The second assignment of the first winter quarter increased the scale of inuquiry to the level of semi-architectural "excavation". The design brief provided students with donated books, most of which were academic titles, and asked that they be transformed into tectonic assemblies. This particular design was inspired by the avant garde practices of altered book-making and found poetry, focusing in on semiotics of separation and relationship turmoil provided by a textbook on field-effect transistors. The book was then augmented with a slipcase, designed to tether it to the specifically-dimensioned site of studio desktop edges. The book is imprisoned in a purgatorial suspension, as a lengthy counterweight atop the desk provides just enough inertia to hold the entire piece in place tenuously.