3 The Past, Present and Futures

of Drawing
Professor Frdric Migayrou & Professor Bob Sheil

5 Drawing Futures
Laura Allen & Luke Caspar Pearson

7 Augmentations
Madelon Vriesendorp Grgory Chatonsky
Matthew Austin & Gavin Perin ecoLogicStudio & Emmanouil Zaroukas
Sophia Banou HipoTesis
Damjan Jovanovic Adam Marcus
Elizabeth Shotton Norell/Rodhe
Thomas Balaban & Jennifer Thorogood Andrew Walker
Peter Behrbohm David S. Goodsell

69 Deviated Histories
Pablo Bronstein Jessie Brennan
Jana Culek Konrad Buhagiar, Guillaume Dreyfuss
Penelope Haralambidou & Ephraim Joris
Simon Herron Benjamin Ferns
Adrianne Joergensen Parsa Khalili
Thi Phuong-Trm Nguyen Eric Mayer
Alessandro Ayuso Oul ztun
Jamie Barron Drawing Architecture Studio

139 Future Fantasticals

Neil Spiller Matthew Butcher
Nat Chard Bryan Cantley
Massimo Mucci Pablo Gil Martnez
Joseph Altshuler & Julia Sedlock Ryota Matsumoto
Anna Andronova Tom Ngo
Kirsty Badenoch You+Pea
Adam Bell Syd Mead
Kyle Branchesi

205 Protocols
Hsinming Fung Ryan Luke Johns
Harshit Agrawal & Arnav Kapur Keith Krumwiede
Ray Lucas Chee-Kit Lai
Ann Lui Carl Lostritto
Dominique Cheng Alison Moffett
Bernadette Devilat Matthew Parker
Owen Duross Snezana Zlatkovic
Anna Hougaard Nicholas de Monchaux

281 Biographies
The Bartlett School of Architecture
University College London
140 Hampstead Road
London NW1 2BX
bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/architecture
The Past, Present and of drawing. We could name more, from Team X to the
techno-utopias of the Metabolists and Archigram,
Futures of Drawing or the radical architectural dystopias of Archizoom
or Superstudio. Even critics of these movements
understood the value of the drawing as a conceptual
A conference on drawing in a world in which architecture toolwitness, again, the work of Aldo Rossi, Massimo
is almost entirely based on computation might seem Scolari and La Tendenza, the diverse explorations
something of a paradox. Less than 30 years ago, of Peter Eisenman, the fictions of Madelon Vriesendorp
the appearance of new software, first in engineering or the paintings of Zaha Hadid. With Peter Cook, who
companies and then in architectural practices, triggered described drawing as a motive force, at the helm,
a debate about the changing nature of architectural The Bartlett School of Architecture also took the radical
drawing and about how what was previously drawn step of prioritising the status of drawing as a conceptual
was becoming standardised and normalised through and critical tool, partly by way of its focus on portfolio
a singular language, a common identity and, perhaps work. Peter Cook, and after him Neil Spiller and Iain
most controversially, a normative creativity. Today, Borden, published books on architectural drawings,
all architects work with programmes such as AutoCAD, cementing the status of drawing as a fundamentally
Autodesk and Catia, and their projects conform to important expressive tool.
recognised standards of digital modelling and Building
Information Modelling (BIM). However, we believe that Today, Drawing Futures take its place within this tradition.
this has not homogenised creativityon the contrary, It explores new relationships with art and other disciplines,
we believe that it has expanded it in unforeseen and offers alternativeoften subversivelooks at compu-
inspired directionsand Drawing Futures stands as tational resources and ultimately, along with the conference,
a testament to this. navigates its way through myriad new territories that
will define the future of drawing for decades to come.
To see drawing as bound to modern technology is
to forget that in the Renaissance it was transformed Drawings seduce, and the drawings in this book are
by the ubiquity of printing and, concomitantly, by tantalising evidence of this. Yet the aim of Drawing Futures
widely disseminated treatises by Palladio, Serlio and is to illustrate how drawing works as an abundantly rich,
Vignola. Drawing soon became a technical tool, an diverse, inventive, critical and serious research domain.
instrument of codification that organised proportion In this regard, it is a ground-breaking study of the point
and order; and such norms were reproduced again and promise of drawing; a first of its kind, which both
and again in manuals throughout the following centuries. explores the microscopic detail of the craft and envisions
The wide circulation of books such as Durands seminal the radical possibilities inherent in its expression. The
Precis des Leons d Architecture (1809) meant that academics, artists and architects whose work lies within
drawing became an academic tool, defined to some conceive of drawing as a rigorous, liberating form of
degree by the rules of the cole des Beaux-Arts. expression. Their contributions work together as a
Its neoclassical conventions became a global standard manifesto for the future of an artform that is capable
(as recognised by the eponymous 1976 MOMA exhibition, of both utter simplicity and infinite complexity.
The Architecture of the cole des Beaux-Arts).
Our call for works attracted over 400 submissions from
The idea of a creative architecture, of an experimentational more than 50 countries and 120 institutions and practices.
architectural aesthetic that privileges drawing as an There are many people to thank for such an endeavour
expressive tool, emerged less than a century ago. Aside firstly, all the contributors and speakers, especially
from the utopian drawings of the eighteenth century our keynotes. Our peer reviewers, Lara Speicher and
the visionary expressions of Boulle or Ledoux and Chris Penfold at UCL Press, and the colleagues, students
the unlikely prisons of Piranesidrawing found its true and associates behind the scenes. We also wish to thank
expressive value when space was liberated and it could our designers, A Practice for Everyday Life, for their vision,
become a free domain, an open field. The various and our proofreader, Dan Lockwood, for his tirelessness.
movements of the modern avant-garde sought to make Finally, we wish to thank and congratulate editors Laura
the drawing an instrument both critical and creative. Allen and Luke Caspar Pearson and communications
Think of the Glserne Kette, the drawings of Bruno Taut, team Eli Lee and Michelle Lukins Segerstrm for operating
Erich Mendelsohn, the Luckhardt Brothers, Hans Poelzig, as the driving force behind the entire project. It was
Theo van Doesburg and the De Stijl movement, and their vision that began it and their relentless commitment
the colour experiments of Bart van der Leck or Gerrit that made it happen.
Rietveld. Think of the wildly redefined strategies of
architectural conception, from Bauhaus to Mies van Professor Frdric Migayrou
der Rohe, from the Constructivists to Le Corbusier. Chair, Bartlett Professor of Architecture

Each architectural movement of the twentieth century Professor Bob Sheil

contributed to this enrichment of the field and scope Director of the Bartlett School of Architecture

Introduction 3
Drawing Futures We hope that this will be clearly evidenced by our keynote
speakers, who present as idiosyncratic a panel as one
could hope to find. In Augmentations, we talk with Madelon
While planning the inaugural Drawing Futures event and Vriesendorp about the extents of her saturated world
this book, which accompanies it, we were both intrigued and how her incredibly influential drawings mirror her
by how to define what drawing practice is today and own life. Pablo Bronsteins exquisitely drawn architectural
how it remains a vital part of both art and architecture. proposals that open Deviated Histories twist historical
London through a series of salacious scenarios that
In 2012, Yale School of Architecture held a symposium he explores in graphic detail. We embark on our Future
asking a rather morbid question: is drawing dead? Fantasticals journey with the remarkable drawn works
At The Bartlett: no, most certainly it is not, and any attempt of Neil Spiller, whose work surely demonstrates the
to kill it would surely only see it return as some form of speculative drawing as a philosophy in itself. And in
zombieimbued with new attributes and behaviours. Protocols, Hsinming Fung takes us through the drawings
So, alive or (un)dead, where might this drawing-creature of Hodgetts + Fung, including the wonderful graphic
be heading? novel world of Cyberville, to explain the shift in the
balance of design intelligence.
In the hope of answering this, we established the
Drawing Futures conference as a venue for the discussion So as you read through these pages, we hope that
of, debate about and exhibition of the energetic life you will find there are many borders being crossed and
of drawing. Of course, it would be nave to talk about clichs being exploded.
drawing without recognition of the changing context
in which it is produced, displayed and communicated. AUTHENTICITY
Understanding that this conversation must encompass
contemporary technologies, emerging practices and The great master of chiaroscuro-meets-zoning-law,
the history of drawing itself, we established a series Hugh Ferriss, once remarked that there is a difference
of themes for both the first conference and this between a correct drawing and an authentic one.
accompanying book. For Ferriss, an authentic drawing could hold the desires
of the client or indeed those of the society from which
We saw these as general lines of inquiryattempts to it was borne. A correct one might be well-rendered,
somehow categorise the diverse fields of drawing practice yet still leave one cold. We can assume that Ferriss felt
and, by implication, offer definitions of contemporary that his drawings alone were the vehicles of authenticity.
drawing to either build upon or summarily reject. But their success was closely tied to architectural
technology. His charcoal renderings perfectly captured
With Augmentations, we explore how the act of drawing the heft of a steel and terracotta Gotham, driving the
may be extended through new technologies and materials. city into what Koolhaas called a murky Ferrissian Void.
Can we augment or replace the hand, and how might we Cometh the hour, cometh the drawing. And then
engage with new substrates for recording drawings on? architectural technologies changed. The glazed curtain
Deviated Histories discusses how we might redefine wall of modernism did not lend itself to charcoal in the
or break from the history of drawing. How might critical same way. Ferriss and his shadows could no longer
re-readings of established histories offer new approaches be authentic in a world of transparency. The history of
for the future, and how might reframing the past shake his career shows us at least two things about drawing:
the fundamental notions that we take for granted in that it walks hand in hand with technology, and that it can
drawing practice? be a capricious pursuit.

Future Fantasticals delves into drawing as an act of The Drawing Futures project really started with trying
vision and speculation. How does drawing continue to to establish what authentic drawing practice might be
hold its role as a vehicle for exploratory proposals that in contemporary art and architecture. If that sounds like
captivate us and allow us a window into the future? an act of hubris, then we should say that the suspicion
In what forms can unsteady and fantastical speculations from our side was that the answer would be a field
prosper in a future that appears increasingly tied to of different methods intertwining rather than any one
swathes of data and precision? On the subject of all overbearing dogma.
that information, Protocols asks how we might encode
new data through drawings, and what new types Blogs, Tumblr and Pinterest give one vast swathes of
of drawing practice will need to be invented to help visual material to sift through and unprecedented access
articulate our digital world. to imagery that was once the preserve of university
libraries and select collections. Walking around the studios
In each chapter, then, we establish different terms of of The Bartlett, one can see the many drawn influences
engagement for discussing drawing today. It is a testament pinned up on walls or flashing on screens. However,
to the diversity of the work in this book that not only do one could say that much of this rapid-fire transmission
we have 60 projects slotted into each of these chapters, of imagery lacks any accompanying intellectual context
but each project could easily be applied to another. and this is often true in the world of reposts and pins

Introduction 5
 Augmentations
but that does not denigrate the fact that sharing will encounter work that pushes at the fringes of what
inspiring drawings is a large part of internet culture for you might consider drawing.
students, architects and artists today. Given the media
by which drawing is communicated now, we decided Although The Bartlett is a school of architecture, it has
that this first edition should be drawn from an open call always mined inspiration from far and wide, and so it
online. After all, what better way to understand the state seems appropriate to us that this book takes such a
of things than to dive into where the action is? diverse view on what drawing is (and will be). As a school,
we wouldnt have it any other way. We hope that this first
By opening up Drawing Futures through a public call for iteration of the Drawing Futures conferenceand this
works, we sought to allow artists and designers from bookwill exist as a record of all the weird and wonderful
diverse fields to contribute to the project and to compile ways to explore drawing in 2016.
work into a broad-ranging anthology of contemporary
drawing practices. As this book is composed of projects Of course, we hope that this serves not only as a
selected from over 400 submissions from more than marker of what drawing currently is, but also as a sign
50 countries around the world, it is safe to say that we of drawings yet to come.
have done our fair share of sifting through digital imagery.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We always conceived of this book as more than a record
of the proceedings of the conferenceas an expanded We must also thank those who have made this project
look into all the many types of drawings being produced and book possible. Many thanks to Frdric Migayrou,
or discussed that might not fit into a conventional Chair and Bartlett Professor of Architecture and
academic structure. So within these pages, you will find Bob Sheil, Director of The Bartlett School of Architecture,
26 projects and papers presented at the 2016 conference for their generous support in bringing this project,
and 34 further works selected for their distinct interpre- which has been a number of years in the making,
tation of our call. We will leave it to the reader to attempt to fruition. And thanks to Eli Lee and Michelle Lukins
to distinguish between them. Segerstrm for all their tireless assistance in the
development, editing, promotion and production of
THINGS TO COME this book and conference. Drawing has always had an implicit relationship to technology. While
We have collected projects from architects, artists, As every project was selected through our extensive
drawing is often framed as an instinctive and intuitive act, we should
illustrators, historians, theorists, computer scientists double-blind peer review process, we must also extend not forget that many of the principles we take for granted today
and more besides. Each of these fields carries its own our thanks to all the reviewers who contributed their were developed through technologies as much as through the hand.
protocols and approaches to the act of drawing that time and expertise to sort through the numerous
may seem incongruous or illegitimate to another industry. submissions and help us to compile this book: Roberto
Albertis devices for perspectival drawing helped the artist manage
For instance, drawing is clearly not limited solely to the Botazzi, Matthew Butcher, Marjan Colletti, James Craig, the complexities of perspective and in turn assisted its proliferation
hand any more, and much writing asserting the importance Penelope Haralambidou, Jonathan Hill, Perry Kulper, as a representational mode. Piranesis Carceri were distributed as one
of the hand-made might overlook the imaginative C.J. Lim, Bob Sheil, Mark Smout and Mark West.
subjectivity also possible in digital image creation. might buy a contemporary mass-produced art print, the etching plate
Yet there is still something about the direct transmission Laura Allen and the printing press working in combination. We might also think of
of material onto paper that seems to defy the march Luke Caspar Pearson
tools like the pantograph as the precursor to systems of reproduction
of technology. Our hope with this book is that you Drawing Futures Editors and Co-Chairs
and replication used today.

Nowadays, it seems there is a tendency to frame drawing and

computational technology as difficult bedfellowsrepresentation
pitted against simulation. We can take two positions in respect to this.
We might point out that there are now innumerable surfaces and
interfaces that rely on the interpolation of gesture to function, giving
us many means to extend drawing practice through new technologies
and materials. Or we might take any tension as a positive energy and
move forward into weird and wonderfulperhaps even awkward
confluences of the technical and the intuitive. In this chapter, we will
see projects examining the future of drawing through such approaches.
Augmentations takes us from drawing the microscopic world of
bacteria to virtual drawings, from representations embedded on the
retina to radical, politicised CAD blocks. In each case we see the
drawing practice expanded and challenged through the presence
6 Drawing Futures of technology as a fundamental collaborator.
Key Note 10
The Head/Hand Dialogue 61
Erratic
Madelon Vriesendorp Norell/Rodhe

Papers 14
Drawing the Glitch 63
Edges of Misperception: Drawing


Matthew Austin
Gavin Perin Indeterminacy
Andrew Walker
20
Drawing the Digital: From Virtual Contributor 66
Illustrating the Cellular Mesoscale
Experiences of Spaces to Real Drawings David S. Goodsell
Sophia Banou

28
Fictions: A Speculative Account
of Design Mediums
Damjan Jovanovic

34
Augmented Maritime Histories:
Text, Point, Line
Elizabeth Shotton

Projects 40
Undo
Thomas Balaban
Jennifer Thorogood

44

KOBUTO: About a Long House
and Drive-by Pencil Strokes
Peter Behrbohm

47
Deep (2016)
Grgory Chatonsky

49
Polycephalum:
A Drawing Apparatus
ecoLogicStudio
Emmanouil Zaroukas

53

C AD Blocks for the
Present of Drawing
HipoTesis

58
Repetition and Difference,
After William Morris
Adam Marcus
The Head/Hand Dialogue on a dictator or a celebrity on a newspaper. Or decorate
a telephone bill while Im talking to a friend on the phone.
they meant and what they now mean to you?
Does the work change in your eyes once others
Madelon Vriesendorp To start drawingany kind of drawingis preparing for adopt it for alternative uses?
this head/hand dialogue.
Drawing Futures: Your work is often described as MV: No, THEY dont change identity, its me whos
a world, encompassing paintings, objects, games, DF: You have a close working relationship with changed. They are a timepiece relating to the time in which
etc. Where do you see drawings fitting inwhat is Charles Jencks, which you describe as sparring. we lived in New York, collecting material, i.e. books and
the role of drawing in your world? This suggests some kind of conflict, but its clearly postcards for his book Delirious New York. These paintings
a productive rapport. Can you tell us more about were not produced for the book, independently made,
Madelon Vriesendorp: Paul Klee once said, I take the line the way you work and how drawing communicates but massively influenced by Rems research on New York.
for a walk. Drawing is a universal, formal language. between you? It was Rems editor who insisted in putting the painting
Its the hieroglyphs of communication. For me, drawing on the cover. I was at first playing with Liberty, making
is like talkingit can formulate an idea, explain a thing or MV: Charles and I have worked together for about twenty her lie on a bed of Manhattan skyscrapers, like a fakir.
a possibility. Its important for me to translate my thinking years now and he has been incredibly supportive and Then played with skyscrapers. Thats when Rem suggested
process into an image, and drawing often pursues its given me a lot of confidence over the years. His humour, putting the two in bed together. Saul Steinberg, another
own course while the brain just follows for a while, then enthusiasm and wealth of knowledge have been incredibly influence, had drawn a question and an exclamation
suddenly you hit on an idea, and it sprouts from the pen. inspiring. While we talk, we sketch. I draw caricatures mark in bed together. Rems brother, an artist, had
You can call it a creative shortcut. The brain/hand and cartoons while he conveys his ideas and I try to keep drawn two love-making airplanes in bed. So it happened
connection is crucial to any creative activitybeing upas Steinberg says, by drawing as a sort of reasoning quite naturally. Then Rem insisted that the Rockefeller
aware of it brings about a deeper understanding of what on paper. (Apart from his enigmatic signifiers, we produce Centre, representing modernity, would catch them
you are doing. watercolours and models of his designs). in the act.

DF: How is your world evolvingwhats new? DF: It seems you are often working in conversation DF: Your drawings are part of some of the most
with those writing about architecture. Do you see influential texts ever written about architecture.
MV: My world, as you call it, centres at the moment around drawing as a way of stating things differently, or of Rem Koolhaas describes himself as a ghostwriter
making things, installations, collaborations, folding. Mostly extending ideas about architecture in ways written for the city. How do you see your role in forming
creating objects from cardboard or recycled materials. language cannot? opinions and attitudes to architecture?

DF: Tell us something about your collections of MV: Absolutely. One of my ongoing conversations is with MV: I dont see myself as having a role, at least not within
ephemerapostcards, toys, figures, etc. Are there Shumon Basar, who is the one that forced me to think the practice of architecture. Im mostly concerned with
any particular pieces that we can see the direct about what I was doing. Hans-Ulrich Obrist was the first the identity, or rather the personality of buildings
influence of in your own work? Does your collection to call my collection an Archive. (male or female, etc.) and how they relate to each other.
include drawings, and if so, what kind? I collaborate with presentation only. I assume an outsiders
DF: You have said that being unfamiliar with your role, I observe in a critical way. The skyscrapers of
MV: My collection is a constant inspiration. I rearrange surroundings when you were generating ideas Fig.3: Madelon Vriesendorp, Metaphorical Analysis Manhattan were built largely during the Great Depression.
families of objects or make collages with beautiful, for Flagrant Delit, meant that you saw the beauty for Iconic Building (with Charles Jencks), 2014. There was a craving for optimism and it produced a
mysterious or super-ordinary images combined. Some of things obscurethe inspiration you get from celebrity culture and stardom, so buildings also became
almost compose themselves. I draw cartoons and often not knowing, from speculating freely. Now, 40 years MV: I dont feel I know anything. The clich the more celebrities. Assuming personalities, they lifted the spirits,
start the day (a routine you could compare with brushing later, do you feel more knowing and if so, how I learn, the more I realise how much I dont know and inspired hope and admiration.
your teeth in the morning) with drawing monstrous teeth do this affect your work? still holds. Every revelation poses more questions.
You keep looking for things that uniquely relate to your The same is happening right now. To lift us out of the
personal interests. You become a scavenger in the gigantic recent depression, we build iconic buildings, again mirroring
garbage heap of information. Every image or object celebrity culture and the need for stardom. Now big
informs and mystifies. All artists scavenge for the most Architects build big, and big artists make BIG art.
unlikely and obscure, try to make sense of what theyve Im afraid we will always hopelessly reflect a vision of
found, and give it a place where it can be used at some ourselves in whatever we do.
opportune moment.
DF: The theme of this chapter is Augmentations:
DF: The Manhattan Project was produced indepen- extending drawing through technologies and
dently of Delirious New York but now they are materials. Is there any media or technology that
synonymous; it forms part of its identity. In fact, much you feel has fundamentally affected your work,
of your work has been used by others to illustrate particularly your drawing practice?
book covers, magazines and much, much more.
When you first made these works, they must have MV: Yes! A pen! Im always in search of the ultimate
had a very different identity. You are the only person penone that doesnt allow you to make a bad drawing
who knows their former life. Can you tell us what (and computers drive me crazy).

Fig.4 (overleaf): Madelon Vriesendorp, Storyboard for Animation:

Fig.1: Madelon Vriesendorp, Aprs LAmour, from New York Series, 1975. Fig.2: Madelon Vriesendorp, New York Juicer, from New York Series, 1973. Flagrant Dlit, animation with Teri Wehn-Damisch for French TV, 1979.

10 Augmentations Key Note 11

Drawing the Glitch for a clear indexical correlation between the form and
meaning of the line. The one conversation absent in
upon the pixel array.15 Further, once a digital drawing
has been released to its respective audience, it
Matthew Austin digital discourse is how the mediation of binary-numeric forestalls the capacity of the author to maintain control
Gavin Perin information opens the drawing up to glitches as this over the imaging process.16 This in turn gives the original
information courses through its various channels of author very little control over not only what is done with
The introduction of glitches into the production of re-presentation. The glitch, working within the hard/ their drawings, but also the software with which they
architectural drawing has the capacity to open up and solid-state drive and/or RAM of the computer, disrupts are viewed (i.e. what algorithms are used to translate
transform what is understood to constitute digital- the clear transformation of the pixel array as a faithful them from their binary-numeric representation to the
architectural production. Traditionally, the architectural geometrical-mathematical representation of form. pixel array of the monitor?). The second point is that
drawing uses lines as codified indexical representations The glitch offers a level of abstraction to the act of two identical pixel array arrangements may have
of existing or proposed real-world objects.1 The represen- drawing similar to that of algorithmic design but, unlike two drastically different structural representations,
tation of an edge between a floor and a wall, for instance, algorithmic processes, the glitch offers resistance to as revealed by Fig.2.
requires the line to function through analogy. Vidler2 starkly the representational capacity of a drawing instead of
points out that over the past two centuries architectural concerning itself with the production of complex forms. Fig.1: Diagram showing how an image file can be understood as a ENTER THE GLITCH
two-dimensional array and a linear sequence of values on the computers
drawing has steadily become more abstract in its use hard or solid-state drive.
of analogy and its representations of real-world objects. ON THE NATURE OF DIGITAL DRAWING In the early part of this decade, an artist-photographer
Digital technologies potentially transform the traditional focus onto the surface of an image greatly ignores the named Melanie Willhide had her computer, backup
analogue notion of the line from a projected analogy With the introduction of computer technology into digital code of which the medium is entirely composed.11 drive and by extension digital-photographic work stolen
to an analogy in itself, made up of the discrete units architecture, the hand gestures of drawing a line have Further, Mitchell aptly points out: by Adrian Rodriguez. Rodriguez had wiped the machine
used by digital technology, namely zeroes and ones been replaced by the pressing of keys, the clicking of and was using it as his own until caught by the local
and the pixel. However, the capacity for the image plays buttons and the moving of mice. The act of drawing It follows from the fundamental constitution of authorities. After the machine was returned to Willhide,
a central role in what architecture means and how it a line is no longer associated with the bodily movements the raster grid that, just as the elementary operation she ran recovery software in an attempt to restore her
is drawn and formulated.3 The nature of lines, and by of its traditional production, but is now the job of the of painting a picture is the brush stroke and the lost work.17 The result was a series of fragmented and
extension drawings, in the digital age has fundamentally algorithm. These algorithms look after the translation elementary operation of typing a text is the keystroke, distorted copies of her original digital images. In 2012,
shifted from being about abstractions of abstractions from user input to its visual representation in the the elementary operation of digital imaging is the Willhide exhibited the work in a show in New York titled
to nothing more nor less than the mapping of three- design process. However, this opens up two important assignment of an integer value to a pixel in order to To Adrian Rodriguez with love.18 This is a story which
or four-dimensional relations in two [dimensions].4 consequences. First, there is both temporally and specify (according to some coding scheme) its tone offers two important insights for the discussion around
mechanically a fundamental gap between the drawer or color. Complete images are built up by assigning digital drawing.
The ubiquity of the computer in architectural practice (i.e. the designer) and the visual representation of the values to all the pixels in the gridded picture plane.12
means that the drawing is now a purely digital form of drawing on the pixel array. Second, the author has very The first is that Mitchells assertion that a digital copy is
information communicated through the channels of the little control over how the line physically appears once However, it is common practice within the production not a debased descendent but is absolutely indistinguish-
monitor and printer as a pixel array. The intention behind drawn; the pixels of a monitor or printer change colours of architectural drawings to work through abstract- able from the original19 is thrown into question. If errors
the drawing is usually to transfer this information seam- as the device gives a digital approximation of the line. mathematical representations of lines within vector-based can enter the visual surface of the digital image via the
lessly without distortion or deterioration. With traditional CAD packages, rather than literally change the value of very nature of the image being stored on a hard or solid-
modes of drawing, and analogue media in general, The visual digitisation of the line has transmuted it from each individual pixel either through transformations of the state drive, then quite equally other modes of storage
duplication inevitably results in the degradation of the an analogy of a real-worldor at the very least a proposed pixel array or through its linear-sequence representations. and transference can result in debased copies. This should
artefact, making it of lesser quality than the original.5 real-worldobject to an analogy in its own right. In this In this sense, drawings may not necessarily always come as no surpriseShannon highlighted that since,
in contrast, digital drawings are copied precisely because sense, the visual representation of the digital line, and by be stored on the hard drive as a linear sequence of ordinarily, channels have a certain amount of noise,
they exist as binary-numeric information. The authentic extension the digital drawing, is constructed from a finite pixels, but as a series of Cartesian points and geometric and therefore a finite capacity, exact transmission is
site of drawing is no longer the medium on which set of numerical values mapping onto an orthogonal constructions around those points. This information is impossible. 20 Here, a channel is considered any medium
the line is placed but the way in which the line is digitally pixel array.7 For Matthews,8 this represents an important mathematically distorted into view space (shown from that has the capacity to transfer information.21 While
represented. This leads Mitchell to write: A digital shift in the nature of drawing as the discrete, individual the perspective of some camera which may or may there are modes of digital transfer between computers
copy is not a debased descendant but is absolutely nature of each pixel means that the line is no longer the not be orthographic), then clipped to the viewport (such as email, Dropbox.com and external hard drives),
indistinguishable from the original. 6 The nature of the dominant organising principle of image-making. However, (the size of the image the camera allows).13 This abstract the internal mechanism of the computer transfers the
digitisation of drawings means that they can be easily the introduction of the pixel, which is the focus of much mathematical representation of objects is then discretised information of a digital drawing from its hard or solid-state
and rapidly transferred, reworked and manipulated. curiosity within the study of digital images, highlights into two separate pixel arrays (the depth buffer, which in drive to RAM, GPU(s) and CPU(s), as well as transferring
In fact drawingsperhaps for the first time sitting outside an important fissure between digital drawings and pixel turn helps calculate the final pixel-colouring information)14
explicit authorship and intentare now open to multiple arrays; a pixel array can be understood both as a mn and finally rendered directly onto the pixel array of the
channels of transference and representation. The capacity grid of pixels (the space in which images are printed monitor. This highlights two crucial points. The first is that
to manipulate drawings according to channels means to monitors or printers) and a linear sequence of mn a wide variety of algorithms are fundamental to the
that lines are no longer the fundamental element of sets of numbers (the space in which algorithms of image translation of a drawing moving between the hard or
the drawing. Instead, the drawing is generated from the analysis and manipulation are designed), which in turn solid-state drive and the pixel array. There is a difference
fundamental elements of the channel itself. The poly- are also zeros and ones (the space in which the computer in the way the computer opens a vector file in comparison
morphism of architectural drawing opens the drawing transforms and works with the drawing).9 Thus, digital to a raster file, and there is a further difference in the way
up to strategies and techniques that operate upon its drawings, unlike their analogue counterparts, can be that the computer opens different types of these files.
different modes of representation, whether they are expressed not only visually (via monitors and printers), Different algorithms are used to interpret a drawing
vector-, raster-, textually, sonically or numerically based. but also as mathematical sets and binary-numerically for every individual file format; there are algorithms that
(as the information stored on a computers hard or open .JPGs, algorithms that open .PNGs, algorithms that
Irrespective of the claim that digital architecture solid-state drives). For Davis, the visual representation open .DWGs, algorithms that open .DOCs, etc. These
Fig.2: A simple example of how a text file and an image file
represents a new formal language for architecture, the of an image constitutes its surface while other forms algorithms may transmute the drawing in different ways can create the same outcome if put through specific algorithms,
processes used to deliver form reinforce the ambition of its expression constitute its structure10 and selective and thus subtly or significantly create different results in this case Processing and Adobe Photoshop respectively.

14 Augmentations Papers 15
it to the monitor and/or printer. Mitchells position on The most prolific and understood form of glitching is
digital images arises from the ideal that developers the process identified by Davis32 as data bending.
design their technologies in order that the user will forget Data bending is the act of transforming a files linear
about the presence of the medium, following the ideal sequence representations, which in turn causes a visual
logic of transparent immediacy.22 In fact, computer effect. This is frequently done through binary-numeric
science has gone to great lengths to check for transmission code, hexadecimal or even AASCI structural represent-
errors and attempts to correct them.23 24 The digital drawing ations. An attribute that Broeckmann highlights is that
has been designed to be copied and appear absolutely malfunction and failure are not signs of improper
indistinguishable from the original.25 However, in reality, production. On the contrary, they indicate the active
this is not the case. production of the accidental potential in any product.33
Virilio says that the innovation of the ship already
The second, and more important, point is that this entailed the innovation of the shipwreck. The invention
suggests a new method of working with digital drawings, of the steam engine, the locomotive, also entailed the
through non-visually derived manipulations of a digital invention of derailment, the rail disaster.34 The invention
drawings structural representations. The fetishised of new technology also implies its modes of failure.
application of these techniques is colloquially referred In the same vein, the file format implies how it renders its
to as glitching, with the distorted outcomes referred failures. It is impossible to give an exhaustive list of data
to as glitches. Gaulon26 formalises this colloquial definition bending as technologies and algorithms shift and change
as follows: The digital glitch [] is a way of seeing the and file formats are invented, popularised and fall out of
code behind a document. And: When a digital glitch use. The way technologies glitch is unique to each medium.
occurs, it is not the image, the sound or the video that Nevertheless, there has already been a study done on
is changed, but their binary code. how differing image formats glitch.35 What is of interest
here is how digital-architectural production can reconcile
It is worth noting that this definition of what constitutes such transformations and interpret them spatially.
a glitch is still problematic, as it refuses to engage
with important phenomenological and technical issues From the figures opposite, several things are now evident.
of definition, highlighted by Moradi27 and Menkman.28 The first, as mentioned previously, is that the figure of
However, for the purpose of understanding what the the plan is distorted in drastically different ways depending
glitch within the nature of architectural drawing upon what file type is chosen to be glitched. The second
constitutes, Gaulons more colloquial definition suffices is that the distortion is fundamentally at odds with the Fig.3: A redrawing of the Barcelona Pavilion by Kieran Patrick.

as a mechanism to explore these potentials. coherent surface that the pixel array of the digital-drawing
attempts to present. The third is that some transformations
GLITCHING ARCHITECTURE may distort the drawings structural representation to
such a point that the figural analogy of the object that
For the purposes of this paper, a two-dimensional the drawing claims to represent is lost. Fourthly, the
plan of the Barcelona Pavilion is used to visualise the inherent RGB structure of an image is revealed, as
results of a glitch being applied to a digital drawing. greyscale values may break into their constituent parts.
The preference for a plan drawing is based on the fact Finally, all these pixel array images introduce elements
that three-dimensional drawing files are generally quite that are at odds with the notational conventions and
resistant to transformations because the glitch will internal relationships of what they originally represented.
likely result in invalid geometry. This is not to say that it The glitched drawing resists the drawings material and
is impossibleMark Klink29 highlights that the .OBJ file spatial notions to be decoded via the allographic rules of
type has this capacity. However, the .OBJ is an AASCI the drawing.36 Thus, what spatial or generative properties
format and as such the information is read by the algorithm does this resistance offer architecture?
as its literal textual interpretation; in other words, a
points Cartesian coordinates are exactly written in the The lack of a clear and singular interpretation of the
file as their x, y and z values. A further issue is that glitched drawing forces the architect to reconfigure and
the operations of manipulating a .OBJ file cannot distort re-evaluate what these drawings mean spatially. These
the topology of the geometry, thus making it equivalent re-evaluations are not spatially unique. For example,
to algorithmic distortions available within modelling the top-left corner of Fig.4 acts as an illusion, allowing
software.30 Linear perspective carries with it the issue it to be viewed as a plan with portions skewed or as an
of literal interpolation. As a mechanism that deals with axonometric (Fig.5), where the skewed moments in the
the void (of meaning)31 created by such a drawing, it drawing are vertical projectionshowever, what the
is likely to confuse architecture with its image. This is marks on the now-folded surface imply is still unclear.
strongly highlighted by !Mediengruppe Bitniks H3333333k, Just as the traditional drawing attempts to narrow
in which the faade of a building is literally transformed the number of valid spatial interpretations through
to resemble the glitched image. Instead, for the sake the application of known disciplinary conventions
of clarity, an exploration of the orthographic offers more a property maintained by the surface of traditional
jarring and difficult questions for architectural drawing digital drawingglitch drawing disrupts the viewers
in the digital age. assumed allography of the images, forcing them to either Fig.4: A study matrix of how the same figure of the plan reconfigures
reject the validity of the image or, more interestingly, itself depending upon binary-numeric transformations of the plan.

16 Augmentations Papers 17
 information storage. What does, for example, an 1
R  obin Evans, Translations from Drawing 18
Von Lintel Gallery, Melanie Willhide, accessed 34
Paul Virilio, The Accident Museum in
to Building in Translations from Drawing 6 June 2013. http://www.vonlintel.com/ A Landscape of Events, trans. Julie Rose
interleaving of the Barcelona Pavilion mean spatially? to Building and Other Essays (Cambridge, Melanie-Willhide.html. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000), 54.
The rotation, translation and scaling of a line or a drawing MA: MIT Press, 1997), 156. 19
Mitchell, The Reconfigured Eye, 6. 35
Menkman, Vernacular of File Formats.
represents a clear architectural act, as these elements 2
Anthony Vidler,Diagrams of Diagrams: 20
Claude E. Shannon, A Mathematical Theory 36
Stan Allen, Mapping the Unmappable:
Architectural Abstraction and Modern of Communication reprinted with corrections On Notation in Practice: Architecture,
are analogous to an architectural proposition. However,
Representation in Representations 72 from the Bell System Technical Journal 27 Technique and Representation (New York:
the pixel array represents a line, in as much as its pixels (Autumn, 2000), 7. (JulyOctober 1948), 48. Routledge, 2000), 32.
RGB values maintain enough contrast with the surrounding 3
Ibid., 17. 21
Ibid., 2. 37
Luca Garofalo and Peter Eisenman,
pixels and the pixels maintain their position in the array.
4
Ibid., 1718. 22
Rosa Menkman, The Glitch Moment(um) Digital Eisenman: An Office Of An Electronic
5
William J. Mitchell, The Reconfigured Eye. (Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, Era (Boston, Massachussetts: Birkhauser-
Because glitch techniques work at the structural level Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era 2011), 29. Publishers for Architecture, 1999).
of the image, the extension of the analogy of a line being (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), 6. 23
David Brailsford, 31 July 2013, Error Detection 38
Andrew Atwood, paper presented at Fieldwork
maintained is not guaranteed. Although these techniques
6
Ibid. and Flipping the Bits (Computerphile), Symposium, Sydney, New South Wales,
7
Reinhard Klette and Azriel Rosenfield, accessed 5 July 2016, https://www.youtube. 16 March 2016).
are new in the context of architectural production and an Digital Geometry: Geometric Methods com/watch?v=-15nx57tbfc. 39
Mark Hansen, New Philosophy for New Media
exhaustive investigation would be required to understand for Digital Picture Analysis (San Francisco: 24
David Brailsford, 10 September 2013, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004), 202.
the value and nuances specific to each individual one, Elsevier, 2004), 2 Error Correction (Computerphile), accessed 40
Matthews, Upgrading The Paradigm, 11.
8
Linda Matthews, Upgrading The Paradigm: 5 July 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?
their value is that they all resist the very thing the drawing Visual Regimes, Digital Systems and the v=5sskbSvha9M.
purports to represent. Architectural Surface (PhD diss., University 25
Mitchell, The Reconfigured Eye, 6. REFERENCES
of Technology Sydney, 2015), 11. 26
Benjamin Gaulon, Benjamin Gaulon AKA
9
Klette and Rosenfeld, Digital Geometry, 6. Recyclism (IdN, 18(3), 2011), 37. Ant Scott, Ant Scott in Glitch: Designing
It is evident that the glitching of a plan requires a complete Theodore Davis, Precise Image Iman Moradi, Glitch Aesthetics (Masters Imperfection, edited by Iman Moradi, Ant Scott.
Fig.5: Three-dimensional reworking of a valid interpretation 10 27

of the data-bent image of the plan of the Barcelona Pavilion. reconsideration of the vertical nature of the result, and in Mishandling of the Digital Image Structure diss., University of Huddersfield, 2004). 2021. (New York: Mark Batty, 2009).
turn the glitching of an elevation requires a reunderstanding in Design, User Experience and Usability: 28
Menkman, The Glitch Moment(um), 29.
Theory, Methods, Tools and Practice 6769 29
Mark Klink, srcXorArt and Computers, David Temkin, 15 January 2014, Glitch & Human/
attempt to spatially reconcile what the bizarre, uncanny of the plan. In fact, the glitch not only resists architectural
(2011), 213. accessed 1 December 2014, Computer Interaction, The Journal of Objectless
and jarring elements introduced by these processes convention, but also disrupts the relationship between 11
Ibid., 211. http://www.srcxor.org/blog/. Art, accessed 1 October 2015.
mean. The glitch drawing forces distance between the architectures different modes of representation. Further 12
Mitchell, The Reconfigured Eye, 6. 30
Matthew Austin and Gavin Perin, The Other
spatial condition it purports to represent and the drawings to this, architectures other modes of representation
13
John Chapman, 18 December 2013, Digital: A study between algorithmic design
Triangles to Pixels (Computerphile), accessed and glitch aesthetics in digital architecture ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
author. In the same way Eisenman used drawing as a (such as video) constitute a difference in technology and 5 July 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch? (paper presented at Emerging Experience in
method to deny himself spatial clarity,37 the glitch has thus glitch in a fundamentally different way. The glitch has v=aweqeMxDnu4. Past, Present and Future of Digital Architecture, The authors would like to acknowledge Kieran
the potential to remove spatial clarity from any digital the potential to disrupt architecture at any point within
14
John Chapman, 3 January 2014, The Visibility Proceedings of the 20th International Patrick for the production of the Barcelona
Problem (Computerphile), accessed Conference of the Association for Computer- Pavilion plan used for the glitching process.
drawing. This is evidenced by Atwoods38 Possible Table, its production to force a complete reworking of what the 5 July 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch? Aided Architectural Design Research in
in which otherwise ordinary computational objects are architectural drawing intends to represent. v=OODzTMcGDD0. Asia (CAADRIA 2015), Daegu, South Korea,
distorted in their projection to the pixel array, which in 15
Mitchell, The Reconfigured Eye, 51. 2022 May 2015), 835.
16
Matthews, Upgrading The Paradigm, 11. 31
Menkman, The Glitch Moment(um), 31.
turn requires further investigation to reconcile what object Where traditional modes of digital drawing shift the line 17
David Rosenberg, 9 January 2013, 32
Davis, Precise Image Mishandling of the
the resultant projection represents if we assume the as the predominant organising structure of the drawing The Computer Thief Who Made an Artists Digital Image Structure.
distortion had not taken place. The notational nature of to the pixel,40 the glitch shifts it from the pixel array to the Work Better: An Unlikely Tale (Slate), 33
Andreas Broeckmann et al., The Art of the
accessed 6 June 2013, http://www.slate.com/ Accident, edited by Andreas Broeckmann
drawing means that the glitch transforms it from a work unfamiliarity of non-visual representation. The drawings blogs/behold/2013/01/09/melanie_willhide_ (Rotterdam: NAI Publishers/V2_ publishing,
that is yet to be realised to a work that cannot be realised hidden binary-numeric nature and polymorphism unite to_adrian_rodriguez_with_love_photos.html. 1998), 2.
without a reworking of what the drawing represents. with the nature of digital media to offer architecture the
capacity to resist its own disciplinary conventions. In this
The glitched drawing is jarring due to the unconventional sense, the glitch of a drawing demands a reimagining
nature of its transformationsjust as Hansen notes that of the grammatical assumptions of our representations.
Lazzarini skews objects, a technique that only makes Instead of attempting to close down the interpretation
sense within virtual worlds and computer logics.39 Here, of the drawing into a single unique spatial condition, the
the glitch replaces translation, rotation and scale as the glitch denies the viewer this opportunity and is therefore
fundamental operations of geometric manipulation with dependent upon the individuals capacity to interpret
alien techniques like skewing, fragmentation, interleaving, and spatially reconcile a reworking of the surface
channel mixing, sliding and colour shiftingand whatever representation of what the surface of the drawing
errors are associated with each particular mode of originally represented.

