast to the individuals in glass boxes of our time and place; unpredictable, interesting environments and interiors full of new/ancient opportunities for individual expression and pre-/post-modern patterns of co-habitation.
These kinds of thoughts knit together as I needlework, play with cement, hang out on a slab of sandstone.
Why not this, as a new form of built environment?
Why assume that the way it is is the way it has to be?
Why not suggest that giant concretized granny squares are a way in?