Dalhousie University, School of Architecture ARCH 4501.03: B3 Representation, 2016 Instructor: Leon Katsepontes

Calendar Description This class builds on the previous Representation courses. It studies the expressive use of manual and digital media to present design work to various audiences, including the architectural community and the public. Topics include image editing, rendering, and the integration of text, image, and model. Design work may be presented in an exhibition installation, printed book, and/or online portfolio.

Image Credits

cover page:- Numen/For Use, Membrane of Packing Tape at Palais de Tokyo in Paris, 2015, http://www.archdaily.com/567795/climb-inside-numen-for-use-s-membrane-of-packing-tape-at-palais-de-tokyo-in-paris/, accessed 28/02/15.

page 3: - Minkowski Diagram: Hypersurface of the Present. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minkowski_space. accessed 24/02/15.- OMA, Yokohama Project Data Map, 1992.

page 4:- Patkau Architects. Sections, Linear House, Salt Spring Island, http://www.archdaily.com/140470/linear-house-patkau-architects/. accessed 24/02/15.- Numen/For Use, Membrane of Packing Tape at Palais de Tokyo, detail.

page 5:- Apollo 11 landing site map, https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11traverse.gif. accessed 22/04/15.- Harold Fisk, THE ALLUVIAL VALLEYOF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI RIVER, Plate 1, 1944,http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?fisk, accessed 01/03/15.

page 6:- Christaller Urban Diagram. http://blogs.ethz.ch/prespecific/2013/05/01/diagrams-christaller-central-place-theory/. accessed 24/02/15- UNstudio, body language bridge, http://www.unstudio.com/projects/pasarela-de-la-ballena-foot-bridge-las-palmas, accessed 23/04/15

page 7- Bolles+Wilson, New Luxor Theatre, Rotterdam, 2001.- Neil Denari. A+U 246, March 1991. p40.

page 8- Marc Holland, Hybrid section and axonometric. 2010.- Jean Michel Crettaz, map detail 01. http://www.jmca.org/jmcLA_050work.htm. accessed 23/04/15.

rear cover- Iannis Xenakis, graph of measures 309–314 from Metastaseis. Journal of Design Research,2004, vol 4, Issue 2.

Course DescriptionThe processes and techniques of Representation may be understood as tools of explora-tion; a means of investigation and discovery and not simply the result. The capacity of representations to identify, formalize, and focus design intentions is the central concern of this course.

The trajectory of the Design Project is conditioned by the types of representations we choose to make and our facility in these methods. All Design is a kind of research. Research involves the unknown. Representations are generative, cumulative, involving problem-solving and problem-creation.

ObjectivesThis course aims to develop an understanding and application of architectural represen-tations as speculative instruments. This includes the capacities of diagrams to abstract design ideas and identify organizing principles, working in series to develop aspects of a design, the consideration of sequences and narrative structures, and the hybridization of varied media and drawing techniques in the communication of design propositions.Projects will involve iterations of work which is subject to critique, analysis and revision.

Evaluationproject 1 - map and diagram 33%project 2 - model and sequence 33% project 3 - hybrid 33% All work is expected to demonstrate understanding of the principles and objectives under-lying each project and assignment. Completion of each project will involve focused and sustained study and should be presented as a coherent and finished piece. Work should be created and maintained in consideration of the objectives of the “Process Portfolio” outline.

Completed work will be graded by the instructor on the basis of: fulfillment of project requirements, technical skill, clarity, and evidence of intentions. Marks will be assigned according to Dalhousie undergraduate grade scale - (http://www.dal.ca/campus_life/student_services/academic-support/grades-and-student-records/grade-scale-and-defini-tions.html). Work is due as indicated in course schedule or established in class. Late work without authorized excuse will be penalized one third of a letter grade per weekday ( eg. A to A- ).

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Schedule

week 1 May 4 course introduction, Project 1 lecture: map 2 May 11 lecture: diagram project 1A pin-up 3 May 18 Narrative Workshop (May 16-18)

4 May 25 Project 2 lecture: study model and fragments Project 1 pin-up

5 June 1 lecture: sequence Project 2A pin-up, Exhibition Room

6 June 8 studio

7 June 15 Project 3 lecture: hybrid ideas Project 2 pin-up. Exhibition Room

8 June 22 Project 3 lecture: hybrid drawing

9 June 29 hybrid 1 pin-up

10 July 6 Project 3 pin-up/review

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Project 1A

A map is an abstraction from the real. It exists in the language of orthographic and carto-graphic drawing and notation. The act of mapping involves the direct experience of space, its measurement and or recording, and the transfer of this information onto or into the two-dimensional surface of the map. This abstraction is precise and well defined.

The contents of a site map of the design site include objects, edges, boundaries, topo-graphic and geographic features, trees, streets, sidewalks. The information contained in this base map is insufficient to understand particular qualities of site, neighourhood, and territory that might inform the community building. To add to the map, to make a map that reflects the specific, the particular, that might allow us to understand the needs and potential of the users and occupants of a particular place, we must spend sufficient time on site engaged in the act of observtion and recording. The site map assignment will aim to document the reality that eludes the official map.