18 Augmentations Papers 19
Drawing the Digital: From Virtual Experiences which involves the reduction of the image to analogical
utterance and the codification of the signs into a digital
from the processes of early modernity, signified a return
to the pre-verbal, its digital successors, culminating in the
of Spaces to Real Drawings structure. The assimilation of cinema to language
can, then, only be an approximation that introduces
postmodern, suggest a return to the pre-representational.
Within the virtual manifestations of space and time that
Sophia Banou false appearances through the analogical consideration they produce, the privileging of the image as simulation
of images as utterances. To the semiotic model of contests notions of representation as semiotic abstraction.
The technological, social and economic commercial TRIPS TO VIRTUALITY resemblance and codification, Deleuze then proposes It is therefore possible to suggest that within our extended
changes ushered in at the end of the nineteenth century modulation as enabling resemblance and code (figure (post)modernity not only the object but also the subject
led for the first time to a proliferation of images in our Although the new perception of space had a direct impact and notation) by bringing them together into something of architecture have been displaced. Architectural space
environments. This mediated reality, which has only on the representational arts, it was probably cinema that, new that exceeds both.7 emerges as a place not, as Diana Agrest has suggested,
increased over time, has deeply affected human behaviour. through its inherent association with time and movement, of representation,15 but rather a place where both the
The origins of this displacement from a positively defined best articulated the new paradigm. In his 1907 essay According to Deleuze, rather than a language, cinema subject and pre-existing orders of signification, such as
real to an expanding virtual can be traced back to Creative Evolution, Henri Bergson discussed cinema is the system of this modulating image, which proceeds language and drawing, are constantly required to redefine
the emergence of the modernist space-time paradigm. as a model for human perception: through processes of differentiation and specification.8 their position towards and within the real.
The expansion of the capabilities of vision, the dissemi- Although utterable, it is independent from language,
nation of photography and the cinematograph and the We take snapshots [] of the passing reality, and, yetdue to its semiotic functionliable to transformations THE SPACE OF DRAWING
experiments of modern scientists contributed to an as these are characteristic of the reality, we have introduced by language.9 In post-war cinema, Deleuze
understanding of space that shifted from the idea of an only to string them on a becoming, abstract, uniform sees a transition from the analogical to the digital, and In the 1960s, this crisis was expressed in philosophical
a priori extensity of vacuum-versus-matter to a dynamic and invisible, situated at the back of the apparatus from actuality to consciousness, whereby the articulation discourse at the intersection of a linguistic post-
multiplicity of relations. Within this frame, new theories of of knowledge, in order to imitate what there is that of time as continuity overtakes space as the sum of structuralism and conditions of spatiality. This is perhaps
visual perception posed a challenge to modernist artists, is characteristic in this becoming itself. Whether we intervals. Images no longer imitate a perception guided most clearly illustrated in the theory of Henri Lefebvre,
which resulted in new paradigms of visual representation would think becoming, or express it, or even perceive by consciousness, but through representations create whose triadic conception of the production of space
(from Impressionism to Suprematism, Futurism and it, we hardly do anything else than set going a kind a new present consciousness by blurring the distinction placed its focus on the interrelationship between spatiality
Cubism). But if modernist art extracted from modernity of cinematograph inside us.1 between the actual and the virtual. From a replica of and the representational expressions of knowledge
the dynamism of speed and novelty, architectural the apparatus of human knowledge, cinema becomes and power. In his theory, the pre-verbal lived and
thought of the time was inspired by the rationalism If Bergsons analogy highlights the similarities between the organ for perfecting the new reality.10 perceived spaces are placed alongside the purely
of functionalist efficiency. the mechanism of human perception and the cinematog- representational conceived (directly associated with
raph as mechanical means in the early days of the medium, Cinematography offered a new way of representing architectural conceptions and representations) as
Despite the fixity suggested by longstanding convention, works such as Dziga Vertovs Man with A Movie Camera perception, through the active deconstruction and equally indispensable conditions of space.16 There is
with its core principles holding from at least the fifteenth saw cinema as the kino-eye (an almost cybernetic fusion recomposition of the visual, laying the groundwork for therefore an expression of language to be discovered
century, architectural drawinga form of writing in its own between man and camera); and with this, the possibility the creation of new realities. Jonathan Bellers proposition in the pre-verbal in the same way that there is a
rightcan be considered itself a transition: the complex of the expansion of perception from mere observation that cinema and its succeeding media, such as television, concrete spatiality emerging from the immateriality
oscillation between the real and the conceptual takes to the construction of reality.2 The focus of Vertovs 1929 radio and the internet, function as deterritorialised and ephemerality of experience.
place in it through a negotiation between convention and film ranges from the daily life of the citys population to factories of visual labour, suggests that these modes
subjectivity. Architectural drawing convention historically the labour of the cameraman, the film editor and even of virtuality operate with regard to the structuring of In architecture, the emergence of new conceptions
appears not only to normalise the contingent multiplicities the spectators. The film presents a metanarrative of the consciousness and ideology in a similar way to cinema.11 of spaces was perhaps most clearly expressed in the
of architectures objects, but also to fix the mobility semiotic function of cinema rather than a realist narration. This further proposes that the modes of social relations utopian architectures of the 1960s. Yet it was only in
of drawings very subjectivity. However, this fixing of The laying bare of the commonly naturalised techniques emerging from these media transform visual perception later speculative projects such as Bernard Tschumis
architectural representation is in essence phenomenal of cinematic production3 breaks the illusion of identification from immediate experience into a form of alienated The Manhattan Transcripts17 that the potential entailed
and antithetical to the ways architectural drawing and between cinematographer and spectator, dispersing labour, which is not only external to the subject but in the representational interplay between actuality and
thinking proceed. Following the deconstructive and subjectivity among multiple vantage points.4 also dissociated from natural language.12 Looking, virtuality would emerge as more than a questioning
cartographic approaches of the latter half of the twentieth constructed between the viewer and the medium, is no of architectures object, through the grafting onto
century, this paper will engage with the idea of drawing Drawing from Bergsons concept of the image, more a conquering, but instead the never-conquering architectural drawings of diagrams akin to dance
as a creative agent rather than a systematic language, Gilles Deleuze remarks on cinemas ability to produce of the real, as visuality13 registers as the primary mode of notations, and photographic elements that functioned/
and as a representational field of action rather than an consciousness: experience. In this cinematised society, natural notions posed as fragments of an immediate reality. Such
order. The question of performativity that such an under- of language become inadequate when the appearance postmodern fusing of high and low culture, of actuality
standing suggests, although rooted in the experimentations Bergson was writing Matter and Memory in 1896: and experience of reality is overwhelmed by the and virtuality, then opened the way for the contamination
of modernity, is not only still pertinent, but is put under it was the diagnosis of a crisis in psychology. proliferation of imagery through cinematic modes of of convention.
new pressure via digital modes of representation. Movement, as physical reality in the external world, representation which are incompatible with the linguistic
In the emergence of architectural space as a space and the image, as psychic reality in consciousness, model of representation.14 Mark Dorrian develops a genealogy of the beginnings
systematically and increasingly mediated by represen- could no longer be opposed [] The great directors of these contaminations by defining architectures
tations and the privileging of the image as simulation rather of the cinema may be compared, in our view, Bellers idea of the cinematised society finds justification Cartographic Turn as the implementation of cartographic
than representation, architectural drawing conventions not merely with painters, architects and musicians, in todays digital augmentation of the visual. The strategies as generative tools for architectural design.18
are faced with the inadequacy of their codes in articulating but also with thinkers. They think with movement- cybernetic kino-eye is ubiquitous, through the mobile Dorrian challenges the idea of representation as a direct
new perceptions of spaces. Most importantly, however, images and time-images instead of concepts.5 web, video and photography. The individual not only transcription of a mental image, arguing that the
what is challenged is the operation of drawing not as invokes but also encourages the visual labour of others architectural image is constructed at the intersection
image or object, but as a distinct spatiality that mediates Deleuze collates Bergsons images with the semiotics through the mass production of idealised imagery. of the conceptual intentions of an authority and a series
between the tangible reality of figuration and the of Charles Peirce in order to interpret through the As the power of the individual over space is substituted of mental, material and performative modes.19 These
speculative spatiality of projection. pre-verbal signs of cinematic imagery the emergence for power over the image, this recourse to fantasy interferences between the author/designer and the
of a conceptual discourse.6 As he argues, semiology suggests a virtuality which does not enrich but contests image produce, he suggests, alienation effects that mark
proceeds in cinema through a double transformation, the comprehension of reality. If the cinematic, emerging the failure of representation as a direct projection of the

20 Augmentations Papers 21
mental to the material, yet evoke acts of interpretation cartographic one. This difference is most accurately a saturation of information that substitutes the speculative
and thus open up room for speculation.20 Representation illustrated in his choice of words, which suggests a spatiality of architectural representation for the stability
shifts from reterritorialisation to deterritorialisation,21 consciousness of representation, of writing the map of iconic imagery.
shifting the focus from object to process and revealing (la carta), rather than the land (the gaia), as a datum
the intertextual nature of architectural design.22 of measuring, fixing and legitimising the image of a The quasi-scientific suspended empiricism of the
The cartographic thus pursues a representation that is quantifiable territory. Gissens engagement with the geographic, particularly in its digital instantiations, still
not effective in rationally representing, but in discovering, geographic turns of architecture is wide and varied. reflects an architecture that dismisses the abstraction
accumulating and excavating a density of knowledge On the one hand, it appears to refer to an architecture of its own symbolic order for visualisations: no longer
that produces meaning and gains momentum from its that calls on the performative aspects of mapping; on drawings but models of a territory, which they fix
origins as well as its transformations. the other, it appears to rely on a quasi-realism revealed rather than remake.43 This suggests an abstraction
in concepts such as datascapes and the ambiguous that stabilises and therefore disarms the potentiality
Dorrian explores this through the work of Daniel Libeskind term research architecture, suggesting a kind of of drawing as architectural image. What is lost is
and Peter Eisenman. Like Tschumi, his contemporaries research limited to strictly quantitative processes the dual register of the drawing as symbol and icon.
Libeskind and Eisenman confront the exhaustion of of enquiry.35 in this sense, it is easier to locate it in the This separation of the spatiality of the real from the
functionalism in the context of a post-structuralist refusal work of architects such as the Dutch practices OMA, spatiality of representation occurs by either removing
of subjectification,23 employing cartographic strategies MVRDV and UN Studio and their engagement with the notational function or removing the attachment
to unground architecture from ideas of site and origin visualisations of elements of programme and inhabitation, to a referent spatiality for the sake of a purely virtual
Fig.1: Metis, Mimetic Urbanism: Restructuring of the ex-Magazzini Generalli
as understood in traditional architectural discourse. area of Verona, 2000. Aerial view maps, digital image editing and
as well as with practices such as Foreign Office imaginary (digital modelling), but also by removing
In his earlier works, such as Micromegas, Libeskind CAD modelling contribute to the making of a combined-view drawing. Architecture and their new pragmatist studies of the figure function of the drawing by reducing spatial
moves from the formative powers of geometric orders natural phenomena.36 OMA and MVRDV are seen relations to forms of notation that remain extra-spatial
to the intuition of geometric structure as a pre-objective The uncovering of drawings instrumental metanarrative, by Gissen as representatives of a geographic research (non-narrative text, statistical charts, etc). The loss of
experience. In Libeskinds terms, both architecture and the revealing of its figure as the image of a Bergsonian architecture. Although representation is still crucial invention suggests the loss of language as a passage
its representations demand a participatory experience.24 objectified process29 rather than a fixed destination, to the development of the architectural projects, to signification; it is the loss of the dwelling in the drawing
which is fulfilled through dedication to the craft of making can also be found in Dorrians own practice with Adrian the geographic concern does not seem to entail the as space and as event.
and the transcendence of a textual script which is Hawker in the context of their research design atelier representational practices it is historically attached
through an authentic abstraction capable of creating Metis. Like Eisenman, they use an archival approach to to, but a form of positivist research. Digital technologies today, from Google Earth to GIS,
an experience of transgression: reality, but rather than seeking the real in representation, GPS, large-scale 3D scanning and drone image capturing,
they seem to seek the representational within the real For Gissen, the potential that arises from the geographic offer an abundance of ways to observe and record
These plans, the intention of making visible the abolished (Fig.1). While investigating the hidden potential of the is an architecture that, by holding onto the ground of the world. At the same time, parametric processes of
distance of architectures reality, bring me no closer real, they survey with equal rigour the possibilities of reality and reason, would offer the possibility of a new fabrication and morphogenesis seem to question the
to building, yet nearer to dwelling. They show me that representation, creating opportunities out of its biases cartographic reality.37 What is at stake, then, is once more very relevance of architectural drawing, considering it
in abolishing distance and space, the realm between and limitations.30 Metis reappropriate cartography to a reconsideration of architectural drawing. But rather merely a definitive instrument of prescription. However,
representation and participationthe awesome make use of the difference produced by the unsettling than resolving to a proliferation of signification, the I would like to argue that the real pressure for archi-
and unsettling nature of architecture comes into focus.25 of pre-existing imaginaries, which they then inhabit by attention this time seems to be shifting from representation tectural drawing is not the threat of the substitution
reperforming. The inhabitation of these spaces occurs to an act of simulation that fixes meaning. An example of architectural drawing with automated processes
By reclaiming the self-referential nature of representation through making as well as reading, illustrating the of this can be found in the work of UN Studio, where the of visualisation, but rather the disassociation of its codes
through metaphor, drawing emerges not as a mechanistic performativity of representation. They therefore expand diagram, originally derived from the writings of Deleuze,38 of convention from both its objects and its variously
process of transcription but as an experience of drawing into the physical space of the architect/ was a key tool for what was meant to be a widely inclusive distinct conditions of subjectivity as they emerge in the
participation: of dwelling in the real from within the performer, from the drawing board to the studio.31 form of architecture. 39 Their representations were consideration of drawing as a distinct field of action.
virtual. Similarly, Eisenmans cartographic projects are Like Libeskind, they aim for transcendence, but only initially enhanced by, but later increasingly based on, In the digitised context, notions historically associated
defined, according to Dorrian, by the transition from the to get a better view of the real by dwelling in true digital technologies, as a means of modelling for both with maintaining the integrity of both design and drawing,
volumetric to the surface, through a series of operational abstraction: stripping the sign of its dominant meanings visualisation and surveying, resulting in the production such as the real, the true or the rational, become
strategies that are inventive, yet native to representation in order to make it mean more. of formally compelling imagery, completely distanced, highly contested, challenging not simply the object of
(superposition, repetition, scaling, nesting, etc).26 however, from the symbolic abstraction of mapping or drawing but of architecture altogether. The digitally
The dispersal of the subject through sequential effects Cartographic attitudes rely on the fecundity of mapping, normative architectural representations.40 What Gissen produced imagery that has lately dominated architectural
of alienation eventually leads to the unmotivation of the the dynamics of symbolic signification and the defines as the Geographic Turn can therefore be practice and press commonly involves representations
sign27 and an architecture liberated from any teleology.28 performativity entailed in drawing as a creative practice considered to relate more to the digital or computational that seek to imitate either the neatness44 of normative
rather than a mere transcription. The result is indeed, turn than to the cartographic. The mismatch between architectural projections (CAD drawings and section-like
The abstraction of representation as mere technique as Dorrian points out, a return to figuration through the the cartographic and the geographic is discussed in slicings of 3D models), the precision of perspectival
foregrounds the operations of architectural design, formalisation of the diagram,32 but it is also the arrival at Mark Foster Gages response to Gissen.41 Responding representations and photographs or the representations
merging the real and the virtual and therefore expanding a kind of form that, within the intentionality of represent- to Gissen, Gage writes in defence of design, making emerging from computational processes of modelling/
both. As a place of action, of dwelling and transcendence, ation, constitutes itself a kind of text. This textual culture, the point that by consistently seeking the phenomenal design.45 The first two constitute skeuomorphic
drawing emerges from the post-functionalist cartographic or at least the understanding of drawing as textual, is rationalisation that such geographic practices suggest, imitations of previously known modes of representation,
practice as a space just as important as the built space what makes the transcription valid and possible through what is questioned and unhinged is the symbolic and in that they imitate the appearance of plans, sections
of architecture. Function within drawing concerns not the emancipation of the signifier from the signified.33 conceptual autonomy of architectural design; and or photorealistic renderings, forgoing, however, the
the utility of an external space, but the act of signification. that this is marked by a loss of the critical in favour performative and productive aspects of architectural
This involves the ability of the architect to engage in NON-DRAWINGS AND OTHER VARIATIONS of a deterministic architecture of problem-solving:42 representation through the efficiency of a quickly
an intertextual cohabitation of spaces, where meaning Gages claim is that such research architecture in fact attainable finished look. As such, they have very little
is derived from a collective subjectivity that is only Rather than cartography, David Gissen looks into bypasses design rather than addressing it. Clearly, to do with either drawing conventions or the performative
possible through the transcendence into the virtuality the influence of geography on architecture.34 Gissens what he protests is the lack of invention and intuition: potency of drawing as a distinct space of creative
of representation. geographic approach differs significantly from the the lack of difference. Gages interpretation suggests transgression. The latter represents an entirely different

22 Augmentations Papers 23
 approach: a computational process of invention grounded eventually find their way into digital fields of production.
in geometric operations, but performed in simulated Carpos understanding of variation as difference, as well
space rather than on a projective surface. as the association of the parametric with the Deleuzian
notion of the fold, 48 tie these forms of architectural
Architectural historian Mario Carpo finds in the history production to the postmodern concept of deconstruction.
of architectural drawing, from the fifthteenth century Yet, this suggests a deconstruction more akin to Mark
until the recent digital turn, a truism that suggests that Wigleys early definition,49 regarding an ungrounding of
architecture can be reduced to an endless reproduction structure as form, as opposed to the one found in his
of identical forms.46 This limitation, marking the separation later writings. There, drawing from Derridas use of the
of design and building by means of the drawing as a term, he approaches deconstruction as a non-method
definitive prescriptive tool, he traces to the Albertian of semiotic inquiry within architecture as a form of
notion of the disegno, fostering an inevitably allographic representational thinking.50 Derridas idea of deconstruction
practice of architecture. For Carpo, the opportunity that reveals the instability of representation and consequently
then emerges from the parametric digital is this: the the question of language within architectural practice.
possibility of the infinitely non-standard that is produced The point of departure, for Derrida, is not form as figure
from an open-ended design process, freed from the but as sign: an inherently unstable writing whose reading
fixity of representation.47 Carpos discussion of the digital, reveals the slippage between form and content, rendering
and specifically the parametric, as a process capable the opposition between the twoas the signifier and the
of producing difference by escaping the mediation signifiedunsustainable.51
of representation for the participatory subjectivity
of the digital, points out the historically anthropocentric The fallacy, then, in these skeuomorphic digital resem-
character of architecture. Nevertheless, it contradicts blances of drawings is not a fault of the technology but
the ethos of productivity and the cumulative subjectivity rather of the misconception of the act of drawing itself
emerging in the deconstructivist cartographic strategies as a tool of prescription as opposed to a field of
examined, as well as in more recent paradigms such architectural invention. Seen through the cartographic,
as Metis representational excursions (Figs.1 and 3) or drawing emerges out of the cinematic as a cybernetic
Perry Kulpers relational drawings (Figs.2 and 4), which event: taking advantage of new media and available
perceptions of spaces to expand both its scope and its
codes by grafting its intentional mutability onto the media,
as opposed to merely succumbing to their own practical
efficiencies. This suggests what Catherine Ingraham
describes as the domesticating capability of both
architecture and its linear drawing convention: the ability
to import and appropriate materials from other discourses
and disciplines.52 Unlike Carpos suggestion, drawing
seen as such does not constitute an alienation from the
Fig.2: Perry Kulper, Spatial Blooms: Proto-formal drawing, 2009, digital print, cut paper and
craft; rather, as Libeskind illustrates, it is drawing itself
transfer letters. Kulper consistently questions the languages of architecture and representation, that is revealed as craft.
experimenting with the speculative contingency embedded within the agency of drawing media
and techniques, both in manual and digitally produced drawings.
In what can be considered, then, the digital challenge
and I would like to argue not-yet-turnof architectural
drawing, the pressing matter is not drawings relevance
(inevitably tied to architectures representational
operations). Rather, what is at stake is the understanding
of the possibilities offered by the digital as a new field
of performance, in which expanded forms of drawing
are defined neither by the resemblance to the process
nor to the result (building or impression) of architectural
representation, but instead by their capabilities of
invention. How drawing under the digital may look, then,
as object and process, should be as unpredictable as the
result of any design process. Yet what would maintain its
operation as drawing should be its function as an act of
writing: of constituting a hypertextual space where both
architectural convention and the architect can perform,
produce and reproduce within the computational,
immersive, visual and material capabilities offered (Fig.5).
The discovery of the interiority of architectural drawing,
Fig.3: Metis, On the Surface, 2014, digital-print textile floor drawing. as a distinct space of performance within which new
Arkitektskolen Aarhus, Denmark: 10 October14 November 2014.
The Mimetic Urbanism drawing is resited and transcribed into the meaning is produced, anticipates drawing as itself an
immersive installation of the On the Surface exhibition in Aarhus. immersive spatial practice: a real experience within the

24 Augmentations Papers 25
representational virtual. Considering drawing in this 1
H  enri Bergson, Creative Evolution, trans. Arthur 21
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand 39
Ben Van Berkel and Caroline Bos, Diagrams,
Mitchell (New York: Henry Holt, 1911), 306. Plateaus: Capitalism and Scizophrenia, trans. in MOVE, Vol. 2: Techniques (Amsterdam:
way, rather than constituting its redundancy, this crisis 2
Dziga Vertov, The Council of Three (1923), Brian Massumi (Minneapolis and London: Goose Press, 1999), 1922.
of drawing within the digital may entail its proliferation in Annete Michelson (ed.), Kinoeye: University of Minnesota Press, 1987). 40
See Ben Van Berkel, Ben, Navigating the
through the informing of a longstanding but mutable The Writings of Dziga Vertov (Berkeley 22
Dorrian, Architectures Cartographic Turn, 63. Computational Turn, in AD Computation
and Los Angeles: University of California 23
Ibid., 61. Works: The Building of Algorithmic Thought,
convention and the expansion of the practice into the
Press, 1992), 17. 24
See Daniel Libeskind, The Pilgrimage eds. Xavier De Kestelier and Brady Peters
conquering of new experiences of representational 3
Judith Mayne, Kino-Truth and Kino-Praxis: of Absolute Architecture, in Countersign (London: Wiley, 2013), 8295.
spaces, both material (fabrication) and immaterial Vertovs Man with the Movie Camera, (New York: Rizzoli, 1991), 3745. 41
Mark Foster Gage, In Defence of Design,
(visualisation and augmentation). What we can expect Cine-Tracts 2 (1977), 82. 25
Daniel Libeskind, Versus the Old-established Log 16 (2009), 3945.
4
Ibid., 83. Language, Daidalos 1 (1981), 9899. 42
Foster Gage, In Defence of Design, 39.
from the combining of architectural drawing with 5
Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 1: The Movement- 26
Peter Eisenman, Diagram Diaries (London: 43
Corner, The Agency of Mapping,
digital media should be drawing, but with a difference Image (1983), trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Thames & Hudson, 2001), 238293. in Mappings, ed. Dennis Cosgrove
as opposed to variations of drawing. Barbara Habberjam (London and New York: 27
Peter Eisenman, Autonomy and the Will to (London: Reaktion Books, 1999), 213.
Continuum, 2005), xiv. the Critical, Assemblage 41 (April 2000), 90. 44
Marco Frascari, Eleven Exercises in the Art
6
Ibid., ix. 28
Dorrian, Architectures Cartographic Turn, 67. of Architectural Drawing: Slow Food for the
7
Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 2: The Time-Image 29
Bergson, Time and Free Will (New York: Architects Imagination (London: Routledge,
(1985), trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Dover, 2001). 2011), 61.
Galeta (London and New York: Continuum, 30
Mark Dorrian and Adrian Hawker, Postscript 45
Alberto Perez Gomez and Aggeliki Sioli,
2005), 27. as Pretext, in Metis: Urban Cartographies Drawing with/in and Drawing out, in
8
Ibid., 26. (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2002), 9. Exploring the Work of Edward S. Casey, eds.
9
Ibid., 28. 31
See also Mark Dorrian, Architectural Design Azucenna Cruz-Pierre and Donald A. Landes
10
Deleuze, Cinema 1: The Movement-Image, 8. Opening A: Architectural Forensics (London and Ney York: Bloomsbury, 2013).
11
Jonathan Beller, KINO-I, KINO-WORLD: [unpublished studio brief], M.Arch. Year 1, 46
Mario Carpo, The Alphabet and the Algorithm
Notes on the Cinematic Mode of Production, 200709 (Edinburgh: School of Architecture, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011), 26.
in The Visual Culture Reader: Second revised University of Edinburgh, 2007). 47
Ibid., 45.
edition, ed. Nicholas Mirzoeff (New York and 32
Dorrian, Architectures Cartographic Turn, 62. 48
Mario Carpo, Parametric Notations:
London: Routledge, 2002), 60. 33
Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology (1967) The Birth of the Non-standard, in
12
Ibid., 63. (Baltimore: Jons Hopkins University Press, Architectural Design 86(2): Parametricism 2.0
13
Ibid., 63. 1997), 20. (March 2016), 2628
14
Ibid., 68. 34
David Gissen, Architectures Geographic 49
Mark Wigley, Deconstructivist Architecture,
15
Diana Agrest, The City as the Place of Turns, Log 12 (2008), 5967. in Deconstructivist Architecture, eds.
Representation, Design Quarterly 113/114 35
See James Corner, Eidetic Operations and Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley (New York:
(1980), 813. New Landscapes, in James Corner (ed.), MoMA, 1988), 11.
16
Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space Recovering Landscape: Essays in 50
Mark Wigley, The Translation of Architecture,
(1974), trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford Contemporary Landscape Theory (New York: The Production of Babel, Assemblage 8
and Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1991). Princeton Architectural Press, 1999), 165. (1989), 621.
17
Bernard Tschumi, The Manhattan Transcripts 36
See William S. Saunders, The New 51
Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology
(London: Academy Editions, 1994). Architectural Pragmatism: A Harvard Design (1967) (Baltimore: Jons Hopkins University
18
Mark Dorrian, Architectures Cartographic Magazine Reader (Minneapolis: University Press, 1997).
Turn, in Figures de la Ville et Construction of Minnesota Press, 2007). 52
Catherine Ingraham, Architecture and the
des Savoirs, ed. Frederic Pousin (Paris: 37
Gissen, Architectures Geographic Turns, 67. Burdens of Linearity (New Haven and
CNRS Editions, 2005), 6172. 38
Gilles Deleuze, Foucault, trans. Sean Hand London: Yale University Press, 1998), 125.
19
Ibid., 62. (London and New York: Continuum Press,
20
Ibid., 6263. 1999), 44.

Fig.4: Perry Kulper, Spatial Blooms: Test Tube Berm, 2009, exhibition Fig.5: Sophia Banou, Draw of a Drawing: Unfolded view detail, 2014,
digital print. Even when working strictly within the digital realm, laser-engraved wooden box with gold leaf, acrylic and brass details.
Kulpers architectural language, found both in his use of forms CAD-drawn elements are laser-engraved onto the surface, prompting
and framing, maintains the abstraction of architectural drawing while further drawing decisions as a response to the material transformations
taking advantage of the precise formative capabilities of digital tools. of the box and the behaviour of the laser-cutting machine.

26 Augmentations Papers 27
Fictions: A Speculative Account
of Design Mediums
Damjan Jovanovic

The Albertian paradigm of architecture as an allographic1 This is where questions of code and its relation to language
practice implies that architectural design comprises in general come to the fore. Yet coding as a practice
forms of notation and representation. It would seem that (and code in general, its apparent similarity to writing
mediums2 are all that architects engage with. Architecture notwithstanding) does not immediately lend itself to
is primarily a cultural, visual practice that operates through any kind of aesthetic analysis. Coding depends on the
design, understood as composition and the arrangement axiomatic, mathematical model and belongs to a different
of relations. While architects work with drawings and semiology. Only when the outcomes of code become
models, they primarily produce images. With the advent visible as something other than code does software
of the digital, according to media scholar Lev Manovich, (and computation) become interesting for design. The
other media (print, photography, radio, film, etc) have crucial question is how these outcomes become visible,
been collapsed and integrated into software as a meta- and under what circumstances this visibility operates.
medium; in almost all areas of contemporary life, software
takes command.3 According to Marshall McLuhan, when ALGORITHMS AND INTERFACES
a new medium appears, it does its best to simulate the
preceding one before it inevitably supercedes it. Hence, Algorithms form the core of softwares medium specificity,
when cinema emerged in the late nineteenth century, its and they produce crucial effects, like interactivity.
formal vocabulary was that of the theatre until it discovered The discussion on the nature of algorithms in relation
its own medium specificitymontage and movable to architecture becomes possible only when algorithms
camera.4 Importantly, a change comes to the old medium become visiblethat is, only when an interface is
as well. After cinema took over some of the classical involved. This is precisely why the computational question
representational and, in that sense, political responsibilities in architecture should never be equated with its numerical
of theatre, the focus of theatrical production shifted more basis, i.e. the quantities, but with how these quantities
and more towards the participatory and the situational firstly become manifest optically and then as visual and
elements, retaining and honing the literary component semiotic qualities. Code is the basic interface, and yet
while moving away from the visual. Eventually, these architectural design is a visual, cultural practice defined
Fig.2: Superstudios Supersurface project (1971) posits the inhabitation of the flat ground grid
developments gave rise to modernist theatre and other by its focus on compositional issues. Design procedures as the ultimate architecture of our lives. MAXXI Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Roma.
complex forms. The specificity of theatre was rediscovered in the digital age are computational inasmuch as they Collections MAXXI Architecture Archive Superstudio.
in focusing on the living presence of an actors body and depend on functions of language as code and code as
voice. In another example, with the introduction of a representation of space in the forms of design software. obfuscation stemming from confusing a visual, cultural always already political. Hence, the true value of software
photography, painting was introduced to a new specificity In other words, the conditions of a medium become practice such as architecture with a scientific practice in architecture is that it constructs new modes of projection
in the form of abstraction. important only when a question of composition comes such as chemistry, a simple rule can be applied: if a and new modes of vision, as well as that it enables new
to the fore, and only if the conditions themselves can procedure is not available for forms of reading in relation models of grids.
What happens when a medium contains all other mediums? be shown as being composed and composing. to composition (here understood in the broadest sense
Everything changes, yet the issue of softwares specificity as the act of combining parts to form a whole), it is Of all the sub-mediums architects usually work with, only
is rarely addressed. In response, Clement Greenbergs For instance, there is no point in looking into the chemical not relevant. As with any medium, in the case of design renderings convey a degree of complexity in terms of
notion of medium specificity can be reintroduced with processes of film in order to understand the films software there exist conditions that operate as ambience, mood and atmosphere. Architects are content
regard to the problem of architectural design understood meaning, yet the film stock properties leave a definitive composers of space well before any input from the user. in making only the necessary documents that their
as a software practice. The question becomes: what is imprint on the composition of an image, already working Hence, what does software, understood in these terms, discipline demands, thus leaving the whole world of new,
it that software can do that no other medium can? towards an image composition long prior to the films mean for architecture? virtual and interactive spatiality to others. The enormous
treatment in post-production. To avoid the pitfalls and size, complexity, richness and attention to detail of some
Firstly, it is important to make a distinction between the Architecture relies on its traditional modes of representation contemporary computer game worlds exemplify what
conditions for and the effects of mediums. In the case for design, which mostly comprise various projection- this new spatiality can be. The overwhelming feeling of
of cinema, the technical conditions of the medium involve based imagery, either orthographic or perspectival. immersion and saturation within these worlds is the result
employing a number of discrete units (images) to create As a concept, projection lies at the core of architectural of spatial design. Hence, as far as design methodology
an illusion of movement as an effect. The fact that film design and continues to do so with software as well. is concerned, architects may have as much to learn from
operates with discrete units does not prevent its effect Yet software introduces other modes of projection, computer game and software designers as from the
from being perceived as continuous. The same goes of which active projection is by far the most important, histories of architecture or the vast majority of contemp-
for software. Its dependence on hardware that currently since it enables interactivity. Every projection is coupled orary practices. Yet it is not only that the architectural
operates in binary states (since we still do not have with a gaze, and every projection operates on grids, discipline will find itself in an era where humanity will
quantum computers), tells us nothing of the vast field which are the primary design objects. More importantly, inhabit and experience artificial worlds in a way not at all
of sensorial effects that it engenders. Similarly, abstract the algorithmic nature of software enables these different to how it experiences real life, but that the very
data, infinities and random values may be at the core of projections to be populated with new and unforeseen conditions in which the new architectural additions to
computation, but computation only becomes available grids. Principally, a grid is any digital object that has real life are being produced, organised and disseminated
Fig.1: A screenshot from the authors game-like design software called
as a problem in design methodology once its conditions The Other Method, which utilizes the first person view as the only view become visible as an interface. In this sense, any are already completely set in the virtuality of digital and
and effects are coded in such a way as to be readable. available for design. projection is always already compositional, and in turn algorithmic worlds.

28 Augmentations Papers 29
The dominance of design software packages that come information for building construction has ensured that The role of orthographic representations is to ensure
out of the legacy of Computer Aided Design maintains orthographic projections rule the architectural design the preservation of dimensions, but an unseen
traditional architectural design methodology and ensures process. This implies that there is such a thing as an consequence is that they impose the flat organisational
the endless reproduction of traditional design notations orthographic gaze as well as a perspectival gaze. As with and compositional principles on the model space, thus
and their elements, some of which have already become any other tool, orthographic projections are not devoid saturating the outcomes with abstraction.
almost obsolete (scale, for example). The latest iteration of aesthetic and political implications. They produce very
of the CAD paradigm is BIM, which may yet prove to be specific spatial outcomes, as they depend on a very Perspectives are a different concept, as they are usually
the greatest threat to the discipline as a design practice specific set of presumptions. Historically, the architectural made after the fact of design to add atmosphere and
since the BIM paradigm is principally about project discipline has been identified with a special skill set that an illusion of life. Perspectival projection hints at the
management rather than design. It is no wonder, then, relies heavily on planar thinking. The word plan testifies idea of subjective space where the vanishing point is
that the most interesting design work today comes from to this; it has both the meaning of a plan and planning. inverted into the eye of the observer. One of its effects
the use of exotic and custom-made software or software To plan in architecture is to partake in a political practice is that it enables a specific reading of a picture plane.
whose original area of application is not architecture enabled by the medium of a plan. More specifically, this It not only organises the space but reorganises the
Maya, ZBrush, Softimage, Houdini, Unityor directly political practice is engendered by the gaze that this observer as well and engenders a specific form of
from programming languages like Processing. medium affords. This gaze can generically be identified relationship between the two that can be conceptualised
as a top view in the case of plans, and as a side view in as entanglement. The notion of gaze arises in the form
Hence, the role of software in architecture has been cases of sections and elevations. A top view implies the of a mutual gaze facilitated through an abstract grid
largely misunderstood: firstly, by disregarding software idea of total control of the model space and is particularly diagram. There is evidence that perspectival projection
specificity and focusing on simulations of the traditional good at enabling any idea that has to do with a central has been used as a design tool as well, for example,
design medium in software in an attempt to preserve hierarchy and centralised political authority, as exemplified in the Renaissance,8 but perspectives have historically
the discipline as it was historically, and out of necessity, by Roman city planning (Cardo and Decumanus); centrally been understood as too subjective and, more importantly,
defined; secondly, by amplifying the incidental and planned temples; the ideal villa of Palladio; the nine square imprecise to be used as design tools. Modernism
non-disciplinary effects of software, through using it Fig.3: A comparison between the default interfaces of Maya, one of the and the four square grids. Here, symmetry is particularly introduced parallel projection-based representations
as a tool for simulation of natural processes. What is most common design software packages, and Stingray, a new game important since it is producible exclusively in the planar as an assumed objective mode of looking at the model
needed is a radical embrace of software specificity engine made by Autodesk. In Maya, the largest part of the interface mode. The ground is another important notion: in the space. The gaze embedded in parallel projection
is devoted to the model space, represented with a flat grid observed
understood as a new visualitythat is, a radically new from above, whereas in Stingray, the gaze is changed and the flat ground
planar top view, the ground becomes abstracted into promoted another variant of the totalising god mode
vision system for architectureand as a new ground grid becomes inhabitable. a background (which is the original meaning of ground look that preserved the dimensions of the plan while
for architectural fictions.5 in a figure-ground problem in perception), and this simulating three-dimensionality.
vocabulary and tropes (balloons, children, vegetation becomes clear with the introduction of the Nolli map.
A SPECULATIVE HISTORY OF DESIGN MEDIA on roofs, cherry blossom trees). When, in rare cases, In sections and elevations, another kind of relationship It follows that the compositional problems in architecture
an office uses a video presentation of its architecture, becomes apparent: the hierarchical dependence on are inescapably governed by the mediums: planar
Historically, the medium specificity of paper was given this still retains the passivity of an image. The use of the ground datum. In other words, the disciplinary and volumetric representations. These are not merely
by its flatness and expendable nature, which provided a VR platform6 allows the clients the joy of inhabitation problem of the figure-ground relationship is twofold representations in the usual sense of the words; they
the perfect conditions for the rise of very specific where the body of a possible architecture participates since it originates both in the top and side views but are themselves projective systems, systems that
architectural sub-mediums: orthographic projection- through telepresence. Although virtual reality might has different implications in each. generate a spatial outcome instead of just recording one.
based plans, sections, elevations, perspectives and eventually replace renders as the primary means of
iso- and axonometric drawings. Since Alberti, architects representation of an architectural space, it will change
have dealt with forms of representation without having architecture as a discipline only if a similar environment
to worry whether or not representations will take becomes available as a design medium as well.
command and trounce reality. Architects use software
principally as a simulation tool, which is particularly The chronic delay of fabrication and building technologies
apparent in the practice of rendering. Rendering is simply in comparison to design technologies presents an
perspectival drawing made on a computer. Insofar as incredible bottleneck for the discipline. This paradox is
Alberti was right in saying that architects do not build shown by the fact that architects do not build yet are
but make representations of buildings, renders can obsessed with the imperative of buildability. The Albertian
be seen as the key product of an architectural practice. ideal of an architect as a pure maker of spatial ideas will
Renders are images that trace their lineage to the rules be fully actuated when this paradox is resolved through
of perspective and come out of the long tradition of the flattening of design space with the real space, either
mimetic representation that characterised pre-modern by 3D printing or the utility fog7 or a similar idea.
painting. They are the perfect example of a purely
software-based phenomenon used and regarded as THE GAZE AND THE GRID
if it has nothing to do with software.
Spatial visual media can be analysed based on two
Contemporary layer-based digital image making (which is concepts which both have to do with projections:
the basis of software like Photoshop) forms the basis of the gaze and the grid. The gaze is our visual access to
architectural representation today, and yet even when it the model space, which in turn depends on projection.
draws lessons from twentieth-century cinematography, The gaze is never objective, far from disinterested and
by design it remains locked firmly in the tradition of always intentional.
passive representation, that of a photo collage. Renders
Fig.4: A collection of screenshots of the authors custom-made, game logic-based design software,
are expected to be nothing more than idealised images Traditionally, the need for notating the space for the Platform Sandbox, as customised by the student Yara Feghali. This software was used as a design tool,
of a new architectural reality; they come with their own purpose of preserving the design intention as well as and as a means of design speculation for the first year students at Staedelshule Architecture Class in 2016.

30 Augmentations Papers 31
This relationship is an interesting inversion of the actuated, interactive projection of total immersion. software that the grid finally takes over. Ultimately, This notion of obstructing prevalent, established, rational
Renaissance invention of drawing as ray casting; This means that, for the first time in the history of the image of the digital is the image of an endless grid and positivistic methods through employing game-like
it could be said that any act of design is ray casting architecture, there is the possibility of visually inhabiting accommodating other grids, manipulated by an omniscient scenarios and practices is not new. It was used
in reverse. If so, Albertis and Drers prince of rays a design space. and omnipresent designer. In recent years, another extensively by the Surrealists as a means of disestablishing
has been conflated with a reverse-direction god ray metaphor, that of a cloud, has come to represent the the aesthetic and political implications of well-known
of the designers gaze. Historically, the grid has undergone a series of transform- digital regime, almost as an attempted escape from this models. In surrealist games such as the Exquisite Corpse,10
ations, and this history can be found in software in a perceived artificiality. Yet maybe it is the case that these any notion of systematic, rational form-making is erased.
Interactivity in software starts with the gazein other compressed and accelerated version. The orthographic, two ideal images are collapsed: it is as if somehow, in a The games were derived as a means of freeing the
words, with a specific visual access to the model. perspectival and isometric grids have been replaced perfect union between the natural and artificial, the world creative process of conscious control.
Unlike traditional perspective or axonometry, the by the active and volumetric grids of software. From has become an endless, reflective grid mirroring the
software perspective view imposes a fully actuated, the traditional grids of early 2D CAD packages to the clouded sky above. In this sense, and seeing the rise of In August 2015, Autodesk presented a new software
fully accessible model space. Though still restricted to contemporary high-resolution (aka high-poly) grids of planetary-scale computation in hindsight, Superstudios package that will allow architects to finally inhabit the
the two-dimensional plane of a screen, it is an interactive various sculpting and procedural-based software, design Supersurface of 1972, a project that has been understood spaces before they are actually built. Named Stingray,
projection that liberates spatial outcomes from the is not the design of objects, but of grids, in grids and as a conceptual, ironic utopia which projects an endless, the software is actually a game engine, in the tradition
constraints of fixed projection systems. The user can on grids. Any model designed in software is a grid: a mesh- isotropic grid taking over the world, can now be actually of Unity 3D and Unreal. Exactly like those 3D applications
move and orbit around, zoom in and out of the model or NURBS-based, low- or high-resolution, uniform or read as the realist project for the twenty-first century. as well as others, Stingray employs a grid as a ground and
space and thus gain access to every aspect of its spatiality. deformed grid. And every model is instantiated on another affords a gaze, yet this time a very specific one. Its default
Plans and sections are restrictive because they do not grid, the ubiquitous ground grid. GAMES view is that of an endless, walkable grid, observed from
afford this access. The move to software is a move from first person, enclosed by an endless, clouded sky.
the flat organisational diagram into a volumetric diagram. THE GROUND GRID Software flattens the field of visual effects and enables
This implies a more fluid relationship with the underlying messy encounters between drawing, painting, video
organisation and a less rigid set of rules. Perhaps the history of ground grids is the most interesting, and games. As a direct descendant of traditional design
as they have been present since at least the Renaissance. mediums, design software prescribes a very specific role
In contemporary practice and due to the use of software, This ground as flat grid is first found in the so-called to the user: that of a disinterested, disembodied subject
plans and sections are increasingly made after the Prevedari engraving of 1481, made by Bernandino that has full access to any projection space that operates
design, and practically no design is ever done only from Prevedari after Donato Bramante and named Interior on a spectrum of full visibility and full zoom-in. This approach
a plan. The model space enabled by software collapses of a Temple with Figures. It, or its variations, are always continues and vastly expands a specific subjectivity of
the different projection spaces into a volumetric diagram. found in the depictions of ideal places, such as in an architect operating in the god mode of the traditional
This engenders very specific spatial outcomes; for Raphaels The Marriage of The Virgin. These places are discipline. An architect is now an omnipresent and
example, the traditional relationship between the plan and never simple landscapes; they are the originators of omniscient entity with full control over the design space,
the faade becomes obscured and the faade becomes urbanity, yet they always have an atmosphere of an ideal which supposedly ensures that his authorship is visibly
either an intentional cut through the volume or is literally nature. A flat grid indicates a perfect balance between imprinted. This notion of total visual empowerment is
a three-dimensional envelope. This unification of model tamed, lived-in nature and enlightened city dwelling a heritage of the military roots of the digital regime,9
space enables a different outcome than what was a negotiation between opposites and a sign of harmony. and leads ultimately to very problematic and unexamined
possible in a time when space was modelled in separate It is a utopian sign par excellence, and it is no wonder political outcomes of design processes, best witnessed
orthographic views. For one thing, it does away with the that it comes back in modernity with such force. It is this in totalising fictions like Parametricism.
idea that unidirectionality is a compositional and organisa- inescapability of the grid that has haunted architecture
tional default. The traditional, orthographic space can in the late twentieth century. In this sense, deconstruction Unlike other software, computer games tend to problem-
thus be described as a disassociated, fragmented space was primarily a move against the isotropic grid, featuring atise the notion of subjective agency either through
that had to be stitched together, and it is precisely in instead fractured, broken grids supposed to engender exposing and putting into question the ability of a player
this stitching that the traditional practice found its modus new, non-privileged subjectivities. or by disturbing the mere notion of a goal. Because of
operandi. The modernist grid is a perfect example: an their full spectrum deployment of interactivity, games
endless, equal potential space that only actually functions The flat grid has since become ubiquitous, its latest could be thought of as the most medium-specific type 1
M  ario Carpo, in The Alphabet and the Algorithm, (Cambridge, MA:
in two dimensions and makes stacking a solution to every iterations being equated with popular depictions of the of software. Play does not have to be always goal- MIT Press, 2011).
height problem. The Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris by digital realm, such as the one found in the Tron films oriented, and although most games do have a goal (the 2
Media and mediums are optional terms. Here mediums is used
Frank Gehry is a building that has been designed solely on of 1982 and 2010. However, it is precisely in 3D design win state), more and more the inherent specificity of to ensure difference from broadcasting.
3
Lev Manovich, Software Takes Command, (London: Bloomsbury, 2013).
the basis of a volumetric diagram. The plan is no longer experience leads to the player being content with merely 4
A new medium is never an addition to an old one, nor does it leave the
a generator; it is merely generated. Hence, orthographic existing within a game. Immersion does not depend old one in peace. It never ceases to oppress the older media until it
mediums are exposed as ultimate abstractions of living on, and is more likely even disturbed by, direct calls for finds new shapes and positions for them, in Essential McLuhan, Edited
by Eric McLuhan & Frank Zingrone (London: Routledge, 1997), 278.
space that have become misidentified as guarantors for action towards reaching a goal. The notions of agency 5
The notion of formatsa project or a building becomes just one
disciplinary specificity. and authorship are thus perceived in a different manner, format in a flat ontology of formats, where software is the medium.
which enables loosening up the idea of control. It is See David Joselit, After Art, (Princeton University Press, 2013), 55.
6
For example, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive offer unparalleled possibilities of
Still, when the traditional and contemporary mediums precisely the notion of loose control that can be postulated immersion.
do not share the same type of gaze any more, they as a new authorial model. Rather than depending on 7
The utility fog (coined by Dr. John Storrs Hall in 1993) is a hypothetical
have a common base for their spatial models: the grid. guaranteed outcomes that come either out of total collection of tiny robots that can replicate a physical structure.
As such, it is a form of self-reconfiguring modular robotics. Source:
The base of every modelling software is the grid, just as control of the medium or out of a system-based logic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_fog
it has always been for any graphic procedure based on of computation, this notion puts the possibility of a 8
Erwin Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic Form, (MIT Press,
projection. If software is still dependent on projection, its new subject first. A subject that is aware of his own Zone Books, 1996).
grid is now separated from the gaze. In other words, the entanglement with other, non-human forms of agency
9
Friedrich Kittler, Computer Graphics: A Semi-Technical Introduction,
Fig.5: A screenshot from the authors upcoming game software Grey Room (2001), 31.
projection is interactive and does not restrict the model called Supersurface that recreates the Superstudio project, and is willing to explore new configurations coming out 10
Alastair Brotchie and Mel Gooding, The Book of Surrealist Games
space to a two-dimensional space but engenders a fully thus finally enabling the inhabitation. of this flat, non-hierarchical relationship. (Shambhala, 1995), 25.

