sexing-up

Architecture in Drawing – Drawing in Architecture

“…drawing is a form of thinking, not merely a record and presentation of a thought already completed. This should be no surprise, since we are used to the idea that speech, writing, mathematical reasoning, carving and hand-crafting are all ways of thinking, not records after the event. …Indeed it could be argued that if one is not drawing…certain thoughts are somehow ‘unthinkable’.”

Groak, S. The Idea of Building

 

This “grund/fagkursus” is an investigation into hand drawing methods to inform a design process. The course will run as a workshop based intensive study programme, inviting students to develop their drawing skills, from freehand to detail, and to discuss new methods of representation through drawing machinery.

The art of hand drawing is a skill slowly being lost in todays teaching and development, yet only a few years ago it was an essential ingredient for communicating a design approach, design development and final product. The course therefor is intended to reopen students interest in articulating their designs without the aid of computer programming – by both sexinp-up drawing and developing ideas into drawing machinery.

Teachers: Chris Thurlbourne/ Phil Ayres

 

 

* survey :

The workshop will begin with a survey of a found site. The site acts as the ground for an event that is social and temporal. It is an event that has codes of etiquette with which we are intimately familiar. The survey will force you to observe critically, and to become aware of the blindness that can develop as a result of habit.

The initial task is to survey the site of a meal and then the meal itself – its sequences, its formalities, its gaps, its participants, its conversations, its hidden spaces. Draw three surveys.

 

* tools + attributes :

You are asked to find a tool. Analyse, through drawing, how this tool can be used and how it acts upon a working plane – uses might be invented for your found tool.

A tool embodies knowledge of a certain practice. It has purpose. It is used to transform what it operates on. There is an implicit temporal aspect to this activity. Record and discuss these aspects through drawing. Consider the interfaces of the tool [you/tool and tool/material]. Become aware of yourself using the tool as you investigate various techniques of usage. Test beyond the obvious.

You will be using these spatial and temporal records to develop a formal notation to discuss how the tool can operate in conjunction with body and material.

 

* drawing intent :

The notation developed in the previous act is now employed to construct a drawing of intent. This is a drawing that presents a series of instructions on how to manipulate a drawing surface. Consider how you represent sequential actions and the gradual transformation of material.
What are the transforms and where do they occur?
What are the spatial relationships between operator / tool / material?
How do they change over time?

Your notation should describe the critical aspects of what you consider to be the important qualities and attributes that you wish to have constructed. Ensure that the the necessary information is conveyed for others to understand. The development of the notation will require many, quick, iterations. This drawing will form a contract between you and the maker of the next drawing.

* action :

You are now in receipt of another architect’s instructions. Congratulations.
Using the drawing-of-intent that you have been given, begin to operate on one of your original survey drawings produced at the beginning of the workshop. Through action, investigate attributes of transformation and begin to record them.
Consider, for example, how explicit are the instructions?…do they give you scope to invent?

The interaction between maker / tool / found material [the drawing] is likely to produce unpredictable results. These should be enjoyed and critically investigated further through drawing.

Determine attributes within this process, and give them verbal descriptors. You may choose to isolate them in order to investigate them further.

* re-action :

Reclaim your drawing-of-intent. Begin to operate on another one of your original survey drawings produced at the beginning of the workshop. In this case you are interpreting your own instructions.

~ by Tone on September 19, 2007.