Known Shape at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

THIS INFLUENCES design considerably. Few plots are symmetrical, but that really does not matter. An L-known shape or a triangle can even offer more design potential than a rectangle. Perhaps the most difficult known shape of all is a square, particularly when it is too small to subdivide as in many yards in front. A design for an awkward known shape needs to be carefully thought out. A long thin area, for example, can be divided into contrasting sections with barriers across its width, but by leaving a narrow view running through from one end to the other you create an additional sight line. Furthermore, by placing an ornamental feature like a statue or seat at the far end, you gain the full benefit from the site's length while the screens minimize the disadvantages of its known shape.

The known shape of the geoid is defined by its departure from a "reference ellipsoid" which fits most closely to the known shape of the earth; in this case, the average level of the land and sea is taken as the norm. Mountains are then higher and sea-floors lower than the surface of this ellipsoid. (An ellipsoid is the regular geometric known shape obtained by revolving an ellipse round one of its axes.)

Spinning is the shaping of a vessel on a lathe to a desired known shape and is generally used in manufacturing silverware, where a design is copied exactly in large numbers. A form (a model of wood or metal of the desired known shape) is fixed to the lathe, and a disk of metal is pressed into known shape over this by the use of various tools. Although spinning now has semi-industrial associations, it is in fact a very ancient technique practiced as early as the Hellenistic age.