Kashgar's old city is two or three storeys of sun-dried adobe and loess plaster rising straight off a shaded alley, upper floors overhanging into the lane. Almost everything is the same mud. The design lives in the exception: a poplar door painted blue-green, carved so its panels read like frozen waves, studded with brass petals, its lintel cut with pomegranates.

This system reproduces that ratio. Earth holds the ground and most of the surface; teal appears only where a door would be. Ornament is carved and repeated rather than drawn, corners are nearly square because plaster does not curve cleanly, and Arabic script leads the type because that is what is actually painted on the walls.