This reality will involve observation and documentation of the following:

- difference between the official description of objects and buildings on site and their reality - routes and patterns of movement (people, goods, machinery) - places of gathering, accumulation, and exchange - activity levels at various times of day - natural forces (sunlight, wind, water) - location and description of activities that might inform the design program - location of residential, commercial, institutional spaces - boundaries of the site including building site, neighbourhood, connections to other places and activities Drawing, notation, photography are the primary tools of documentation. Representation of this information depends on its abstraction in the form of lines, graphics, patterns, layerings, metric devices, symbols, made visible in the map. Producing your map of the site involves understanding the formal or geometric qualities of site AND the information generated by the bodies passing through and using this space.

any media, maximum 24” X 36” 1 week

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1B

Diagrams are not representative but productive. They produce, among other things, new diagrams. A diagram is not a reduction. A diagram is about relations. A diagram is about organization. A diagram becomes active in the design process through its ability to relate the abstract and the concrete.

A set of diagrams will be drawn based on considerations of program and the ideas and characteristics that inform the architecture of the design proposal. These diagrams should offer an opportunity to consider their contents as free from fixed meaning and containing only potential. This involves the abstraction of form or principles in terms of clear and concise graphics.

Even the ubiquitous, and perhaps banal, “bubble diagram” can be informed in fundamantal ways: by relative size, area, volume of programmatic elements, in the adjacency of one element to another, connections between elements, circulation routes inside and outside the building, the superimpostion of a structural system, the orientation to the street, orientation to the sun and the control of light. We will consider fundamental descriptions of program through the following:

- identification of programmatic elements, proportion - building volume and site - space and structural system - the deformation and articulation of elements - envelope and partitions.

Work in series, simultaneously developing a graphic method while the content of eachdiagram is explored/developed. Each diagram may be the basis for another and information may be traced from one idea to another. However, it is not necessary to carry all the informa-tion from one diagram to another: editing and clarity is essential. You may work back and forth through the above list revisiting each theme once or several times. All diagrams should consider both plan and section. Present this work as a set of finished graphics: a set of 5 diagrams addressing the above themes. Work will be assessed on the basis ofgraphic and conceptual clarity.

series of 8” x 8” diagrams on program

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Project 2

AThe significant transitions of the design project: from exterior to interior and the transition from the building interior to the primary space such as the performance space will be taken as fragments, as the subject of modeled studies that explore the experience of the user.

Identify these transitions in your design project. Isolate and model each of these as simple planes, describing solid, void, and thickness out of a neutral material.

These simple constructions will serve as templates for models of the surfaces that pass through these planes, These models will construct surfaces and detail visible to the user. Consider materials, patterns textures that characterize the movement from one space to another. Build only what is connected to this plane, only what affects experience of the transition from one place to another. These models should give attention to the spatial and material differences on either side of the plane of transition, treatment the plane itself according to its varying roles on either side of the transition. Each model is completed when the construction becomes a self-supporting entity.

models from template 1 week

B Construct a sequence of images that moves from building exterior through primary spaces of circulation, gathering, or exhibition. This sequence may be based on existing perspective drawings, photographs of models or may be conceived anew.

Model photographs need not be high resolution images but select framings which will be overdrawn, modified through the application of color, the depiction of light, material, collaged elements.

Treatment of the set of images should aim for a graphic consistency and coherence. This spatial sequence should be presented in storyboard format and consist of 6-9 individual images each in 8” X 8” format.

sequence drawings 2 weeks

Project 3

A hybrid produces something new out of two or more formerly separate representations.This new condition or thing bears qualities or combines qualities not apparent in its predecessors. A hybrid is motivated by the aspirations of a proposition and the possible combinations and relations of media through which it is presented and understood.

This project will consider the modes of drawing, model making, photography and digital media as base techniques in the pursuit of hybrid representations. These representations will attempt to communicate project intentions by

AIn the spirit of self-analysis and self-critique make a short statement on the hybrid qualities of the project and produce a single diagram which highlights and pre-sents these characteriestics. statement on hybrid and diagrams one week

BThe communication of the project is a kind of projection into the reallity of the observer. The project lives on the paper and in the mind. The hybrid crosses the threshold from the discrete projections of plan, section, elevation to a combined, superimposed, even grafted, relationship between two or more representations in the aim of conveying the project. This drawing will focus on a critical orthographic projection or combination of projections and media based hybridizations of photography, application of color, texture, digital treatments.

1 sheet, any media two weeks

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References

Allen, Stan. “Diagrams Matter”. ANY magazine 23. New York. ANYone Corporation.1998.

Cullen, Gordon. Townscape. London. Architectural Press. 1961.

Garcia, Mark. ed.. The Diagrams of Architecture. New York. Wiley. 2010.

Kempf, Petra. You Are The City, Observation, Organization and Transformation of Urban Settings. Zurich. Lars Müller. 2009.

Koolhaas, Rem. Delirious New York. New York. Monacelli Press. 1994.

Lawrence, Amanda Reeser. Miljacki, Ana. Schafer, Ashley. “2 Architects 10 Questions on Program, Rem Koollhaas + Bernard Tschumi”. Praxis 8. 2006. p. 6-15.

Thompson, D’Arcy Wentworth. On Growth and Form. Cambridge University Press, 1945.

Tschumi, Bernard. The Manhattan Transcripts. London. Academy Editions. 1994.

Uddin, Mohammed Saleh. Hybrid Drawing Techniques by Contemporary Architects and Designers.New York. Wiley. 1999.

van Berkel, B., Bos, C. UN Studio: Design models - Architecture, Urbanism, Infrastructure. London. Thames & Hudson. 2003.