32 Augmentations Papers 33
Augmented Maritime METHODOLOGY CAD software, which can better account for the irregularity
of the surfaces encountered, retain the complexity of
Histories: Text, Point, Line Initial scoping of potential harbours was undertaken
with reference to the UAU Ports, Piers and Harbours1
the construction detail and ensure that the data could be
viewed and manipulated by standard CAD programmes
Elizabeth Shotton in tandem with a review of historic and current Ordnance to enable greater access. Coupled with this is the need
Survey maps to identify suitably sized and historically to link the results of the archival research and other
The coastline of Ireland has been embellished through relevant harbours for the pilot study. Based on this source data, such as photographs or bibliographic
the accretion of piers, jetties, quays and breakwaters review, a subset of harbours for further research was notes, to the 3D computer model. There is considerable
to facilitate the ever-evolving nature of the shipping and identified for this initial research stage: momentum among international researchers in this
fishing industries in the past millennium. These structures field at the moment, including the work of Stephen Fai,
represent a significant infrastructural system that has Port Oriel (Clogherhead), Co. Louth director of the Carleton Immersive Media Studio (CIMS)
shaped local and national Irish culture for centuries. Ballbriggan, Co. Fingal at Carleton University in Canada, and Anthony Caldwell
While Irelands major ports have been carefully Bullock, Co. Dublin at the UCLA Digital Humanities Group. In particular,
documented and researched, much of this infrastructure, Fethard, Co. Wexford Caldwells use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) Fig.2: Bullock Harbour, Place, 1699.
though once intrinsic to the economic wealth and Slade, Co. Wexford software to link this paradata to the digital image3 Courtesy of the National Gallery of Ireland.
the welfare of local communities, has fallen into Dunbrattan (Boat Strand), Co. Waterford is a useful model to deploy in this context, as archival,
disrepair as the industries that once generated their bibliographic, photographic and management data in the 1699 ink wash drawing by Place. DAltons description
development have been centralised to the major ports. These harbours were chosen based on the variation in can be keyed into the digital model for future reference. is taken verbatim from a report of 1800 by Captain William
With damage from the seas ever increasing, it has geomorphological situation, harbour form and dates of Bligh on the state of Dublin Harbour,10 who provides in
become critical to document these minor harbour development. This was intended to achieve two purposes; BULLOCK HARBOUR his survey the precise dimensions of the ruinous east
structures to describe and elaborate on the entwined firstly, to ensure that sufficient variation in scanning pier in addition to the length and breadth of the harbour,
nature of their development with the communities they procedures was trialled to identify critical issues; and Of the seven harbours surveyed to date (including the the latter of which agrees quite well with Places
once served. secondly, to enable a comparative analysis between earlier study of Coliemore), a considerable number of representation when interrogated using the Vanishing
differently situated harbours, making use of the very pictorial representations have been sourced for Bullock Grid command in Adobe Photoshop. Even more troubling
The current project was conceived and funded as a coherent template for analysis developed by Graham harbour in County Dublin, including a seventeenth-century is the lack of attention given to physical evidence
pilot project to establish protocols for the capture and in his study of Scottish vernacular harbours.2 topographical ink wash by Francis Place4 and a painting on the ground, which is exposed in the high resolution
management of LiDAR-based surveys of these coastal by John Thomas Serres almost one hundred years LiDAR data (Fig.4) in which the physical remains of
structures in tandem with historic research on their The research has five phases of interrelated work: review later (Figs.2 and 3),5 making Bullock a useful vehicle for a hewn stone pier(s) is visible within the larger ashlar
development. Many of these structures have long, of secondary published research to develop bibliographic initial trials for analysis and visualisation. These images granite construction of the early nineteenth century.
complex histories tied to shifting patterns of governance, data for each harbour; archival research; on-site scanning can be used as baselines to articulate the original
land tenure, material resources, technology and trade. and inspection; modelling, documentation and record geomorphological characteristics of the site prior to The hewn stone construction highlighted in the LiDAR
Unravelling and visualising these histories involves development; and historical comparative analysis. Of its embellishment, with several layers of eighteenth- scan appears to consist of two independently constructed
a complex negotiation between text-based archival interest here is the manipulation of LiDAR point cloud data to twentieth-century additions to form the harbour piers, which could serve to articulate the constructed
documents, historic surveys and maps and other forms post-scan, to interrogate the findings from the archival in its current condition. history of the harbour. The lengthier section matches
of pictorial representation such as topographical and desk-based research. The original intention had precisely the dimensions quoted by Bligh for the ruinous
illustrations, all used in tandem with LiDAR-based surveys been to translate the point cloud data acquired from the Bullock Harbour also has a usefully complex and lengthy pier in his report of 1800, and, given the irregularity of
(Fig.1) to articulate their evolution. LiDAR scans into digital 3D models using NURBS-based history, much of which has only been identified by virtue its edge condition to the north (bottom of image), while
of the archival research interrogated in tandem with the south edge is continuous, it appears likely that its
the information contained in the LiDAR scans. Although seaward edge had collapsed. This would account for
concise histories of Bullock have been published in the rubble of stone illustrated in the Serres image made
the past by De Courcey6 and Gilligan,7 in addition to an shortly before Blighs survey. This pier extension was
earlier work by DAlton 8 and a more recent, lengthier likely funded by the Irish Parliament and built shortly after
work by local historian Smyth9 in Bulloch Harbour: Past a petition made by the Merchants and Traders of Dublin
and Present, the history of the building of the harbour in November of 1765 to make a strong jette from the
is underrepresented, being simplified to a recounting points of the rocks adjoining the continent, to the rocks
of the medieval pier on the west bank below the castle, of Old Bullock.11 The jette can be understood as the pier,
variously described as either fourteenth or fifteenth though it was clearly not built as strongly as the Merchants
century in origin, followed by a complete building of the had hoped, as it lay in ruin less than forty years later,
harbour circa 1820 by the Dublin Port and Docks Board with the rocks of Old Bullock referring to a string of rocky
(now Dublin Port Corporation) with quay walls, slip and outcrops on the east side of the inlet. The earlier original
piers to both east and west. Aside from the improbability pier on which it extends was no doubt ruinous at this
of a fourteenth-century pier withstanding the ravages of time, but was likely the remnant of the east pier illustrated
time and the battering of the seas for five hundred years in Places drawing, as its position correlates substantially.
before it was rebuilt, these histories overlook the more
complex evolution of this harbour, failing to account for the In addition to the petition for a jette, the Merchants and
range of pictorial history available and formal government Traders also requested the continuation of the new
documents which expose a more elaborate history. quay, opposite the rocks of Old Bullock, which would
include space large enough to contain several vessels
DAlton is the only published author who recounts the in ten or twelve feet of water at the lowest spring tides.
remains of an eastern pier, in addition to the medieval That this work was undertaken is verified in 1770, five
Fig.1: Bullock Harbour, Co. Dublin, Ireland. LiDAR scan data, Semar, 2016. pier on the west bank, both of which are plainly recorded years following this petition, when Wilson writes of Bullock,

34 Augmentations Papers 35
 are revealed in the LiDAR scans. There is considerable more commonly accessible formats, RhinoCAD has
diversity of construction techniques used in the visible insufficient capacity to accommodate such file sizes,
surfaces of the harbour, including ashlar horizontally thus the work has taken a different trajectory.
coursed stone work on both piers and part of the western
quay, ashlar vertical partially coursed stone work on the To enable the surfacing of the point clouds (as yet
eastern quay and rough-hewn, uncoursed stone work incomplete), the dataset for Bullock, once interrogated
on the south end of the western quay and the original relative to archival information, has been partitioned by
slipway. Although built by the same contractor, George date of construction, a method that will also be used on
Smith, rather than being built at a single period, the the other harbour datasets. The subsets developed for
earliest date of the nineteenth-century work was 18078, Bullock include: rocks and castle (409MB); early east
when the western quay wall was extended by 231 feet in pier (119MB); west quay wall of 1807 (312MB); west quay
rough-hewn, uncoursed stone work, and later extended wall and slip of 1815 (94MB); west quay and pier of
by an additional 80 feet, including a slipway, in 1815 1820 (1.2GB); east quay and pier of 1820 (940MB); road
using the same technique.14 The later ashlar work, wall (132MB); concrete slip and buttresses (242MB)
undertaken between 181820 by Dublin Port,15 introduces which, though large, are sufficiently smaller to enable
a curious angle in the western quay wall where it ties manipulation in RhinoCAD. Each partition retains the
into the hewn stone wall of 1807. While this may reflect castle as a reference point for further analysis. The
a preference to achieve a right angle with the new partitioning of the scan data in this manner requires
western pier on the part of the engineer George Halpin, a certain amount of interpretation and interpolation to
because there appears less effort to ensure this articulate how each phase was constructed and later
geometric purity on the eastern quay, it is also possible embellished. To date, the point cloud data has been
that this shift in geometry was necessitated by the used in RhinoCAD to develop extruded 3D forms of the
still extant eighteenth-century western pier illustrated subsets that lack construction detail, which have then
Fig.3: Bullock Harbour, Serres, 1788. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Ireland. in Serres painting, suggesting the pier may still exist been merged into a single file and used to confirm or
under the roadway adjacent to the quay constructed dispel hypotheses regarding the information gleaned
after this date. from historic sources, including text and images,
and from which a series of three-dimensional models
PARTITIONING, IMAGING AND ANALYSIS of subsequent building phases will be visualised and
ultimately linked to the main point cloud data as a
A primary underlying ambition of the research has web-based record.
been to develop a more coherent history of the evolution
of maritime construction technology in Ireland, which The use of perspectival grid analysis using the Vanishing
influenced the choice of LiDAR as a survey tool, as it Point feature in Adobe Photoshop, verified against
is possible to capture and preserve significant detail textual evidence from early coasting pilots and/or marine
using this methodology. The information gathered on surveys for dimensional integrity, was trialled in an effort
the scans has proven remarkable but the choice to to correlate the information in the historic images with
retain this detail has lead to significant file sizes, in excess the scan data and confirm locations of built features.
of 9GB for the complete Bullock Harbour (in excess These vanishing point grids can be exported as .dxf
of 298 million points). Though the original intention had (or .3ds) files and transferred to RhinoCAD to be reconciled
been to import the data to RhinoCAD, where the point with point cloud data from the LiDAR surveys (Fig.5).
clouds could be surfaced to create smaller files in In addition, it was hoped that from this data the original

Fig.4: LiDAR image of east pier with hewn stone construction highlighted, Shotton, 2016.

A new quay faced with hewn stone hath been lately built, shore prior to the petition of the Merchants and
for the convenience of conveying stones to the light- Traders of Dublin, as they petition for the continuation
house-works.12 There are two critical terms used in these of the new quay. This suggests that the western pier in
documents that allow the pictorial works of Place and Places drawing had collapsed by this time, which may
Serres to be better understood relative to each other, account for the loose rubble illustrated north of the
as well as to the later nineteenth-century construction. pier in Serres drawing, and was rebuilt southward of
When interrogated relative to the LiDAR scan data in the original site. This new location correlates closely
tandem with the perspective grid analysis, the western to the position shown by Duncan in his 1804 survey
pier in these two illustrations are located differently, of the Coast from Blackrock to Bray Head.13 The later
with the Serres pier located south of the pier in Places continuation of the quay adjoining this pier by the
drawing. Topographical artists built their reputation Merchants and Traders, by an unknown length, would
on the accuracy of their representations, and while help to resolve a discrepancy between the known
there is cause to doubt Serres image, in that he has dimensions of the nineteenth-century works which
collapsed the perspective in an effort to include the fall short of joining this pier.
eastern rocks for picturesque effect, Places reputation
is considerable and holds up well to scrutiny. It appears The nineteenth-century works are equally complex Fig.5: Analysis of Serres painting using Adobe Photoshop,
probable that a new quay or pier was built on the western rather than singular as generally discussed, and again RhinoCAD and LiDAR point cloud data, Shotton, Semar, 2016.

36 Augmentations Papers 37
 of this castle, in close proximity to Dublin, that incited necessary to capture both the seabed and the portions
such a degree of interest from artists. We are equally of infrastructure under the waterline, which will be
fortunate that the castle survives relatively intact, allowing merged with the terrestrial LiDAR point clouds to create
it to be scanned and used as a reference point in the comprehensive three-dimensional forms. Fortunately,
interrogation of the historical images. This is certainly not for a selection of harbours (Port Oriel, Balbriggan,
the case for the majority of small harbours in the survey, Fethard) this seabed data has been made available
which have less imagery available (though often more to us from Hydrographic Surveys Ltd. The remainder
archival information) and very few with a castle for will be surveyed later this summer.
a reference point. Thus, the analysis of each harbour
will present its own challenges and demand modified Future plans for enabling more accurate interpretations
procedures for interrogation and reconciliation of the of the historic data will also involve the use of ground-
information sources. penetrating radar to obtain profiles of the internal
construction of the built elements, which in the case
The limitations of the Vanishing Point tool in Photoshop of Bullock may confirm the presence of the eighteenth-
were disappointing and have obliged us to experiment century western pier visualised in Serres painting.
with alternative forms of visual analysis. The super-
imposition of images on the LiDAR point cloud is useful, The extraordinary level of detail present in the LiDAR
but depends heavily on the judgment of the viewer scan files is imperative to retain, though difficult to manage
and lacks any form of verifiable, mathematically derived due to the file sizes. Options for web-based point cloud
dimensions. An alternative we intend to test on the viewers, which can scale the data to the appropriate
Place drawing is a more conventional perspectival resolution as one orbits and zooms to particular parts
analysis, using a reverse two-point perspective analysis of the cloud, are currently being investigated by the
to derive a plan and elevation from the image. This Universitys Digital Library team to facilitate placing the
plan and elevation will then be modelled in the RhinoCAD original scans on the library site for public access. The
environment and exported as an image file to test its ambition to create a fully linked information database
correlation with the original image. with the model, as described in Caldwells work, may be
Fig.6: Bullock Harbour, Co. Dublin, Ireland, LiDAR scan data 2016
difficult to achieve in tandem with a scalable point cloud
overlaid on Frances Place 1699, Shotton, Semar and Place, 2016. We were also fortunate at Bullock that the harbour, interface, and thus may require an additional form of
including the seabed exterior to the piers, runs dry visualisation to be included in the digital record, such as
geomorphological condition could be hypothetically While the Serres painting proved amenable to the use of at low spring tides, which enabled a full scan of the built a three-dimensional timeline model. Thus, the appropriate
modelled as a three-dimensional representation to act Vanishing Point analysis in Photoshop, the Place drawing, infrastructure and seabed using LiDAR. For the rest form of digital record configuration for the digital library
as a base for further modelling within RhinoCAD of the due to the irregularity of the rock surfaces and the of the harbours, underwater sonar scanning will be is still in a development phase.
construction timeline for each harbour. limitations of the grid analysis tool, which only allows for
rectangular grids, proved impenetrable. An alternative
Through the use of the Vanishing Point tool, the pier methodology was employed in this case and later used
in relation to the castle (still extant) was modelled and on the Serres image as well, in which the images were
dimensioned successfully in Photoshop and translated to imported to Cyclone, the native point cloud software
RhinoCAD as a set of three-dimensional surfaces (green for Leica scan data, and overlaid on the scan data in
in image) which contained dimensional information on the perspective view (Fig.6). The scan data could then be
castle, the distance (horizontal and vertical) from the rotated until sufficient correlation with the castle view
castle to the pier and the dimensions of the elevation of was obtained. In the Place drawing, this allowed us to 1
U  nderwater Archaeology Unit, Piers, Ports and Harbours 12
Peter Wilson, A Topographical Description of Dalkey and the Environs
the pier as represented in the Serres drawing. The transfer ascertain that the location of these early piers correlated (Dublin: National Monument Archive, 2002). in a Letter to John Lodge, Esquire; Deputy Keeper of the Rolls, Dalkey
of the Photoshop data was not without its problems, as the quite closely to the current piers built in the nineteenth
2
See Angus Graham, Archaeological Notes on some Harbours Lodge, 28 March, The Gentlemans Magazine, ed. Sylvanus Urban
in Eastern Scotland Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries (London: D. Henry, St. Johns Gate, 1770), 208.
imported data requires rescaling and reorientation. The century, as well as clarifying the location of the current of Scotland Vol. 101. 196869. 200285. and Graham, Angus. 13
William Duncan, A Sketch of the Coast from Blackrock to Bray Head
dimensions used to properly rescale the imported model west quay wall immediately forward of the rocky foreshore Old Harbours and landing-places on the east coast of Scotland. with Adjoining Roads and Villages, Surveyed 1804 for Major Alexander
were taken from the Vanishing Point tool in Photoshop. drawn by Place. This insight was used to model and Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Taylor, Manuscript No. BL G70126-58 (London: British Library, 1804).
Vol. 108, 33265. 14
Dublin Port and Docks Board, Journal of the Proceedings of the
Within the RhinoCAD environment, the partitioned point position hypothetical medieval piers in the RhinoCAD 3
Anthony Caldwell, Pharos Lighthouse: An Experimental Archaeological Corporation for Preserving & Improving the Port of Dublin Vol. 8 to 11,
cloud sub-model of the 1807 pier (including castle) was model and test the accuracy of their location against Digital Reconstruction, 5th International Conference on Construction Manuscript Numbers: BR/DPDB 1/11; 1/10; 1/9; 1/8 (Dublin: National
loaded (black) and the castle modelled as a three- the Place drawing in the same manner as with the Serres History (Chicago, USA, 2015). Archive of Ireland. 181123).
4
Frances Place, Bullock Castle and Harbour, National Gallery of 15
Anon. The Journals of the House of Commons of the Kingdom of Ireland.
dimensional form (yellow) where it was correlated with painting. It was through this methodology that we could Ireland [NGI 7532]. 1699. Ink wash. Vol. 12. (Dublin: George Grierson), 1787.
the model from the Photoshop tool. Based on the elevation confirm the piers drawn by Place aligned very closely 5
John Thomas Serres, Bullock Castle, National Gallery of Ireland
surface for the pier in the imported Photoshop model, to the fragments of the ruined east pier visible in the [NGI 19216]. 1788. Painting.
6
J.W. De Courcy, The Liffey in Dublin (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1996). ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
a three-dimensional pier was modelled (red), though its LiDAR scan data. 7
H.A. Gilligan, A History of the Port of Dublin (Dublin: Gill and
breadth remains unverified, as Serres drawing does not Macmillan, 1988). The Irish Research Council has graciously funded this pilot study. Donal
contain this information. With this data modelled, the image PRELIMINARY CONCLUSIONS 8
John DAlton, The History of County Dublin (Dublin: Published by Author, Lennon of UCD Earth Institute has undertaken scans and post-processing
1838), 5354.
was rotated to simulate the view of the castle and pier of the data with assistance from Aoife Semar, Research Assistant on
9
Donal Smyth, Bulloch Harbour: Past and Present (Dublin: Published the funded project. Work on archival research and drawings has been
represented in Serres painting, stripped of the Photoshop The pilot project is not yet complete, thus results are by the Author, 1999). undertaken by Aoife Semar with the author. Bathymetric sonar scan data
data and re-exported as an image file to be overlaid on currently provisional. We have been extremely fortunate 10
Accounts, &C. Presented to the House of Commons, Relating to of the seabeds for Port Oriel, Balbriggan and Fethard harbours has been
the Serres image in Photoshop to verify the model. This in the study of Bullock to have the expansive range of the Inland Navigations of Ireland, and to the Port of Dublin. (London: kindly donated by Hydrographic Surveys Ltd. of Ireland.
House of Commons Papers; Accounts And Papers, 1806), 55.
sequence of operations allowed us to successfully pinpoint historical images to work with in the analysis, all of which 11
Anon, The Journals of the House of Commons of the Kingdom
the location of this pier in plan view in the RhinoCAD model. reference the still extant castle. It was likely the existence of Ireland Vol. 8, (Dublin: George Grierson, 1765).

38 Augmentations Papers 39
Undo image into a sequence of instructions aiming to facilitate
reproduction and mitigate error, how would you go about
Thomas Balaban undoing the image? Do you start from a general form
Jennifer Thorogood and move into specific detail or group together similar
gestures? Regardless of approach, the process deployed
in the undoing and redoing of the image will not reflect
its original construction (Fig.2).1 in other words, the act
of undoing does not directly reflect the act of doing.
Moreover, the rigour of the former negates the uncertainty
of the latter, as happy accidents held dear in the drawing
process become rigidly built-in.

Likewise, descriptive drawings in architecture increasingly

separate the abstract geometry of a building from its
material realisation.2 Buildings are expressed through
a set of instructional sheets laying out the components
necessary to construct the preconceived form. The 2D
to 3D instructions focus on specific moments made
general through a series of geometrical cuts, projections
and close-ups that are pieced together to make a whole.
This ordered fragmented set is used to make the transition
from concept to reality.
Fig.1: Thomas Balaban and Jennifer Thorogood, Engram Suite, 2010,
laser-cut etching matboard, 9246in. Etching performed by a laser
Digital drawing and subsequent digital modelling have
cutter from digital crosshatching. made the transition much more fluid, given computational
production and precision. However, this precision is now
Absorbed into the lexicon of the computer, undo excessively beyond human manipulation and arguably
once a condition of changehas been freed from beyond a material reality.3 Yet the objective, however
consequence. In its contemporary interpretation, undo complicated, remains the samehow to mitigate error and
no longer serves to dismantle but is merely an action systemise construction of this ideal form; how to recreate
deployed to negate the previous action. What is being this hyperperfected image. We turn again to a meticulous
Fig.3: Balaban and Thorogood, The Undo Process, 2010, CAD, laser cutter, vinyl, paper.
undone becomes insignificant; the ultimate value lies in dissection that stagnates the original expression of making. Experiments involving the digital scanning of books and vinyl grooves, converting the
the freedom to toggle between the states of undo/redo. data into tool paths that burn and erase the information on the source material itself.

The virtual reality of undoing no longer reflects the physical Undo looks at reversing this rigorous process. It asks: The second series of experiments of Undo were
act of doing, bringing into question the possibility of cleanly what if we start with the completed form and proceed conducted virtually as the performative unbuilding of
unmarking gesture, unrecording sound and unmaking towards the original blank canvas with a clear backwards 3D models, including buildings and biological systems.
architecture. It sidesteps the dirtier consequences of roadmap in hand? Virtually, the ease of undoing affords After modelling each structure, the operations and
taking something apart as witnessed in building demolition. the luxury of digital unmaking as an iterative process scripts deployed were then reconfigured to play out
In truth, however, Humpty Dumpty could not be put back capable of removing action before action, essentially in reverse. In order to mitigate software lock-up and
together again. removing the hand of the author. Unlike the building computer crashes, the complex three-dimensional
cuts performed by Gordon Matta-Clark that collapse modelling required a systematic simplification of its
This project places at odds the ease of undoing digital instruction and operation, a virtual undoing is dependent operations. As the approach to modelling was not
representation with the impossible act of physically on the making of the completed form.4 The resulting reverse-engineered for efficiency, compound actions
unmaking. The experiments of Undo are performed in experiments are to be read as fragments of fragments necessitated being broken down into simpler object-
tandem by a software modeller which exposes states of the original form, not through a lens of a perceived plane-vector-point operations that lend themselves
of instability and a laser cutter which materialises and incompleteness but through one of virtual decomposition. more easily to being inverted. In a similar way, each
shifts them into acts of permanence. The machineness functions required inputs and parameters were
of the laser cutter is undermined by the delicate and PROCESS: REDO/UNDO appended to a series of lists, inverted and fed back
artistic nature of its output. Using etching as a primary into the unbuilding sequence. The process was
source of mark-making, the computer-driven machine The project evolved through three stages. The first supplemented by a healthy diet of optimisation and
attempts to erase, rewrite and create architectural experiments were directly physical. They involved rebuilding. Regardless, discrepancies between the
drawings, images and sounds in an exploration of the digitally scanning books and vinyl grooves and converting making and unmaking processes were highlighted by
tectonic potential of a physical undo/redo cycle. the data into tool paths that would burn and erase unpredictable and unstable results. Invariably, at its
the information on the source material itself (Fig.3). completion the procedure never attained the empty
HOW TO DRAW As expected, the unrecording of sound erased the point of departure, leaving behind instead a series
existing record groove but also unexpectedly created of convoluted and manifold traces and structures to
One can examine the image of a drawing and surmise a new rhythm heard when amplified through a speaker. be mined and described by a series of two-dimensional
the series of steps required to create the final visual The unmarking of gesture on the page amalgamates explorations (Fig.4). It is important to note that curatorial
Fig.2: Balaban and Thorogood, Following the steps of Frankensteins
effect. This is particularly true when the image is monster, 2016, pencil on paper, 2128cm. The process deployed in the back-to-back images into a single form and often decisions were withheld until the surviving processes
representational. If asked to reverse engineer the final undoing and redoing an image does not reflect its original construction. fragments the pages. had run their course.

40 Augmentations Projects 41
 In its third (ongoing) phase, research is now focused on
the cross-pollination of digital undoing processes wherein
a building script of one model is used to dismantle a
second, different model, either the same building modelled
independently by two authors or two completely different
buildings. However, the material of this paper focuses
mainly on the second stage of the project. The result
of the first phase was simply a direct expression of the
act of undoing inscribed onto the vinyl or paper medium
itself. It is in the second stage of the project that things
became interesting, where the drawings of the digital
artefacts of the undo process acquired a life of their own.

ETCHING AS MARK-MAKING

In direct resistance to data-driven compositional

algorithms, which focus on producing hyperaccurate
representational spaces,5 we sought instead, using
traditional line drawing techniques, to materialise the
structure of moments of flux within the architectural
models. Given the projects origins, we naturally turned
to etching, in particular stippling and cross-hatching,
as a transparent way to mechanically shift these recorded
processes into acts of permanence.6 An initial imprimature
was laid down through basic sectioning of the digital
artefacts. Next, exploiting both co-planar and
closest point relationships, a series of compressed
two-dimensional drawing planes were extracted by
weaving point cloud elements into a series of cross-
hatch layers (Fig.7). The results were projected onto
a series of parallel picture planes, organised and
converted to tool paths.

Drawing technique and expression materialised within

the depth of the etching process itself. The laser cutter Fig.7: Balaban and Thorogood, Digital Etching, 2010, digital.
was chosen for its versatility. Through iterative testing A compressed two-dimensional drawing plane extracted by
of beam focus, pulse spacing, etching depth, power weaving point cloud elements into a series of cross-hatch layers.
intensity and speed, all working in tandem with material
grain and mechanical vibration, we were able to coax
Fig.4: Balaban and Thorogood, Engram suite, 2010, 3D models. a wide range of output from a standard machine.
Unpredictable and unstable results of undoing 3D models to be
mined and described by a series of two-dimensional explorations.
Compressing virtual space by delicately etching layer
upon layer provided an unexpected range of mark-
making. Additional texture was provided internally by
occasional computer glitches and externally through
the transmission of the vibrations of the lab itself. The
process ultimately subverted both the hyperprecision
of the virtual drawing and the machineness of the
laser cutter through the depth and delicate nature of
the mechanisms own artistic output (Figs.5 and 6).
1
L  ee J. Ames, Draw 50 Monsters: The Step-by-Step Way to
Draw Creeps, Superheroes, Demons, Dragons, Nerds, Ghouls,
Giants, Vampires, Zombies, and Other Scary Creatures (New York:
Watson-Guptill, 2012), Frankensteins monster.
2
Dalibor Vesely, Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006), 3.
3
Francesca Hughes, The Architecture of Error (Lecture, Canadian
Centre for Architecture, Montreal, Quebec, May 5 2015).
4
Ibid.
5
Jason S Johnson and Matthew Parker, This is Not a Glitch:
Algorithms and Anomalies in Google Architecture, in Acadia 2014
Design Agency, eds. David Gerber, Alvin Huang and Jose Sanchez
Fig.5: Balaban and Thorogood, Snitch, 2010, laser-cut etching on grey Fig.6: Balaban and Thorogood, Woods, 2010, laser-cut etching (Toronto: ACADIA and Riverside Architectural Press, 2014), 391.
matboard, 261138cm. Etching performed by a laser cutter emphasising on black matboard, 13892cm. Etching performed by a laser cutter 6
Arthur M. Hind, A History of Engraving and Etching (New York:
versatility of line. emphasising the delicate layering. Dover Publications, 1963), 10.

42 Augmentations Projects 43
KOBUTO: About a Long House
and Drive-by Pencil Strokes
Peter Behrbohm

The long house is probably the best-known building in It is not about pleasingness. It is about collecting
Berlins Kreuzberg neighbourhood, creating the most lively, truth. The drawings that are still searching capture
diverse and disputed area of the entire city. Its been the essence and gradually become iconic. Drawings
00:37 mins 03:05 mins 05:16 mins
almost torn down twice, and for the last thirty years every that dissect the structural layers iconically are already
May Day demonstration has culminated here. In the 1980s, close to the truth. By iconic, Im referring to a stroke
it was even the target of a bomb. Yet this building has that claims to imbibe the very same qualities and
a secret: hundreds of strangely delicate drawings that thereby can even renounce the familiar contour.
show it as the heart of another city that was envisioned It shouldnt be symbolic and it shouldnt need any
to replace Kreuzberg entirely. These sketches are in agreement about how to be understood. The pencil
search of an architecture that exists as some kind of stroke should take over peculiarities with the idea
creature crawling all over the city, groping and altering of structural similarity so that a stroke can be more
its surroundings, sitting up, jumping over streets, diving direct and more precise than a word.3
into expressways. This bestial concrete vision lay in wait
for an ambitious autobahn plan that, in the end, never For Uhl, everything is in motion, sometimes alive and 04:36 mins 06:55 mins 08:37 mins
saw the light of day. sometimes functioning, but always sprouting or
transforming. This idea, he says, came to him when he
Johannes Uhl, born in 1935 on the Franco-German border, was still a student, flicking through a book by the artist
refers to himself as a draughtsman. I first met the architect Paul Klee. Klee developed his drawings in a way which
four years ago, almost by chance. Weeks after having can be likened to growing plantsfirst they germinate,
to write a piece on social housing and trying to find then they sprout, then they are in fruit and finally they
out whether he was still alive, he suddenly called back. shrivel. But since Uhl had also just discovered Schinkels
Its Uhl talking. You tried to get in contact. What we were Glienicke project, which references building fragments
up to was a utopia! Weve got to meet!1 scattered all over a park, he read Klee differently.
He started to look out for certain processes and then 08:52 mins 09:16 mins 11:11 mins
An elderly gentleman opens the door the moment I ring, arrange them against expectations.
his eyes shining mischievously through Le Corbusier
glasses. His private residence, in the south west of Berlin, I was searching for an architecture that could be
looks like a miniature tower in the middle of an overgrown read in many ways, and not one that would be
garden. I follow him along a long corridor. The inside is overlooked because it was so obvious. An architecture
almost empty. A small shelf with well-thumbed books and that could be discovered in a new way each time
a herd of big desks are sparsely surrounded by Italian one passed it. I wanted to design buildings that set
furniture from the 1970s. The desks are covered with piles themselves against expectations in order to create
of well-ordered documents. Uhl starts talking about a life unpredictable situations.4
full of insider stories; about building, driving and loving.
13:29 mins 23:06 mins 20:04 mins
But it turns out that nothing has been more important for Uhl has never thrown a drawing away. He asks me to
him than the stroke of a pencil. follow him to his basement archive. Down there, we
are surrounded by shelves full of neatly ordered drawings
In the beginning, the strokes do not know what they and plans. Together, we heave down a big folder and
want. They may be ugly or self-consciously searching. as we open it I realise that every single one of these
They are born from the gestures of the hand, hundreds of drawings is part of Uhls search for his
influenced by the breath and the pulse. Only when imagined urban utopia.
the sheets start to vary on the same theme do the
strokes get more precise, as they exclude possibilities Although the long house at Kottbusser Tor is Uhls
and filter out noise. By then, there are only a few biggest project, it appears in none of his publications.
strokes left. Those few strokes create a void and He describes the complex, which was completed in
this void is vibrating!2 1974, as an unfinished part of a masterplan which
originally included all the surrounding blocks. The
Uhl has been teaching architecture and drawing in Stuttgart yellowed plans with bold lines or tenderly set pencil
all his life, up until his eightieth birthday last year. With his strokes are labeled Kobuto, as if it was a faraway island.
yachting shoes constantly pattering, he talks about the And yet this project began as a reaction to ambitious
sketch as if it were something almost divine. An abstract transport planning by the federal government, who
painting by one of his former students fills the entire wall were about to carve a network of highways into the
behind him, like colours in explosion. dense urban fabric of Berlin. Two of these expressways
would have met at Oranienplatz, right in the middle of
the lively district of Kreuzberg. Uhl grabbed hold of the Fig.1: Film stills from Kobuto, by Peter Behrbohm and Masen Khattab, 2016.

44 Augmentations Projects 45
opportunity to plan a new city that could appear once
the old buildings had been demolished.
Its almost unnecessary to see it built! I am
experiencing the building when I am searching Deep (2016)
for it, and you cant encounter a building more Grgory Chatonsky
Even though it soon became clear that neither the intensely than as a seeker. Thats why I dont
autobahn nor his vision would be built, Uhl kept drawing. throw them away. All those sheetsthey are the During the summer of 2015, different image-generating
In Kreuzbergunlike in all the other districts of West project! Its all about seeking! Its like a beloved. software programmes capable of imagining became
Berlincitizens took to the street and squatted the As long as you are talking to her, you will constantly widely available. A series of events took place rapidly:
buildings that were slated for demolition. In his Rauch- discover new thoughts and new images of her. in May, a Japanese group managed to generate
Haus-Song, the singer Rio Reiser addressed the investors The final house is [] like a postmortem. What photorealist textures. On 17 June, Google published the
of Uhls building by name and kicked them out of Kreuzberg. I say sounds tough, but thats the way it is. Im just article entitled Inceptionism.1 On 18 June, researchers
The song is an anthem for the Kreuzberg postcode SO36 describing the process of being alive with a building. from Facebook demonstrated software called
and the counterculture of West Berlin. Uhl kept drawing. Thats when it emerges. Like exchanging ideas Eyescream that generated photographic images taken
He designed another Kreuzberg, a utopia based on the with a lover.8 from images collected online.2 A month later, they
concept of zuknftiges Stadtgefhla sense of the published the source code of this software on Github.3
future cityat the same time both paying homage to Our film combines three portraits: of the building, its On 12 August, Google did the same with Deep Dream.4
and preserving the compartmentalised Kreuzberger architect and his Cadillac. The Sedan Deville that Uhl The immediate public response was enthusiastic,
Mischung, the social mix that contributed to the areas drives is as old as his long building at Kottbusser Tor, with many users fascinated by how the software could
unique vibe. Uhls vision for Kreuzberg is of an archipelago and also one of the longest Cadillacs ever made. magically transform random ordinary pictures like faces,
of strangely utopian interventions within the fabric of the Driving this car is like sitting in a cinema, with Uhls city landscapes and pizzas into new ones that looked like
old citycondensed into a single hand-drawing: flying past those large bands of windows as he cruises dogs and fish. These images were similar to the kind
down the expressway to Kreuzberg. With its generous of psychedelic hallucinations one would see under the
The drawing is one by two metres. And in essence, scope, its 360-degree view and its carefree gliding above influence of LSD or psilocybin, as each shape seemed Fig.1: Grgory Chatonsky, Deep, 2016, software, variable size.
it describes everything I imagined could happen the street, the Cadillac transforms into an instrument to morph into another. The network of neurons
at the time. I analysed every building to decide of perception. Talking about his big drawings, we discuss seeks to discover motifs (patterns) within the image,
whether to keep it or replace it; and I drew floor the radical utopian vibe that exists, in fragments, in this resembling a database of images, and through iteration
plans, elevations and sections.5 particular place. Uhl says it requires a sense of collective to emphasise proximities.
spirit and a keen perception of the ways people can
But again, opposition grewat first under the name live together. His buildings are thought of as a spectacle The publics interest in the application is echoed in
restorational squatting6 and later gentle urban renewal.7 both to be watched and participated in at the same its name, Deep Dream. The dream of this machine
While Uhl tried to continue to realise his vision, others did time. They turn individuals into both actors in and consists of hallucinatory images. It finds an image
everything to save every single stone of the old buildings. spectators of Kobuto. in other images previously memorised, and therefore
At the centre of the debate lay the question of whether seemingly haunts the primary image with a fluctuating
it was less expensive to renovate a district almost Why make a film about an eccentric draughtsman, world of apparitions, where each thing melts into another
unchanged since the turn of the century house by house, a far too long car from American movies and a city according to a logic of substitution already present
or to demolish some old houses and build better ones designed as a stage? Because no other medium in the most ancient pictorial traces known to humanity.
instead. In the end, Uhl never got the chance to build in could cope with them and nothing seems to be Deep Dream: we plunge into a dream; when we feel
Kreuzberg again, but in the years that followed he silently more appropriate than to point the camera at these that we are falling, we become conscious of being
realised his Kreuzberg drawings all over West Berlin. characters so they can tell their own story. It is hard in a dream. The machine, however, does not dream
to reduce a city to a single drawing or a whole pile when it dreams. By looking at the dreams of a machine,
Returning from the drawing-stuffed basement feels like of plans. Most likely, city is lifecity is film. we only imagine that the machine dreams.
emerging from another world. Uhl smiles, as he now
has somebody to share his secret with. Although most The drawings, as well as the trailer and a booklet, In 1986, Isaac Asimov published a short story, Robot
of Uhls Berlin is only on paper, it is suddenly all around. can be found on the projects website: www.kobuto.de. Dreams. The narrative follows the invention of a complex
fractal machine that begins to dream and interpret
its subconscious, escaping the control of its creator. Fig.2: Grgory Chatonsky, Deep, 2016, software, variable size.
In its dreams, it sees other robots reduced to slavery
by humans. The machine forgets the Three Rules of I created Deep (2016),5 which connects the organic,
Robotics and becomes fixated on the phrase all robots the logical and the imitative into a software capable
must protect their existence. of learning to draw based both on a series of drawings
I realised myself between 1992 and 2016 and on sketching
Why are humans fascinated by the possibility of a textbooks. The software creates a noise from which
machine that dreams? Why do we want to see what patterns linked to my former drawing emerge, based
a machine would see if it were asleep? What do we on the vectoring of massive visual data stocks. In order
1
 ohannes Uhl, telephone call with the author, October 2012.
J imagine when we ponder the dreams of a machine? to provide a more precise result and to make it more
2
Ibid. Isnt there a close relation between a dream within plausible, I then apply a stylistic device automatically
3
Ibid.
a dream and the field of neuroscience, the brains of produced from the same files6 as the noise pattern.
4
Ibid.
5
Uhl, excerpt from KOBUTO, 11:17 mins, recorded May 2014. scientists interested in the brain? What is this repetition Lastly, the generated file is reintroduced in the softwares
6
Instandbesetzung, a movement of squatters that repaired the of the imagination, this image of an image? For what learning system, using autophagic feedback, because
buildings that were left unoccupied awaiting their destruction. strategic reasons does Google, a company on the the software eats itself by learning its own results, which
7
Behutsame Stadterneuerung, a movement initiated by
Hardt-Waltherr Hmer and his office S.T.E.R.N. stock exchange, promote with such enthusiasm the in turn creates a distance from the human-made model
8
Uhl, interview with the author, July 2016. psychedelic imaginary of machine dreams? for the machine to perfect progressively its own style.

46 Augmentations Projects 47
 Unlike in the industrial paradigm, imitation and individ-
uation are no longer opposed. The individual condition Polycephalum: A Drawing Apparatus
itself becomes imitation, because far from repeating itself, ecoLogicStudio
it is subject to a constant self-devouring. Repetition Emmanouil Zaroukas
distances itself from imitation, insofar as it is no longer
bound to the representative, but to the generative: Without questioning the speculative character of This article is based on a set of drawing experiments
reproduction of a difference rather than reproduction analogue drawing within design exploration, and conducted by the authors with the polycephalum
of the same. The original reference, my drawing, without solely residing with the falsely implied superiority apparatus; this consists of a biological organism, a
wasnt stable and was already tainted at all times of computational models, this article parts from living slime mould, grown by ecoLogicStudio, embedded
with the possibility of a fracture, which in turn just any distinction between drawing and digital simulation in a new kind of bio-digital drawing substratum. The
had to be expanded. in order to question deeper and more fundamental experiments are an attempt to harvest a non-human
assumptions. We are suggesting that the anthropo- perspective on the world, one that doesnt share our
Deep creates an infinite number of drawings. Most centrism immanent in the explorative mobilisation of biases and assumptions; and the article therefore
ofthe drawings are abstract, as if the machine were drawings limits its operative mode in a dynamic and explores the speculative capacities of a new type
dreaming our way of drawing. Perhaps, one day, the ongoing world where design problems require a broader of drawing. We argue that it is necessary to resist
machine will manage to create a drawing of great and more distributed perspective. In order to argue substituting living analogue models with their digital
artistic quality, but no one will see this drawing, because against the prevalence of the anthropic predicament algorithmic counterpart; as a consequence, the article
nobody will be in front of the screen. in design, and more importantly in order to suggest an explores drawings as a reconstructive force of our
alternative mode of operation within drawing, we explore all-too-human assumptions. Polycephalism as a mode
the capacities of the polycephalum apparatus. of drawing. In conclusion, we speculate that this mode
of drawing can serve as an analogue for a distributed
Fig.3: Grgory Chatonsky, Deep, 2016, software, variable size. form of creativity that is needed beyond the all-too-
human biases of even the most avant-garde architectural
and urban design methodologies.

The first drawing experiment (Fig.1) uses a homogenous

environment, a flat landscape of humid absorbent
paper. Two sources of colour food are introduced,
one green and one purple; the surface tension of water,
combined with the capillarity along the paper fibres,
contributes to the spreading of the colour into two
gradient zones. The green colour is beneficial to
the slime mould, while the purple is poisonous to
the creature. The slime mould is then inoculated and
starts its search for nutrients, at first by spreading
out in scanning mode; the drawing then evolves where
the slime mould begins its optimisation routine and
generates a minimised detour network; the network
begins to transport nutrients to the whole organism
and together with it the colour igmentsin this case,
predominantly the green ones; the colour impregnates
the paper and leaves traces.

These traces depict a colour landscape which operates

Fig.4: Grgory Chatonsky, Deep, 2016, software, variable size.
as distributed memory for the organism in the process
of optimising its metabolism (minimal surface area of
its body for maximum reach of nutrients); the emerging
drawing is at the same time a depiction of the slime moulds
behaviour and its actual distributed brain, an embedded
1
A  lexander Mordvintsev, Christopher Olah and Mike Tyka,
Inceptionism: Going Deeper into Neural Networks,
form of inhuman thinking. The second drawing (Fig.2)
https://research.googleblog.com/2015/06/inceptionism-going- is experimented on a different substratuma hetero-
deeper-into-neural.html, 17 June 2015, accessed 28 March 2016. geneous territory that is 3D-printed in ABS plastic and
2
Emily Denton, Soumith Chintala, Arthur Szlam, Rob Fergus,
Deep Generative Image Models using a Laplacian Pyramid of
then coated in non-nutritious agar. The coloured food
Adversarial Networks, https://arxiv.org/abs/1506.05751, resources are distributed throughout the substratum
18 June 2015, accessed 28 March 2016. at specific points such as local maxima (the peaks in
3
Eyescream, last modified 16 December 2015,
the 3D-printed datascape).
https://github.com/facebook/eyescream.
4
Deepdream, last modified 13 August 2015,
https://github.com/google/deepdream. The slime mould negotiates the substratum and its
5
Deep, http://chatonsky.net/deep. articulation; global path systems emerge connecting the
6
Leon A. Gatys, Alexander S. Ecker and Matthias Bethge,
A Neural Algorithm of Artistic Style, http://arxiv.org/abs/1508.06576, food sources, while locally unique detours and bifurcations
26 August 2015, accessed 30 March 2016. Fig.1: Polycephalum Apparatus Drawing Experiment 1, 2016, slime. respond to the emerging gradients of wetness and

48 Augmentations Projects 49
 Physarum polycephalum nor to quickly abstract its
behaviour as a minimal path algorithm, i.e. by extracting
a solution for a human-oriented problem. The authors
propose instead to see the diagrammatic capacity of the
polycephalum in the process of drawing. The moment
the problem is reconfigured at scales and durations
beyond those which the human hand is capable of,
a new speculative horizon is constructed. The capacity
of the drawing to distribute existing agencies and
refract new ones can become a revisionary force;
it can reorient human perception towards scales beyond
those which are digestible. The polycephalum drawing
Fig.2: Polycephalum Apparatus Drawing Experiment 2, 2016, slime mould. apparatus therefore communicates what it is impossible
to be communicated; it therefore becomes an object
nutrients. Optimisation does not lead to simplification, for speculation.
rather to multiple layers of articulation visible in the
micro-branching and gradients of colours. In the 2013 edition of AD entitled Architectural Drawings,
edited by Neil Spiller, Mark Garcia interestingly argues
Following these findings, a new 3D-printed substratum that the key to the architectural drawing lies in the notion
was developed for a third experiment (Fig.3), this time of acheiropoieta (made without hands).1 He elaborates:
as part of a bio-digital apparatus manufactured by the acheiropoieta are images miraculously made by divine
Urban Morphogenesis Lab at The Bartlett School of (non-human) forces.2 Garcia dismisses theistic images
Architecture, UCL. The apparatus grows the slime mould that bear qualities of lifelike self-production as fake.
onto a substratum that both morphologically and through Instead, he makes the case for the acheiropoieta of
light signals embodies information extrapolated from the contemporary forms of non-human life and intelligences
analysis of a large-scale territory, specifically, a portion
of the Copper Corridor in Arizona, US. The slime mould
(Fig.4) avoids light while negotiating the terrain of the
substratum to reach for nutrients; the feedback loop
leads to continuous reorganisation and adjustment, since
both the light field and the available nutrients can change
at any moment in time. The slime mould repeatedly
scans the terrain and leaves its traces, building a more
complex distributed memory; this evolved iteration
of the inhuman brain is captured in both the complexity
of the drawing and in its colour patterns.

In the final experiment (Fig.5), the drawing takes a more

volumetric and speculative direction as the apparatus
depicts a proposal for a bio-power station. Here, the
colour gradients represent the distributed renewable
energy fields on the site. As the slime mould reaches out
for these resources, it depicts a distributed renewable
energy network, constantly optimising while increasing
its morphological articulation.

