"The house meets the sky in a very minimal way, while remaining lightly seated on the ground," said HGX Design founder Hal Goldstein. "It's a predictable system that flows like a piece of music ...

For hip-hop, this was expressed through the turntable manipulation pioneered by DJ Kool Herc in 1973, when he extended and looped breakbeats to energize crowds. House music’s innovators turned to the ...