Mirror
Set the axis first; give every part its partner on the other side.
Four identical porticoes on a square plan.
Seen in Andrea Palladio, Villa La Rotonda (Villa Almerico Capra), Vicenza, begun 1567
Try it on your work
Lay a strip of tape down the middle of a table. Place objects on one side, then place matching objects on the other, reversed, at the same distance from the tape. Stop when every object has its partner.
Write a short text whose second half answers the first line for line in reverse: the last sentence echoes the first, the second-to-last the second. Stop when the two halves meet in the middle.
Two people face each other. One moves slowly; the other copies as a mirror image, left for right. Stop after two minutes.
How it has been used
Choose the axis first, then give every part a partner on the other side at the same distance: the façade with its door in the middle, the pattern drawn about a centre line, the spread whose left page answers the right. The move forces the axis to be set before anything else, and allows no part without its partner.
Where it leads
Grouped under Make it something I can try again