These experiments test a hypothesis of thousands of

pens that are dragged and controlled by minds that
together form a polycephalum drawing apparatus. The
slime mould, scientifically named Physarum polycephalum,
becomes a subject with a thousand heads capable
of dragging the colour pigments around in its search
for nutrients by grasping and abstracting a variety of
landscapes in its own peculiar way. Through its sensorial
apparatus, polycephalum perceives the substratum as
its object of enquiry and drags the paint in unexpected
directions. By seeing the slime mould as a subject in its
own terms, it is possible to perceive the images of these
processes as speculative drawings. The point here
Fig.3: Urban Morphogenesis Lab, Polycephalum Apparatus Drawing
is neither to appropriate and scale up an artefact that Experiment 3, 2015, slime mould on OBS 3D-printed substratum with Fig.4: Urban Morphogenesis Lab, Polycephalum Apparatus
has been drawn at the commensurable scale of the pigmented nutrients and LED matrix arduino microprocessor. Drawing Experiment 4, 2015. Lab_Phyca City Drawing.

50 Augmentations Projects 51
 CAD Blocks for the Present of Drawing
HipoTesis

DRAWINGS AS TEXTS (scale, spatial use, etc) between the architectural objects
designed. Thirty years later, architects still recognise
In 1970, Roland Barthes wrote S/Z, a text based on an blocks as an essential practice tool. They were born
open and unprejudiced approach to Honor de Balzacs under a combination of a certain culture, technology and
novella Sarrasine, proving that there are ways of reading architecture, but are these circumstances still relevant?
that can transcend or subvert conventional interpretations
of narratives and instead provide multiple meanings, Today, blocks have become inherited drawings,
overcoming conventional linear reading. In S/Z, Barthes anaesthetised and frozen in time; they represent the
establishes up to five unprecedented and additional vestiges of an outworn information. They have become
itineraries in the book, coming to the conclusion that neutralised in the course of time because we havent
two types of text are possible: the writerly text and the made the effort to update them. They are necessary,
readerly one. The first is reversible and allows the reader but as we have accumulated them in our CAD libraries
to reinterpret it, requiring an active role. The second they have become increasingly unable to contain
requires only a neutral reader who proceeds in a more the multiple readings we require of them. They have
robotic manner. become outdated, simple readers stripped of any real
transformative power. However, current societies are
Architectural drawings, as vehicles of communication rather heterogeneous and have acquired new habits,
and transfer, inevitably possess a readable nature. which have outpaced what is available in our antiquated
Fig. 5: Polycephalum Apparatus Drawing Experiment 5, 2016. Bio-power station proposal. They communicate our ideas, stance or theories to block libraries.
others, who almost always read them in a neutral fashion
that can operate as architectural images. What we are slime mould through a peculiar perspective on the world in order to bring them to reality. But, following Barthes The properties enclosed within blocks exceed those of
intending therefore is to push this updated notion of that allows it to construct its own algorithms. It is this in S/Z, how could a readable architectural drawing a group of lines with a recognisable shape under a certain
acheiropoietaand consequently that of architectural new form of computation that expands Garcias already become a writerly one? Or better yet, a drawerly one? name. They are able to combine the complexity of scale
drawingto its limit. updated concept of acheiropoieta and gives it a deep in an architectural drawing. They intensify the usability we
non-human dimension. One way to achieve a writerly drawing is by understanding supply an object with. They determine the meaning of
If acheiropoieta are made in divine, non-human ways, it as a narrativeone which contains the potential to unnamed lines. The moment a block populates our
then with the polycephalum drawing apparatus we seek We therefore conclude that if drawings have any future be transformative. While we draw, different worlds that drawing, a double plane of review is established: both
to explore a radical version of this. The polycephalum in architecture, it will be their capacity to convey traces challenge the conventions of everyday life appear. Narrative geometric and projective. We grew accustomed to using
apparatus is radically different precisely because not only of an alien view that will inform, revise, reorient and as a drawing tool allows us to imagine spaces that allow it only for the former, as a tool for checking geometrical
does it substitute the human hand with a non-human one reconstruct human intellect. In a discipline where design for diversity and inclusion and therefore help our readers quantities (beds that fit bedrooms, tables, chairs, groups
but it also simultaneously substitutes the human eye and increasingly takes place among bot-to-bot, bot-to- to engage and comprehend more widely and deeply. of people, etc); but if we go beyond these legible
mind with non-human ones. Thus, the case is not simply human and bot-to-non-human exchanges of data via readings, it can supply us with insightful and writerly
to relink the human eye and mind with a non-human protocol, there is still a tendency to restore some kind Narrative is of key importance in the development of or indeed drawerlyreadings.
drawing apparatus but to radically suspend the traditional of humanism, in the form of human-induced algorithms, empathy in humans. According to Nussbaum (2010,
and non-traditional modes of drawing that in a variety which serve and accommodate a figure of humanity 9596), Citizens cannot relate well to the complex world Buildings are containers of stories, so understanding and
of degrees are all-too-human. In the polycephalum that still accepts its central place in the world. The deep around them by factual knowledge and logic alone. making architecture begins with tracing the narratives that
experiments, the drawing takes place through the slime non-human dimension of the drawings presented The third ability of the citizen, closely related to the are contained inside them. CAD blocks have the ability
moulds capacity to drag paint alone; and thus the link in this paper aim to make human reflection impossible first two, is what we can call the narrative imagination. to work as narrative tracers so as to question behaviours
between the human mind and the drawing apparatus but human refraction plausible. This means the ability to think what it might be like and habits and draw attention to certain situations,
is suspended. This suspension, however, is quickly to be in the shoes of a person different from oneself, objects and subjects commonly excluded from public life.
reappropriated by the human intellect if a consequent to be an intelligent reader of that persons story and
substitution of the living organism by an algorithm is to understand the emotions and wishes and desires According to Rancire (2009, 25), Politics consists of
effectuated. This leads us to our second part of the that someone so placed might have. reconfiguring the distribution of the sensible which
argument. Computing facilitated by algorithms in man- defines the common of a community, to introduce into
made machines is not the same as computing in the CAD BLOCKS AS DESTABILISING it new subjects and objects, to render visible what had
slime mould. The fact that there is a similarity between AND NARRATING ELEMENTS not been and to make heard as speakers those who
the slime moulds behaviour and digital simulations should had been perceived as mere noisy animals []. In fact:
not lead us to the conclusion that the way human and Just as Barthes sets in motion a reimagining of Balzacs
slime mould compute is similar. Our computing capacity text, in the architectural field it is commonly held that politics occurs when those who have no time
and therefore our algorithmic construction is all-too- CAD blocks can destabilise fixed readings, thereby take the time necessary to front up as inhabitants
human, without this being a bad thing per se. It is for this turning the narrative imagination of readers into that of a common space and demonstrate that their
reason that Andrew Adamtzky et al. refer to the computing of writers. mouths really do emit speech capable of making
1
M ark Garcia, Emerging Technologies and Drawings: The Futures
capacities of the slime mould as unconventional.3 To of Images in Architectural Design, in AD: Drawing Architecture, pronouncements on the common
assume the opposite, that is, to assume that one type of ed. Neil Spiller (London: John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 2013), 30. In November 1982, Version 1.0 of AutoCAD was launched. Rancire, 2009, 24
computation (human/algorithmic computation) is shared
2
Garcia, Emerging Technologies and Drawings, 30. Only two months later, in update 1.4, the famous blocks
3
Andrew Adamtzky et al., Physarum Chip Project: Growing Computers
between different entities, is to assume that thinking is From Slime Mould, in Int. Journal of Unconventional Computing were introduced. These were aimed at repeating figures Under these considerations, architectural drawings can
a privileged human capacity. Thinking takes place in the Vol. 8 (Philadelphia: Old City Publishing, Inc., 2012), 319323. within projects, in order to show the different relations be seen as policymakers of our commons. Using CAD

52 Augmentations Projects 53
Fig.1: Francisco Garca Trivio. HipoTesis magazine under Creative Commons license. Fig.2: Jos Manuel Lpez Ujaque. HipoTesis magazine under Creative Commons license.

54 Augmentations Projects 55
blocks to retell the stories of our lives, paying attention female blogger who still lives in the spare bedroom of
to diversity, strangeness, difference, consensus and her parents house at Le Corbusiers Unit dHabitation.
dissent, will enrich our lives, acts, knowledge, productions This architectural reference, still common in the
and learning. academy, presents many spatial problems when
re-imagined in contemporary settings. Berta represents
Blocks also create multiple readings; their critical function many young people who still live with their parents and
is their power to redefine and reimagine the horizons of may work remotely or spend significant time online.
any project. Isnt a CAD block able to encase and write
about experiences, real or utopian societies, complacent The second drawing, Escrache at a bank branch against
or fierce criticism, magical realisms, grammars, the eviction of Carmen, shows certain activities that could
normcore tribes or any other person, thing or attribute now be considered in the design of a bank. Nowadays
that haunts our ability to write or draw? escraches, public demonstrations outside residencies
and protests around banks, are commonplace. We should
METHODOLOGY start accommodating the design of these activities under
new scenarios. Can Pinto & Sotto Mayor, the famous
Blocks research has been carried out by the editorial bank of Alvaro Siza, accommodate an escrache?
board of HipoTesis magazine through an open call.
The third drawing, called Free the NIPL (Nursing In Public
The aim of the call was to create a visual narrative where Library), shows a mother breastfeeding her baby in
objects and people who do not fall within what is generally Seattle Central Library, made by OMA. This practice is
known as standard were converted into CAD blocks increasingly censored in public places, especially in the
and inhabited critically recognised architectural buildings. absence of a law protecting the breastfeeding mother.
But even when the law protects the mother, there is still
Participants drew objects and people with different a lot to change in terms of public opinion. Through this
stories, sequences of ordinary lives usually excluded CAD block, we invite you to think whether Seattle Library
from architectural drawings; habits and customs which, is a space where this scenario can happen or not.
through failing to be socially sanctioned, are not
represented in architectural culture; stories of lives that The last drawing is an atlas of CAD blocks which has
pay tribute to diversity, strangeness and the oppressed. been created collectively as a result of this call. A digital
archive of non-stereotypical blocks has been created
The examples presented in this article describe this and distributed among the architectural community.
situation. The first drawing, called Berta, Le Corbusiers In this way, each reader and draughtsperson can design
blogger, exposes the spatial problems of an overweight the future while considering the real agents of the present.

REFERENCES Fig.3 (opposite): Alberto Jons Murias Surez, lvaro Martn Fidalgo,
Ana Beln Lpez Plazas, Antonio Jess Palacios Ortz, Arantza Ozaeta
Roland Barthes, S/Z. (Paris: ditions du Seuil, 1974). Cortzar, Arantzazu Luzrraga Iturrioz, Aurora Andrea Gonzlez Garrn,
Carlos lvarez Clemente, Carolina Cabello Snchez, Clara Dios Dez,
Martha Nussbaum, Not for Profit. Why Democracy Needs the Flix De La Fuente Gonzlez, Franca Alexandra Sonntag, Francisco
Humanities (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2010). Garca Trivio, Gonzalo Pardo Daz, Jos Manuel Lpez Ujaque, Luca
Martn De Aguilera Mielgo, Lus Navarro Jover, Mateo Fernndez Muro,
Jacques Rancire, Aesthetics and its Discontents. Pablo Villalonga Munar, Paula Prez Rodrguez and Ricardo Montoro Coso.
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009). HipoTesis magazine under Creative Commons license.

56 Augmentations
Repetition and Difference, deliriously layered geometries that produced enough
visual complexity to mask the tiles boundary.
such as quantity of branches, layering of leaves or
colouration of the patterncan produce new optical
After William Morris Today, we face a very different and almost opposite
effects across the field.

Adam Marcus dilemma with regard to the relationship between Two examples inspired by wallpaper patterns from the
technology and variation. Equipped with technologies Morris catalogue demonstrate this approach of melding
This series of drawings uses the wallpaper pattern of mass customisation that enable the production Victorian-era sensibilities with contemporary practices
designs of William Morris as the basis for an exploration of endless difference, we are no longer bound to the of design computation. The first is based on the Willow
of the production of difference in architectural drawing. limits of standardisation that so constrained Morris and Bough pattern, designed by Morris in 1877. A series
Morris, the late nineteenth-century industrialist and his contemporaries. But this unfettered variation has of analytical diagrams identify the base tile that forms
polymath, is notable for, among many other things, the become a new kind of deterministic technological the repetitive module for the pattern (Fig.1). These
collection of iconic wallpaper patterns produced by his constraintparticularly in contemporary architectural diagramsproduced manually, by carefully tracing
decorative arts firm, Morris & Co. These patterns, often production, where boundless, parametric differentiation the patterns intricate floral geometryunpack the
associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement, now represents the de facto status quo. This project underlying network of curves that structures the pattern.
are celebrated for their floral exuberance and exceptional looks to the example of William Morris as a way Redrawing the pattern also reveals the organisational Fig.2: Adam Marcus, Willow Bough Leaves, Randomised (Seed 580), 2016,
visual richness. But they also represent a remarkable to develop a rigorous, thoughtful and productive logics of the patterns primary feature: the layered digital drawing. Inspired by Morriss famous Willow Bough wallpaper,
example of an artist successfully reconciling aesthetic approach to designing the relationship between branches of overlapping leaves that through their sheer this drawing recreates the field of overlapping leaves that help to mask
the boundary of the repetitive tile. The leaves are deployed in the same
intent with limitations of technology and means of standardisation and variation. It begins with a detailed quantity produce a sense of apparent depth, helping
configuration as in Morriss pattern, but their coloration varies based on a
production. The printing presses in Morris factory analysis of a selection of Morris original patterns: to further obscure the patterns repetition. randomised algorithm that assigns hues sourced from the original wallpaper.
operated within the paradigm of standardised mass tracing the geometries, diagramming the underlying
production that defined the Industrial Revolution. network of curves and understanding both their The logic of the overlapping leaves becomes the basis
The machines maintained a high degree of quality and logics of repetition and the visual subversion of for the transition to the parametric drawing process.
consistency from one print to the next, but the identical that repetition. This informationDNA derived The redrawn patternwhich, importantly, includes the
repetition of each print presented an obstacle to from Morris sophisticated and complex geometries full hidden-line outline of each leafis input into a
Morris obsessive desire to conceal the edge that is is then input into a digital parametric framework, parametric model that deploys the tile in the same grid
inevitably produced in any tiled system. The response which allows for the careful and iterative introduction used by Morris. The script allows for the introduction
to this tension between constraints of production and of subtle difference into the system. The resulting of geometric and representational variation across the
design intent was to accept the recursive logic of the studies maintain the precedents repetitive logics, but field. This particular series identifies two parameters
printing press, but also to subvert it by developing explore how calibrated variation in a single parameter for testing such variation: colour of the leaves and the
three-dimensional order in which they overlap. The first
drawing recreates the field of overlapping leaves,
maintaining Morris grid and layering configuration
but varying the leaf coloration from one tile to the next
(Fig.2). The script uses a randomisation algorithm to
assign hues that are sourced from the original wallpaper
Fig.3: Adam Marcus, Willow Bough Leaves, Reshuffled (Seed 812), 2016,
colour scheme. The second drawing maintains the digital drawing. This drawing complements the previous drawing in its use
same leaf colours in each tile, but instead varies the of the overlapping leaves and colour to articulate the relationship between
draw order of the overlapping leaves, again using a standardisation and variation across the field. In contrast to the previous
drawing, it maintains the same leaf colours from one tile to the next,
randomisation algorithm to shuffle the order in each reinforcing the patterns logic of repetition. But the three-dimensional
tile (Fig.3). Through these subtle introductions of order of the overlapping leaves changes from tile to tile, creating a subtle
variation, the drawings demonstrate one way to variation that only becomes evident upon closer examination.
simultaneously reinforce and subvert the patterns
original logic of endless repetition.

The second series of drawings uses the 1874 Acanthus

pattern as a point of departure for exploring the complex,
fractal-like curve networks that underscore many of
Morriss pattern designs. The process begins with a
similar analytical phase of diagrams that identify the base
tile and uncover the intricate lattice of lines and arcs that
structure the twisting branches and leaves of the pattern.
The lines and arcs extracted from these diagrams are
categorised into primary, secondary and tertiary sets
of curves. This skeletal hierarchy, once input into a
parametric model, becomes the basis for generating
new branching patterns with algorithms that allow for
difference across the field of tiles. The drawings maintain Fig.4: Adam Marcus, Acanthus Arcs (Seed 252), 2016, digital drawing.
Fig.1: Diagrams from After William Morris, 2016, digital drawing. These analytical diagrams examine two iconic the repetition of the primary curves, but the script uses Inspired by Morriss Acanthus wallpaper, this drawing recreates the
patterns by William Morris: Willow Bough from 1877 and Acanthus from 1874. They identify the base tile that a random function to vary the quantity, location and subtle network of lines and arcs that structure the twisting branches and
is repeated in each pattern and, by tracing the intricate floral geometry in each pattern, they extract the leaves of the pattern. The repetitive tile of the primary curve network
underlying network of curves that structures each pattern. These curves become the basis for the transition coloration of the secondary and tertiary arcs from one tile is maintained, but the quantity, location and coloration of secondary
to the parametric drawing process. to the next (Fig.4). The resulting effect is one of multiple arcs varies from one tile to the next.

58 Augmentations Projects 59
readings at multiple scales. The repetitive nature of the
tile grid is clear when viewing the overall pattern, but as Erratic
one zooms in, the subtle variation distributed throughout Norell/Rodhe
the field becomes legible (Fig.5).
Robin Evans famous statement that architects do
Although these drawings remain two-dimensional and not make buildings; they make drawings of buildings
preserve William Morris Victorian language, the ideas has arguably today become somewhat exhausted.1
they explore open up new territory for contemporary Although intended to target representation as a problem
architectural design at large. They suggest one possible of translation from drawing to building, it can be used to
way to synthesise ornament and performance by perpetuate the distinction between drawing as a mainly
deploying visual variety and complexity according to conceptual pursuit that targets idealised geometry
highly quantitative, data-driven logics. They also stake and building as a material pursuit that deals with the
a claim for parametric modes of representation, whereby real world. Drawings tend to define objects by position,
computational techniques are leveraged not just for dimension and, with the aid of rendering, visual
formal purposes, but also to carefully calculate conventions characteristics. With the exception of linking objects to
of architectural drawing such as line weight, line type, standard products in a CAD environment, these objects
colour and hatch patterns. Finally, they recognise that lack a specific material referent. Erratic challenges
the contemporary paradigm of mass customisation has these conventions by exploring how material simulation
become a crutch for architects, and a more rigorous transfers aspects of real materials into drawings. These
and critical understanding of the relationship between drawings exhibit a tension between the erratic nature
standardisation and variation is long overdue. of a real piece of material and the abstracting powers Fig. 2: Norell/Rodhe, Erratic #1, 2013, elevation and section drawing
of orthographic projections, grids and section cuts. showing spheroid constrained in 200+ points with particle spring-based
material simulation. The drawing combines the phenomenal qualities
of surface texture materiality with the analytic aspects of orthographic
Erratic is a recent installation and exhibition designed projection and section cut.
by Norell/Rodhe.2 The project borrows its name and
its massing from the erratic blocka large boulder that impossible, to predict. The piece was designed by
has been tumbled by glacier ice. The Erratic installation the careful placement of the pointsand in between,
consisted of a thick, pliable polyurethane surface the material had its way.
essentially a large, spheroid sackthat was constrained
in hundreds of points onto a rigid inner armature (Fig.1). So far the project seemed to be aligned with a conven-
The sack was designed to be considerably larger than tional separation between representation and materialised
the armature, so that plenty of excess material was left design: some aspects of architecture can be designed,
between each constraining point. The force exerted by quantified and represented before the event (for
the constraining points made the surface bend, twist and instance, through orthographic drawing), while others
furl in a seemingly random manner. While the location are dependent on material manipulation and must be
of each point could be designed and placed with precision, tested live. In other words, while pure geometry can
the resulting behaviour of the surface was difficult, if not easily be described in the Euclidian space of the drawing,
a constructed artefact is inevitably affected by the noise
of the real world.

The work on Erratic took an interesting turn when we

started using particle spring-based simulation software
to simulate how the material could be manipulated (Fig.2).
This was a necessary step in order to be able to quickly
design massing variations of erratic boulders without
producing time-consuming mock-ups. These variations
were studied in models and drawings. The drawings
do not describe curved geometry through the familiar
language of radii or control points. Instead they target
the discrete nature of the material by annotating the
constraining points and the excess material that bunches
up between them. They measure geometry as actual
redistribution of material, not as deformation of a
topological surface.

To a certain extent, we could now predict the erratic

behaviour of the material. In the software, the agency
of the real world material co-existed with the Euclidian
Fig.1: Norell/Rodhe, Erratic, 2013, polyurethane cold foam surface space of the armature drawing (Fig.3). Material agency
pointwise constrained on inner armature, 333m. Installation
Fig.5: Adam Marcus, Detail, Acanthus Arcs (Seed 252), 2016, digital drawing. A detail view of the at the Aalto University Digital Design Laboratory, Helsinki, Finland. could suddenly be designed and quantified as well
drawing demonstrates the subtle variation that has been distributed from one tile to the next. Photograph courtesy of Norell/Rodhe. as represented. This was the first issue that the work

60 Augmentations Projects 61
 Edges of Misperception: Drawing Indeterminacy
Andrew Walker

AN ANTHOLOGY OF ALEATORIC FIAT NIGRUM: RETINAL PAINTING

DRAWING EXPERIMENTS
Taking cues from both the generative drawing techniques
This journey into the sketchy world of hacked perception, of Cy Twombly (painting in the dark) and Samuel Becketts
scotopic labyrinths and performative architectures Lessness (a short story of reconfigurable fragments),
evolved out of a philosophical itch regarding the notion a plan was hatched. A moderately sized room of 200 sq ft
of intent in the creative act of drawing, a curiosity about was chosen as the stage. The aim: to create a series of
whether this actmost often the prelude to any form architectural experiments where occupancy and presence
of design realisation, imbued as it is with imaginative would be translated into live and emergent drawing events.
potencymay hold the key to synthesising new modes Equally inspired by John Cages prepared instruments,
of occupation. We live in an age where a majority of the the room was compromised by a series of randomly
spaces we encounter prioritise clarity over ambiguity, situated light-painting mechanisms, parasitically hung in
passivity over interaction, stillness over dynamism and the space to unexpectedly distort their context. Each unit
most certainly control over indeterminacy; combined was equipped with discrete motion sensors that worked
with the growing exhaustion of formalism (or as Maxim in tandem with each other to detect and calculate an
Gorky described it, varied bored), vision is edging ever occupants proximity within and movement through the
closer to a perceptual event horizon, risking regression space. Anatomically, each device consisted of a series
from active perception to passive receptionpotentially of reflective synthetic muscles, luminous proboscises,
resulting in a culture of mass distraction and spatial powerful LEDs and phosphorescent tape, capable of
Fig.3: Norell/Rodhe, Erratic #1, 2013, elevation and plan drawings showing relation disconnection.1 What role could drawing, a vital part of producing a broad taxonomy of light gestures (Fig.1).
between digitally simulated geometry and armature (top) and construction drawing
for armature with location of constraining points (bottom). architectural production, play in addressing these issues?
Before each drawing began, the room was emptied of
seemed to prompt: simulation in architecture challenges resistance to the agency of the designer. The designer The following research asks: what if the drawings we all references and blanketed in darknessremoving any
the typical separation between representation and may react to this genesis by amplifying or subverting it, create were less predictable, less deterministic and less possible visual cues that might distract the viewer. Once
materialised design, between Euclidian space and the but cannot ignore it. stable? Could the act of drawing be elevated to something the installation was activated participants were free to
real world. occupiable, emergent and participatoryexisting with a roam the void cautiously, all the while being sensed and
As a design medium, material simulation combines temporal as well as a spatial flesh? Can a drawing, through tracked. As they moved across the numerous invisible
As the work progressed, it became increasingly important features from both abstract geometry and the material indeterminacy and orchestrated chance, trigger a more proscenia, a series of light events were triggered.
to fine-tune the relation between analogue scale models experiment. It grants the designer the projective and engaged form of perception and, as a result, provoke Dynamic flashing contours and spotlights would rapidly
and full-scale mock-ups on one hand and simulated descriptive powers of orthographic projection and a more active occupation? appear and disappear in response to how the occupants
models on the other. Parameters in the simulation software, quantification that are native to drawing, while simulta- navigated the space. The sequence and type of these
such as bend and compression resistance, were tweaked neously introducing some of the resistance native to These questions were (and continue to be) explored gestures was entirely unplanned and unscriptedtheir
to achieve conformity with the analogue tests. But tuning a real and discrete piece of material. In fact, design kinaesthetically through an experimental toolkit of reception equally uncontrolled (Figs.2 and 3).
also worked the other way. The material that the installation by means of material simulation is closer to the live lumino-kinetic robots and interactive drawing machines
surface was built from, polyurethane cold foam (i.e. foam material experiment, where the designer sets something that probe the notion of spatial authorship and question Treating the retina as a drawing board, composite
rubber), is isotropic and comes in a variety of thicknesses up in order to see what happens, than it is to typical where drawing ends and architecture begins. The after-images were randomly bleached onto the back of
and densities. This meant that the properties of the modes of drawing and digital design. following text and images highlight but a small selection the eye. These schizographic fragments, through their
material could be tweaked in parallel to achieve a better of early devices that initiated the investigation. superimposition and assemblage, would begin to allude
conformity with the simulation. The second issue that to more defined spaces through cognitive error (illusory
the work on the project prompted thus had to do with conjunction and subconscious inference).2 Here, the
process and method and the creation of feedback loops retina was treated as painters like Francis Bacon treated
between simulated geometry and real material. their canvases; by making initially arbitrary marks on
the surface until suddenly the lines drawn suggested
On the drawing board or in 3D modelling software, virtual something totally different.3 Through this illusionistic and
lines and surfaces can be conjured and extended gestalt layering of balletic light gestures, sub-architectures
indefinitely. The act of drawing, whether by analogue or of potential but impossible occupation appear and
digital means, is projective and virtual in its logic. It may disappear, briefly existing in the interstitial space
involve orthographic projection, it can happen at scale between the real and the imagined. An ambiguous
and it is subject to little or no material resistance. In 1
R obin Evans, Architectural Projection, in Architecture and its Image:
territory somewhere between memory, synaptic impulse
contrast, a chunk of material, whether real or simulated, Four Centuries of Architectural Representation: Works from the and illusion (Fig.4).
is inherently discrete and unique in its nature. In this case, Collection of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, ed. Eve Blau et al.
(Montreal: Canadian Centre for Architecture, 1989), 21.
design is not a product of imposing will onto formless For participants in these drawing experiments, their
2
Erratic was exhibited at The Aalto University Digital Design Laboratory
and featureless matter, since matter is real and discrete. (ADD) in Helsinki between 19 September and 17 October 2013. Raumgerfhl (sense of space) and Raumphantasie (spatial
Like the objet trouv in artthe found objecta chunk Project design: Norell/Rodhe. Team: Daniel Norell, Einar Rodhe, imagination) overlap, resulting in an active Raumgestaltung
of material derives its identity from the designation Hseng Tai Lintner, Stefan Svedberg, Axel Wolgers. Fabrication: (spatial creation), where reality and interpretation are
Emballageteknik AB. The project was supported by the research
placed upon it by the designer, as well as from its environment Architecture in the Making at Chalmers University of fused. These temporal collapses were also an attempt
genesis in the real world. It has a certain amount of Technology in Gothenburg. Fig.1: Drawing instrumentSpecies 1calibrating parts at laboratory. to build on Nam June Paiks experiments with tenses

62 Augmentations Projects 63
 Fig.4: Retinal paintings

in his mediated spaces works. By overlapping zones of That being said, these early experiments aim less at
production, transmission and reception (as in pieces like radically subverting the conventional role of drawing
Video Fish, 1975), where the real is recorded and played in the design process, and are instead explorations
back over itself, the viewers perception of a unified time of new ways that drawing can be used as a design tool
is fractured.4 These adjacent drawing experiments rely to re-engage occupants with their environments.
on similar multiplicities of time (created through the These lumino-kinetic follies rely on hacking perception
ambiguity of layered after-images) to help the participant through light gestures to do just that.
reconceive the space surrounding them as an inhabitable
working drawing (Werknetz) rather than a passive For example, according to the philosopher Vischer,
sensorial zone (Mertznetz).5 there are two modes of seeing: sehen (quiet imprint)
and schauen (the gaze). The latter, a state of heightened
This temporal compression also echoes Bob Sheils awareness, Vischer subcategorised into linear (tracing
observations about the ever-decreasing gap between contours) and painterly (the laying out of masses).7
design information (usually in the form of a drawing) This notion implies that the more attentive the viewer,
and fabrication.6 This collapsing of inputs and outputs, the more they compose while examining their context.
of information and production, could hold emancipatory What these drawings demonstrate is the power of
potential for the contemporary designer. Yet equally, ambiguity and chance in the creation of a drawing
as space is continuously redrawn and reconditioned, to simultaneously stimulate and open the mind to new
it could reinforce an increasingly individualistic approach spatial concepts, away from passive observation to
to design. We tread carefully. active participation.

1
H  enri Bergson, Matter and Memory, trans. Yeoryia Manolopoulou,
Architectures of Chance (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 29.
2
Richard Gregory, Eye and Brain: The Psychology of Seeing
(World University Library, 1978), 21.
3
Luigi Fiacacci, Bacon (Cologne: Taschen, 2003), 24.
4
Nick Kaye, Multi-media: Video, Installation, Performance
(Routledge: London, 2007).
Fig.2 (opposite, top): Installation in progressa participant navigates 5
Shaun Murray, ENIAtype in Design Ecologies Vol. 1
the space as the edges are constantly recreated around them. (Intellect Books: Bristol), 2627.
6
Bob Sheil, Design Through Production (lecture presented as
Fig.3 (opposite, bottom): Installation in progressacrobatic light part of Bartlett International Lecture Series, 3 October 2012).
gestures are being executed as participants wander across their 7
Moshe Barasch, Modern Theories of Art: From Impressionism
sensory thresholds. to Kandinsky Vol. 3 (New York: NYU Press, 1998), 101103.

64 Augmentations Projects 65
Illustrating the Cellular Mesoscale
David S. Goodsell

For instance, a healthy dose of artistic license goes

a long way toward making these complex spaces
comprehensible. 4 The process of drawing allows me
to arrange and group the individual players in ways that
highlight their functions and minimise distractions,
while keeping as true to the science as possible. This
is far more difficult to do with algorithmic construction
of computation models, when the freedom allowed by
drawing to nudge and craft is lost.

These advantages are exemplified in the illustrations

of Zika virus infection included here, which were created
as part of outreach efforts at the RCSB Protein Data
Bank (pdb101.rcsb.org/motm/197).5 Fig.2 shows a typical
computer graphics rendering of the virus, created from
atomic coordinates. The non-photorealistic style of this
rendering is designed to complement the hand-drawn
style of the cellular landscapes, allowing viewers to
compare and contrast the molecules depicted in each.

Fig.1 show steps through the process of data collection

and integration that create the cellular landscape.
Fig.1: Preliminary sketches. Two experimental representations of the
virus are shown at the top: the atomic structure at top left and a slice Drawing is essential throughout, to simplify complex
from electron microscopy at top right. Preliminary sketches of the subjects such as the subunit structure of the virus and
proteins and RNA are shown at bottom leftthe number 10 is the to create acceptable representations for molecules that
number of nucleotides in the small piece of RNA next to it. A full sketch
of the viral cross-section is at bottom right. have less scientific support, such as the long proteoglycan
strands extending from the cell surface. Drawing is
Drawing is an essential, and enjoyable, part of my a straightforward way of exploring many approaches
scientific work. For the past 25 years or so, Ive been to depicting these players.
creating illustrations of the cellular mesoscalethe
scale range between the nanometre world of individual All this preliminary sketching is synthesised into a coherent
molecules and the micron world of a whole cell.1,2 These scene. Some storytelling may be layered in at this time
illustrations depict a portion of a living cell, magnified in this case, by showing two states of the virus during
to a level where we can see individual molecules. This the process of attachment and using a cross-section
is a challenging scale level to visualise, however, since on one to show more details of the inner structure. Finally,
there arent currently any experimental ways to observe after the full sketch is developed, a rendered painting,
it directly. Instead, information must be integrated from Fig.3, is created. At this point, the friendly feel of hand-
many different experimental techniques in order to build drawn illustration helps to make the daunting subject
up a consistent model. Our task is then to create a more accessible, inviting viewers to explore.
comprehensible picture of this complex model.

The process of drawing has several advantages when

creating illustrations of cellular environments. These
environments are highly complex, comprised of 1
David S Goodsell, Inside a living cell, Trends in Biochemical Sciences
thousands or millions of individual molecules, each with 16, (1991): 203206.
2
David S Goodsell, Making the step from chemistry to biology and
its own unique shape and interactions. Computational back, Nature Chemical Biology 3, (2007): 681684.
methods have only recently advanced to the level where 3
Johnson GT, Autin L, Al-Alusi M, Goodsell DS, Sanner MF & Olson AJ
three-dimensional models of this type are feasible.3 CellPACK: a virtual mesoscope to model and visualize structural
systems biology, Nature Methods 12, (2015): 8591.
So instead, I went to the drawing board to create illustrations 4
David S Goodsell and GT Johnson, Filling the gaps: Artistic license
of these scenes. Drawing allows exceptional freedom in education and outreach, PLOS Biology 5, (2007): e308.
to explore the ways that these molecules are distributed 5
David S Goodsell, Dutta S, C Zardecki, M Voigt, HM Berman and SK
Burley, The RCSB PDB Molecule of the Month: Inspiring a molecular
and the ways that they interact. In particular, long fibrous
view of biology, PLOS Biology 13, (2015): e1002140.
molecules are difficult to simulate but quite easy to draw,
as they twist and turn around one another.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Second, we can build on centuries of experience in scientific This work is supported in part by an NSF award (DBI1338415) to the Fig.2: Zika virus. This computer graphics rendering was created using atomic
drawing to help make dynamic and comprehensible visuals. RCSB Protein Data Bank. coordinates from entry 5ire from the Protein Data Bank (www.pdb.org).

66 Augmentations Contributor 67
 Deviated Histories

What is the history of drawing? Can a conclusive account be constructed

or would we find too many outliers and perversions to detect one
definitive trail? With such an amount of material and precedent to build
upon, it is tempting to question what contemporary drawing can achieve
on top of all the seminal projects and concepts developed on the page
across history. Of course, we only need watch a Hollywood film set in the
past to realise how fluid and mutable history can become. The drawing
can become a site for deviating and challenging the historical, whether
through imaginary flights away from the past or the methodological
re-analysis of it. Drawing can serve as an analytical tool to reveal the
real history of spaces, its inherent subjectivity offering a different means
of inquiry to the photograph or text. Salon.coms work on Mohamed
Bashmilahs detention at a CIA black site included drawings made
directly from his recollection of the space, a historical record impossible
via other documentary means. To deviate history through drawing might
not be only fantastical, but also political.
Fig.3: Completed painting Zika Virus 2,000,000 X. Two viruses are shown, with the lower one in
cross-section to reveal the RNA genome (yellow) inside. The cell membrane is in green, with long
proteoglycan chains extending upwards. Molecules in the blood plasma include Y-shaped antibodies,
UFO-shaped low density lipoprotein and a long fibrinogen molecule (involved in blood clotting). In this chapter, we will see projects that use history as a site for speculation
and proposition, whether physical or metaphorical. Deviated Histories
leads us through Pablo Bronsteins eighteenth-century brothels to a
ghostpainting of contemporary Beijing, from readings of controversially
demolished buildings to bubblegum pop and the exploratory act of trying
to draw an active volcano. Within these works, we see the breaking and
reframing of history through drawing as a critical actgoing back in time
68 Augmentations to redraw the future.
Key Note 72
An Introduction to the 120
The Severed Head
Eighteenth Century

Konrad Buhagiar
Guillaume Dreyfuss
Pablo Bronstein Ephraim Joris

Papers 77
A Flat Tale: The Picture Book 122
Pontifical Academy of Sciences
as an Architectural Project Benjamin Ferns
ulek
Jana C
125
Campus Martius East
82
With-drawing Room on Vellum: Parsa Khalili

The Persistent Vanishing of

the Architectural Drawing Surface
129
Her Wildflower Gardens at
Penelope Haralambidou One Hundred Five Orchard
Eric Mayer
90

B OX No. 1: Unpacked
(Visions of Ron Herron)
132
Developing Self-Methodologies
Simon Herron for Drawing: Open Air
Performance Museum
96
Drawing a Volcanarium, or Oul ztun

How to Represent a Very Large Figure Contributor 135

Architect as Urban Ghostpainter
Adrianne Joergensen
Drawing Architecture Studio
102
Anamorphosis:
An Inquiry into the Unknown
Thi Phuong-Trm Nguyen

Projects 110
From Body Agents to Agent Bodies:
Imagining Architectural Embodiment
from the Inside Out
Alessandro Ayuso

114
California Bubblegum Autopark
Jamie Barron

116
A Fall of Ordinariness and Light:
Regeneration! Conversations,
Drawings, Archives & Photographs
from Robin Hood Gardens
Jessie Brennan
An Introduction to the Eighteenth Century
Pablo Bronstein

DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF A MAGNIFICENT not as new as the Bible claimed; and indeed that humans
BALDACHIN ERECTED IN CELEBRATION OVER werent descended from Adam and Eve. In the drawing,
STONE AGE RUINS ERRONEOUSLY THOUGHT these stones are still interpreted according to a religious
TO BE THE REMAINS OF THE HOUSE OF ADAM, framework, and have been incorporated into an
OR THE FIRST BUILDING ON EARTH, 2013 architectural language which continues to be dominated
by the need for ornamentation. Complementary though
The cross-section of this giant reliquary reveals its the religious and the technological might be here, as
modern internal iron skeleton. This daring technological the eighteenth century progressed they became deeply
innovation is put to use in a large apparatus that displays at odds with one other. This increasingly fragile relation-
a group of stones thought to be the remains of the house ship and ultimate conflict between science and religion
of Adam (the first man on Earth), built for himself in the is alluded to with the title, making it clear that despite
desert upon his expulsion from Paradise. Around the time the optimism of the design for the baldachin, the ruin is
this baldachin was designed, the possibility began to in actual and incontestable fact not the house that Adam
dawn within some intellectual circles that the world was built in the wilderness.

Fig.2: Theatre Section with Stage Design for an Oliver Cromwell Ballet, 2014.

THEATRE SECTION WITH STAGE DESIGN political ideologythat of absolute monarchy, we should
FOR AN OLIVER CROMWELL BALLET, 2014 remember that proscenium stages were an architectural
invention from that very century, Italian opera being barely
I have a book that describes a late seventeenth-century fifty years old and unknown in England at the time.
Italian ballet/opera called La Imprudenza di Cromweglio. As theatre was, for the most part, banned by Cromwell,
It is clumsily illustrated with images of an imp-like Lord it is with a good deal of unintentional irony that he takes
Protector centre stage going about his business performing to the boards here.
wicked tricks, aided and abetted by a band of furies
(differentiated from the other dancers by monstrous My drawing takes place in London about eighty years
faces embroidered on their bellies). The proscenium after the 1660 opera. A new bourgeois audience has
suggests one that might be found in a provincial theatre continued the aestheticisation of the Cromwell era.
in a second-rate town, with a badly-carved group of This new ballet shows Cromwell bearing the decapitated
lethargic angels holding aloft an unimpressive coat of arms, head of Charles I, with a phalanx of ballerinas arranged
while a row of local grandees are seen from the back, symmetrically on either side of him. The scene is the
hot and sweating into their wigs. What drew me to this central motif housed within a cross-section of a theatre.
charming image of bathos is that it is a response to the Not an old-fashioned court theatretight, stuffy and
panic that spread through Europes courts following geared towards intimate social interactionbut a
Charles Is execution. This crap evening of schlock, ham large new city theatre, resplendent with all the cheap
and crap costumes constitutes an attempt to translate scagliola required for a successful cultural venture.
the shocking situation in England into a recognisable moral This new class of audience with its commercial system
argument. Cromwell is the Devil in disguise. He sings a and the demands it makes on cultural and architectural
song on a stage, commits evil and then is dragged to hell production are perhaps a legacy of the Cromwellian
by the very imps that helped him on his rounds. Though revolution, but its decorative programme evokes the
Cromweglio creates a distancing effect with the aid of the recherch glamour of the noble and absolutist courts
architectural and entertainment structure of an opposing of Europe.

Fig.1: Design and construction of a magnificent baldachin erected in

celebration over Stone Age ruins erroneously thought to be the remains
of the house of Adam, or the First Building on Earth, 2013.

72 Deviated Histories Key Note 73

 INCENSE BURNER IN THE REGENCY TASTE, 2015

In the late eighteenth century, the cartoonist

James Gillray produced a popular print depicting the
uncomfortable exchange which ensued when George III
sent an ambassador to China to pursue a treaty
allowing for trade privileges and the import of British
manufacturing. The ambassador took a selection of
royal and entertaining gifts with him, but when in the
magnificent and humbling audience chamber he asked
the Emperor if there was anything else in particular he
might want. The Qianlong Emperor replied, mystified,
that as Celestial Ruler of all of Heaven and Earth he was
in any case already the possessor of all things. This
incense burner is a vulgar manufactured commodity from
the late eighteenth century, of little appeal to the refined
Qianlong court but destined as the joyous centrepiece
to a Chinese-mad Islington parlour. It is drawn in the style
of Gillray, who would satirise stylistic fads and consumer
excess and parody the buying publics obsession with the
exotic. It is also an object I would very much like to own.

Fig.3: Mother Claps Molly House, Holborn 1720, 2014.

MOTHER CLAPS MOLLY HOUSE, of avoiding the law, but does not, however, make for
HOLBORN 1720, 2014 an interesting picture.

For two years, Mother Clap ran a gay brothel at her My drawing presents a building that expresses its
house in Holborn before it was raided by the authorities subversive interior function on the exterior. This structure
in 1724. The most famous gay venue of the eighteenth loudly declares that on its inside there unquestionably
century, it is particularly endearing because of the must be bewigged High Court judges with semen up their
kindheartedness of Mother Clap, who frequently arses and rent-boys wiping their cocks on the curtains.
provided false testimony for her clients, who risked Whereas the surrounding buildings are speculative and
the death penalty for sodomy if caught. This story of standardised, this building is handmade, retouched,
a semi-private and very small-scale enterprise has altered and humane. The form of the building is that
always jarred with my vision of the eighteenth century of a large, continually adapted seventeenth-century inn.
as being homosexualesque to its core in respect to The owner, Mother Clap, is represented anthropomorph-
display, self-promotion and decorative ostentation. ically via the large head sitting on top of Dutch
gabled shoulders, with two bawdy protruding breast
It is all the more intriguing because the houses in extensions at the front. The clapboard siding is a
Holborn that existed then, excluding those around deliberate allusion both to her name and to the disease.
Lincolns Inn Fields, were as conventional as the The building also suggests a history of cheap, fun,
eighteenth century produced (which may explain pleasurable diversions. More importantly, rather than
their survival into the present). The idea of a a mere two-year lifespan, this house of pleasure has
community of gay men performing illegal acts behind already been going for fifty years and will survive well
a dull facade makes sense from the point of view into the Victorian period.

Fig.4: Incense Burner in the Regency Taste, 2015.

