How Architects Visualise Architecture to be?
As part of a routine exercise in Architectural education, students are normally taught to put forth their ideas on paper. The representation on paper/drawing sheet does not relate to any experience of space but rather we produce drawings through an artificial language of spatial coding, of standard rules and terminology of a system of notation devoid of spatial experience.
This particular method of presentation, though it is a norm, is a superficial formula which is easily imitated by the gullible student and this method of teaching also short-circuits any profound spatial experience.
The main concern of Architects is the physical Articulation of space, the solids and voids, the negative and the positive. In addition, he has to include the effects of light, surface, shape and form as part of the design synthesis, and has evolved a mainly graphic language of design which is more concerned with technique rather than the experiential understanding of space.
This pictorial stylism can describe a world perceived through standardized eyes; a strange drawing board world in which a colorless Architecture is matched against line and dot whose monochromatic bleakness is occasionally punctuated by stereotype cars and trees and human figures to bring life and scale to the starkness of their settings.
This stylized form leads to a stereotype visualization of space and matched the bland and anonymous Architecture it produces. Such methods and techniques of teaching Architecture, through this stylized medium predetermines the appearance of the Architecture it would produce.
Great post. Architecture is all about using the space you are given to maximize its potential.
I’m an amateur water colorist and came here for ideas. Your reminder that the “voids” are important too is my take away. Are voids the same as “negative space”?
Tim
very good
Nice! What did he use to make the illustration?