From all of this came ‘Sponge’ (son of ‘Lump’). In this slightly more complex project the initial idea was to take existing buildings and strip off the outer skin and then to reintroduce a spongey, landscape-like zone with a variety of skins. This led, inevitably, to a completely new building type – not needing the pre-existent frame-work – where the more ‘floppy’ architecture is interdependent with its own core of more stable architecture. Various analogies and sub-types suggest themselves, such as the ‘patchwork’ (as in patchwork quilt: made up of standard sized panels but widely different derivations); ‘gunge’ and the first version of the ‘sleek corner’ (a deliberate exercise in the aesthetics of artificiality finding an analogy between an architectural skin and the cosmeticised face of the 18th-century coquette or Japanese Kabuki actor). The term ‘sponge’ is derived from that which you find in the bath (with the capability to absorb). It is another device to encourage the ambiguous condition.

Peter Cook, 'Peter Cook: Six Conversations', Architectural Monographs, No. 28, (London: Academy Editions, 1993), p. 44.