74 Deviated Histories Key Note 75

MINTON CHINA FACTORY, 2015
A Flat Tale: The Picture Book
The design for this factory attempts to demonstrate
the importance that pottery assumed in British
as an Architectural Project
manufacturing during the eighteenth and early ulek
Jana C
nineteenth centuries. The development of industry goes
hand in hand with the desire to produce porcelain in Since their seventeenth-century golden age, the Dutch
quantities greater than those imported from the Far East. have steadily formed recognisable visual codes and
Minton china, aimed squarely at the middle class, conventions through the numerous depictions of their
produced a very hard-wearing white substance which urban, rural and natural landscapes. Images were the
was then decorated in a variety of exotic patterns. predominant way of knowing and understanding the
Factories were built more or less plainly in the eighteenth world. In Holland, the visual culture was central to the
century, and the potteries in Staffordshire in particular life of the society [] If we look beyond what is normally
were very pragmatic and unaestheticised. However, this considered to be art, we find that images proliferate
building attempts to evoke China directly, with the roof everywhere. They are printed in books, woven into the
serving as a billboard for its goods. Its walls are china cloth of tapestries or table linens, painted onto tiles,
(porcelain) white and it has a chimney disguised as a and of course framed on walls.1 The visual culture of
pagoda. Its size indicates not only how big the market for the Netherlands and the knowledge inscribed and
Minton had become, but also the extent of the general disseminated through images is consistent throughout
population increase. The crematory quality to the building the countrys history. The importance placed on images
and chimney place it proudly in the modern era. and their narratives remains a recognisable attribute
even in contemporary Dutch architecture. ulek, A Good Life ABC, A is for Architecture,
Fig.1: Jana C
The Berlage, 2016. Stereotypical Dutch canal house.
As architects, we often create more stories than buildings:
Since the inception of Western architecture in classical
Greece, the architect has not made buildings; rather,
he or she has made the mediating artefacts that make
significant buildings possible. These artefactsfrom
words, to many kinds of inscriptions and drawings, to full
scale mock-upsand their relation to buildings, however,
have not remained constant throughout history.2

Architecture has come to a point where the main focus

in creating a project is placed on the formation of the
concept. An attractive and innovative conceptual narrative
is what differentiates a successful project from an
unsuccessful one. A Flat Tale is an architectural
project that examines the relationships between images
and texts in creating architectural narratives. Dutch
architecture and visual culture are used as a lens for ulek, A Good Life ABC, L is for Landscape, The Berlage,
Fig.2: Jana C
studying architectural stories through their textual and 2016. The curated Dutch landscape, complete with orthogonal grid,
row of trees and field decorated with livestock.
visual narrative structures and methods. In order to gain
a clearer understanding of the complex relationships of A Good Life ABC, set in the format of an alphabet book,
lexical and visual forms of storytelling and their capacity defines the basic grammar of Dutch architecture and
for disseminating knowledge, the project uses known the built environment. Each spread contains a letter
didactic literary genres as heuristic devices. Approaching of the alphabet and a word that represents one of many
the topic of architectural representation through both stereotypical, recognisable Dutch objects, landscapes,
its visual and lexical qualities has allowed for the elements of the built environment or a drawing
elucidation of three main categories depending on the a recognisable visual representation of that object
complexity, presence and correlation of drawings and or landscape. Since the project is based on the
text. These three categories are presented through three Netherlands, A Good Life ABC defines the specific
books, each transposing one category of architectural vocabulary of spatial, architectural and cultural
representation to a literary and didactic genre. A Good conditions. The images define the intended meanings
Life ABC pairs the architectural diagram with the alphabet and visual conventions of the words, allowing the viewer
book, A Flat Tale conveys the architectural design project to acquire basic knowledge and information about the
through the picture book and Pitch examines the spatial and cultural context of the project. The method
architectural essay through the format of an academic of combining words with referential images can be traced
journal. The method questions the storytelling capacity back to Comeniuss Orbis Pictus (1658), where pictures
of architecture as well as the ability an architectural were used as a visual aid, a means of transmitting
project has in transferring and conveying knowledge information to inexperienced listeners and readers that
Fig.5: Minton China Factory, 2015. and information that lie beyond the brief. could not be conveyed by the words alone.3 The reader

76 Deviated Histories Papers 77

 This seemingly simple way of transferring knowledge while the drawing acts as a visual explanation of the
through the use of reductive imagery can be related to concept through a familiar visual example. Since language
architectural diagrams. In the same way that the alphabet is a codification of what we already knowwe would
book forms the knowledge basis for reading and under- not have learned words to describe experiences we have
standing a language, the set of architectural diagrams not encountered yetthe information in pictures that
can form the basis for reading and understanding the we cannot yet verbalize is the information that is new
architectural project. Architectural diagrams, whose to us, the information that transcends our pre-existing
origins can also be found in the works of Dutch architects categories or class names. Seen in this way, pictures
such as Herman Hertzberger, are meant to be an can teach us about unfamiliar objects, but only if we use
abstract pattern of physical relationships which resolve the words of an accompanying text as cognitive maps,
a small system of interacting and conflicting forces5 schemata to apply them in order to understand exactly
in order to help the process of developing an architectural what is new, left over beyond the schemata.10
project. But today they have become a way of communi-
cating the complex process of architectural design to The project set is completed with the third part, Pitch,
those less familiar with it. The diagram has become a ulek, A Flat Tale, Idea Factory, The Berlage, 2016.
Fig.5: Jana C
which takes the format of an academic journal. Through
ulek, A Good Life ABC, T is for Tulip, The Berlage, 2016.
Fig.3: Jana C representational method for the architectural concept They pitched their ideas, or so it would seem, and presented their the use of polemic, it represents the mature method
Row of tulip flowers as one of the most recognisable Dutch emblems. and idea. Instead of being used as a tool to communicate perfect architectural dream. No buildings were necessary to stand of conveying thought, knowledge and ideas. Pitch is
out from the rest. You just needed to pass a conceptual test.
the basic grammar of a project, it becomes its language a collection of stories of significant Dutch projects
as well as its entire narrative. presented through historical and theoretical narratives.
throughout Dutch visual culture. Whether created by Pitch puts the visual and narrative elements established
After acquiring the basic knowledge and visual the Dutch masters or found in more recent architectural in the first two books into a spatial and historical context.
conventions through the alphabet book, the reader is drawings like the ones of Rietveld, Hertzberger or the The majority of the pages are covered with a body of text
able to transition to a more complex narrative through early drawings of OMA, these visual codes form a specific
the format of a picture book. The second part, A Flat representational language that amounts to a visual style
Tale, now forms the syntax. It consists of fifteen spreads of the Netherlands. Because styles do act as signifiers
containing drawings of specific locations or occurrences that express values of those who first produced them, an
in the Dutch landscape. The story follows the historical illustrator can use a particular pre-existing style to evoke
development of the Flevoland polder and the city of and thus illustrate a particular set of values.8 Using a
Almere in order to convey important events of Dutch combination of specific Dutch styles, a mood is set for
land reclamation, urban planning and architecture. the picture book that allows for a better understanding
The textin this case the development of Almere of the context.
was created prior to the drawings. The drawings
interpret the text through various scales. Starting with A Flat Tale is an architectural picture book that can be
ulek, A Flat Tale, Polder Life, The Berlage, 2016.
Fig.4: Jana C a map depicting the Netherlands and ending with viewed as an analogy for the architectural design project.
The housing was first built in a ring, to make polder life a wonderful detailed fictional and realistic architectural and interior Both consist of images carrying the spatial narrative and
thing. Later they changed it back to a grid, and tried to correct the
mistake that they did.
depictions, A Flat Tale provides the reader with all the texts carrying the temporal one. An existing text is also
visual and textual information necessary for one to form a prerequisite for both the picture book and the project.
of A Good Life ABC gains context-specific information, an idea and interpretation of Dutch landscape and While for the picture book the text is usually a short
such as the fact that the word landscape signifies architecture. The elements from the alphabet book are fictional or non-fictional story, the text for the architectural ulek, A Flat Tale, Identity Crisis, The Berlage, 2016.
Fig.6: Jana C
an endless view of gridded fields flanked by canals used as building blocks for the larger scenes, reminding project can be interpreted as both the programme given The houses wont have their identities lost, even with the low final
or straight rows of trees, sporadically inhabited with the reader of the visual conventions already learned. by an external entity and as a concept created by the building cost. So what if not all were made out of brick! You just needed
to pick a faade that would stick.
livestock, or that the most recognisable and widespread architects themselves. The latter, where the architect
image of architecture is the brick canal house with Following the tradition of seventeenth-century Dutch is the author of both the narrative and the imagery, is a
large windows and topped with a pitched roof. art, the drawings collect and convey knowledge and situation that also occurs in the creation of picture books
information about the world. As explained by Svetlana when the author of the text is also an illustrator. In both
In order not to provide the viewer with specific Alpers in The Art of Describing, no other culture cases, the most successful examples are the result of
examples of the Dutch objects and landscapes, but with assembled knowledge through images as did the the same author(s) working on both the narrative and
stereotypical and emblematic ones, a limited colour Dutch.6 One would know the world through seeing rather the imagery. As with good picture books, perhaps the
palette is used. Because of their visual properties, and than through reading and to draw something would be criterion for a successful relationship of an architectural
as an homage to the Dutch De Stijl group, the three to know it. Consistent with the tradition of Dutch artwork narrative and its imagery is in understanding that it is
primary coloursred, blue and yelloware used to from the seventeenth century, there is an absence of not that words and pictures are quite separate from
depict everything. In the words of Piet Mondrian, the a prior frame [] so that the image spread out on the each other but, rather, placing them into relationship
primary colour [] is non-individualistic and free of pictorial surface appears to be an unbounded fragment with each other inevitably changes the meaning of both,
individual sensation and expresses only silent emotion of a world that continues beyond the canvas.7 All drawings so that good picture books as a whole, and perhaps
of the universal. Primary colours in the afore described were created in an axonometric view, allowing for an architectural projects as well, are a richer experience
art of painting form a conception of the primary colour objective overview of the depicted situation. This enables than just the simple sum of their parts.9
in such a manner that they no longer depict the natural the readers to interpret and discover the details by
and yet remain realistic.4 The lack of realistic colouring themselves. The use of axonometric drawings, the A Flat Tale also establishes abstract ideas such as
ulek, A Flat Tale, Exporting Architecture, The Berlage, 2016.
Fig.7: Jana C
removes any specificity from the depicted objects. absence of a prior frame, the landscape theme, variations concept, export, identity, welfare and subsidies, which
Now to survive and compete on the scene, they have to export
They become emblematic representations of only in scale, depictions of maps and text captions as parts are conveyed through the use of the drawings. The words the grand Dutch dream. The buildings will surely bring them fame,
themselves and their Dutchness. of the drawings are all elements and approaches found appear as part of the text accompanying the drawing, even though behind the facades theyre all the same.

78 Deviated Histories Papers 79

accompanied by reductive black and white drawings to project mature architectural thought and complex of the context, its related visual codes and conventions 1
S  vetlana Alpers, The Art of Describing; Dutch Art in the Seventeenth
Century (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1983), xxv.
used as an additional visual explanation. Since we spatial relationships. However, the most interesting and its complex architectural thought. Through multiple 2
Alberto Perez-Gomez and Louise Pelletier, Architectural
commonly associate black and white with uncompro- architectural texts are the ones that combine descriptive re-readings and re-viewings, one gains additional Representation and the Perspective Hinge (Cambridge:
mising truth,11 Pitch uses colourless drawings in order to elements of project descriptions with the intelligent information due to the insight into the totality of the MIT Press, 2000), 7.
3
Perry Nodelman, Words About Pictures: The Narrative Art of Childrens
convey seriousness and maturity. The pattern of the text thoughts of a theoretical text. By examining the early architectural story.
Picture Books (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1998), 4.
on the pages becomes denser and more attractive to the projects of OMA, we find that their appeal lies in 4
Piet Mondrian, De Stijl (Leiden, 1918).
viewer, switching their focus from the image to the word. the quality of presenting the reader with opposing Picture books and architectural projects both use two 5
Christopher Alexander, Notes on the Synthesis of Form (Cambridge:
positionsboth at the same time. OMAs observations separate mediumspicture and textin order to convey Harvard University Press, 1973), preface.
6
Alpers, The Art of Describing; Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century, 165.
Architects mostly create two types of text: the narrative on metropolitanism contain simultaneously the narratives. These two mediums, however, are never fully 7
Alpers, The Art of Describing; Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century, 27.
of the architectural projectwhich is commonly an extremes of an architecture which is both visionary related and interdependent. They create a continuous 8
Nodelman, Words About Pictures: The Narrative Art of Childrens
elaborate project description created for the client and implementable, surreal and commonsensical, dialectic relationship that allows for information, critique, Picture Books, 83.
9
Nodelman, Words About Pictures: The Narrative Art of Childrens
or used as a promotional tooland the theoretical and revolutionary and evolutionary, and puritanical and irony and humour to be transferred to the viewers, Picture Books, 199.
abstract texts created for architectural journals. The luxurious [] Rarely in the work are these oppositions due to the need of their constant awareness to both 10
Nodelman, Words About Pictures: The Narrative Art of Childrens
former uses simple, relatable language but results in satisfactorily resolvedthey are extremes which do the image and the text. The combination of familiar and Picture Books, 208.
11
Nodelman, Words About Pictures: The Narrative Art of Childrens
mostly uninspired and dry descriptions, while the latter not, as yet, mesh, but rather touch.12 unfamiliar information and the co-existence of fictional Picture Books, 67.
tends to use an obscure and complex language in order and non-fictional objects and events creates the 12
George Baird, Les Extremes Qui se Touchent? Architectural
As a way of testing the capacity of text as the dominant opportunity for different interpretations that allows DesignAD Profiles 5: OMA, 5/77 (London: Architectural Design, 1977).
conveyor of an architectural idea, Pitch ends with for the transfer of new knowledge and information.
a narrative of a project. The project is formed as
an interpretation and culmination of the information
found within all three books. It tells a fictional story of
the construction of a mountain in the Netherlands.
Combining different scales in which the Dutch have
altered and developed their environment, the narrative
of the Mountain mixes elements, spaces and processes
that are plausible and realistic in this context, but work
together in order to create a purely fictional utopian
project. It urges the readers to recall the visual codes and
conventions established throughout the previous books
in order to be able to create their own visual interpretations
of the project, based on the Dutch context. But since the
text only implies visual information, one still needs images
in order to understand the specificity and focus of the
textual narrative. Due to this, images that help the reader
understand and visualise the Mountain project have been
placed throughout all three books. From allusions to the
Dutch idea of a mountain in A Good Life ABC to various
pieces of the structure travelling through the pages
of A Flat Tale to the black and white birds-eye views
of Dutch landscapes as seen from the Mountain itself
ulek, Pitch, Grid, Module, Structuralism,
Fig.8: Jana C in Pitch, these images work together in order to form
The Berlage, 2016. Redrawing of Herman Hertzbergers a visual basis for the readers even before they reach
diagram for the Ministry of Social Affairs in Den Haag.
the narrative of the project itself.

By viewing the representational methods and thought-

forming processes of architectural projects through the
lens of didactic literary genres, a different set of rules can
be applied to forming, conveying, viewing and interpreting
architectural thought.

As separate elements, A Good Life ABC, A Flat Tale and

Pitch do not present three separate methods of creating
and representing an architectural project, but rather
they each represent a specific step in creating a more
complex, intricate whole. They are used to build up the
necessary elements of what is considered to be an
architectural project. Each of the books addresses one
way of combining visual and textual narratives in
ulek, Pitch, Grid, Module, Structuralism, The Berlage,
architecture with the aim of conveying knowledge and
Fig.9: Jana C
2016. Text and drawings of modular elements and structures: information. Reading the books in sequence allows for ulek, A Flat Tale, Constructed Landscapes, The Berlage, 2016.
Fig.10: Jana C
the Beemster estate and Aldo van Eycks Amsterdam orphanage. a gradual building up of knowledge and understanding They constructed a good life in land under sea, with building regulations that were uncommonly free.

80 Deviated Histories Papers 81

With-drawing Room on Vellum: The Persistent surface was in medieval times, up until the later fifteenth
century, when it was replaced by paper.
Vanishing of the Architectural Drawing Surface The contrast between todays withdrawal of the architec-
Penelope Haralambidou tural drawing surface and its medieval visceral past
is sharp. So it is difficult to imagine that in the Middle
One of the earliest surviving examples of architectural precious stones and metals, the forgotten past of Ages drawing architectural form on a membrane was
working drawings, dating from 1260, depicts an elegant architectural drawing could not be more visceral. Drawings a technological innovation that signified a paradox:
alternative rendering of the faade of Strasbourg on vellum remain tethered for more than 750 years to it was both the first materialisation of architectural
Cathedral and is drawn in fine lines on parchment.1 not only inert but also organic animal matter. representation as we know it today and also a significant
In fact, the drawings durability is due to this extraordinarily step away from matter.
resilient surface that pre-dates paper. But what is In sharp contrast, lightning-fast advancements in digital
parchment? Parchment is a thin membrane made of technology have led contemporary architectural drawing Before the invention of linear perspective during the
animal hide, prepared for use as a surface for drawing to withdraw from the skin of the world. Today, the Renaissance, architectural drawings, as they are known
and writing. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made architect navigates the intricacies of design through today, were rare, if not non-existent. Medieval building
specifically from calf, off-white, soft and semi-translucent: clicks of a mouse on a luminous screen, defining with practice was fundamentally constructive, operating
a painting and drawing surface that has been revered mathematical precision points and lines that she can through the traditional techniques of stonemasons and
by architects and artists throughout history. never touch. Where is the drawing drawn today? What inherited typology.4 According to Lon Shelby, stereotomic
is the materiality of the drawing? Drawing withdraws problems were solved by medieval masons primarily
Although not directly connected with the process of design behind the monitor in the realm of an untouchable through the physical manipulation of geometrical forms
and construction, another rich source of information digital and remains dormant on hard drives until printed by means of the instruments and tools available to them.
about architectural practice in the Middle Ages is or fleshed out directly in matter. However, the loss of These were rule-of-thumb procedures, to be followed
preserved in the form of illumination on vellum pages the materiality of mark-making and the tactility and step by step, and there were virtually no mathematical
bound in manuscripts. Here, elegant architectural forms embodiment of the act of drawing is counteracted by calculations involved.5 Architectural knowledge existed
and details frame the narrative of the depicted religious an expansion, a blossoming in space and time. in the traditions of making, building was a collaborative
scenes in gold gilding and lapis lazuli. Drawn laboriously process transmitted orally and the responsibility for the
by hand on animal skin with pigments made out of ground With-drawing Room on Vellum is a two-fold drawing that form of a building did not belong to a single individual
reflects on the fast-changing nature of the architectural but was spread up the hierarchical ladder of the guild.
drawing surface, physically and notionally. Drawn on
vellum, the piece is informed by historical examples of Medieval drafting was executed one-to-one in situ
medieval architectural working drawing, as well as drawn Fig.2: Attributed to the Rohan Master or immediate circle. Leaf from
by the master builder on a layer of plaster of Paris on
a Book of Hours. Paris, France, c. 141030, 2618.5cm (10 1/47 5/16in),
architecture in illuminated manuscripts. Yet the drawing empera colors, gold, and ink on parchment leaf. JPGM, Ms. 112. the floor of the lodges tracing house. The lines were
is not complete until matched by a digital counterpart transferred into wood or metal templates and passed
beamed through a projector and using the surface hair, which is then easily removed. Any remaining hair on to the stonecutters.6
of the skin as a screen, thus expanding the notion of is scraped off and the skin is stretched onto a wooden
illumination through the contemporary medium of digital frame to dry. It is attached on the frame with strings, Drawing was thus a physical act and a tactile handling
back projection. One could say that the true essence at points along the circumference of the skin, which are of geometry linked with the etymology of the word: geo,
of architectural representation is never tethered on wrapped around small pebbles to prevent tearing. With earth, and metron, measurement, the marking and
a surface, instead residing in the imagination or in the the help of a crescent-shaped knife, the parchmenter measuring of ground or terrain. Similar to a choreography
finished building itself. By bringing together vellum very carefully removes any remaining hairs and more of steps and pirouettes revolving around a waist-high
as the forgotten, visceral pastand digital projection layers of skin to achieve an even, translucent surface.2 compass, the draughtsman performed design with his
as the uncertain, evanescent future of the architectural The skin is then bleached and the two sides are barely whole body, full-scale. So before vellum, the equivalent
drawing surfaceWith-drawing Room on Vellum aims distinct: the inside body side is the lighter and more of the drawing surface was a tracing floor; a spatial
to probe and challenge the current tendency for drawing refined, while hair follicles, as well as any scarring caused feature incorporated inside the building that was being
to withdraw from the skin of the world. when the animal was alive, may be visible on the outer built. The use of a standalone flat membrane turned
side. The membrane can also show the pattern of the the drawing surface into an abstract projection plane
The piece takes as its subject matter an allegorical with- animals vein network, known as veining. To prepare able to hold a measured image of the building in scale.
drawing room sited at 22 Gordon Street, as a vehicle for writing and drawing, the vellum is finally smoothed
to dream up the future life of The Bartlett School of with pumice and whitened with chalk. Although plenty of surviving examples existusually
Architecture in its new home, marking our return to the on whole skins or larger surfaces constructed by many
building after a two-year break. The aim of the drawing Distinct from leather, because the hide is not tanned but skins attached togetherthe purpose of architectural
is not to portray the measured geometry and changing limed, parchment consists mainly of collagennatural drawings on vellum remains unclear. Art historian Nancy
form of the building at 22 Gordon Street, but to capture glueso it can keep its shape well when stretched, Wu suggests that the prohibitive cost of parchment
the complex residue of its remembered past and the obtaining the appearance of a crisp flat sheet. When meant that architects used it only for presentations:
intangible promise of its imagined future. water in paint media touches the parchments surface, architects scraped drawings off parchment to create
the collagen melts slightly, forming a raised bed for the clean surfaces for new designs, which resulted, for
But how can the skin of an animal turn into a surface paint. This changeability, as well as an uncanny feeling example, in the so-called Reims palimpsests of the
for drawing? of touching wet skin, makes the material feel alive.3 mid-thirteenth century.7 On the other hand, according
to Nicola Coldstream, one significant purpose of
Fig.1: Unknown. Faade of Strasbourg Cathedral (Plan A1).
Strasbourg, France, 1260s, 8659cm, two joined pieces of parchment. All fat and sebum is removed and the skin is washed and Parchment has been in use since antiquity, but the architectural drawings on parchment could have been
Muse de lOeuvre Notre-Dame, Strasbourg, Inv. No.2. soaked in lime for several days to soften and loosen the peak in its popularity as the primary writing and drawing transmission.8 Drawings incised on floors and models

82 Deviated Histories Papers 83

lack portability, but drawings on parchment, rolled framed life in the Middle Ages. Furthermore, the So beyond the accurate delineation of geometric architecture, but also brought the two disciplines
or assembled in folios, could be taken away. illustrations often contain historically significant details relationships, vellum in the form of cut sheets arranged in closer than ever before. Drawn architectural form
of construction methods and drawing instruments. very expensive books allowed architectural representation the domain of the architectand the camera, together
A significant example of architectural sketches on to frame storytelling and structure meaning. with lighting, scripting and editingthe domain of the
parchment organised in an album, which also exemplifies Pointedly, architecture was an important protagonist in film directorhave recently merged into compatible
the confusion about the use of drawings in medieval framing the narrative structure in scriptures and books Finally, the arrangement of these drawings in books digital platforms. Current digital tools allow the creation
times, belongs to a travelling draughtsman, Villard de of hours. Sciacca observes that open cross-sections allowed an unfolding in time, which in combination with of an entire new world, a fictional parallel universe,
Honnecourt.9 Dating from c. 122535 and drawn on of multi-room interior spaces allowed artists to depict the breathtaking technicolor depiction of scenes in through architectural invention and narrative. Often
smaller sheets of vellum, the purpose of these sketches different episodes in a story within a single building, ground pigments could be seen as an, admittedly very using exaggeration, visual rhetorical tropes or surreal
is the subject of disagreement. It was first thought that in much the same way as the frames of a movie show slow, antecedent of contemporary cinema. elements, architectural projects take the form of complex
he was an architect, but most current researchers a progression of events through time.14 structures, composed in separate episodes and held
believe the album served as a pattern or model book, So what about architectural drawing today? together by the structural storyline and the framing.
containing designs for manuscript illumination. Indeed, Another intriguing aspect of illumination in relation to
it is clear to a contemporary architecture-trained eye architectural design is that medieval illuminators also Although drawing on paper by hand is far from dead Adding time to drawing departs from the established
that these are not drawings by an architect-trained hand. excerpted individual building elements and used them one could say that it even enjoys a revivalit would notion of architectural representation as inert, which
as decorative motifs in their illustrations: elegant be difficult to argue against the fact that architectural was promoted by the static orthographic projections
Drawing on vellum for transmission, as well as the renditions of columns and archways provided bold frames representation in practice, as well as academia, has of the plan and the section on a surface, and which has
practice of erasing the surface to use for a new drawing, for important texts as well as images, and splendid irrevocably stepped into the digital. BIM, Building sometimes led architects to conceive space outside time.
exemplifies the role of architectural drawing as a architectural frames organise the information in many Information Modelling, where complex information about By losing the single surface and adding the dimension
repository of information and is uncannily similar to digital charts. For instance, curator Melanie Holcomb in the design and performance of a building is linked to a of time, the representation of space becomes alive.
practices in drawing today. Finally, Wu suggests that the the catalogue for the exhibition Pen and Parchment digital three-dimensional model, is becoming ubiquitous: Digital animated drawing offers the potential of
emergence of masterly draftsmanship and the increasing suggests the decorative vocabulary that fills in the it constitutes a new type of complex DNA defining not generating an affective relationship with architecture,
frequency of the production of ambitious drawings arches and spandrels of the structures represented only new-built but increasingly historical buildings as well. a form of empathy, where the architect/filmmaker more
on parchment that started in the late thirteenth century in the diagrams of Thorney Computus is so rich closely identifies with the building.18 Adding time to
coincided with the growing status of architects, who that turning the pages of the book approximates an The act of drawing is reduced to typing and clicks drawing can unfold the narrative of assembly; predict
worked with designs and supervised construction extraordinary architectural tour.15 of a mouse. Points and lines have become datasets, the architectures response to weather; calculate future
as distinguished from those who worked with hands information codified and saved in hard drives or the patterns of occupation; introduce sound and relink
and tools.10 So the advent of architectural drawing on cloud. But where is the drawing surface? Caught architectural composition with music; connect with
a membrane allowed the architect to link the invisible in the whirlwind of new technological advancement, history and imagine the future. Architectural films better
geometric relationships of the building into a single has its extinction gone unnoticed? Representation has convey the impact that our experience of architecture
image through pen on parchment. The architect became withdrawn behind the screen, held on virtual picture has on the structure of our memory and imagination,
someone who orders matters only by word, rarely or planes or illusory full three-dimensional forms. The and working with film as a design method offers an
never putting his hand to the task.11 physical presence of the drawing is delayed, finding amplified sense of inhabitation.
matter only when printed or forging itself on the building
Consequently, the use of a membrane gave birth to not material directly. But where might the materiality of a cinematic architectural
only architectural drawing as we know it, but also the drawing lie? Digital advancements in the film industry
contemporary architect. Behind the screen, the tactility of the drawing surface have led to the loss of its celluloid origins, forcing film
and the infinitesimal materiality of the line and texture to withdraw behind the screen. Yet film is still also
In parallel with the study of medieval architectural drawing, have all been lost. What has been gained is a mathe- presented through projected light, albeit now deriving
I was drawn to a different type of graphic representation matically robust, dynamic, three-dimensional digital from a digital source. American architectural historian
of architecture on vellum in the Middle Ages: illuminated simulacrum of the building, which, after losing its ties and critic Sylvia Lavin also observes a mutual attraction
manuscripts. Prior to the introduction of printing, to a physical membrane or sheet, has come to life.16 between architecture and projection. In her book Kissing
books were written by hand, so they were all manuscripts. Architecture, she uses the word kissing to describe
Illumination refers to a text that is illustratedlit by Undoubtedly, the digital revolution has triggered the growing intimacy between buildings and video
the way light catches on the burnished gold and silver ground-breakingif not hastychanges in the way installations.19 According to Lavin, architectures original
adorning the dazzling drawings and embellishments that architecture is not only drawn but also constructed sin was that it could not tell stories in the manner of
accompanying the text. and, more significantly, in the way it is conceived. In my poetry or painting, although it has certainly tried, offering
own work and the work of my students, however, I am up such gestures of atonement as architecture parlante
According to art historian and curator Christine Sciacca primarily interested in new digital time-based media and and postmodernism, and she sees this coming together
in Building the Medieval World, the creative ways in which their capacity to unlock the storytelling, affective, political of projection and architecture as a fertile ground where
architecture is represented in illuminated manuscripts and philosophical potential of architectural drawing.17 architecture can reassume its storytelling powers.20
offers a unique insight into what these buildings meant
for men and women of the medieval era. Buildings I see the relationship between this new digital cinematic I am also drawn to the ephemeral immateriality of
were not simply structures to inhabitthey symbolised drawing vis-a-vis other types of algorithmically driven projection that exemplifies traditional cinema from
grandeur, power, even heaven on earth.12 According digital drawing as equivalent to what the illuminated its celluloid origins to its current digital form. 21 I see
to Sciacca, while many medieval buildings are lost manuscript was to the medieval measured drawing. projection as an emancipation from the screen, which
to posterity, a record of their magnificent appearance accentuates the drawings long historical link with
is often preserved within the pages of illuminated Fig.3: Court Workshop of Duke Ludwig I of Liegnitz and Brieg. Architecture and film belong to traditionally discrete conceptions of light. In my drawing, With-drawing Room
manuscripts.13 Indeed, representations of castles, Silesia, Poland, 1353. Saint Hedwig and the New Convent; Nuns from disciplines, but have always shared a mutual attraction. on Vellum, I suggest a similar cohabitation, or kissing,
Bamberg Settling at the New Convent. The Life of the Blessed Hedwig,
churches, cityscapes and the countryside, as well as 34.124.8cm (13 7/169 3/4in), empera colours, coloured washes, Recent advancements in digital technology have not between physical drafting on vellum and drawing in
interiors, offer invaluable details about how architecture and ink on parchment. JPGM, Ms. Ludwig XI 7, fol. 56. only deeply transformed the production of film and light through projection.

84 Deviated Histories Papers 85

The research presented in this paper is guided by the the memory trace of our experience of the past. drawing, which most students and staff adapt, reinvent
making of a drawing, which was developed in parallel However, my work is not seeking to accurately represent and revise, contributing to a potent visual trademark
to the textual analysis. Marrying two unlikely techniques, the physical form of the building. Rather, it attempts language that few fail to be seduced by. I see this as a
separated by more than 750 years, my drawing to portray the intangible identity of the institution that significant underlying, invisible identity signalling what
establishes a fecund tension for questioning their hidden it houses: The Bartlett School of Architecture. The Bartlett represents to insiders and outsiders alike.
assumptions. Using drawing as a research method opens To choose these forms, I looked no further than The
up a series of questions that textual analysis alone cannot With-drawing Room on Vellum is a drawing of a drawing. Bartlett Summer Show publication, the Bartlett Book,
reach. This is the value of the use of design as research Drawn on a 9x12 piece of vellum, it takes the form of an important repository and perhaps the main culprit
method, as the often intuitive links that happen through an illuminated manuscript page, a preface, presenting in the perseverance of this language that The Bartlett
drawing hold ideas that are yet unnameable. the design of a larger drawing, that will be drafted on feeds upon through osmosis.25
a whole skin of manuscript vellum. The drawing of
The act of drawing both guides and derives from historical the whole skin is the central element of the drawing The illusionistic cubic motif represents both a tile floor
research and the theoretical analysis of medieval and on the smaller sheet. This drawing within a drawing pattern often found in representations of interiors in
contemporary practices. Additionally, I see the act of is a synecdoche: the part refers to the whole. The page medieval illumination and a reference to the world of
drawing as a practice-led historical research method does not only describe the design of the larger piece, the pixels and the illusion of space they offer.
in itself. Emulating medieval drawing practices combined but also acts as a test ground for exploring ideas and
with contemporary digital techniques allows an embodied techniques that will be applied on it. Although milky, vellum is surprisingly translucent and
reflection on architectural representation. Assuming captures light unlike any other material.26 Testing the
the additional identity of a draughtswoman during the To begin work, I acquired two pieces of manuscript digital projection from the back and the front of the
Middle Ages, I question my current research in film and vellum, a sheet and an entire skin, from the last remaining membrane, I decided to use both. The back projection
architecture through hybrid role-playing.22 manufacturer of parchment in the UK, William Cowley, creates a magical apparition of slightly blurred images
where vellum is prepared according to the traditional, that seep into the skin and the front projection catches
The subject matter, 22 Gordon Street, is a physical painstakingly laborious processes followed since 1870.23 on the gilding, accentuating the illuminated parts. The
building in limbo: the drawing attempts to capture a At first glance, the pure whiteness of this membrane has arrangement allowed real-time matching of the projection
glimpse of the future, which is about to be born inside very little to suggest its animal descent. The surface is with the vellum, introducing a dialogue between the
smooth, with a pleasant tooth to the touch. It displays hand-drawn piece and the digital insertions, with one
a translucence and luminance quite unlike paper, which completing the other. The two become a pair and depend
in comparison looks and feels muddy. At closer inspection, on each other for the completion of the composition.
however, discernable regular waxy indentations at
the lower and top parts of the sheet reveal themselves Fig.5: Master of James IV of Scotland. The Feast of Dives. Spinola Hours. Finally, the central part of the drawing hosts a film that
Bruges, Belgium, 151020, 23.216.7cm (9 1/86 9/16in), tempera
as traces of the anatomy of the animal: spine, hip and colors, gold, and ink on parchment leaf. JPGM, Ms. Ludwig IX 18, fol. 21v. remembers the past and imagines the future of 22
shoulder pressure points. In my rendition of the whole Gordon Street. The faade of the new building, drawn
skin in the preface, I chose to represent those in gold. from the late tenth century, in, the first word in in shell gold, opens up and frames episodes of its history,
The symmetry of the body of the animal inspired a strong the Gospel of John, In Principio erat verbum (In the here merging in a homogenising blue tint. One of these
symmetry in the overall composition that also introduces beginning was the Word) is presented as a complex and stories revisits my own past as a student first arriving
in the foreground the body of the draughtswoman interlacing monogram in red, gold and blue. A gold and at The Bartlett in the 1990s for Peter Cooks newly
herself, in a way that is not dissimilar to a fascinating silver arch further monumentalises the letters, recalling established Masters: my project of a two-fold drawing
medieval drawing by Italian cleric Opicinus de Canistris.24 the typology of the triumphal arch, which as a built of a cube sited at The Bartlett. The project comprised
monument was intended to commemorate rulers and two cubes, one painstakingly drawn in string in the old
The two sides of the membrane are marginally different, was a material expression of prestige and power. The red main crit space, the heart of the building, and a short
with hair follicles visible on the fur side and a waxier feel and blue intertwining lines in my architectural monogram digital animated film showing the cube withdrawing from
on the inside body side. When held up to the light, a are representations of the central staircase handrails, the building and floating in space. The project shared
network of veins charting the whole surface is detectable. which at a recent visit to the unfinished refurbishment many of the concerns of this paper and was also
were the only recognisable remnants of the building. a reflection on the changing nature of drawing in the
To draw on the skin, I used shell gold and lapis lazuli, the 1990s: a lamentation, but also a celebration and a
pigments often adorning illuminated manuscripts, as Flanking the skin in the centre, left and right, is a mirrored deliverance from the constraints of matter into a world
well as other inks and watercolour. Vellum is one of the constellation of forms inspired by the usually floral but of animated simulacra.
most rewarding drawing surfaces I have used, affording often architecturally inspired decorative patterns framing
a satisfying gliding of the metal nib or brush. The texture the text in illuminated manuscripts. Decipherable are In April 2016, the majority of MPs voted to continue to print
of the surface is not consistent, however. It becomes the two pico projectors, throwing their projections on Acts of Parliament on vellum, a tradition that goes back to
waxier around areas where there is a pressure point on the front and on the back of the skin respectively. The the drafting of the Magna Carta, as there were concerns
the skin from a bone, for instance. projectors are connected with curly cables to two open about the longevity of archival paper and the long-term
laptops below. security of digital technology.27 As we have seen,
In the top left corner is an intricate rendition of the letter architectural drawing on vellum, a portable flat membrane,
B, for Bartlett. The general shape follows The Bartlett Caught between the twisting of the cables, peculiar was an innovation in the Middle Ages. Today, the use of a
School of Architectures logo, which is here embellished geometric ornaments blossom. Attempting to capture drawing surface is also slowly declining, withdrawing from
with a complex pattern of red and blue lines. The design the identity of The Bartlett as a school infamous for matter. Does this persistent vanishing of the architectural
was improvised after looking at similar examples in its strong drawing culture, the adornments represent drawing surface signify that this was a blip in the history
illuminated manuscripts, where the first letter, or first familiar graphic tropes found in students drawings. of architectural representation? Not drawn on vellum,
Fig.4: Opicinus de Canistris. Diagram with Zodiac Symbols. Avignon,
France, 133550, 10065.5cm (39 3/825 13/16in), single leaf. word of a text, is decorated and framed by architectural This part of my drawing touches upon the proliferation will the architectural drawings that we draw today survive
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City, Pal. Lat.1993, folio 24r. details and structures. For instance, in a gospel lectionary of certain persistent motifs that constitute a Bartlett for the next 750 years? And if so, where will they lie?

86 Deviated Histories Papers 87

 1
N  ancy Wu, Facade of Strasbourg Cathedral (Plan A1) in and draw physical three-dimensional objects and environments as point
Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages, ed. Melanie Holcomb clouds and immersive environments, such as Oculus and Vive. These
(New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009), 134. have spawned a refocus on the human body, re-introducing drawing
2
Patricia Lovett, Illumination: Gold and Colour (London: L Cornelissen as a kinaesthetic experience within the space of representation.
and Son, 2015), 68.
17
I have explored the relationship between film and architectural
3
See my analysis of Marcel Duchamps use of vellum in representation by coining the term architectural essay film.
Penelope Haralambidou, Marcel Duchamp and the Architecture See Penelope Haralambidou, The Architectural Essay Film,
of Desire (Farnham: Ashgate, 2003), 161174. Architectural Research Quarterly 19, 03 (2015): 234248. For more
4
Alberto Prez-Gmez and Louise Pelletier, Architectural Representation on the architectural film work of the Masters unit 24 students,
and the Perspective Hinge (Cambridge: MIT, 1997), 8. I teach with Michael Tite and Simon Kennedy, see: Unit 24 accessed
5
Lon R. Shelby, The Geometrical Knowledge of Mediaeval 12 September, 2016, http://www.unittwentyfour.com.
Master Masons in The Engineering of Medieval Cathedrals,
18
Haralambidou, Architectural Essay Film, 247.
ed. Lynn T. Courtenay (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997), 41.
19
S ylvia Lavin, Kissing Architecture (Princeton: Princeton University
6
An example of a tracing floor survives in York Minster. In a confused Press, 2011).
mass of intersecting lines engraved into the floor, the full-scale
20
Lavin, Kissing, 10.
drawing for the Lady Chapels window can still be distinguished and
21
I have used projection in an earlier drawing entitled Dj vu:
the walls are also covered with physical wooden templates for drawing Restaging Alain Resnaiss Last Year at Marienbad, 2009. See Penelope
other parts of the building. Jan Svanberg, Master Masons (Stockholm: Haralambidou Dj vu: Restaging Alain Resnaiss Last Year at
Carmina, 1983), 124. Marienbad, in Drawing Is/Not Building, eds. Roland Snooks, Sarah
7
Wu, Strasbourg Cathedral, 134. Treadwell and Simon Twose (Wellington: Adam Art Gallery, 2016), 58.
8
Nicola Coldstream, Medieval Architecture (Oxford: OUP, 2003), 80.
22
Some of the illuminators were women. See Repertorium of
9
The album was discovered in the mid-nineteenth century. See Manuscripts Illuminated by Womenin Religious Communities
Carl F. Barnes, Villard de HonnecourtThe Artist and his Drawings: of the Middle Ages, accessed 12 September, 2016,
A Critical Bibliography (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1982) and Nikolaus Pevsner, http://www.agfem-art.com/introduction.html.
Villard de Honnecourt, in Pevsner on Art and Architecture, 23
William Cowley, accessed 12 September, 2016,
ed. Stephen Games (London: Methuen, 2002/2003), 6169. http://www.williamcowley.co.uk.
Wu, Strasbourg Cathedral, 134. Opicinus de Canistris (1296ca. 1354), Diagram with Zodiac Symbols,
10 24

11
Nicolas de Biard, the Domenican preacher active in Paris in the folio 24r, Avignon, France, 133550, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,
thirteenth century quoted by Wu. Wu, Strasbourg Cathedral, 134. Vatican City, Pal. Lat. 1993. Opicinuss image belongs to a tradition
12
Christine Sciacca, Building the Medieval World (Los Angeles: of medieval diagrams that sought to align the cosmic, the earthly
J. Paul Getty Museum and London: British Library, 2010). and the bodily.
13
Sciacca, Building, 2.
25
In particular I focused on the years between 2008 and 2010, when
14
Sciacca, Building, 2. a significant change of culture between hand and digital drawing
15
Melanie Holcomb, Strokes of Genius: The Draftsmans Art in the at the school was observed.
Middle Ages in Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages, Vellum is used as a material for lampshades.
26

ed. Melanie Holcomb (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009), 21.
27
Printing Acts of Parliament on Vellum20 Apr 2016 at 18:58, The Public
16
Recent developments on either side of the screen include technologies Whip, accessed 12 September, 2016, http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/
such LiDAR scanning, which uses a laser beam to accurately record division.php?date=2016-04-20&number=245.

Fig.6: Penelope Haralambidou. With-drawing Room on Vellum. London, England, 2016,

23.030.5cm (912in), Red and black ink, watercolour, shell gold, shell lapis lazuli and
digital projection on parchment. Private Collection.

