Formulaic Extraction

I woke up in the middle of the night last night with inspiration and made some cryptic sketches and references to my new idea for this building, and I have to admit I was waiting for this. It’s not unusual, in fact quite standard for me, to come up with my best ideas while sleeping.
What I need to do is use the connection between the old and the new building to express an idea about how the resources we extract from the Earth and the enterprise of trading these resources interact with one another. The historic building I am retrofitting is to be treated respectfully as if it were a precious commodity, and the new portion should be able to grow from it like a seedling from the soil, “treading lightly”.
Picture a song being played through a woodwind instrument, or a breath from your body: the new building will be pronounced from the old, drawing its character forth from its source but leaving it intact. It’s the opposite of tearing down the old building and building a new one from scratch, allowing the old building to remain and expanding it not by addition but by exposition.
I will look for further inspiration in poetry, I have begun to look at Walt Whitman and T.S. Elliot but might also explore some more contemporary west coast poets, if I can find the sticky note that has their names (like return postage, an equally convenient and hazardous medium)…