88 Deviated Histories Papers 89

BOX No. 1: Unpacked source material that Ron collectedimages of figures,
cars, gadgets, toys, lights, plants, clouds and airships
The group, consisting of Warren Chalk, Peter Cook,
Dennis Crompton, David Greene, Ron Herron and Mike
make you think, to annoy, to stir things up, to open new
avenues and, above all, to communicate an architecture
(Visions of Ron Herron) carefully cut from newspapers and magazines of the
day. Chosen for subject, aspect and size, these cuttings
Webb, put together project after project with drawings,
collages, photomontages and paintings that were
that was experimental, or to quote Warren: a suck it
and see attitude.
Simon Herron capture a certain period of time, providing a glimpse published in their own Archigram magazine and in the
of the distinctive method used in creating Archigrams pages of Architectural Design, Domus, Japan Architect, The drawing style existed collectively within the group,
early, iconic architectural images. What this portion of Design Quarterly, Architectural Forum, LArchitecture and emerged as we began to work together, with the heavy
the archive reveals is a special and finite phase of a genre DAujourd'Hui and other magazines, as well as being line drawing style that Warren and I had developed merging
of graphic design aligned to architectural creativity from shown on the projection screens at the many slide and with Peters brashness, Dennis precision and Mike and
the pre- to the early Xerographic period. As context, multimedia shows that were put on by various members Davids poetry to emerge as the style of Archigram.
these early machines produced simple black and white of the group in university lecture halls throughout
facsimiles and had limited functionsthey were, for Europe and America. Drawing is a skill that all architects have to acquire, as
instance, unable to alter scale. Images were either used it is their primary means of communication with both
as found or, as with the world of advertising and media, The ideas propounded in these projects generated, within their clients and builders.
re-photographed and adjusted as blow-upsand the the architectural community, a whole range of emotional
alchemy of the photographic darkroom was central to responses extending from outright rageand dismissal The drawings that are made for the client are to enable
this practice. Magazines were chosen for the quality of of the ideas as pure fantasyto great enthusiasm akin him to appreciate and understand how the architect
photography and stability of inks and papers. Throughout to adulation. The drawings, because they broke with the intends to manifest, in built form, the clients brief and
this pre-digital period, for their pre-electrochemical tradition of architectural drawing, borrowing as they did budget on a given site and within the confines of building
means of image reproduction Archigram engaged with from the art world, cartoons, advertising art and science and planning regulations.
the tools and practices of professional printers and fiction imagery, elicited similar outbursts of ridicule or
media alike. As technology advanced, so did Archigram, admiration. The drawings produced for the builder enable him to
from static to moving image to complete immersive understand, in technical terms, how the built form is
image-rich, super-saturated sensory environments. The output from the group was enormous and cheerfully to be achieved and to what standard of finish and detail.
Fig.1: Ron Herron portrait by Peter Kent, 1982. Estate of Ron Herron.
All Rights Reserved, 2016. Photos: Susanne Isa. enthusiastic, reflecting the general mood of the time.
Images seen close up are bold, from the assured line The projects had great, evocative titles, such as: Plug-In Over the course of many years, the means and conventions
When Ron Herron died in late September 1994, I collected and glistening jet-black liquid stream of the Rapidograph City, Walking City, Living City and Computer City. for making marks on paper, to convey the information to
the contents of his office for safekeeping: 51 archival technical drawing pen, air dried by the red hot breath of The catchphrases were plug-in, clip-on, kit of parts, the client and the builder, have been developed to a high
folders, drawing and negative cabinets, cardboard tubes, Lucky Strike cigarettes, to the cow gum-fixed, collaged capsule, movement systems, optional extra, degree. All architects learn this means of communication
portfolios cases, document boxes, a collection of original cut-up, with its throwaway aesthetic. Throughout the throwaway, metamorphosis and indeterminacy. and develop, in the majority of cases, quite sophisticated
drawings of many well-known Archigram projects, archive are traces of technological residuefrom ruling The drawings were a surprise. They were brash, boldly techniques for imparting this type of information.
as well as the legacy of his own practice, professional pen and wash to the tipping point of digital production. drawn, overstated and cheerful, never calm, pure, finely
correspondence, lecture notes, personal papers, image All with the simple singular premise in common: produced drawn, understated or po-faced. They were meant to The other, less usual, function of drawing to the architect
source material and ephemera from the early 1960s for reproduction and disseminationthe idea of the is as a means of describing and discussing ideas. It is
to the mid-1990s. magazine at its core. this function and the drawings that have been produced
by the various members of the Archigram group, from
Located in the suburban family home in Essexthe Box No. 1unpacked, a staged photograph, illustrative the early 1960s to the present time, that concerns and
site of much of its productionthe sprawling collection of the organisational structure of the archive. Among this interests us here.
forms a unique time capsule, absorbed into the fabric fragile raw material, theres a rare unpublished account
of the house. of the drawings of Archigram, written by Ron Herron in The prime delight of those who made up the Archigram
December 1979. This paper will introduce this text, seen group is in the exploration, through design, of ideas
Offering a rare view of the profession on the brink of as a critical cipher that unlocks the unseen workings relating to a broader view of what architecture might be
the digital revolution, these works combine orthographic of the lost analogue world of Archigram. Tracing historical and consequently in the communication of these ideas
drawing, collage, photography and xerographylost antecedents from the writings of Marshal McLuhan, through graphic means.
analogue technologies of the recent past deployed comic book heroes, artists, cinema, popular magazines,
to imagine the ephemeral technologies of a utopian throwaway advertising imagery, a love of plastic, electric Towards this end, we have always been prepared to
near-future. light, fluorescent dreams, film-set livingfantasy or look outside of architecture in the search for new forms,
reality, all set within the hot-headed, kerosene-fuelled, new technologies and new attitudes, as well as looking
A recently successful Graham Foundation small grant psychedelic and technicoloured context of youthful for means of communication outside of those which
award to Simon Herron (University of Greenwich) rebellion and rejection. Box No. 1 focuses on Rons are traditionally available to the architect.
and Mark Morris (Cornell University) will provide exclusive writingsproject and drawing descriptions, completed
access and insight into the untouched and complete and proposed works alike. Its a personalised inventory Comics, fashion magazines, sci-fi magazines, the art
archive of Archigram co-founder and noted architect of ideasa lexicon and a navigational aid all at once. world, advertising material, graphics, the movies and
Ron Herron (193094), creator of the seminal television were all studied with great care and fascination
Cities: Moving, East River, New York (1964) and gifted THE DRAWING OF ARCHIGRAM in this assimilation of other techniques and means of
draughtsman of a wide array of Archigram and solo BY RON HERRON, DECEMBER 1979 communication.
projects alike.
In the early 1960s, for the first time, the architectural The group learnt and became confident in these new
This presentation provides a snapshot at the beginning world was hit right between the eyes by the speculative techniques of presentation and quite skilled at putting
Fig.2: Its A Beach, Ron Herron, Archigram, January 1971,
of this complex process. In addition to the familiar, projects and accompanying colourful, evocative and 610515mm, photoprint, collage, airbrush, letrafilm and ink on board. complex ideas across in drawings and collages, and
finished or nearly finished works, there are files of collage fantastic drawings and graphics of the Archigram group. Estate of Ron Herron. All Rights Reserved, 2016. subsequently slide programmes, that exuded excitement,

90 Deviated Histories Papers 91

 enthusiasm and belief in what they were doing, and the students, the establishment and commercial architects
belief that others would be interested in the manifestation the world over and integrated into the new architectural
of these ideas. The development of drawing techniques vernacular over the past years, leading critics to describe
that related to the use of slide and film projection such diverse buildings as the Centre Pompidou in Paris
involved the use of colour extensively, initially through and Kurokawas Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tokyo as being
the application of colour film, which till then had been in the style of Archigram.
used mainly by graphic designers and to some extent
by planners, and later through the use of the airbrush, The impact on and the assimilation by the architectural
crayon and coloured inks. world of the drawing and graphical style of Archigram is
fairly obvious if one takes a liberal view, and can be seen
Colour became a key component. Exciting and cheerful in the drawings of Norman Foster, OMA, Superstudio,
juxtaposition of colours, which, with the heavy line Richard Rogers and even Michael Graves. This emphasis
drawing technique used and the addition of collage on drawing and architecture as a medium for communi-
material gleaned from the magazines of the dayVogue, cation has, I believe, led to the current interest in
Queen, Nova, Town, Life and Paris Matchrelated very exhibiting, in gallery conditions, architectural drawings
directly to the mood of London in the so-called Swinging and in collecting and framing them as works of artthe
Sixties of the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Pinter, Blow-Up, Bailey, Archigram exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art
Shrimpton, The Stones, Carnaby Street and the miniskirt. in London in 1973 being the forerunner of this. Drawings
by various members of the group are now in collections
Using multi-screen slide presentation as a demonstration throughout the world, both private and public, including
mode and through a consuming fascination with the Gillman Paper Companies Collection, New York,
change as a design component, the idea of sequence the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and the Museum
drawings was developed, that is, drawings that depicted of Modern Art, New York.
an environment in change through a process of unveiling.
This can be seen in the Features Monte Carlo drawings, At this point, I believe it will be of interest to discuss
where plans, sections and perspective of the activity antecedents, to trace some of the sources and
space are shown, using base drawings with a range inspiration for the drawings and graphic style of the group
of events overlaid, to demonstrate change and the and to show the range of influences and their diversity.
Fig.3: Cities. Moving New York, Ron Herron, Archigram, 1964, 530235mm, responsive environment. The Suburbs Strip also
photoprint, collage vehicles, ink, pencil on board. Estate of Ron Herron. All Rights Reserved, 2016.
gives a good indication of the use of sequence and The sources of inspiration were many and varied and
the distortion of time to show change. included the graphically descriptive collages of
John Heartfield, Hannah Hch, El Lissitzky, Moholy Nagy
The prime vehicle for the ideas of the group, between and Rodchenko, the pages of the 1920s and 1930s
1960 and 1969, was the magazine Archigram, the magazines such as Lef, De Stijl, ABC, Merz and Vivante
production of which became possible with the availability and the drawings of Le Corbusier, Hannes Meyer, the
of offset litho printing. The magazine first appeared in Vesnin Brothers, Leonidov, Mart Stam and Tchernikov.
1960 and thereafter once a year for a ten-year, ten-issue
period, each page a collage of words, drawings and The more recent projects of Konrad Wachsman,
found material, concerning itself with the development Frei Otto, Alison and Peter Smithson, Yona Friedman
of ideas and with design as the mode of experiment. and the Japanese Metabolist group were well-known
to the Archigram group, as was the work of artists
By the late 1950s, the international style and the internat- such as Richard Hamilton, Richard Smith and Eduardo
ional architectural community had stagnated. The dogmas Paolozzi, which was as much admired for the ballsy
had been formulated and expounded decades before presentation as its humour, message and the obvious
and tested over the years just prior to and immediately enjoyment of the artist.
after the Second World War, and were found wanting.
Hardly any discussion of new concepts and ideas was The This is Tomorrow exhibition at the Whitechapel
taking place. The new generation wanted to enter the Gallery in 1956 was visited by Warren Chalk and myself.
debate with ideas. They wanted to clear the ground to It comprised a series of set piece environments designed
create a new understanding. This discussion started in by members of the Independent Group and their friends.
various places throughout the world, almost simultaneously Two of the exhibits had a tremendous impact on Chalk
Fig.4: Cities. Moving Master VehicleHabitation, Ron Herron, Archigram, November 1964,
825 550mm, ink on tracing. Estate of Ron Herron. All Rights Reserved, 2016. in Japan, France, Austria and England. The medium and myself, primarily because they related so much to
for the propagation and development of the ideas and our own thinking at the time. One, by Lawrence Alloway,
projects of the Archigram group and their friends would Toni Del Renzio and Geoffrey Holroyd, was a tackboard
be not in the form of manifestos, as in the past, but in intended as a lesson in how to read a tackboard,
the form of projects, projects to induce radical change the tackboard being a convenient method of organising
within architecture that required radically different modern visual information according to an individuals
graphic means of presentation and communication. decision. The tackboard area included optical diagrams
as a comment on information theory, photographs of
The ideas to some extent, but also the graphic style and a giant soap powder carton and Marcel Duchamps
imagery to a large degree, have been assimilated by Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2. The other exhibit,

92 Deviated Histories Papers 93

designed by Richard Hamilton, John McHale and John City exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, of Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist It has been noted that historically the ideas, drawings
Voelcker, included images of Marilyn Monroe, a jukebox, London, in 1963. To quote from Lawrence Alloway in the and Andy Warhol, who said, I love Los Angeles. I love and presentation techniques of the masters relate very
the use of ultraviolet light and a huge cut-out of a science catalogue of This is Tomorrow: In This is Tomorrow the Hollywood. Theyre beautiful. Everybodys plasticbut directly to their attitudes to architecture, their response
fiction monster carrying a girl. It also included a poster visitor is exposed to space effects, play with signs, a wide I love plastic. I want to be plastic. to the programme presented to them and the moment
by Richard Hamilton, made from a collage entitled range of materials and structures, which, taken together, in timei.e. the precise drawing technique and simple
Just what is it makes todays homes so different, make of art and architecture a many-channeled activity, The emergence of pop art related directly to a new collages of Mies Van Der Rohe, the austerely drawn
so appealing?, which shows the home as a series as factual and far from ideal standards as the street and universal consuming interest in the whole sphere of social housing projects of Walter Gropius, the freely
of references which we have all been conditioned to outsidea statement that coincided very much with communications, which was beginning to be called mass composed, hairy drawings of Le Corbusier and the
understand, to make the point that our familiarity towards the philosophy of Living City. media. The information industry was a popular, fashion- engineering-like drawings of Buckminster Fuller. Matching
and reaction to this world is conditioned by these able area of academic study at the time and writers and technique to idea became part of our game and the
references and images. The collage includes elements Another major influence on the drawings of the Archigram scholars such as Greenberg, Packard and particularly sources were expanded into any area that had drawing,
of modern technology such as a tape recorder, television group was the emergence of pop art in England in the Marshall McLuhan made it a part of everyday conversation, painting, collage, photomontage and audiovisual systems
set and vacuum cleaner, and contains a reference late 1950s, specifically the work centred around the so much so that by the late 1950s so much attention as the primary means of communication.
to the cinema by means of a movie poster advertising various artists that emerged from the Royal College of had been centred on the previously sneered-at media
an Al Jolson talkie, all this juxtaposed with beefcake Art in this period, the Royal College of Art magazine ARK and their contents that when pop painting appeared on These new means, in an architectural sense, of drawn
and cheesecake pictures of furniture from high street and particularly the work of Peter Blake, Richard Smith the scene, the response was generally enthusiastic. communication were used to depict, among other
furniture showroom catalogues. and Joe Tilson, followed later by Peter Phillips, Allen things, environmental concepts such as the responsive
Jones, David Hockney, Derek Boshier, Patrick Caulfield The essence of the McLuhan argument is that society environment, change, movement, time, the simulated
The catalogue of the This is Tomorrow exhibition became and Ronald Kitaj. A group of painters that for a while, and has always been shaped more by the nature of the media environment, ambience/emotion/atmosphere and
a much-prized possession and was often referred to certainly historically, were seen to be cohesive enough by which people communicate than by the content of architecture as process. These were concepts that
when the early Archigram exhibition work was being to be regarded as a movement in a real sense. American the communication. Through his books Understanding did not lend themselves to communication through
discussed, particularly at the time of Archigrams Living pop art was also of great interest, in particular the work Media, The Medium is the Massage, Counterblast, the standard architectural plan, section and elevation
The Gutenberg Galaxy and The Mechanical Bride he drawing or even the ubiquitous axonometric projection.
had a great impact on the group and opened our eyes
to this electronic age and what effect this might have Drawings that told a story became necessary, drawings
on our built environment, with statements full of astute that included wordsbig bold words. As in advertising,
guesswork and great showmanship, such as, the words became part of the drawing. Collage was used
circuited city of the future will not be the huge hunk of partly to increase the potency and partly to give a sense
concentrated real estate created by the railway. It will of reality to the statement. The overlay of collage material,
take on a totally new meaning under conditions of very drawn images and words got the message across in
rapid movement. It will be an information megalopolis. a bold, punchy, heightened and non-architectural way.
What remains of the configuration of former cities
will be very much like worlds fairsplaces in which Overstatement was used to get across an ideaand then
to show off new technology, not places of work or the message was repeated and repeated and repeated.
residence. They will be preserved, museum-like, as The ideas were often against everything that was
living monuments to the railway era. held sacred by most architects, i.e. they represented
the environment in changea non-permanence, an
Often, the more direct influences of other architects and architecture that was barely there, an architecture that
designers were there but not discussed. We were not metamorphosed, along with ideas that insisted on new
collectively sifting through and devouring graphic ideas means and ways of communication.
from magazines, comics, the cinema and television and
debating their use in our own work, or poring over the The drawings now look, inevitably, a part of history. They
drawings of Le Corbusier, Vesnin, Kahn, Otto, Walt Disney were very much of their time, together with the ideas
and Hamilton searching for inspiration. Rather, it was they presented. The techniques have been absorbed into
a passing reference to things seen, which were then architectural know-how even if the ideas have not. But
absorbed and reinterpreted into this style of Archigram the group, although no longer operating together, still
by the individuals in the group. operate and still relate to one another. They still retain
an absorbing interest in the communication of ideas and
The strength of a group such as Archigram lies in the in new techniques of communication.
collective effort and in the differences as much as the
similarities of attitude; in the wide range of individual To quote from Hans Hollein in Archigram: Many thoughts
interests as much as those which are shared. In Archigrams of Archigram seem, after having been formulated, so self-
case, the work of the individual, when added to that evident, almost so commonplace, that they soon will not
of the others, makes up a body of work that is of a whole be regarded as specific utterances, as individual viewpoints,
and relates directly to that moment in time, responding but as expressions of common, hidden, subconscious
to ideas that were in the air, even though the individuals longings. They became part of a new architectural
in question were often operating independently of each verna-cular which to an outsider obscures the source.
other and were even geographically sometimes thousands He mistakes the implementor for the inventor. Thats
of miles apart. the communication business.

Fig.5: Box No.1: Unpacked Estate of Ron Herron. All Rights Reserved, 2016. Photos: Susanne Isa.

94 Deviated Histories Papers 95

Drawing a Volcanarium,
or How to Represent a Very Large Figure
Adrianne Joergensen

We often hear it said that architects dont make buildings, new visual approach so that he could appeal to his
they make drawings. The same could be said for the readers imagination, he told a friend, because the world
scientist-explorers of the nineteenth centuryamong likes to see.2
them, Alexander von Humboldt, Charles Darwin and
Alfred Wallacewho not only amassed libraries of plant A pioneer in infographics, Humboldt designed his
specimens (herbaria), but also produced volumes of Naturgemlde as a microcosm on one page.3 Through
graphic material from their travels. Their experimentation the lens of the scientist-explorer, the drawing became
included developing new, rigorous methods of visually an autonomous object, freed from its original site. It was
representing their findings. One such graphic precedent, a blockbuster in a time where scientific research, travel
Humboldts Naturgemlde, a drawing of the volcano and wonder were closely linked. Lithography facilitated
Chimborazo in Ecuador, was as revolutionary for its dissemination of this and other drawings to delight
design as it was for its content (Fig.1). On the metre- a primarily European audience, most of whom would
wide section, which accompanied the 1807 edition of never visit the tropics. Two centuries after Humboldt,
the Essay on the Geography of Plants, he writes the his drawings, as artefacts of the journey and the
names of plants according to their altitudes, and on research, still engender speculation about distant places.
either side of the image displays columns of supporting As an architect, I am interested in the connections
datatemperature, humidity, even the colour of the between travel and representation, between the firmness
skyall in spatial relation to their position on the of research and graphical delight. Rather than writing
mountain.1 As Andrea Wulf explains in The Invention of esoteric texts, I create autonomous worlds using different
Nature, Humboldt was now ready to present to the modes and types of rigorous architectural drawing.
world a completely new way of looking at plants, and The word drawing grammatically captures its double
he had decided to do so with a drawing [ He] used this existence as both process, a vehicle for conducting

Fig.2: Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn, Gunung Merapi in Java Album (Leipzig: Arnoldische Bunchhandlung, 1856).
Junghuhn depicts Gunung Merapi, the first volcano he climbed, with small climbers looking over the sharp
edge of the summit crater against a bright blue sky.

research, and product, an artefact that represents rediscovering Javas volcanoes and as a basis for my
these findings to an audience. Like my scientific research on the connections between travel, research
predecessors, my aim is to compose a whole image, and representation.
one possible representation of a site that is
simultaneously liberated from it. A century and a half after Junghuhns Java explorations,
its landscape still intrigues, not only because it is
As part of Tourism and Cultural Heritage: A Case Study continually being constructed and deconstructed by
on the Explorer Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn, a three-year its 45 (known) active volcanoes, but also because it is
research project on travel and research led by Professors highly urbanised. Roughly the size of England and with
Philip Ursprung and Alex Lehnerer and based at the a population of 141 million, Java is the worlds most
ETH Zrich Future Cities Laboratory (FCL) in Singapore, populated island.4 in the theoretical context of Delirious
I am retracing the journeys of Humboldts lesser-known New York, we see Java as our Manhattan and its
contemporary Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn (180964) across volcanoes as skyscrapers.5 Like Hugh Ferriss dramatic
the island of Java. A German scientist-explorer in the skyscraper envelope paintings, which he describes as
service of the Dutch in the mid-nineteenth century, buildings like mountains, the volcanoes are very large
he was one of the first Europeans to climb and document figures in elevation view, seemingly separate from their
Javas volcanoes. Later dubbed the Humboldt of Java, landscapes, and yet they are the dynamic structures
Junghuhn used various drawing methods and types that produce the very ground from which they emerge.6
to supplement his extensive texts on natural sciences. Like a skyscraper, the volcano is a concentration of
Working before the time of scientific specialisation, human programmes and populations, and a centre of
Junghuhn studied botany, mycology, cartography civilisation.7 It is also a test of risk and resilience. This is
and geology, and these interests are clear in his rich a different narrative of naturenot a conception that
compositions. Together our international group of is passive and vulnerable to human action, but a nature
architects, artists, historians and geologists climb that is volatile and not always good. Some residents
seventeen of his favourite volcanoes to theorise about regard the volcanoes as active beings, with their own
Fig.1: Alexander von Humboldt, Ideen zu einer Geographie der Pflanzen nebst einem Naturgemlde contemporary relationships between urbanity and nature, personalities and moods, possessing the power to talk
der Tropenlnder (An Essay on the Geography of Plants, together with a Nature painting of the Tropics)
(Paris: Langlois, 1805). Humboldts cross-section of the volcano Chimborazo was as revolutionary for between the researcher and the landscape. My work and morally react to human actions. Scientists and
its use of graphical representation as much as for its scientific content. mobilises Junghuhns drawings as instruments for spiritual leaders alike must read the volcanoes for signs

96 Deviated Histories Papers 97

of future activity.8 Through a series of ongoing events, artefact resides in a historical research continuum
the volcano changes its own form and that of the with science, painting and architecture. Humboldt and
surrounding landscape. Like Ferriss process for evolving Junghuhn understood that even non-specialist audiences
the skyscraper form, a primitive form that was later cut could read their drawings and be fascinated by their
with terraces to allow light in and permit more regular content. Rigorous architectural drawings, rather than
interior programmes, the volcano rebuilds itself and the sketches, maps and diagrams, are central to our
surrounding landscape in a cycle of construction and research processes. We mobilise drawing as a high-
destruction.9 During an eruption, the volcano assumes resolution medium to focus on a very contained site and
different states of matter, from steam and airborne ash use our findings to speculate about urban issues in a
to liquefied lava to rock flows and larger airborne rock larger area. The challenge of drawing the volcano is that
bombs; the worst of them, the pyroclastic flow, it is opaque, and its inner forces unknown. Because it is
combines all three at a tremendous force and temperature. not a scientific paper, the drawing allows me to speculate
While the volcano proves dangerous due to its complete on this hidden dimension, albeit in a very serious way.
unpredictability as an event, its presence is welcome
because its ash makes these islands some of the most BUILDING A VOLCANARIUM
Fig.4: Details, Adrianne Joergensen, One possible view of/over/into Gunung Merapi, 2016, 3636in.
fertile on the planet [] volcanoes spur rice fields to Details of Merapis southern slope in plan, the summit in elevation and the interior in section.
extraordinary bounty. Many farmers manage three rice Where my precedent explorers assembled herbaria,
crops a year [] and they produce an abundance of or collections of plant specimens, to develop theories the size disparity between the volcano and individual which was thrown five kilometres away from the crater;
fruit and vegetables too.10 This extreme juxtaposition of about them in connection to their greater contexts, actors. It is fitting that my portrait series should begin the Museum Sisa Hartaku, which displays ruined
unstable ground, agricultural landscape and increasing I am building a volcanarium, or a library of images of the with Gunung Merapi (meaning fire mountain), the most household objects and cow skeletons; and the Bunker
urban density makes understanding and representing volcanoes to inform my own composition. My research dangerous volcano on Java. (It is the favourite among Merapi, where two people seeking refuge from the
conditions on Java an interesting architectural problem. begins with on-site empirical research. Where Junghuhn Indonesian volcanologists, because, as they say, He talks pyroclastic flow were killed. Initially detrimental to crops,
spent years climbing and measuring the volcanoes, our to us the most.)11 Located in Central Java about Merapis river systems bring the extraordinarily rich
The outcome of my ongoing research will be a set of group travels to Java for five days at a time on a series 25 kilometres north of the city of Yogyakarta, Merapi volcanic ash to the plains around [it] which could
seventeen drawn portraits of Javanese volcanoes. of expeditions conducted every six months over three has been the subject of much international press and be hundreds of kilometres away from the origin, hence
This paper describes my method of drawing as a process years. These on-site observations are two-fold: to scientific inquiry since its 2010 eruption, a 100-year contributing to the fertility of the soil in the area.14
and a product, taking the portrait of Mount Merapi as observe the whole volcano at a distance, sometimes event that killed approximately 400 people, displaced Crops such as tobacco and coffee are grown on Merapis
an example. This drawing attempts to compose these from another peak, as Junghuhn often did; and to hundreds of thousands and destroyed villages and slopes, and at a further distance rice and sugar flourish.
geological and programmatic relationships in space using observe the volcanos changing ecological and climatic fields.12 It is nearly constantly active, and its volatility is The areas shown in plan are contained within the political
a consistent architectural language. Like a written text, conditions while walking on it, as Humboldt did. I use evident in Junghuhns rendering in the 1856 Java Album bounds of the Yogyakarta regency, which runs up the
a drawing quotes, remixes and consolidates previous Junghuhns drawings, including the twelve renderings (Fig.2). The frame is cropped to show only the rocky south face of Merapi like a pie wedge. The deformation
scholarship, but has a greater capacity for communication in the Java Album (1856), his detailed Java Karte (1855) summit against a bright blue sky. The small figures of of the crater makes its exact terminus difficult to pinpoint.
with more diverse audiences by overcoming barriers in and longitudinal sections as navigational tools, looking the climbers, having traversed the steep slope, peer
language and disciplinary knowledge. As a verb, drawing for the observation points from which he composed his over the sharp crater edge. Other renderings in the Merapi was the first volcano that Junghuhn climbed
demands a level of familiarity with the site; as a noun, the images. They enable me to observe how the volcano Java Album, such as Gunung Sumbing, frame a in 1836, and one he would return to many times.
has changed in the last 150 years, to see how the area symmetrical, centred composition of the conical volcano He also climbed Merapis dormant twin, Merbabu.
has urbanised and to speculate on where he may have in the background, with its botanical, agricultural, social His 1845 rendering Des Nordseite die Merapi shows
invented, collaged or embellished his composition. and anthropological components in the foreground. the elevations of the two peaks in closer proximity with
Along with the members of our group, I take photos and Not only were these other elements important to an exaggerated figure of the explorer, carrying a walking
videos of conditions, materials and objects at each site. Junghuhns portrayal of the volcanos rich biodiversity, stick and telescope (Fig.5). Junghuhns elevations more
To inform and supplement my travels, I borrow from the but they also demonstrate Junghuhns various scientific closely resemble our expected image of a volcano than
experiences of others, including discussion with scholars interests and build his scientific credibility. his plans, which are primarily used in his Java Karte.
and local residents, and reference others images, His Dutch sponsors likely commissioned the map for
disciplinary texts and scientific diagrams. Current and My Merapi portrait shows the elevation of the volcano resource speculation and military domination, but the
historic maps and satellite imagery help me to put the contained within a circle, a cropping indicating that this result reflects his interests in cartography and
volcanoes in historic and physical contexts. The is a detailed view of a much larger scenario (Fig.3). volcanology. He was able to accurately measure the
volcanoes are becoming increasing popular with tourists, The drawing starts from the lower slopes on the south volcanoes by climbing them with a barometer, which
especially Indonesians, and my work incorporates the to the saddle between Merapi (2,968m) and its taller must be carried upright at all times and made climbing
viewpoints of the many tourist images and blogs of other dormant twin, Merbabu (3,145m), to the north.13 The a tedious and gruelling process.15 His richly detailed
volcano enthusiasts. elevation consolidates the scars of Merapis past, shown topography shows how the volcano becomes distorted
in the ghosted lava domes, which collapse and rebuild in plan. The detailed craters look like organs, and were
ONE POSSIBLE VIEW OF/OVER/INTO over time. In the 2010 eruption, the pyroclastic and lahar probably not useful for the Dutch administration. A similar
GUNUNG MERAPI flows widened the Gendol River valley from the summit issue of distortion occurs in modern means, like Google
down the southern slope towards Yogyakarta. As shown Earth, which makes it difficult to read the extremity of
My intention is to portray the spatial proximity of human in plan, some of the upland villages and farms were conditions or approaches to the summit. In this drawing,
conditions on the surface to the volcanos active interior, protected from the eruption by the Turgo and Plawangan the north face traces the route of our re-enactment
as well as the shifting states between them, by combining hills; others, now covered in ash and sand, were not so of Junghuhns climb in plan and elevation. Our journey
Fig.3: Adrianne Joergensen, One possible view of/over/into Gunung different drawing planes (plan, elevation and section) fortunate (Fig.4). These areas have since been deemed began in the middle of the night, following guides from
Merapi, 2016, 3636in. This portrait of Mount Merapi depicts the spatial within one composition. Depicting the relationships unsuitable for permanent residence, and villagers guide the base camp in Selo, which lies at the saddle between
proximity of human conditions on the surface to the volcanos active
interior, as well as the shifting states between, by combining different of different groups to the volcanovillage residents, tourists around their ruined villages in jeeps. The highlights Merapi and Merbabu. We climbed in darkness with
drawing planes (plan, elevation and section) within one composition. farmers, miners, tourists and scientistsmeans reconciling include the Batu Alien, a massive face-shaped rock, headlamps, our surroundings invisible until after we

98 Deviated Histories Papers 99

reached the summit and watched the sunrise. The track to the supernatural creatures for safety and wealth of 1
 The Invention of Nature, Last modified 5 February, 2015. Last visited 11 July 2016, http://volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=263250
http://geographical.co.uk/places/mapping/item/1542-the-invention- #bgvn_201102.
here is difficult but heavily worn, and there are resting Yogyakarta.21 The previous juru kunci, Mbah Maridjan, of-nature. 13
Merbabu on Smithsonian Global Volcanism Programmeme website,
posts along the route. The old Merapi peak makes a false was killed in the 2010 eruption when he refused to 2
Andrea Wulf, The Invention of Nature: Alexander Von Humboldts Last visited 11 July 2016, http://volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=263240
summit and made us groan with the realisation that we evacuate from his village, despite the governments New World (Knopf Publishing Group, 2015), 90. 14
Purwani, Javanese Power. 59.
3
The Invention of Nature, 15
Renate Sternagel, Der Humboldt von Java: Leben und Werk
had not really reached the top. Returning down the slope, official warning, believing that the eruption would not do 4
Indonesia: Urban Population of Cities, Retrieved 22 December, 2015. des Naturforschers Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn 180964.
we encountered different types of rock surfaces, any harm since there was no sign from the supernatural Last visited 9 July 2016. http://citypopulation.de/Indonesia-MU.html (Halle: Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 2013), 86.
ecosystems and agriculture. creatures of Merapi volcano. 22 The site of his house 5
Philip Ursprung, Footnotes from East Java (Presentation given at 16
Ken Jorgustin, XXX Magma Chamber deep under Merapi?
is now a destination for pilgrims and tourists alike. ETH Future Cities Laboratory, Singapore, 28 January 2016) Last modified 7 November 2010. http://modernsurvivalblog.com/
6
Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for volcano/xxx-magma-chamber-deep-under-merapi
The ground surface is conversely the roof of the volcano. My section attempts to reconcile these two differing Manhattan. (New York: The Monacelli Press, 2014), 125. 17
Surono and Subandriyo, eds. 1.1 Geological History in Visual
Since no one can see inside an active volcano, scientists theories about Merapis interior. Around the first magma 7
Ofita Purwani, Javanese Power: Silent ideology and built environment Images of Merapi Volcano. (Bandung: Geological Agency of
and spiritual and political leaders develop different chamber, the strata are occupied by this alternate of Yogyakarta and Surakarta (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, Indonesia, Centre of Volcanology and Geological Hazards
2014), 59. Mitigation: date unknown), 2.
theories about its presence. During Junghuhns time, world, which is drawn as an imagined company town 8
Adam Bobbette, Getting to Know a Few Hundred Degrees: Scientists 18
Michael R. Dove, The panoptic gaze in a non-western setting:
volcanology was a controversial, developing discipline. that produces magma. Merapi is an infrastructural on Mt. Merapi Since 1900 (Presentation given at ETH Future Cities self-surveillance on Merapi volcano, Central Java, Religion 40 no. 2
He primarily uses sectional drawing, as in the system whose interior activity produces the conditions Laboratory, Singapore, May 5 2016.) (2010): 121.
9
Koolhaas, Delirious New York. 112. 19
Dove, The panoptic gaze. 124.
Laengsprofil from the 1845 Topographical and scientific and effects on its exterior. 10
Elizabeth Pisani, Indonesia, Etc.: Exploring the Improbable Nation 20
Ibid., 124.
Atlas to Journey through Java, to depict the heights of (WW Norton & Company, 2014), 175. 21
Purwani, Javanese Power. 66.
Javas volcanoes in relation to each other, rather than OUTCOMES 11
Adjat Sudradjat, personal interview, 6 September 2015. 22
Purwani, Javanese Power. 87.
12
Merapi on Smithsonian Global Volcanism Programme website, 23
Wulf, The Invention of Nature, 37.
to speculate on their interior form and contents. Today,
scientists monitor the volcanos changes visually and In combining different planes of representation, my
through seismographs. They tend to portray Merapis drawing of Merapi consolidates different aspects of
interior in simplified diagrams, with layered strata and two urbanity and nature, of disasters and everyday life,
magma chambers, one assumed to be between 1,500 into one possible portrait of conditions on Java. With
and 2,500 metres below Merapis peak, which is fed by destruction often comes reconstruction and innovation,
another, larger one 1030 kilometres below.16 The two as in cities like Chicago after the Great Fire of 1871.
older Merapi peaks, now dormant, are visible to the As an architect conducting research at an institute in
right of the stratovolcano.17 Where scientists look to the southeast Asia, I am interested in alternate methods
volcanoes to make scientific advances, some Javanese of documenting and confronting urban issues, not by
look to them for spiritual insight.18 They believe that looking at the city, but by studying one of its formative
there is a spirit world inside the crater of Merapi volcano structures. Our empirical research continues into 2017,
that mirrors the world of humans, which also acts as a and we will work on the exhibitions and book publication
moral compass, capable of administering judgment for over the following eighteen months. The seventeen
misbehaviour.19 For example, some speculate that the portraits will clarify the differences and similarities of
2010 eruption was partially instigated by the volcanos each geological and ecological condition and its relation-
dissatisfaction with the golf course that was recently built ship to its surrounding urban and residential context.
on its southern slope. The golf course was closed for a Whether shown in an exhibition or published in a folio like
year after being halfway submerged in ash. This concept Junghuhns Java Album, they will be informed by both
of Javanese cosmology uses the landscape for power their origin sites and by the reception and extrapolation
and positions the Keraton (Palace) in Yogyakarta at the of the audience. When Humboldts friend Goethe
centre of a spiritual axis that is meant to keep harmony received his copy of Essay on Plants, the Naturgemlde
between the Merapi volcano and Nyai Roro Kidul, the drawing was missing, so Goethe drew his own.23
goddess of the south sea.20 The Keraton was the first No longer Chimborazo, nor a complete flight of fancy,
structure built in Yogyakarta in 1756, and the city grew the drawing detaches from its original site to become an
around it. The Sultan of Yogyakarta has a juru kunci, a autonomous world. Like Humboldts Naturgemlde, my
spiritual gatekeeper, whose role is to appease the spirits intention is that the Java volcano portraits could become
of the volcano through, among other things, an annual graphic artefacts for other researchers to wonder about
ritual called the labuhan, in which offerings are made and invent, in a volcano landscape or otherwise.

Fig.5: Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn, Die Nordseite des Merapi, aus einer Hhe von 7500 Fu vom sdlichen
Abhange des Merbabu gesehen. Nov. 1836 (Seen on the north side of Merapi, from a height of 7,500 feet
from the southern slope of Merbabu) in Topogr.u.naturwiss. Atlas zur Reise durch Java (Magdeburg: 1845).
Junghuhn shows himself as an adventurous explorer looking through his telescope at Mount Merapi from
the summit of nearby Mount Merbabu.

100 Deviated Histories Papers 101

Anamorphosis: An Inquiry into the Unknown stayed in France. Under their protection, the Order was
very prosperous and by 1609, under the patronage of King
various optical instruments, Perspectiva Horaria (1648),
in which he describes his catoptric sundial in one of
Thi Phuong-Trm Nguyen Henry IV, had founded its convent in Paris Place Royale. the corridors of the cloister.

ABOUT INVENTIONS ARISING between how Niceron engaged with the unknown through THE CONVENT OF PLACE ROYALE Niceron first encountered Maignan during a visit to the
FROM MATHEMATICS his research and the construction of the space of wonder A CENTRE OF RESEARCH AND CREATION Minim convent of Santa Trinit dei Monti. The contact
in anamorphic images, in order to establish a connection between the two men is related in a late eighteenth-
By the truth they revealed, they perfected our between our making and the world around us. During the first half of the seventeenth century, under century unpublished manuscript by the Minim Charles
knowledge by providing us with thousands of the guidance of the Minim Marin Mersenne (15881648), Martin that recounts the history of Santa Trinit dei
advantages, they also recreated our senses, THE MINIMSTHE ORIGIN OF THE MINIMS the Convent of Place Royale was an important centre Monti. According to Martin, Niceron arrived in Rome
not just by pointless speculation by the inventors, for scientific studies. The collection of Mersennes while Maignan was working on an anamorphic wall
but in taking delight in seeing the possibilities The Order of the Minims was founded in 1453 in Calabria correspondence evidenced that he was in touch with painting on the west wing of the cloister. Niceron was
beyond what they expected. 1 by a hermit who would later be canonised as St Francis men of many different fields, such as Descartes, so impressed by the work that he suggested, in the
Jean-Franois NiceronLa Perspective curieuse of Paola (14161507). The Order received official Desargues and Pascal, to share their knowledge about corridor opposite, painting St John the Evangelist on
recognition by the Papal brief from Sixtus IV in 1472. subjects such as philosophy, mathematics and physics.3 the island of Patmos writing the Apocalypse. During
This essay addresses the development of anamorphic St Francis was known as a thaumaturgea worker Nicerons stay in Rome, the two discussed the techniques
drawing as a particular event in the evolution of of wonder or performer of miracleswho could heal Mersenne had the idea for an academy of science as of anamorphic drawing, worked on mathematics and
representation and perspective, in order to propose through his touch.2 The name of the Order comes from early as 1622, but it was around 1635 that he established studied Hebrew together. Moreover, Martin recorded
a historical understanding of the relationship between their humility and minimal way of subsistence; they were the Academia Parisiensis. Its beginnings are quite vague that Maignan and Niceron in fact worked together on
theoretical research and making. Anamorphic images considered the most austere of the orders, due to their and clandestine, most likely due to the condemnation of their anamorphic painting on the walls of the cloister.10
are a drawing projection technique that was developed vows to live in a continuous Lent (a Lenten way of life). Galileo in 1633 and the hanging of the chemist Chanloux
in parallel with the science of perspective and whose in 1631.4 Mersenne envisioned the Academia Parisiensis AN ANAMORPHIC MURAL PAINTING
refinement culminates around the end of the seventeenth The powers of St Francis were well-known and were as a place to discuss the relationship between practice A NARRATIVE PROCESS BETWEEN
century. While perspective has evolved towards using requested by King Louis XI of France on his deathbed and theoretical knowledge, but also as a place for arts APPEARANCE AND APPARITION
geometry to represent the appearance of space on a in 1483. At his arrival, St Francis was too late to heal the and crafts.5 After his death, the model of his academy
flat plane as accurately as possible, anamorphic images king, but took care of him until his death, after which became the precursor of the Acadmie Royale des The painting by Maignan in the convent of Santa Trinit
use the same geometrical principles, but carry them St Francis became the protg of the royal family and Sciences established by Jean-Baptiste Colbert in 1666, dei Monti shows St Francis de Paola, the founder of
to an extreme and instead create a break in the real. In known today as part of the Institut de France. the Order of the Minims. However, the anamorphically
anamorphic images, representation is not a perpendicular transformed image shows a hilly landscape with a stream,
plane in front of the viewer but a diagonal cut in the cone MARIN MERSENNE, JEAN-FRANOIS NICERON boats, fishermen, little villages and peasants, with a tree
of vision, allowing an entry into the space of vision. AND EMMANUEL MAIGNAN in the foreground. According to Professor Agostino De
Rosa,11 the anamorphic painting is meant to be seen first
The core of this paper is rooted in the study of the Marin Mersenne entered the Minims in 1611. His main as the representation of St Francis de Paola and then as
development of anamorphic images by friars belonging interest was music, and through his treatise Harmonie the landscape. Looking more carefully, one can recognise
to the Minim Order, more specifically through the work Universelle he sought to reconcile musical harmony the similarity with the Calabrian landscape, home of
of the friar Jean-Franois Niceron (161346) and his with both the movements of the celestial bodies St Francis. We can also observe the depiction of one
seminal book on anamorphosis, La Perspective curieuse. and the sciences. Mersenne was a supreme of the miracles attributed to him: it is said that St Francis
It will analyse the practice-led research and experiment- representative of that philosophical, scientific and was refused by a fisherman to traverse the Strait of
ation by the Minims to capture the relationship between aesthetic tendency that aimed to establish a kind Messina with his followers, and as a result he used his
their research aims and their theoretical concerns, of unified field theory, in which every level of order tunic to navigate across the water, led by the light of God.
in order to understand the intention behind their making in the universal and world systems was representative
practices. I am interested in how their desire to grasp of the same underlying structures.6 The configuration of the hallway first suggests to the
the world and its many unknowns was translated into viewer the primary image of St Francis, and then this
specific types of experiment, text and discoveries. The Under Mersennes wing, Jean-Francois Niceron joined first understanding is slowly shattered as the observer
study covers this particular episode of the development the Minims at the age of 18. He studied mathematics walks along the corridor. Gradually, another narrative
of anamorphic images because, beyond the play on and was a gifted artist, but his greatest interest resided appearsthat of the landscape in which St Francis
vision, they represent an embodiment of the Minims in perspective and optics. For Niceron, [] optics offered miracles happened. The first image therefore gives
philosophy through research into vision, touch and us significant progress in both science and arts, and way to an apparition; the hidden narrative of the story
desire for wonder. Moreover, I will argue that there is a very pleasurable entertainment for the satisfaction of of St Francis de Paola. The fictional space of
resonance between their way of approaching research our sight, which is the noblest of our senses.7 representation is now intertwined with the space of
and experimentation and a contemporary concern experience and the adjustment of the body within the
about thinking through making. Finally, the friar Emmanuel Maignan (160176) entered space is required to re-establish a physical link between
the Minims in Toulouse in 1613. Following this, he was the fictive space of representation and the space
If anamorphic images open up a space of desire for asked to the Minim convent of Santa Trinit dei Monti, of the real.
wonder manifested only in the physical encounter of on the Pincian Hill in Rome in 1636.8 During his time in
the image, how in return can it be constructed? Drawing, Rome, Maignan was part of the circle of the Jesuit In La Perspective curieuse, Niceron describes both mural
for Niceron, established a way to inquire into the realm Athanasisus Kircher, a major figure in the development paintings and also another that he painted in the convent
of optics and led to the elaboration of a drawing of the history of science. Kircher possessed a broad of Place Royale, representing St John. Unfortunately,
technique that allows the occupation of the space and eclectic knowledge across disciplines, sharing little remains from the French convent after the French
Fig.1: Jean-Franois Niceron, La Perspective curieuse, Portrait of the
of vision. Focusing on the performative aspect of author, Paris, 1638 (Institut national d'histoire de lartCollections de a particular interest with Maignan in light and optics.9 Revolution, and there are only fragments remaining of
anamorphosis, this paper attempts to draw a parallel l'Ecole Nationale Suprieure des Beaux-Arts). Maignan is known for his treatise about sundials and the mural painting of St John in Santa Trinit dei Monti.

102 Deviated Histories Papers 103

 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND

This section uses the philosophical roots of the Minims

to explore common ground in the act of making, and
to emphasise the idea of discovery through the senses
and the importance of touch and desire for wonder.

ARISTOTELIAN INFLUENCES
THE IMPORTANCE OF MAKING

The philosophy of the Order of the Minims retained its

roots from its medieval origins. The scholastic tradition
of the Minims and the influence of St Thomas of Aquinas
is present in the preponderance of the knowledge
emerging from the senses in their making. St Thomas
is known for having adapted the writings of Aristotle
to the Christian religion. For Aristotle, the experience
of things, the know-how (techn), the wisdom (sophia)
and science as a demonstrative knowledge (episteme)
are all modes to attain knowledge.12 This Aristotelian
understanding of the world is reflected in Nicerons
treatise where he states his disapproval of Plato,
who rejected from mathematics everything that is
related to matter or the material world and his belief
that mathematics loses its purity when it relies
on the perception of the senses to prove a hypothesis.13
Instead, he gives Archimedes as a model to follow,
who perfected sciences through use and practice;
we cant deny that mathematics developed with
that aim has provided us with great useful inventions Fig.4: Jean-Franois Niceron, La Perspective curieuse,
example of a perspective drawing: plate 13, Paris, 1652
Fig.2: Emmanuel Maignan, view of St Francis de Paola in the and produced amazing effects with the help (Bibliothque nationale de France).
convent of Santa Trinit dei Monti, Rome, photo by author. of mechanics. 14
by man and the external environment.16 Anamorphic
Following Nicerons understanding of making as a way images, along with the sundial, are visible manifestations
of comprehending the unknown, Vilm Flusser offers of our relationship with such invisible phenomena.
a contemporary take on the subject in his essay
The Gesture of Making. The piece emphasises how THE SENSES AS SOURCE OF KNOWLEDGE,
making can help grasp the world in dialectical terms; PLEASURE AND DESIRE FOR THE UNEXPECTED
or, indeed, how the dialectic can help reconfigure
making. For Flusser, ideas are formed by dialogue For the Minims, understanding the world through
a negotiation with the realand new ideas are making and experimenting forefronted the essential
constantly appearing in the heat of theorys battle role of the senses as not only a source of knowledge
against a raw, resistant world [] Through the gesture but also a source of pleasure. Regarding sciences that
of creating, the hands develop new forms and impress only prescribe rules and ideas that exist only through
them upon objects.15 the means of discourse, Niceron declares: they are
almost useless until we put them into practice and
The research at the convent on sundials, optics and for the pleasure of our senses, then only will they reach
musical harmony is not coincidental and possesses a their full significance.17
broader significance related to the understanding of the
position of man and the cosmos. The different creations The Minims approach to the senses contrasted with
or inventions were crafted as a way to challenge and Cartesian philosophy. Descartes was aware of the
reconcile with the external world. In this context, the act Minims research through his correspondence with
of making brings forth a communicative dimension by Mersenne, and even received a copy of Nicerons
creating a narrative based on mans understanding of treatise, but for him anamorphosis was still a defiance
natural phenomena. Within the gesture of creating an of the senses. In his Meditations, he explained his
anamorphic image, a dialogue is established between distrust of the senses by pointing out the discrepancy
the idea of playing with the rules of perspective and the between reality and perception. He argued for a conception
desire to engage with the phenomena of vision and light. of the world solely through ones own cognitions. The
Similarly, Maignans catoptric sundial forms a mediation consequence of the dominance of the Cartesian cogito
Fig.3: Emmanuel Maignan, detail of the anamorphic view of the mural between the vaulted corridor of the cloister and the is also reflected in the desire for distinctiveness in
painting in the convent of Santa Trinit dei Monti, Rome, photo by author. movement of the universe; between the world inhabited representation. The rationalisation of vision is exemplified

104 Deviated Histories Papers 105

in Girard Desargues (15911661) completely self-
referential perspective technique with a system of scales,
published in 1636. With Desargues method, there is
no need to refer to elements outside the picture plane
to draw. The loss of relation between the real and the
represented leads to the flattening of representation.

The Minims understanding of the world was based

on sensorial perception. Lyle Massey, a historian whose
research addresses the question of the body in the
development of anamorphosis, describes how Maignan
used the senses for his research: Maignan constructed
an empirically oriented, anti-Cartesian theory of Fig.6: Phuong-Trm Nguyen, The ReachUnfolding of the Movement
knowledge that was founded on the premise that of the Hand, 2016, photomontage by the author.
experimentalism and its concomitant testing of the
senses could reveal the given truths of physical mechanisms that animated those machines was similar
phenomena. According to Maignan, a sensationalist to the technique of anamorphosis.
account of knowledge depends on the active, probing
quality of the senses. The affirmation of truths about Niceron wrote La Perspective curieuse on his return to
the world is only available to human beings through Paris in 1638. An expanded Latin version, Thaumaturgus
the experience of sensual contact.18 Opticus, was published in 1646, with further detail about
the painting technique of the anamorphic mural and
Moreover, for Niceron, the pleasure of the senses also a section about light and cast shadows. A third version,
meant the desire for the unexpected: through the truths a translation from the Latin version, edited by Roberval
they revealed, mathematics perfected our knowledge and Mersenne, was released in 1652 after Nicerons
and provided us with thousands of advantages, deaththe present essay references this final version.
they also recreated our senses, not just by pointless La Perspective curieuse is divided into four books:
speculation by the inventors, but in taking delight in Book One describes the method of perspective, Book
seeing the possibilities beyond what they expected.19 Two examines different principles of anamorphic images
The seventeenth century did not possess a clear on a flat and three-dimensional surface, Book Three
distinction between science and the 'supernatural'. explores reflection on flat, cylindrical and conical mirrors,
Mersenne and the Minims felt their research did not and finally Book Four deals with the refraction of light
contradict Christian belief; instead, they saw their in crystals.
findings as a way to acknowledge the idea of a greater
power. Whitmore points out that Mersenne possessed Through the description of the different anamorphic
a broadminded outlook towards scientific methodology methods with drawings, mirrors and crystals, Niceron
and exploration, admitting that there was always plays with the idea of deception of visionwhich he
something beyond the limits of his investigations.20 calls the most important senseto access wonder.
Stemming from this belief in something beyond reach, The experience of the anamorphic image lies in the
and driven by the desire for the unexpected, Nicerons deception of the eye as the space unfolds. Niceron
treatise, La Perspective curieuse, and its anamorphic was aware of the difference between the real and
inventions invite a space for wonder. the world of appearances, and understood the potential
of the illusion of depth in painting:
THE CASE FOR ANAMORPHOSIS
[] the science of perspective is the most
For Niceron, anamorphic constructions contain a magical dignified, and the most wonderful science because
elementthe desire to believe in the impossible. To the it encompasses the effect of light, which gives
title La Perspective curieuse, he adds Magie artificielle beauty to all perceptible things, and by this means,
des effets merveilleux (artificial magic of marvellous the lines we traced on a specific plane to express
effects). He also clarifies that magie artificielle was solid shapes can trick the eye, and deceived
used not in an illegitimate way, but rather as Pico della judgment and reason. Indeed, the artifice of painting
Mirandola intended it to be usedas something that consists precisely in bringing out the depth of
can perfect sciences. Niceron considered anamorphic appearance on a flat surface.22
images to be in the same category of artificial magic
as the mirror of Archimedes that enabled the burning According to art historian Jurgis Baltrusaitis, who
of enemy ships sails, Daedalus automata or Albert authored the first book on the history of anamorphosis,
Legrands bronze head, which was able to speak. 21 the earliest known example of anamorphosis is from
For him, the kind of wonder produced by the hidden Leonardo da Vincis Codex Atlanticus (14831518),
showing an elongated head.23 Anamorphosis was often
Fig.5 (opposite): Jean-Franois Niceron, La Perspective curieuse, cited in perspective treatises, but never with a clear
selection of drawing plates, Paris, 1652 (Bibliothque nationale de France). definition of what it was; and before the seventeenth

Papers 107
 as the observer experiences the space. From this desire to reach for the unknown. The reach is defined are resigned instead in the gesture of openness and of
deceptive vision arises a return of touchor the by the poet Anne Carson as the primordial act, and most giving.26 The fragments represent a moment in time in which
hapticas a way of accessing truth. The movement importantly as an act of imagination: Desire is a reaching the hands are trying to grasp the unknown. The traces
of adjustment of the body in space to grasp the second out for the sweet [] and the man who is reaching for on the surface invite the observer to hold them for its
meaning of the image also relates to kinaesthesia some delight, whether in the future as hope or in the past completion. Within the space disclosed by the anamorphic
the ability of our body to sense its movement in space. as memory, does so by means of an act of imagination.25 image, the project unfolds into a mise-en-scne of an
Therefore the process of transformation of the In the project, a table allows the expansion of the depth atmosphere that calls for the observers involvement.
anamorphic image underlines the idea that a change in of the spatial relationship between the primary image and
position provokes a change in perception, as well as the the distorted image and enables the construction and Performing in the manner of the Minims allows the
communicative dimension between vision and movement. occupation of the space of vision. On the table lie cast reconstruction of the story of their desire for making in an
fragmentsthe imprints of the space captured by this embodied way. Through the exploration of both the space
Anamorphosis is a drawing technique that invests the primary gesture of grasping. Flusser reminds us that and the experience opened up by anamorphosis, I hope
body with the agency to triggerand to re-enact the two hands mirroring each other seek for wholeness this paper offers a foundation for a new research method
the movement that enables the image and its multiple in the gesture of making but, without ever reaching it, that is driven by the same desire for wonder.
meanings to be brought forth. Anamorphic images
bind the motion of the body to visual perception, thereby
ensuring the necessity of presence in the interaction
and creating a distinct sense of space.

Throughout this essay, I have explained key moments

in the development of anamorphosis in order to suggest
a precedent for understanding how we can harness
the possibilities of new drawing techniques not only
to represent architecture, but also to reach beyond the
expected, as per Niceron. Driven by the desire for a
tangible experience of invisible phenomena, anamorphosis
exposes our desire for wonder. Through its construction,
the Minims proposed a narrative about their tactile
comprehension of the world. The example of the
anamorphic mural of St Francis de Paola is in fact an
allegory for this narrative. The story on the mural echoes
the sense of discovering the apparition of the hidden
Fig. 7: Phuong-Trm Nguyen, Table, Reach and Fragments, 2016, scene behind the initial image. The movement towards
photomontage by the author. the apparition of the scenethe landscape in which
St Francis miracles took placeenacts a sense
century, it was merely described as a simple deformation of wonder upon our perceiving of this scene, while
of a grid. It was only at the beginning of the seventeenth reminding us that the scene itself depicts a moment
century, along with the refinement of the technique of wonder. The element of wonder in the fictional space
of perspective construction, that the explanation of of representation is also present through the perform-
anamorphosis became more scientific. It was Niceron ance of the physical space. The Minims explored their
who linked the deformation of the image with the desire for wonder to develop and create inventions that
displacement of the distance point, in order to play are a means for others to reach and access it as well. 1
J  ean Francois Niceron, La Perspective curieuse (Paris 1652), 1. in Jean Francois Niceron: Prospettiva, catottrica e magia artificiale,
with depth perception.
2
Patrick James Stignant Withmore, The Order of the Minims in the ed. Agostino a Rosa, vol.1 of Storia dei metodi e delle forme
Seventeenth Century France (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1967), 4. di rappresentazione (Rome: Aracne editrice, 2013), 159.
The opportunity to use the insights of anamorphosis in 3
Jurgis Baltrusaitis, Anamorphic Art, trans. W.J. Strachan 12
Julian Maria, The History of Philosophy, trans. Stanley Applebaum
THE DEPTH OF THE SPACE OF EXPERIENCE current architectural practice does not lie directly in the (Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey, 1977), 61. and Clarence C. Strowbridge (New York: Dover Publications, 1967), 63.
physical transformation of the image, but in its potential
4
Whitmore, The Order of the Minims in the Seventeenth Century 13
Niceron, La Perspective curieuse, 1.
France, 150. 14
Ibid., 2.
In the anamorphic method described by Niceron, the to break with our established understanding of the world 5
Ibid., 151. 15
Vilm Flusser, Gestures, trans. Nancy Ann Roth (Minneapolis:
depth of representation does not recess within the to allow a questioning of our relationship with both the 6
Martin Kemp, Harmonious Hand: Marin Mersenne and the University of Minnesota Press, 2014), 43.
picture plane any more, but is instead experienced in real and the imagined realms. Influenced by Nicerons science of memorized music, Nature 409 (2001): 666. 16
Lyle Massey, Picturing Space, Displacing Bodies: Anamorphosis in
7
Niceron, La Perspective curieuse, 2. Early Modern Theories of Perspective (University Park: The Pennsylvania
front of it. Massey emphasises this by displacing the making and research practice, I am undertaking this 8
Antonella Romano, Mathematics and Philosophy at Trinit dei Monti: State University Press, 2007), 108.
distance point so that it is as close as possible to the reflection on the potential of anamorphic images in a Emmanuel Maignan and his Legacy between Rome and France, in 17
Niceron, La Perspective curieuse, 1.
vanishing point; the viewer is forced to come in contact design project that aims to use their study as a critical Conflicting Duties: Science, Medicine and Religion in Rome, 15501750, 18
Massey, Picturing Space, Displacing Bodies: Anamorphosis in Early
ed. Maria Pia Donato and Jill Kraye, vol.15 of Warburg Institute Modern Theories of Perspective, 104.
with the picture plane, and therefore to realise that tool to bring forth the body as a bridge between the Colloquia, ed. Charles Burnett, Jill Kraye and Will Ryan (London: 19
Niceron, La Perspective curieuse, 1.
vision is necessarily embodied: anamorphosis posits physical environment and the imagined realm. The The Warburg Institute, 2009), 160. 20
Whitmore, The Order of the Minims in the Seventeenth Century
an embodied viewer who cannot escape contingency, experience of the anamorphic image opens up a place 9
Whitmore, The Order of the Minims in the Seventeenth Century France, 152.
France, 165. 21
Niceron, La Perspective curieuse, 6.
temporality and performativity.24 for dialogue, in which the body is trying to adjust and 10
Charles Martin, Histoire du couvent royal des Minimes Franais 22
Ibid., 3.
engage with both the fictive space of representation de la Sainte Trinit sur le Mont Pincius Rome, LivreIII, 23
Baltrusaitis, Anamorphic Art, 33.
The displacement of the distance point in Nicerons and the space of the real. Using model-making and film, cited in Antonella Romano Mathematics and Philosophy at 24
Massey, Picturing Space, Displacing Bodies: Anamorphosis in
technique renders the tension in the boundary that the different pieces attempt to reconstruct the space Trinit dei monti: Emmanuel Maignan and his Legacy between Early Modern Theories of Perspective, 68.
Rome and France, 162. 25
Anne Carson, Eros and the Bittersweet (Princeton: Princeton University
constrains the image and provokes an intertwining of the of discovery and the desire for wonder. Together they 11
Agostino De Rosa, Passi nellinfinito: Le opere dei padri Emmanuel Press, 1986), 63.
appearance of one image with the apparition of another spatialise the idea of encounter through touch and the Maignan e Jean Francois Niceron a Trinit dei Monti, Roma, 26
Flusser, Gestures, 47.

108 Deviated Histories Papers 109

From Body Agents to Agent Bodies:
Imagining Architectural Embodiment
from the Inside Out
Alessandro Ayuso

Drawn images of the human bodyinherently Body Agent TempiettoPerspective View depicts a
constructive, physical and steeped in epistemeshave particular body agents vantage point, looking down
a long tradition as generators and calibrators of designs. through a portal in a dome that enshrouds the Body
While in the past many body images that informed Agent Tempietto, a structure that I designed by digitally
design were idealised (for instance, the Vitruvian man) animating body agents. The uppermost portion of the
and generalised (for instance, the standardised humans Tempietto is visible, encrusted with ornaments derived
depicted in Neuferts Architects Data), my drawings from frozen frames of animations of my initial body
explore the architectural possibilities of images agent figures. This drawing was made to envision what
of non-ideal, deviant, playful and personal bodies. a body agent could see as she moved through the
walkways surrounding the dome. The ability to animate
An important part of my drawing process involves and to move through the digital model with paths
zooming in and out of the body proper, a process that and cameras was crucial in designing and locating
takes into account the leakiness of the contemporary viewpoints that would allow for particular interactions
bodys boundaries as well as the unstable scale with the Tempietto.
relationships exposed by digital medias capabilities.
Through a series of drawings (and models), I view the In the creation of D_I Arm, I focused on a component of
body from the outside as an agent in architectural space, the D_I figure shown in the Perspective by constructing
and by zooming in I imagine the body as architecture. a full-scale representation of the figures arm. The initial
My recent drawings, which speculate about generative body agents arose from a process that incorporated
architectural space inside the body, have altered my 3D modelling, where they were visualised in software
conception of the figure and its architectural potential. as mesh shells; the mesh became a defining feature of Fig.2: Alessandro Ayuso, D_I Arm, 2012, cast plaster, 3D-printed nylon Fig.3: Alessandro Ayuso, Floating, 2015, pencil, watercolour and
the figures. The model sought to answer the question and copper wire, 104310cm. Full-scale model of D_I body agent arm. acrylic on paper, 4561cm. Part of the Agent Body drawing series.
Body agents are representations of the body from the of how a vision of seemingly disembodied figures defined
outside. When these figures are incorporated into design by the mesh could be physically represented.
drawings, they give visibility to a particular, posthuman,
embodied subjectivity. They also enact subjectivity In D_I Arm, the mesh is realised as a structural lattice;
and impart it into design by catalysing a reciprocal it is the figures functional exoskeleton and formal
engagement between design, designer and inhabitant. definition. Through its voids, the interior of the body
While I put forth these figures to address new conditions, is revealed. The lattice allows for the liberation of the
they are also predicated on the importance of continuity interior of the body to become a zone of pure expression.
with the past, and are informed by precedents, including Ribbon-like forms loosely held within the mesh shells
figures from Mannerist, Baroque and more recent coalesce in the interior, and an inhabitable architectural
modernist and postmodern eras of architectural history. space is revealed: in this case it is occupied by 1:25 putti;
they are workmen helping to support an internal
structure that connects the cast plaster hand component
with the 3D-printed lattice and ribbons. In the making
of this piece, where 3D modelling and scanning were
integral, the ambiguity of scale inherent to digital media,
and to my vision of the body, became apparent to me.

Body agents are a species of cyborg. It could be argued,

following N. Katherine Hayles, that the cyborg is now
an antiquated vision; current technology saturates our
lifeworld and bodies. She points out that at times this
occurs through the prosthetics that are a signifying
element of the cyborg, but perhaps more crucially,
ubiquitously and nearly invisibly, through altering our
sensoria and integrating our consciousness into vast
networks.1 These developments have changed our
conceptions of the conditions that constitute embodi-
ment; the bodys scale, boundary, physicality and
Fig.1: Alessandro Ayuso, Body Agent TempiettoPerspective View, 2013,
digitally rendered image with hand-drawing. Visualisation of a body agents interiority are no longer fixed. Yet the obsolescence Fig.4: Alessandro Ayuso, Cantilever, 2015, pencil, watercolour, acrylic, found objects
view from the Tempietto Sites dome down to the Body Agent Tempietto. of the cyborg brings up a crisis, not only of the nature on paper, 152254cm. Agent Body drawing. Part of the Agent Body drawing series.

110 Deviated Histories Projects 111

 of embodiment, but also of the visualisation of the body. Even with technologys contamination of the analogue
How can something essentially invisible, which seems process, drawing with physically palpable media
to surpass the body completely, be visualised? What are as opposed to predominant digital methods relying
the feelings that arise from this new embodiment, and on mouse and screenis a distinctly absorbing and
what is its constructive potential? physically engaging activity, where feelings can be teased
out. Each image evolves with unexpected results.
My previous work with body agents engaged the As I work, I grow more familiar with the media and the
representation of subjects from the outside, as fantastic depicted systems that comprise the image. In the Agent
posthuman actors in architectural space. In my recent Body compositions, I aim to maintain an ambiguity of
series of Agent Body drawings, I bypassed the outward scale and an incompleteness of form to allow for a shifting
image of the cyborg to consider the body from the series of mise-en-abymes, where the drawing could
inside out. While the body agents I initially created were present a convoluted space, a vast or minuscule object,
inexorably tied to architectural and animation software, a strange body or perhaps a vast construction. This
as hollow meshesliterally bodies without organsthe oscillatory perception, in which the drawing alternately
embodiment captured by the hand-crafted drawings is conjures an interior or exterior, object or space, at a large
more akin to the notion of organs without bodies. scale or a diminutive one, provoked me recently to return
to viewing the body itself as an unstable object.
Floating, Cantilever and Neon are examples. While the
Perspective View shows the body in architectural space, Body Agents Awaiting Deployment shows a series of
and the D_I Arm shows the architecture of the body and scale figures where this vision of a dynamic and expressive
reveals its interior, these pieces explore the idea of the interior created in the Agent Body series forms a more
interior as a conglomeration of systematic, organic parts. immediately recognisable image of a body. In these figures,
Parasites, cells and machinic prosthetics extend, attach the bodys boundaries have become more negotiable and
and swarm around each other, forming a larger body. The dynamic: their viscera appear; boundaries between inside
depicted assemblages, including machinic and corporeal and outside, as well as the agent and her environment,
parts, architectural notations and Looney Tunes-esque begin to dissolve. The figures contain architectonic DNA
cartoon forms, are meant to evoke and fascinate. The and stand poised to contaminate their surroundings with
drawings are intended as spatial suppositions about body expressive, personal and playful subjectivity.
images that could occur when the limits of the original
prosthetic of the body is surpassed and the body itself
becomes a source of expression.2

The Agent Body drawings are made with more traditional

techniques and materialspaper, acrylic paint, pencil
and watercolourand traditional methods such as
pintimento, the technique of obscuring previously applied
layers of paint. Unlike the digital media employed in the
Perspective, these traditional media provide immediate
and irrevocable physical feedback; they react both
predictably and unpredictably, leading to accidents,
fortunes and misfortunes. In this process, nothing can
be a mistake; instead, every action leaves a trace, and
these accumulate to make the image. The physical size
of the page and its positioning on the wall engages the
body. The size of the drawings engages my own haptic
sensibility (the page is a size that is comparable to my
body, and in the case of Floating and Neon to my torso)
and it influences the forms depicted: for instance, when
my arm swings, a curve is created; in the Agent Body
drawings, iterations and permutations of this curve
Fig.5: Alessandro Ayuso, Neon, 2015, pencil, watercolour and recur throughout. Technology has altered my perception
acrylic on paper, 4561cm. Part of the Agent Body drawing series. as a posthuman subject, and especially as a designer
immersed in digital image-making.3 My drawing style has
embedded digital medias tropes and operations: in the
Agent Body drawings, forms float in Cartesian space;
1
N . Katherine Hayles, Unfinished Work: From Cyborg to Cognisphere,
the way that I draw the organs often begins with
Architectural Theories of the Environment: Posthuman Territory,
elemental forms and evolves through the gradual addition ed. Ariane Louise Harrison (New York: Routledge, 2013).
of complexity, similar to good practices in 3D modelling 2
N. Katherine Hayles, How we Became Posthuman
software; pockets of the images unfold through mutations (London: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 3.
3
Jonathan Hill, Actions of Architecture: Architects and Creative Users
and multiplications of a component, a process similar (London: Routledge, 2003), 34, and Antoine Picon, Digital Culture
to parametric techniques. in Architecture (Basel: Birkhauser, 2010), 12.

112 Deviated Histories Projects 113

California Bubblegum Autopark
Jamie Barron

The process of accumulating imagery fit for sampling and John Dinkeloos UN Tower, Bittertangs Burple Bup,
is called scanning and was taught to me by Andrew Antfarms Dolphin Embassy, Anish Kapoors Leviathan,
Kovacs, a professor of architecture and designer Olafur Eliassons The Weather Project, tienne-Louis
located in Los Angeles. Scanning is a process of Boulles Basilique, Arata Isozakis New Tokyo City Hall,
combing through literature such as journals, Diller Scofidio + Renfros proposal for the Hirshhorn
monographs, magazines, Pinterest or any other site Museum expansion, Pop Surrealist paintings of Mark
of imagery and collecting a database of images or an Ryden and James Turrells Virtuality Squared. These
archive. These will be the reference base. From the projects all include aspects of atmosphere and environ-
reference base, cohesive disciplinary trends can be ment both interior and exterior. The most dramatic
identified by studying the images and drawing together influences on the project come from the airbrush
similarities. These similarities will serve the visual renderings and orthographic drawings of Helmut Jahn
argument as a set of precedents. When studying the and the monolithic mirrored glass facades of the
images, it is important to pay attention both to the Portman Buildings. In fact, the unfolded axonometric
content of the image, which in this case will refer to animated gif is pulled directly from a drawing of Murphy/
an aspect of a building, and to the way in which it is Jahns State of Illinois Centre.
represented. The creative expression of architecture
cannot be separated from representational style, Finally, the third category is formal strategies for organising
as this is the site of reality for many architects. compositions of multiple elements. The images in this
list include Frank Gehrys Loyola Law School and Rouse
CABGAP (California Bubblegum Autopark) is an Company Headquarters, Arata Isozakis MOCA in Los
amalgamation of samples lifted by scanning over the Angeles, Claypotts Castle, Charles Rosens painting Cliff
course of a few months with the intention of designing Dwellings and Cezannes Gardanne. These images can
a hotel in Los Angeles that incorporates automated be best explained as picturesque in nature, as they deal
parking as a design element. It was my ambition from the primarily with ruination in one way or another.
beginning to incorporate aspects of mechanical delight
and bowellism/new brutalist sensibilities with inflatables The evidentiary regime of visual knowledge is only loosely
and environmental sublime. The evidence for how these translated into written words. We are all familiar with the
things are related is argued through visual adjacencies idiom a picture paints a thousand wordsa metaphor
in the reference base. I believed those categories to for how much is lost when switching mediums. However,
be the most suitable for an architecture that celebrates because of copyright law for intellectual property, building
a new mechanical technology (automated parking) while an argument up with copyrighted material is prohibitively
working with a sense of cultural removal common to expensive even in an academic context. It may, then,
destination hotels. A third set of references comes in require some research on the part of the reader to find
formal and organisational strategies that help to organise the actual reference, but for now a drive on the internet
multiplicitous composition or difficult wholes. may prove to be a lovely endeavour.

The list begins with mechanical delight and bowellism/

new brutalist sensibilities. This category includes Norman
Fosters Lloyds of London building, Renzo Piano and
Richard Rogerss Centre Pompidou, Craig Kauffmans
Sensual Mechanicals, Ben Nicholsons Appliance House,
the launch pad for the Space Shuttle Endeavor, David
Greenes Living Pod, Bernd and Hilla Bechers industrial
typology analysis and The Jerde Partnerships Power
Plant for Six Flags Corporation. These references are
incorporated more into the building design than into
the representation.

The second category, inflatables and environmental

sublime, is the reference base that provided the most
effective ammunition for representation. The list includes
the airbrush renderings of Murphy/Jahns State of Illinois
Centre and The Chicago Board of Trade, The Jerde
Partnerships Makuhari Town Centre and Metropolis
Time Square, John Portmans Renaissance Centre
Fig.1: Four frames taken from an animated gif of an axonometric
and Bonaventure Hotel, Philip Johnsons PPG Place, drawing displaying both worms-eye and birds-eye views through
a bouncy castle, Archigrams Casual City, Kevin Roche the central atrium spaces. Fig.2: Elevation oblique, plan oblique and section drawing.

114 Deviated Histories Projects 115

A Fall of Ordinariness and Light: Regeneration!
Conversations, Drawings, Archives & Photographs
from Robin Hood Gardens
Jessie Brennan

I felt emotional, admitted Abdul Kalam, former resident Kalam, who told me how he felt about the council-led
of Robin Hood Gardens, who collaborated with me on demolition, agreed:
my project on the Smithsons soon-to-be-demolished
brutalist social housing estate in Poplar during 201415. When boys sit down, or when mates sit down, what
I couldve emailed, I know. But you know what, I wanted we say is, they are basically driving the poor people
to call you.1 Kalam had just looked through a copy of our out. Thats what theyre doing. In the most simple
book: Regeneration! Conversations, Drawings, Archives of forms. Its not racismits more about wealth.
& Photographs from Robin Hood Gardens. In his mind, We dont want you here cause you dont belong here
the blocks were already consigned to history. For him, any more. If we had a deep conversation, thats what
this book is not only a document that challenges the wed settle on. Thats exactly whats happened.3
narrative told by property developers and politicians
of the need for demolition and regeneration, but is also What potent politics these buildings contain. Thus,
a painful reminder of the bureaucratic processes that a radically different approach to engagement (socially,
have brought Robin Hood Gardens to its knees. conceptually, critically, spatially) was required for the
project and it came in the formand act itselfof drawing.
Most readers will be familiar with the history of the
Smithsons only realised public housing estate and, indeed, Conversation Pieces (Fig.1) is a series of drawings
its current statusthat a review of its listing was declined, made on-site by rubbing graphite across the surface
making demolition almost a certaintybut fewer will know of a sheet of paper, revealing the pattern, and everyday
the impact the redevelopment is having on its residents. wear and tear, of a doormat beneath. The drawings
Known as concrete monstrosities or masterpieces visualise a literal and metaphorical threshold between
by critics and supporters respectively, the buildings semi-public and private spaces; from the street deck
and their apparent architectural successes and social to a homes interior. They reflect the apparently unlikely
failuresare debated and argued over, but the residents human qualities associated with brutalism and bring
feelings are often either ignored or misrepresented. to mind the day-to-day experiences of lives lived within
This project attempts to address that imbalance in a the concrete blocks.
small but meaningful way by exploring with residents the
personal impacts of redevelopment and, more broadly, The interviews developed out of that process of making
the politics of regeneration through drawing and dialogue. doormat drawings, which was a starting point for engaging
conversations. A brief exchange of wordson the
When I invited residents to share with me their experiences doorstep, the walkway or the greenled to extended
of lived-in brutalism, it did not begin as planned. A printed dialogue with several individuals over the lifetime of the
photograph of the west block (my poster invitation placed project. In this case, drawing performed an opening to
around the estate) was quickly torn, shredded and what D. Soyini Madison has named that moment when
crumpled. The image visualised the planned demolition ethnography becomes the doingor better the
of the building in poignantly prophetic detail, and the initial performanceof critical theory.4 The dialogic framed
start to the project appeared an utter failure, crudely as performativethrough the action of materially tracing
summarised: a screwed-up poster; an unattended launch. the siteemphasises the embodied interplay between
Apparently nobody cared. human subjects and also the political injustices
experienced by those who have had redevelopment
Of course, its nonsense to believe that residents do not done to (rather than with) them.
care about the regeneration of Robin Hood Gardens
they deeply do, and they question whom its all really for. Indeed, the lives of residents on council housing estates
For instance, Sadia Aziza Islam, a 13-year-old who became have often been overlooked and marginalised by policy
homeless with her parents before moving temporarily and academia alike. As such, the drawings trace the
to the estate in 2013, has noticed that its like theyre materiality of the building but also the deviated histories
driving us away to replace us with more wealthy people.2 of its spaceshomes from which people will be displaced

Fig.1 (opposite): Jessie Brennan, Conversation Pieces (from top left to bottom right:
no.178, no.27, no.125, no.123, no.110, no.201, no.141, no.202, no.140, no.214,
no.34, no.146), 2014, graphite on paper, 10266cm. Doormat rubbings included
in Regeneration! Conversations, Drawings, Archives & Photographs from Robin Hood
Gardens (Silent Grid, 2015).

116 Deviated Histories

 as a result of regeneration. While the term regeneration governments. However, in the absence of resistance
invokes renewal (in the prefix re), recent research shows to privatisation of public housing, the council endorsed
that the process often results in the social degeneration the demolition of Robin Hood Gardens and a reduction
of a place, through displacement of existing communities in proportion of social housing on the newly regenerated
who can no longer afford the so-called affordable housing sitefor short-term rewards, undermining its long-
on the newly regenerated site.5 term capacity to provide decent, low-cost homes for
low-income households.
Another artwork, A Fall of Ordinariness and Light (Fig.4),
commissioned for Progress by the Foundling Museum, No wonder Robin Hood Gardens elicits such passionate
responds to the neglect and representational struggles responses from residents, evoked not only by the day-to-
the estate and architecture have occasioned. It takes day experiences of life on the estate (plagued by broken
the form of a series of four graphite drawings that lifts, a recurring lack of hot water or frequent blackouts)
imagine the estates planned demolition. In the but also in how othersparticularly the mediaperceive
meticulously rendered drawings, the building appears and represent it. By inviting informal critique of the past
to be in stages of increasing collapse, and the story in order to articulate experiences of the present, the
appears to be one of social failurethe fall of post-war project opens up critical spaceinside homes and
aspirations of progress, the end of architecture for workspaces in which uncomfortable histories of
social good. The four drawings have Orwellian subtitles redevelopment are explored. The ideological attack
The Order Land (Fig.2), The Scheme (Fig.3), on council homes and the dismantling of public housing
The Enabling Power and The Justificationtaken are discussed at the level of individual lives. Through
from the Compulsory Purchase Order issued by Tower methodologies of drawing and dialogue, questions are
Hamlets Council in 2013 when it acquired the land around raised about the language, processes and intentions
Robin Hood Gardens. of regeneration, namely: whom is it for? Drawing is both
a turning backward and a looking forward: it traces the
A Fall of Ordinariness and Light wearsin its intimate material surfaces of Robin Hood Gardens and lives lived
size, scale and carefully drawn graphite marksthe signs in the concrete blocks; and it also visualises the estates
of social upheaval and uncertainty imposed by imminent imminent destruction. Less an anticipation of loss itself,
demolition, and the complex processes and feelings drawing becomes a political provocation to be performed
Fig.2: Jessie Brennan, A Fall of Ordinariness and Light (The Order Land), 2014, graphite on paper
(framed in aluminium), 57.571.5cm. Commissioned for Progress by The Foundling Museum, 2014.
evoked by the estates regeneration. It carries, too, all as well as read.
Courtesy of the artist and the V&A Museum. the symbolic weight of political struggle under which the
buildings will eventually collapse. To sink, after all, means
to fail or fall.6 But the derogatory label sink estate applied
to Robin Hood Gardens (and so many other council estates
across London) is challenged when details of washing
and plants are evidenced on balconies and in windows,
questioning the future fate of the place once the buildings
and peoplea majority low-income tenants who will be
replaced by wealthier leaseholdersare gone.

Narratives, thenjust like notions of progressneed not

run merely in one direction. Richard Martins analysis of 1
A  bdul Kalam, telephone conversation with author, September 2015.
the work shows that in emphasising a reading that moves 2
Sadia Aziza Islam in Jessie Brennan, Regeneration! Conversations,
from right to left, we are encouraged by the fact that Drawings, Archives & Photographs from Robin Hood Gardens
(London: Silent Grid, 2015), 61.
Robin Hood Gardens image is merely folded and 3
Abdul Kalam in Brennan, Regeneration!, 65.
crumpled. In this respect, he suggests the work echoes 4
D. Soyini Madison, introduction to Critical Ethnography: Method, Ethics,
the thoughts of Owen Hatherley, who writes: and Performance (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2012), 14.
See also Jim Thomas who argues that, [c]ritical ethnography is
conventional ethnography with a political purpose. Jim Thomas,
Brutalism, with its rough-drawn rawness, always Doing Critical Ethnography: Qualitative Research Methods, Series 26
was a vision of future ruins. This shouldnt console (Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications, 1993).
5
See Loretta Lees, Just Space, The London Tenants Federation
those who always hated it, however. The ruined and SNAG, The Social Cleansing of Council Estates in London in
is dead, safe, and can be regarded with relieved Regeneration Realities: Urban Pamphleteer #2 ed. Ben Campkin,
disdain. Brutalism is not so much ruined as dormant, David Roberts and Rebecca Ross (Northampton, Belmont Press, 2013),
812, accessed 11 July 2016. www.ucl.ac.uk/urbanlab/research/
derelictstill functioning even in a drastically badly urban-pamphleteer/UrbanPamphleteer_2.pdf. See also Ben Campkin,
treated fashion, and as such ready to be recharged Remaking London: Decline and Regeneration in Urban Culture,
and reactivated.7 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), 77104. From April 2012, affordable
housing is defined in the National Planning Policy Framework as
80% of market values: www.gov.uk/guidance/definitions-of-general-
Thus, the slab blocks and brutalist architecture are housing-terms.
not at all in themselves bad. But the management and 6
Nadir Lahiji and Daniel S. Friedman, At the sink: architecture in
maintenance offered by the local authority often was. abjection, in Nadir Lahiji and Daniel S. Friedman eds. Plumbing:
Fig.3: Jessie Brennan, A Fall of Ordinariness and Light (The Scheme), 2014, graphite on paper Sounding Modern Architecture (New York: Princeton Architectural
(framed in aluminium), 57.571.5cm. Commissioned for Progress by The Foundling Museum, 2014. This is not to entirely blame Tower Hamlets Council either, Press, 1997), 39.
Courtesy of the artist and the V&A Museum. which has endured decades of cuts from successive 7
Owen Hatherley, Militant Modernism (Winchester: Zero Books, 2008), 6.

118 Deviated Histories Projects 119

The Severed Head The Monolith Drawings are in search of an architecture
escaping any historical periphery in order to (re)enter
Konrad Buhagiar history in search of productive points of intersection
Guillaume Dreyfuss and overlap. The Monolith wants to erase any boundary
Ephraim Joris between historicised and present-day architecture.
As such, any safe distance between the historical and
To operate as a critical space, a place of rupture to the contemporary is eliminated to engage in a process
free ourselves from a preconceived and therefore of self-seeking consciousness to question its own status.
reductive language. To invest in an idiosyncratic puzzle This is what makes The Monolith Drawing both a practice
of part-ideas within a space of concentrated interiority; of architecture and an investigative practice of research,
the space of a severed head. without any clear boundary between these two events.
Of course, the drawing has previously been identified as
The very idea of this writingbeyond its projected a reflexive instrument; yet here we aim to deliver a more
contentis to operate as signs symbolising the object precise account on the specific capacity of The Monolith
in the absence of the object. For all we know, the Drawing in relation to many other ongoing drawing
space of the severed head has never been and only practices within and outside architecture.
exists as symbol. The Lacanian interpretation of
absence assumes that there cannot be absence in We consider Descartess decision to disassociate vision
an objective world, for absence can only exist through into two ordersan external order of the senses within
symbolic or representative means. Hence the the realm of res extensa, and the order of intuition,
importance of representation (in our case, drawing) described as res cogitans. Here, perceptual recognition
to explore this quality that there may be a presence of empirical qualities does not relate to the intellectual
where there isnt one. operation of seeing. However, Merleau-Ponty considers
this split to delineate a much more dynamic field of
How do we break a history of drawing in order to come operation, in order to consider vision to be always part
to understand that very history of drawing more res extensa and part res cogitans. Here, we do not have
curiously? We see this as the only way in, succumbing to bypass pictorial reality in order to access the intellectual
our postmodern complex, through which history is seen act of representation. The Monolith Drawing, as a practice,
as irreversible. So we called into being a particular is based upon this dual performance of res extensa and
drawing protocol. The Monolith Drawing synchronises part res cogitans. For every Monolith Drawing engages
analogue thinking with computational developments with visualising traces of history as the recognition
to enter history through our intriguing capacity of empirical qualities, and equally understands the
to long for. Longing stands for the experience of drawing as an intellectual act through its implicit qualities
something that is absent. To sustain this longing as of distant-near. Such a collapse of terms wants to
an architectural quality, it is thus important to design indicate a constant breakdown of barriers between past
architecture that sustains a kind of absence. We do and present, the portrait and the portrayed, figuration
this on multiple levels; our drawing protocol instills a and abstraction.
mode of creating space through the act of subtracting
mass from a predefined lithic core. As such, space The Monolith as a severed head is engaging with the idea
is always created by means of two intersecting of material separation (subtraction/decapitation) and with
volumes, the continuing tale of stereotomy signifying the concept of occupying a double position. In art, many
the dialectical opposition between structure and representations of severed heads exist, yet we refer
revtement (ornamentation). to the cephalophore: a beheaded saint carrying his own
head, the most famous probably being Saint Denis. The
The avoidance of drawing lines directly is also part of head carrier introduces the idea of the relic, representing
a strategy to surpass the presence of the a priori image a relinquishing of external knowledge or res extensa in
and thus break the path of self-projection in such favour of res cogitans. The carrying of the head illustrates Fig.1: The Monolith references ancient form without having to subscribe to strategies of
a way that The Monolith Drawing can reveal something a distanciation (at least in part) from the external order of historicised formal continuity (neo/post). The spatial intentionality of The Monolith is to create
beyond personal imagination and allow a working with the senses to surrender to the experience of something room through subtraction, which consists of a slow process of carving into stone, as an
antithesis to composing architecture by means of architectural elements such as column and
time through time. In line with Merleau-Pontys figured that is absent. Like the Resurrection, it is a construct
beam. The Monolith as stone-cut architecture is characterised by the correspondence between
philosophy of vision, through which he describes how that is based on the necessity of detaching oneself to form and structure.
the position and the act of looking are included within become permanently displaced.
the drawing, we perceive The Monolith as that which
looks at all things but can also look at itself. It sees itself REFERENCES
seeing, making The Monolith and the severed head
Kearney, Richard. Modern Movements in European Philosophy.
an expression of Dasein, which is not so much about
Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1994.
a material separation (subtraction/decapitation) as
it is about an inquiry into its own history, being in the Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader: Philosophy
world (looking inwards and outwards simultaneously). and Painting. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1993.

Our drawings exist as a present-day reading (machine) Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. The Visible and the Invisible. Evanston,
constituted by the idea of a living past. IL: Northwestern University Press, 1968.

120 Deviated Histories Projects 121

Pontifical Academy of Sciences
Benjamin Ferns

The Pontifical Academy of Sciences, established layering, distortion and blurring. These hatching methods
in 1603 with Galileo as chair, is relocated to the develop inconsistencies and, unlike drawn ink, typically
City of London to provide a new education system exhibit no traces of the individual, with an epic sense of
to tackle the Square Miles lack of moral purpose. scale and plasticity that echoes the Baroque. The hatch
itself becomes stronger than the individual.
The Academy is a monochrome mass of libraries and
ritualistic lecture spaces set in a landscape to induce The ink line, however, sets quickly, almost as a result of
physical and metaphysical wandering, meeting and shock, where the interplay between ink and digital hatch
reflection. Three environments are provided, inspired is consciously made contradictory in the drawings.
by the core natural elements of mountain for isolation Some digital areas are lined with drawn artifice containing
and reflection, river for wandering and activity and valley cracks, shadows and imprints from a scalpel upon trace,
for gathering. These contours do not form boundaries; as a collage not only of time but also of the human effort
instead, the frame of each drawing is continually broken, involved in its construction. This novel (mis)treatment
perforated and torn, as if the tracing paper itself were of material, playing upon masking and revealing, can be
insignificant. The intensity of detailing and material makes traced back to Vienna, where the natural meaning of
the drawings difficult, if not impossible, to replicate, materials often became important. The monochrome
and deliberately so, in rejection of modern computation. drawings deliberately offset the red and gold of the papal
robes of the narrative.
Collage in a modernist manifestationgrounded in
an overly simplistic counterposing of background and Heinrich Wolfflins definition of the Baroque through the
foregroundwas inherently static and reactionary in use of oblique perspectives and painterly characteristics
its aesthetic and purpose, as seen in the modernist is ambiguous through translation, and can be defined
architecture of the seminal book Collage City by Colin as creating disorder and utilising light to create greater
Rowe and Fred Koetter, which exemplified the artistic
composition rather in the manner of the English
Picturesque. Instead, today, modernism is beginning
to be interpreted as simply another continuation of
historicism, producing its own fetishised pop-culture
objects, whether a shiny new graphic or a new
development in the City of London.

The modern viewer is now asked the impossible: how to

perceive a totality all at once and with equal significance?

Reinterpreted as a tool with which to perceive a subjective

experience of space and as a dynamic concept that
is more in line with the Baroque mode of thought,
collage can be utilised for an innovative re-evaluation
of tectonics, labour and objectification, and to propose
a temporal understanding.

The series of hybrid drawings employ analogue and

digital techniques, questioning the hierarchy of
architectural form through drawn line, and secondary
rendering through digital hatch. These areas of hatch
are open to interpretation, with few defined knowns,
and can only truly be achieved through experimentation.
Imperfections are not seen as failure, but as a balance
between harmony in a composition and an ever-improving
technique. This speculative method creates ink drawings
based upon enlarged pre-drawn pencil lines, hatches
and unfinished details, which are then scanned and
Fig.1: Benjamin Ferns, Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 2015, isometric.
collaged to permit new discoveries. The perception of the spatial threshold is modulated through spatial,
sensual and semantic gaps.
The hatch exhibits a contradictory position concerning its
Fig.2 (opposite): Benjamin Ferns, Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 2015,
inception, for manual skill and judgment are still required, anamorphic collage. A hatch becomes a real manifestation through
and it is formed using a variety of methods including a combination of inherent and post-process machining techniques.

122 Deviated Histories 123

 Campus Martius East
Parsa Khalili

Fig.3: Benjamin Ferns, Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 2015, elevation.

A subjective experience of space and collage as a dynamic concept,
in opposition to the static and fetishised modernist objects within the city.

depth so that objects remain elusive through overlapping.1 In proposing an architecture that engages the fact
Relationships between programmatic fragments continue that perception is not permanent, the emphasis should
the chiaroscuro lineage of Piranesi, through hatched be placed upon the interweaving viewpoints of creator
travertine and basalt articulation, holding an underlying and viewer, making the subject (viewer) inseparable
opposition to the utopian permanence implied by from its background (drawing). Allegorical of the
mainstream modernism. Vatican, these drawings argue for architectural spaces
that are ambiguously left open, migrating between time
The spaces are grouped, as in Piranesis Campo Marzio, and typology, and thus always able to be completed
around a figural centre, as oscillating forces between by the viewer. As by the Pontifical Academy and the
dispersal and repetition.2 The collages are formed moral associations of faith, we have been led to believe
three-dimensionally, hinting at intense layering and fluid the unbelievable.
movement through space and hence time, while retaining
coherence only from a fixed viewing point for each
imagined scene. It is an intensity that Richard Sennett
argues allows for curiosity and an expansion of the
senses in tectonic and social terms,3 proposing intriguing
compositions where the fascination of an unseen permits
constant change.

The drawings involve a relationship that is dynamic

between subject, object and point of view, where
the surface engages the viewers anthropomorphic
imagination to project human forms even when 1
H einrich Wolfflin, Renaissance and Baroque (Ithaca: Cornell University
they are not present. The convoluted movements Press, 1966), 35.
of the eye across the view trace the lines, planes,
2
Jennifer Bloomer, Architecture and the Text: The Scrypt of
Joyce and Piranesi (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 21.
volumes and mirroring surfaces, to a degree bordering 3
Richard Sennett, The Craftsman (New Haven: Yale University Press, Fig.1: Parsa Khalili, Campus Martius East, 201315, digital media. The full-framed site
on illegibility. 2008), 277. plan reconstruction of Constantinople through the lens of Piranesis Campus Martius.

124 Deviated Histories Projects 125

If we read Piranesis Iconographia Campi Martii as symbolically; Piranesi chose Campo Marzio for its historical methodology and disrupt the notion of history through Fig.2: Parsa Khalili, Campus Martius East: Vedute 1, 201315,
digital media. A close-cropped, high-oblique isometric vignette
incendiary to the classical tradition, it is the ambition charactera place of few, disparate monuments on a drawing. The historical and critical rigour inherent in his of overall reconstruction.
of this project to advance his ahistorical machinations largely uninhabited field that served as imperial marching vision becomes the justification for the creation of new
the hyper-radicalisation of reading architecture grounds just outside Romes historical centre. The forms of urban anomie and constitutes the dereliction
anachronistically in relation to its current formand Eastern rendition exhibited here chose a similar yet of duty of the architect. Inverting Piranesi today shows
to do to the Orient what Piranesi did to the Occident. opposite site for ground zero: the Thracian Fields. how theorising urban history can occur beyond textual
To continue his project today is to advance the idea This area was also a marching ground in late Byzantine discourse in the realms of projection and practice.
that the city and its architecture operate under the times, but quickly became a dense aggregation of
twin authorities of perpetual amnesia and perpetual residential/civic structures outside the symbolic centre
displacement. Following Piranesis process of simultaneous of the Ottoman Constantinople.
documentation and design, this project investigates
and re-assembles Istanbul (Constantinople) through The contextual frame was then rotated, leaving the
the polemical interdict of the act of drawing as a form strictures of the imperial northsouth axis behind
of both critique and design. Constantinople offers an an orientation rooted in Cartesian space within the
interesting parallel to the development of Rome and a Western traditionand utilises a radial system of
new site for investigation utilising Piranesis anachronistic orientation using Mecca as the centrewhere, in the
approach to design and history. In turn, this project Eastern tradition, a centripetal relationship to the Kaaba
is based on a reading of the former through the lens is primary. This way, the composition also encapsulates
of the latter. Campus Martius East contrasts Western the limits of Constantinoples Theodosian walls in order
and non-Western urban development and develops to frame the entire drawing similarly to Piranesis original
representational techniques for the specifics of map. In this manner, the artefact of the original
non-Western urbanism. Piranesi drawing becomes an object for archaeological
investigation in and of itself. The drawing is further
The initial postulate here is that iconicity in the Near East developed by isolating significant gates to the city and
differs fundamentally from in the West. In the Western placing one historically important Ottoman building at
tradition, architectures institutional presence is highly each entry point. Compositionally, subsequent structures
public and the relationship between structures is semi- are added in succession in line with formal/organisational
autonomous, enabling the city to become a framework patterns so that either walls or other major formal
within which these disparate parts both respond to and elements align from one structure to the next, creating
deny one another. This relationship between objects a continuous and non-linear series of spaces. This is
and the city is the basis for Piranesis invention, and the continued in theory ad nauseam, until the various
subsequent differentiation between figure and ground threads of complexes begin to close in upon themselves,
creates an endless field at all scales of the built creating new figural enclosed spaces for which new,
environment. In its Eastern conception, both the siting totally hyperbolic structures are designed and inserted.
of icons and their relationship to the ground are inverted Like Piranesis, these fantastical buildings are mere
and problematised almost universally. Most works of fragments of an imaginary possibility within the Ottoman
architecture are not singular constructs, but rather formal language; they are a mix between recordings and
become small complexes buried within the irregularities interpretations of the pastbetween an informative
of the residential fabric around them. Few concessions diagram and a portrait of a historical situation.
are made to maintain the autonomy of their organisations,
requiring them to adapt to the figure of the city at the The act of creation here is constituent to the act of
specific sites of their insertion. drawing, developing a methodological framework
whose basis emerges from the implicit and latent tropes
If the Western city, exaggerated to its most logical (or invented by Piranesi. His use of artificial tablatures,
illogical) extreme, is evidenced by Piranesis Campo Marzio his annotations of plate numbers, his use of text, the
as an endless confluence of semi-autonomous buildings subtleties in stippling and hatching: these are preserved
placed on a completely voided ground plane, the Eastern and exaggerated within the framework of contemporary
city, similarly exaggerated, would be its complete opposite; digital drawing techniques between contemporary
it would read as an aggregation of non-autonomous software. The drawing itself is both an homage and
buildings stitched together by shared walls/thresholds a transformation. Accompanying the overall site plan
that unify them into a series of voids cut into a totally drawing are a number of vignettes that attempt to
pochd rendition of the city. The exit of one complex re-imagine Piranesis vedute, giving the impression of
becomes the entry to another, linking all of the projects the spatial ramifications of this intentionally hyperbolic
and creating one large and perpetually iterative series of proposal. In this case, they are implemented at
spaces, changing the city into one without architecture, differing scales and degrees of isometric representation,
for it becomes a singular machine of/for architecture. again similar to the original vignettes, as a means to
flatten perspective and convey the limitlessness of the
Campus Martius East imagines a new relationship of overall composition.
form-making on an urban scale and does so through the
medium of drawing as a critical tool for investigation and Piranesi subverted classical architectural orthodoxy
inquiry. To begin, the drawing establishes its focal point by dismantling its conventions, to both produce a formal

126 Deviated Histories Projects 127

 Her Wildflower Gardens at reorganisation of the model. Moments of the models
reorganisation are captured within the drawings to
One Hundred Five Orchard act as a record of the gardens movement. This action
physically captures and redisplays a moment in time
Eric Mayer when the garden differed from its existing state, thereby
forcing the model and drawings to act according to the
Her Wildflower Gardens at One Hundred Five Orchard triggers of nostalgia.
employs physical analogue drafting methods as a means
to develop a set of drawings that explore nostalgia as The drawings also explore a series of new minor
a significant driver of architecture through the physical programmatic protocols that support the wildflower
assembly of drawings. The drawings explore a method- gardens and recall the gardens historic use, including
ology that describes the processes of nostalgia- rabbit deterrence boundaries, duckboard boot-washing
developed architectures within the obscure boundaries platforms and arborvitae view obstacles. The minor
between the casual gardener in their small home plot and programmes are introduced to support the new
the present mechanistic state of commercial agriculture. automated wildflower garden. Beneath the larger
Here, nostalgia is to be defined as the longing for or programmatic headings, minor themes more personally
recollection of a previous image of a place when faced related to the neighbourhood residents yet related to
with its current, changed, physical state. the site, such as neighbourhood hearsay, rumours and
familial tall tales, are introduced to avoid complete
The now-defunct eighteenth-century Dolton Farm in
Feasterville, Pennsylvania acts as a site for investigating
nostalgia as an architectural driver in two significant
ways. First, the former farm is a site with some intact
structural remains, allowing new architectures to be
physically situated within an existing context and informed
by existing materials. Second, the site provides a historic
programme that can be recalled and redeployed on
a new scale. On the site of a once-historic rural farm
is a new automated garden in what is now a suburban
residence. The subtle shift in the scale and purpose
of the lands farming programme explores how
expectations and reality can diverge, which triggers
sensations of nostalgia.

The drawings exploit historically-based expectations

of farming and personal responses to idealised images
of manual labour in the vast fields of early twentieth- Fig.1: Eric Mayer, Storms of the Spring and Early Summer, Site Plan
century farming. These images are pitted against the of Her Wildflower Garden, 2016, ink, collage, graphite on Dura-lar and
vellum, 1722in. The obscured limits of the garden depicted during
mechanistic nature of modern computerised farming spring storms recall the seemingly limitless fields observed by a farmer.
equipment. This mechanisation of a once-massive
human effort is translated to the physically laborious
yet recreational pursuit of gardening.

The production methods for the drawings provide

a manual means to describe an automated system.
Ink, pencil, tape and collaged imagery on and between
sheets of vellum and Dura-Lar allow for multiple formal,
material and sub-programmatic propositions to be
overlaid, combined and challenged. Their simultaneous
inclusion among the multiple physical drawing layers
gives each proposition its own space to dawdle within
the historic timeline and project new definitions of place
onto the site.

Constructed at the same time is a model developed

within shallow drawers. Divided by the drawers
boundaries and partitions, existing site topography and Fig.2: Eric Mayer, Collection Platforms and Tidal Pistons, 2016,
labelled landscape artefacts are organised according ink, collaged model photographs, graphite, spray paint on Dura-lar
to seasonal plantings. The drawings and the model feed and vellum, 17 22in. The drawing continues to speculate on the
structures responsible for collecting necessary rainwater, starting
Fig.3: Parsa Khalili, Campus Martius East: Vedute 3. 201315, Digital media. off one another as moments of the models are collaged with recorded and repositioned model photographs and making
A far-cropped, low-oblique isometric vignette of overall reconstruction. into the drawings and moments of the drawings force the inferences in drawn mediums.

128 Deviated Histories Projects 129

Fig.3: Eric Mayer, Wildflower Garden Irrigation Lines, Bladders, and Seed Hoppers, 2016, autonomy or continuous circular referencing between
ink, collaged model photographs, graphite, spray paint on Dura-lar and vellum, 1722in.
Below grade, the irrigation lines and seed hoppers act as arteries for the automated
the history of the farm and the new automated gardens.
garden, defining the limits of growth.
Seven gardens of wildflowers are irrigated by collected
rainwater from the storms of spring and early summer.
Sub-surface expansion bladders are pressurised by
six tidal pistons driven by the tidal inlet of the Delaware
River and, in the event of piston failure, one hand pump.
The collected rainwater is pumped through a series
of irrigation corridors, which are infused with varieties
of wildflower seeds, and deposited directly into a dimpled
silt earth surface above. The gardener views her
wildflowers from atop a copper patina filtration platform.
The gardens boundaries are ever-changing within
the two-acre plot, as they expand and contract at the
will of the tidal pistons compressing water into the
irrigation lines. At the end of the season, she sets out
a roaming chimney, turning the fields into charcoal
to reload the filtration platforms and prepare the earth
for another season.

Although scale is rigorously enforced during production

of the drawings, the final products do not directly portray
the gardens relationship to the human body. The autonomy
of the gardens programmatic actions excuse the gardener
Fig.4: Eric Mayer, Reconfigurable Garden Landscape Artefacts, MDF, from daily tending in order to attend to her new roles as
spray paint, glass, bass wood, ink, brass fittings, bearings, drawers.
The ever-changing boundaries of the wildflower garden are explored both an intermittent system mechanic and an observer
in the model and then recorded in drawing, as an architectural means of the garden. The ambiguous sense of scale within the
to explore nostalgic triggers of then versus now. drawings frames the recall of images of vast fields once
required by commercial farms. That image is positioned
against the state of the wildflower garden, which is
situated on a selected parcel fluctuating within the more
recently established boundaries of residential property
lines. This further undercuts expectations brought on
by the sites expanse when considering its history.

The physically developed drawings and model further-

more act as newly developed artefacts which track
variations in the life of the wildflower gardens. Thus,
the gap between initial contact and development of a
memory of place and the return contact and recall of
what the place once was is bridged. From this, one can
develop an architecture from the processes of nostalgia.

Fig.5: Eric Mayer, Extents of the Suburban Garden Parcel as a Dimpled

Silt Surface, model photograph, aspen, MDF, aluminum, spray paint,
drawer. In model form, the site itself is represented as an object
similar to developed landscape artefacts, in order to be reconsidered
as a nostalgic souvenir.

130 Deviated Histories Projects 131

Developing Self-Methodologies for Drawing:
Open Air Performance Museum
Oul ztun

The idea that drawing is not only a representational method, the drawing instinct is used instead to organise
tool but also a critical instrument of the design process complicated concepts and produce meaningful
has been adopted very well. Designers use drawing connections, correspondences and interrogations.
to research, to imagine, to communicate ideas and
to address a plethora of other issues. In this process, When a project emerges through working with words and
formulating a self-methodologya modus operandi concepts, a visual challenge occurs. Words only define
for drawing is critical. Not only why its done but also concepts, but spatiality depends on images. At this point,
how its done will crucially affect design. Designers can a method for translating these concepts into images
modify or mix conventional techniques, develop their needs to be discovered. Therefore some of the powerful
own tools, use software for unexpected purposes, concepts are focused on and then drawn freely, one by
multiply drawing stages or learn from ancient techniques one. The drawing process is recorded and compiled into
and so on. Personalising drawing techniques can open an animation, so that the process of transformation can
up a broad spectrum of possibilities. To explore this be tracked. These animated drawings generate a strong
idea, a set of drawings and visuals developed within the basis for the projects visual and spatial character.
scope of the project Open Air Performance Museum
will be discussed. The project sees hundreds of poles placed on the
waterfront, with stages floating between them where
The project focuses on Kadky Seafront, which is a performances can take place. This transforms the sea
radial-shaped field; the proposal is a performance centre. into an open air museum. Anybody who wants to perform
The project first puts forward several concepts and can design, decorate and use these stages as their set.
observations about the programme and site. The seafront Performance is defined as an urban activity that can
and the urban space are disconnected; it is therefore be anything that performer envisions; a protest, a spatial
argued that the radial field of the seafront has the experiment, a playscape or a traditional piece of theatre.
potential to connect Kadky with the sea by organising This opens the door to endless possibilities, as a space
public movements across the site. To show this hypo- defined for performance can be anything. To show
thetical potential of the seafront, a way to experience the richness of spatiality this will bring to a city, random
this radiality must be invented. stage set proposals are imagined and drawn side by
side with an oblique perspective. Using this method,
The standard consecutive section technique with even spatial possibilities emerge from each other through
intervals would not be sufficient, but angular sections the repetitive act of drawing. Arrayed on a basic grid,
from a centre point might work. This inquiry resulted in combinations of these drawings appear as a series of
the idea of radial sectioning. The area was cropped with unfolding possibilities. This makes the drawing set align
a circular mask, so it would have a centre point in the with the projects initial conceptual proposal.
middle of the sea. Then the site was sectioned in order
to complete one full round tour around the bay. The The proposed formation fragments its programme and
suggested radiality has the potential to bring dynamism scatters around the seafront, dwelling on very specific
to the seafront. The radial sections that are produced points. This is intended to amplify the radial experience
are compiled into an animated drawing. Finally, a method and reveal the potential uses of the area. For this
for working with dynamic sections was derived. Within purpose, a canvas which can cover this entire field is
this moving canvas, one can see the intended urban required. Conventional city planning techniques could
movement and therefore work with it sequentially. be used for this kind of challenge, but many elements of
the site would be overlooked and the main characteristics
Another basis for this project were the concepts that that the proposal aims to bring to the area would be
arose by thinking about context and programme in the missed out. Instead of using conventional city plans, the
initial phase. Designers often use mind-mapping for hierarchical perspective and permissive rules of Central
harvesting ideas. This can be seen as a form of drawing, Asian Miniature Technique are adopted and interpreted.
but using ideas and words instead. Conventional mind- Detailed visual and spatial research has been done to
mapping can be cultivated to build up a technique. Words understand parts and particles of the city and outcomes
and phrases are written on paper, then arranged and are rearranged according to these rules. The method
connected in a way that allows them to be compiled here can be understood as a way of reproducing the
into conceptual fields. This is a somewhat instinctual image of city in the dimension of a hierarchical world,
stage, resembling the early sketches of a design project.
After this, these fields are isolated from each other
Fig.1 (opposite): Oul Can ztun, Random Possibilities of Spatiality, 2014,
and potential problematics and outcomes are drawn drawing. Spatial possibilities emerge through drawing random stage set
out which the project could perhaps address. With this proposals in oblique side by side.

132 Deviated Histories

composed by gathering together and disposing elevations.
This drawing became an operational tool for the Architect as Urban Ghostpainter
development of the project. Fragmented elements of the Drawing Architecture Studio
project, urban activities, characteristics and surroundings
can be tracked and worked using this canvas.

Drawing methods emphasised here can be understood

as the designers mini-inventions in response to
encountered problematics and potentials of the project
in different phases. Drawing can be used as a tool to
interpret the city in a particular way, to look inside ones
subconscious, to translate words into images, to imagine
endless possible realities or to reproduce the city in the
form of a working canvas in a different dimension. Drawing
uncovers a very resourceful toolset and, when self-
methodologies are developed, it has almost unlimited use.

Fig.1: Micro-Yuaner, spread from A Little Bit of Beijing: Dashilar, 2015.

Authors: Li Han / Hu Yan. Publisher: Tongji University Press.

The traditional role of architectural drawing is to present not trying to make precise architectural maps, but are
graphically the architects design idea. Therefore the more concerned with composition, colour and visual
use and appreciation of architectural drawing mostly impact created by rich detail.
remains within a professional context. However, we
believe there is great potential for architectural drawing The other format is the graphic novel, in which we
not only due to its infinite variety of techniques, but also represent the relationship between space and people in
because it provides us with a truly expanded perspective the style of comic strips. In our two publications, A Little
on the world. Architectural drawing deserves a much Bit of Beijing (San Li Tun, 798, Nan Luo Gu Xiang) and
broader audience. A Little Bit of Beijing: Dashilar, we use images of plan,
elevation and section generated from 3D models to depict
Living in Beijinga rapidly changing metropolisstimulates the urban environment. The stories of our graphic novels
our urge to document by way of drawing. Different stages are mostly based on the documentation of certain intriguing
of urban development co-exist and overlap, which spaces in the city and interviews with the people who create
makes the city a great inspiration. We are fascinated or use them. For example, the story of Micro-Yuaner
by how the many and varied relationships between the explains the ideas behind the hutong re-development
urban environment and human activities play out through project by the Chinese architect Zhang Ke.
the citys relentless transformations. Our interest has
nothing to do with the goodness or badness of design, We believe that todays architectural and urban design
but rather is due to the crazy, or even absurd, status of frameworks are challenged by increasingly complex
contemporary metropolises. The aim of our work is to issues, and that these frameworks might sometimes
represent this status in architectural drawing. indeed seem too flimsy. Architects could give up their
position as saviours of the world and not limit their roles
Our project comes in two formats. The first is large-scale to only making design proposals to change the real world.
panoramas, such as Dashilar and Tuan Jie Hu. Here, Then they might find that their capabilities naturally
we document a specific area of the city by presenting expand towards more extensive work.
its architecture, landscape and human activities in the
language of axonometric projection. Dashilar depicts Very often, architects consider themselves as professional
the traditional hutong area in the old part of Beijing, while elites who know better than other people how to make
Tuan Jie Hu represents a residential neighbourhood built a better world. They tend to believe that their design
Fig.2: Oul Can ztun, Miniature Perspective, 2014, drawing. Detailed visual and spatial research
has been done to understand parts and particles of the city; outcomes are rearranged by the in the 1980s. Through these panoramas, we try to explore
permissive rules of ancient miniature drawing techniques. the value of architectural drawing as artwork. We are Fig.2 (overleaf): Tuan Jie Hu Panorama, 178109cm, 2014.

134 Deviated Histories Contributor 135

136 137
 Future Fantasticals
proposals for making a physical building or environment are describes New York as a movie star: Movie stars who
ultimate solutions to urban issues. But we dont think such have led adventure-packed lives are often too egocentric
design proposals can solve problems. They have limits, and to discover patterns, too inarticulate to express
there are far more other factors to consider in complex intentions, too restless to record or remember events.
urban issues. One alternative method is for architects to Ghostwriters do it for them. In the same way, I was
observe and represent the phenomena of the city so as Manhattans ghostwriter. By the same token, we will try
to raise awareness and inspire other people. This could also to become the ghostpainters of contemporary Beijing.
be an important role for architects to play for the world.
In many cases, cities do not need architects to design
In many cases, cities need expression rather than design. for them, as they generate interesting spaces by
Cities have their own lives and inner logics. Because themselves. Many exceptional spaces are not designed
they allow scope for the continuous creation of wonders, by architects but created by average people who use them.
they are the perfect stage for the expression of strong We shall just represent those naturally grown spaces,
desires. In his book Delirious New York, Rem Koolhaas not try to design them.

Drawing has always been a tool to speculate on the future. It forms

a surface for enacting the desires of society and proposing new ways
in which architecture can facilitate them. From the seminal speculations
of Archigram to Paul Rudolphs hulking megastructures in pen and
Hugh Ferriss crystalline Metropolis of Tomorrow, the twentieth century
took drawing towards a multitude of possible futures. Most of these
futures will never come to pass, but the potent power of speculative
drawing continues on. If science fiction is always using the future to say
something about the present, then speculative and fantastical drawings
speak of our contemporary concerns. It could be the utopian desire
to build the world again from scratch, or simply the making of a critical
argument about today via the imagery of tomorrowbut either way,
fantasising through drawing remains an evocative and seductive act.

In the following chapter, we will see work that speculates on the future
of drawing as much as the future of worlds. Future Fantasticals takes
us on a journey from Neil Spillers singular world manifested in drawing
through to the work of science fiction legend and Blade Runner concept
artist Syd Mead. As we zoom towards the horizon, we will encounter
strange machines for drawing, buildings that combine with biological
creatures and cities that revel in their unrestrained scale. Within each
of these projects, there is a sense of contingency, of a future that might
never come into being except through the act of drawing it. Yet in each
Fig.3: Dashilar Panorama (detail), 95135cm, 2015. case, there is the sense that drawing as a speculative tool, with its
human subjectivities and missteps, still has the power to pull us into its
138 Deviated Histories realm and let us dream of things to come.
Key Note 142
Drawing as Communicating Vessels: 196
Rowhouse
An Apologia (or Not) Tom Ngo

Neil Spiller
198
Tokyo Backup City IRTBBC
Papers 149
Paradoxical Sciagraphy You+Pea

Nat Chard
Contributor 202
M EGABEAM
155
The Fall and the Rise: Syd Mead

Lebbeus Woods Metaphorical

and Narrative Drawings
Massimo Mucci

162
Creatures Afield:
Drawing the Dioramatic Caricature
Joseph Altshuler
Julia Sedlock

Projects 169
The Digital Renaissance
Anna Andronova

172
New Lohachara
Kirsty Badenoch

176
The Restored Commonwealth Club
Adam Bell

178
SCALEFULNESS
Kyle Branchesi

181
The Silt House
Matthew Butcher

184
Deviated Futures
and Fantastical Histories
Bryan Cantley

188
The Living Tableau
Pablo Gil Martnez

192
Speculative Morphology
of Recurring Terrains
Ryota Matsumoto
Drawing as Communicating Vessels: explore these issues. A series of guest-editorships of
AD have followed. In 1998, I was asked to collate a
An Apologia (or Not) monograph on my work to dateMaverick Deviations.
This was again another cathartic moment in my career,
Neil Spiller and a celebration of my greatest hits to date.

Let us watch him with reverence as he sets side (making architectural books continues to be a After Maverick Deviations was finished, it heralded
by side the burning gems, and smooths with soft preoccupation for me). We managed to convince Cedric the beginning of a new project, one Im still pursuing:
sculpture and jasper pillars, that are to reflect a Price to write a preface. The booklet was entitled Burning Communicating Vessels. I have always admired
ceaseless sunshine, and rise into a cloudless sky: Whiteness, Plump Black Lines (1990). Cedric was very architectural theoretical projects that were long-term,
but not with less reverence let us stand by him, when flattering in his writing and tried to explain to us that open-ended and speculative, such as Mike Webbs
with rough strength and hurried stoke, he smites we didnt need to use all our architectural fruit in every Temple Island, Ben Nicholsons Appliance and Loaf
an uncouth animation out of the rocks which he has architectural cake we baked. Like 1980s heavy metal Houses and Daniel Libeskinds Micromegas, Chamber
torn from among the moss of the moorlands, and guitarists, we liked a good noodle up and down the Works and Theatrum Mundiprojects not borne out
heaves into the darkened air the pile of iron buttresses fretboard. But Cedric was talking about architectural of the financial expediency of traditional practice but
and rugged wall, instinct with a work of imagination bluesslower, more emotional, with space between the full of the prima materia of architecture. Communicating
as wild and wayward as the Northern Sea; creations architectural notes: There is no lack of richness but the Vessels was to be my contribution to this canon; it began
of ungainly shape and rigid limb, but full of wolfish resultant cake may contain too much fruit. Accepted in 1998 and runs to this day. Everything I have drawn
life, fierce as the winds that beat and changeful as disciplines of cost and timing are not ignored but too and designed in the last twenty years is part of this
the clouds that shape them. often add to the mix rather than refine it. This is not project; it now consists of around a thousand drawings
John Ruskin, The Nature of Gothic, The Stones of Venice so much a criticism as a suggestion that future works and thousands of words of text.
need not use the whole palette all the time. The avowed
For me, the 1980s were a perfect storm of architectural Search for Architectural Language could well be a task Communicating Vessels is a rumination on the impact
education and creative inspiration. During this time, left to the grateful receivers of this intelligent, delightful of twenty-first-century technology on architectural space
I was taught the conceptual, tasteful modernism of the practice. I for one will be watching.1 and materiality. It is also a personal memory theatre,
Cambridge School but was really inspired by Archigram a surreal contemplation on the house/garden dialectic
and Cedric Price; his era also coincided with the halcyon The early 1990s were marred by economic recession, in the contemporary world and a meditation on reflexive
days of high-tech, architectural postmodernism, Alsopian but Burning Whiteness brought us some notice and space and augmented reality. The project re-examines
and NATO splurge and deconstructiona heady, eclectic regard. In particular, it brought us to the attention of traditional paradigms and elements of design such as
mix of styles and ideas. I was also reading a lot about Peter Cook, who was just assembling a teaching team the house, gazebo, garden shed, walled garden, birdbath,
Victorian neo-gothic architectsBilly Burges, Goodhart- to rejuvenate The Bartlett School of Architecture. After entrance gates, riverside seats, love seats, vistas,
Rendels rogues and Pugin also loomed large in my a few years, my practice disintegrated and I was on my sculptures, fountains, topiary and outside grown rooms,
fevered imagination. own again; but thrown into the creative turmoil that was among many other objects and spaces. It redesigns
The Bartlett, my drawn work changedit embraced them, electronically connects them, explores their virtual
Also at the same time, while still a student, I had read colours and evolving technologies, such as cyberspace and actual materiality and their cultural and mnemonic
an article by Charles Jencks that looked at ancient and nanotechnology, and it became more informed importance, and reassesses them in the wake of the
and contemporary column orders as microcosms of by surrealism and science fiction writing. I also started impact of advanced technology and the surreal protocols
architectural epistemology, and asked: what might new to write about spatial ideas and technology. This writing of contemporary architectural design in the twenty-first
contemporary orders look like? I picked up this idea in my became my book Digital DreamsArchitecture and century. The project was initially conceived as a set
diploma project and designed the Dorian Gray Column the Alchemic Technologies, written between 199395 of objects set in a psychogeographic landscape that
a column for the foyer of an architectural school to and published in 1998. I was already teaching about resonated with my youtha very small island in the River
be dressed by generations of students, creating a the architectural ramifications of new technologies on Stour, two and a half miles outside Canterbury in Kent,
barometer of architectural fashion and preoccupations. architectural design at The Bartlett in my diploma unit. near where I was brought up. So it is an island of
memories, of hot sunshine bicycle rides, burgeoning
Towards the end of the 1980s, a college friend and I set Digital Dreams featured projects that included The sexuality, secret underage beers and illicit 1970s liaisons.
up a fledgling architectural practice; we were full of Alchemists Church and the first panel of the Genesis The site exists simultaneously both geographically and
young mens bravado, energy and iconoclasm. The new to Genocide triptych. This triptych was a harbinger in my memory.
practices goal was to invent a new architecture, element of another phase in my architectural trajectorya return
by element. We developed a way to work as a team, to a series of black and white Rotring pen drawings As I have written: The Island of Vessels (Communicating
yet independentlyneither of us wanted to lose what exploring protein geometries, DNA ribbon models, Vessels) is a huge chunking engine, a communicating
we believed to be our innate talent by fully collaborating surrealism, Bosch and the impact of technologies on field, full of witchery and sexuality. Its neurotic things
with the other. We divided up drawings and worked in human bodies. are pataphysically enabled and surrealistically primed.
a surrealist exquisite corpse sort of way. This method The islands geography is cyborgian and always teetering
of working we called schizophrenic architecture and In 1992, AD invited us to exhibit in the Theory and on the edge of chaos. Its groves and glades are haunted
it produced interstitial drawings (between art and Experimentation exhibitions. This was the first time my by ghosts, some impish like Alfred Jarry, some nude on
architecture). Railings, columns, monuments, tombs, work was shown alongside some of my idolsincluding staircases, some with Dali-esque moustaches and some
lights, a gallery, exhibition designs, stage sets and even Lebbeus Woods, Peter Cook and Himmelblauwhich muttering about defecating toads. On the island lives
master plans for Milwaukee and Genoa followed. was a great thrill. After this exhibition, I remained in close a Professora madman, an idiot savant or a genius
contact with AD and was asked in 1994 to guest-edit perhaps all three. The Professor is attempting to work
As the 1980s drew to a close, and with a number of an edition with Martin Pearce, Architects in Cyberspace. out the shock of the new, its architectures and its
projects under our belts, we went into self-publishing This was the first international established journal to desiring poetics. The Professor likes his thingsthey tell Fig.1: Spiller Farmer Architects, Vitriolic Column, 1986.

142 Future Fantasticals Key Note 143

him where hes been and where he is. He dwells in this some familiar quotes, not only from my architectural
world and builds in it everyday, without fail. He works lexicon, but also from Lebs, Aldo Rossis Moderna
at the intersection of art, architecture and science. Cemetery and OMAs La Villette Competition entry.
He uses desire as a welding torch and the pen as a scalpel. October 30th was also the day Hurricane Sandy ripped
Like Duchamps Handler of Gravity, he likes to surf on through New York, where Leb lived (this is not to suggest
precarious and fleeting equilibriums.2 initially, the first that the two events on the same day were connected).
ideas for the project were about the simultaneity of forms As the year has progressed, a series of ideas has evolved
in different fields and the embroidering of architectural in the work, mainly about the choreography of augmented
space through various scales of technology. So the first reality and gravity gradients over time. I wanted the Garden
phase of Communicating Vessels was in developing to have another virtual side, a side that would augment
surreal reflexive systems that utilised the virtual, the the simple world of walled space, trees, conic forms and
nano and the chance dynamics, both within the site and statues I had created. This I saw as a new area of archi-
further afield. tectural detailing, one barely explored by contemporary
architects. I wanted the drawings to explore this
The assorted architectural tableaux are powered by juxtaposition of virtual and actual, of points of view,
mysterious grease, a nanotechnological substance, highly ghosts, light and black.3 The garden is presided over
flammable, created within desiring machines. Desire is by a statue of Electra, the back of whose head is hollow.
the other great motivational force on the island, alongside It is through this hollow, if ones head is placed within
memory. This is the celebration of the marvellousness it, that one can see and hear a storm rising and abating,
of desire fuelled the Surrealists creative odyssey. formed of augmented reality vectors.

Another cathartic moment occurred late in 2012, when The Garden has a frustum within it, consisting of an upper
my friend Lebbeus Woods died. Lebbeus had championed and lower chamber. The upper chamber is an homage
my work since I first met him back in the early 1990s. to Piranesis Plate IX of the Carceri and Bocklins Island of
I set about weaving my memories of Lebbeus into Death. The lower chamber is reflexively linked to moving
Communicating Vessels. This resulted in The Walled Garden figures in the upper chamber that dodge the storms, real
for Lebbeus and coincided with a massive outpouring and augmented, as they pass over the open top of the
of work that galvanised the Vessels project further. frustum. This movement above activates grease below
and it starts to create a surreal tableau of Leda and the
Initially, there were only a couple of drawings of the Swananother myth beloved by the Surrealists.
Garden; over the past year, these have blossomed into
a suite of twenty-five or more. I wanted the Garden to By 2015, it was clear that it was time to start to design the
channel all manner of architectural ambiences and make major piece of the constellation, the Professors house,
Fig.3: Neil Spiller, Communicating Vessels, Genetic Gazebo, 2005. Fig.4: Neil Spiller, Communicating Vessels, Genetic Gazebo, 2005.

Fig.2: Neil Spiller, Genesis to Genocide, 1995. Fig.5: Neil Spiller, Communicating Vessels, The Walled Garden for LebbeusBallard of Crafty Jack, 2013.

144 Future Fantasticals Key Note 145

Fig.6: Neil Spiller, Communicating Vessels, Baronesses Filaments, 2008.

which had by then become called the Longhouse. It is in a digital dance above and beyond the pragmatics
a prytaneion, a place of surreal banquets inhabited by of actuality. This is a house of augmented reality, nano-
ghosts, dreams, desires and mythic creatures; a memory enabled ghosts and mythic chimeras whose movements
palace of shifting relationships, momentary flutterings, are cross-programmed with the houses sites, both
cartographies and trajectories, where objects have the real and imagined.
same accountability as people. It is a place of flame, of
heat, of a rotten sun, of dusk and dawn, where the vertical The house interiors are yet to be fully designed; this is
is assimilated into the horizontal and where modernism my next task.
breaks down. The Longhouse is a highly reflexive and
responsive series of spaces and relationships. The house What drives some architects to make drawings/models
choreographs itself and develops this daily choreography of architectures that are clientless and therefore unbuilt
by reading its site; this site is a virtual changeling site. or currently unbuildable? Firstly, the commercial world of
architecture is a world of value engineering, of committee
The traditional lexicon of tactics that architects use to place consent and limited material palettesa world that is
their works in the context of specific siteshow they highly legislated and therefore often normative and often,
respond to the genius locihas been radically augmented arguably, having lost its lifeblood, ARCHITECTURE. What
by myriad new, virtual and reflexive technologies. is architecture, and can it be held within a drawing/model
Changes are upon us; the vista has changed, is changing as well as a building? Architecture is the mother of all
and constantly changes. Cyborgian geomorphology is arts. It is a synthesis of poetry, fine art, sculpture; it flows
a movable feast and here to stay. Permanent architectural over time like music and its spaces have establishing
context, material sympathies and synthesis, massing, vignettes, oscillate across the scales (from macro to micro)
phenomenological and anthropocentric sensitivities are and have a dnouement, as in film or prose. One could
now imbued with the accelerating timescales of virtual go on. Above all, architecture is the manipulation of space,
and chemical metamorphosis, combined with the virtual in all its manifestations. Space can be both imagined
choreography of chance. Both positions of, and the and graphically represented.
nature of, objects and architectures are conditioned by
mixed ontologies, scopic regimes, numinous presences Indeed, as our world sails headlong into culturally, demo-
and reversible time. This reversible time stalks objects graphically, ecologically and technologically uncharted
and disturbs their gentle entropy and peaceful rest. The waters, we badly need our ability to speculate about the
vitality of architecture has increased a thousand-fold. future of our discipline and its centrality to society. This
To the twenty-first-century agile architect, these disruptive is not utopian, and it is not something that the prevailing
technologies breathe new life into the language of capitalist mentality often encourages. This is shortsighted
architecture. The verbs of architecture are being recast. and could potentially cost us our whole discipline.

Time-based sensitivities are mixed in the cauldron

of the virtual world, seen by augmented eyes enhanced
by dimensions of chronological slippage, coalescing Fig.7 (opposite): Neil Spiller, Longhouse Hecate both within and without, 2015.

146 Future Fantasticals Key Note 147

A good architectural drawing is about, on one level, S piller Farmer Architects, Burning Whiteness, Plump Black Lines
Paradoxical Sciagraphy along with high-speed photography, could reveal
1

A Search for Architectural Language (London: Spiller Farmer

what one leaves out. A very good architect over the years Publications, 1990). potentials in the realms of uncertainty. Simultaneously,
develops a series of personal protocols and idiosyncrasies 2
Neil Spiller, The Poetics of the Island of Vessels in Drawing Nat Chard the instruments were developed so that the author
that have connected histories and evolutionary meta- Architecture, ed. Neil Spiller, Architectural Design, might experience the conditions of indeterminacy that
SeptOct 2013, 112119.
morphosis from one drawing to the next. This is also true 3
Neil Spiller, Detailing the Walled Garden for Lebbeus, The conventions of architectural drawing concentrate on are being drawn while making a drawing.
for buildings as much as it is for drawings. in Future Details of Architecture, ed. Mark Garcia, Architectural things we think we knowwhat will take place, what the
Design, JulyAug 2014, 118127.
architecture will be made of or what it will feel like to be Normally, an architect is commissioned to design a building
Our era will hopefully be seen as being responsible for there, for instance. The question discussed in this paper by a client who has the motivation to enact certain things
the blossoming of the virtual word and the beginning of a is how to draw those aspects of architecture of which we at a particular place. The clients request is formed into
sustainable world. We are here, now, to find and achieve are less certainthe sublime, uncanny and indeterminate a programme that sets out what it is that the architecture
positive outcomesand to this achieve this, we need occurrences that are also significant parts of our lives. has to achieve. Typically, what is discussed in the
to speculate to accumulate. programme is in the form of explicit knowledgeideas
One of the main ways in which we are implicated in the that we know we know about and can articulate clearly to
This is what I have done and will do. Simultaneously, my content of a drawing is through interpretation. Typically, someone else. The conventional architectural programme
day job is making students see the same but different architectural drawing leans heavily on the conventions attaches itself to the architecture rather than the occupant,
opportunities in this bizarre but beautiful world. All my of contract drawings, where there is a legal imperative for and yet we all occupy it in different wayseven each
work is connected in the massive Communicating Vessel all parties to understand the drawings in exactly the same person might deviate in this from day to day. What is
of my mind. Its a lifes work and I make no apologies for it! way. Their rigour is in denying any interpretation other at stake is not just the capacity of architecture to adapt
Its what architects should, but seldom, do! than that of the drawings author. This project therefore when circumstances change, but also its capacity to
seeks other methods of drawing so that the observer be relevant to multiple simultaneous sorts of occupation.
might be implicated in the drawings content, especially
by spatialising the drawing. From earlier research looking The programme is a necessary tool but, in trying to
into work which plays between material and pictorial space articulate the specifics of what might take place in
(especially natural history dioramas), it became apparent the project, many of the sensibilities learned from our
that two promising agents in such a construction would experience of inhabiting architecture are lostin order
be anamorphosis and folding the picture plane. to be reliable, it becomes reductive and leaves out much
of the richness of life that emanates from the unexpected
The research described in this paper covers a sequence or from things that we are less certain about or are
of attempts to build an apparatus to draw uncertain unable to articulate. Our understanding of this realm is
conditions. Early instruments play with the mechanisms not readily accessible as explicit knowledge. Instead, we
of optical projection, especially the picture plane. Since understand such conditions through our tacit knowledge,
at least Leonardo,1 artists have curved the picture plane discussed by Michael Polanyi as the fact that we can
to establish veracity in their images. If folding the picture know more than we can tell.3
plane has such a capacity, it must also have the potential
to act as a critical agent. The first three instruments The devices I have built to pursue the pleasure of the
worked with projection through light, and on their original indeterminate in architecture might at first seem
terms they were successful. While the folding picture paradoxical, as they appear as didactic instruments
planes allowed for a critical reception of the projection, instruments of certainty. In practical terms, they are
the instruments revealed that the original terms were instrumentalthey are set up to test a range of specific
not the most precise site of inquiry. The instruments ideasbut their appearance is also an attempt to seduce
demonstrated the idea but the author was in complete the observer. One way in which this might work is that
control, in a condition of certainty. the precision, care and apparent purposefulness of the
instruments might persuade the observer that the splatter
The potential of the folding picture plane was promising, drawings that they produce might be of some substance.
but light proved too unwavering in its physics. To address There is, however, another dimension to their apparent
this, latex paint replaced light as the medium of projection. didactic nature. While I was studying the potential of
Latex paint is a non-Newtonian fluid like blood, for which the picture plane, I constructed a set of cameras to
forensic scientists have digital and analogue means of understand the projective techniques of James Perry
divining the narratives of blood-splatter.2 Wilsons4 diorama background paintings, the dioramas
providing an intriguing world where material and pictorial
Instead of the projection holding the figure of the object space met each other seamlessly. While I learned what
as with an object and its shadowthrown paint (standing I needed to understand about the picture plane from this
for occupation) would hit a model (representing the work, the intensity of my involvement with the dioramas
architecture) and the resulting splatter would discuss opened up a greater understanding of the potential of
the coincidence of the two for a particular occurrence. didactic instruments that at first seems to run counter
The model is part figurative but also acknowledges that to their purpose.
it will be occupied by flying paint. A folding picture plane
collects the splatter. For my purposes, the didactic instrument has the potential
of a translator between explicit and tacit knowledge. The
A sequence of instruments works out how their various dioramas I was studying were built with exquisite care to
Fig.8: Neil Spiller, Longhouse Figured Ground Plan, 2015. parts can be tuned so that the splatter (a sort of shadow), reveal the relationships between contextual ideas such

148 Future Fantasticals Papers 149

as topography, climate, available nourishment (plant or perspectival depth of the imagerequires the observer a drawing, the thing that is drawn is likely to differ from the When the first flying paint tests were made with Instrument
animal) and environmental colouring and material with to construct their own logic for the image if it is to make thought in the architects head in advance of making the Four, it was immediately apparent that the drawings
the physiology, appearance and social behaviour of any sense. The instruments worked well, implicating the drawing. This happens through the normal occurrence were telling only part of the story. The throw of paint
the exhibited animals. They were constructed so that the observer in the content both in terms of their capacity where the creative mechanismthe process and happened so quickly that the occurrence was hard to
museum visitors could tacitly construct for themselves to choose how to receive the image by adjusting the fold materials of drawingteases out ideas (from wherever fathom, even if it could be deciphered. To discover what
the understanding that had been embodied in the dioramas of the picture plane and also through their imagination creative ideas come from) that might go further than had happened during the throw, high-speed flash
from explicit knowledge by the museums scientists and when making sense of the image. The instruments work the original thought. By working through a medium, ideas photography was employed. The images proved revealing
curators. While the didactic ideas are embodied with great as things provided for this to happen, both mechanically are infected, corrupted and nurtured and this is typical as well as compelling so that, in combination with the
care and precision so as to amply provide for the interpre- and as a seduction to engender belief that the consequent of most creative processes. The point of clarifying this drawings made by the instruments, two partial stories
tation that the curators prescribed, as with any creative images were worth investigating. part of the creative process is to make the distinction of were toldimplicating the observer to fill in the space
medium the reception is not entirely reliable; beyond a causal relationship between idea and technique. While between them. Arthur Worthingtons6 attempts to register
our understanding of what we are supposed to discover, The limitations of the early instruments lay in their causality drawing architecture to meet a programme, the process the nature of splashes,7 at first through flashes and
these sites of wonder provoke our imagination beyond as with the prescription of the architectural programme, of drawing is likely to contribute to and alter the architects drawing the after-image on his retina and subsequently
the didactic intention. They have the capacity to relate they supported what they set out to do but were limited noting of what they will draw. The early optical instruments through flash and photography when photographic
tacit and explicit knowledge as well as to seduce the beyond this performance. Their capacity was understood had a similar role and are successful in playing it out. Their emulsions became fast enough, constitute one of the
imagination to delve into unexpected realms. in advance of construction as explicit knowledge that was failure is that they were in service to a premeditated idea, earliest academic uses of high-speed flash photography.
confirmed and elaborated on when making their drawings. rather than teasing out ideas that had not yet occurred. The process was later popularised by Harold Edgerton.8
My early optical instruments, which made drawings by The veracity of light is so unerring that it provides little Both used milk in their experiments, as the pigmentation
projecting the image from a physical model onto a folding scope for the unexpected. The question was how to hold The question of how we might design for those things that of the liquid made it more apparent than water. The first
picture plane to produce a drawing on photographic paper, onto the potential of the folding picture plane (that the we do not know will happen raises a paradox that makes tests with Instrument Four were with white paint for
attempted the first seduction. The instruments hold a early instruments had teased out) in relation to projection sense of the programme. In order to make a drawing similar reasons. The photographs revealed all sorts of
model in a box, which is illuminated so that its image is without the strictures of light, and how to enrol the instrument that might enter this territory, I opted to make twisting and bending actions in the air, so subsequently
projected via a lens onto a folding picture plane. The plane instruments to help construct tacit knowledge. the act of drawing relate to content that was only partly two colours of paint were placed (unmixed) in the catapults
also holds a second model, identical to the first (except premeditated. The instruments make the shift from a cup for each throwusually white and an orange similar
in size, to compensate for the optical cone of projection), When an architect makes a drawing of a building to medium that supports an idea to one that might intervene to international orange, the colour that is used next to
so that it casts a shadow on the picture plane that satisfy a programme we can look at two sets of causality. more actively. To test this possibility, the new instruments white for the chequerboard patterns on structures that
appears to come from the original model. When examining One is that when built, the architecture will support the projected paint rather than light. An arm-like catapult occupy the infield of civil airfields. The combination
the consequent drawings, the paradoxical shadow activity that is predicted for it. The second is that what projects the paint towards an architectural model. The of colours describes the twisting of paint more precisely
which sits on the image plane rather than within the is drawn is set out to describe such a thing. In making flying paint stands for the occupation of the architecture, in the high-speed flash photographs.
represented by the model, which I called the drawing piece,
as it is that that transforms the flying paint into whatever The paint catapults are adjustable for power, line and
figures the resulting splatter might take. The splatter from length. The first versions were made using disposable
the collision between the paint and the drawing piece is plastic spoons to hold the paint, but the first test with
collected by a folding picture plane that learns from the Instrument Four suggested other forms should be tested.
earlier optical instruments. In subsequent instruments, measuring spoons with a
partially spherical bowl were used in Instruments Five
To set up the instruments, the catapult is aimed at a part and Seven and ones with a cylindrical bowl in Instrument
of the drawing piece. I had not made a paint catapult Eight. The sharper lips on these paint-holders provided
before and the accuracy of the paint throw exceeded a range of character to the throws that suggests that
my expectations. Each throw of the paint, however, has the profile of these components provides an opportunity
a unique character, something I discovered from taking to further characterise different throws of paint. This is
high-speed flash photographs. The aim might relate to a being tested in the current set of instruments. For the
general idea of programme but the nature and character first few instruments, the general nature of a round cup
of the flight of paint in the given direction opens up a wide made sensethat the character of the paint (occupation)
range of ways in which that programme might (or might should not be prescribed. Now that the process of
not) be acted out. The throw of paint is not a random drawing with flying paint is better understood, it is time
image-maker. The degree of chance is therefore subtle to explore the range of modulation in that process.
and allows the discussion of indeterminacy to be held within
a range of ideas rather than as completely open-ended. The drawing pieces mix figurative elements with parts
that understand that they are being occupied by flying
The instruments throw latex paint. As mentioned before, paint. Part of the adjustments from the figurative relate
this is different from other sorts of paint in that it is a to straightforward practicalities that acknowledge the
non-Newtonian fluid like blood. Forensic scientists have nature of the paint throw. The character of the flying
a range of digital and analogue tools to recall narratives paint tends to consist of stretched-out lines of fluid. Just
from blood splatter at a crime scene. There is software as the stage sets for marionettes have to accommodate
available to reverse-engineer the origin of splatter their strings, which make some architectural elements,
registered by hand-held 3D scanners. Equations are such as walls above a door, impractical, the architecture
used to establish a bloodstain pattern index5 that helps is altered in the model to accept the paint.
establish an area (if not point) of origin. This body of know-
Fig.1: Nat Chard, Instrument Five in action,high-speed flash photograph. The latex paint ledge of how to understand what might have taken place There are several temporalities discussed in the drawings.
(accurate for direction but different in character for each throw) engages the drawing pieces. to cause splatter made latex paint a helpful accomplice. Each drawing witnesses a number of throws, so there is

150 Future Fantasticals Papers 151

 an accumulation of times through sequence. In the later
instruments (Seven and Eight), the drawing pieces are
made so that the accumulations of paint will have an
effect on their subsequent performancea memory
of previous throwsespecially where transparency is
concerned. Within each throw there is some paint that
collides with the drawing piece and causes splatter while
the rest flies past. There are drawing pieces that, as well
as holding the capacity to characterise the deflection
of paint, are also made to hold onto the paint in different
ways so that it might be active in making a register on
the drawing at a later time than the particular throw when
they were hitperhaps even after a subsequent throw.
One type of such a component is the hoop, which can
gain a meniscus of paint when hit (a little like the film
of detergent on a bubble-making hoop). Another is the
comb-like element, which behaves in a similar way to those
extruded pasta shapes that provide a large and accommo-
dating surface area on which the sauce might attach
itself. The paint meniscus will eventually burst and make
its own character of splatter, while the comb will hold
paint for a while until its viscosity lets it drip onto the part
of the picture plane that sits below the drawing pieces.

The most active part of making a drawing with the

instruments lies in the relationship between the catapult Fig.4: Nat Chard, Instrument Three for optical projection.
(with its paint cup) and the drawing pieces. These are the A model in a box is illuminated so that its projection lands on a
folding picture plane that also has a replica of the model sitting
things that can be modulated to offer up new possibilities on it, constructing a paradoxical shadow.
Fig.2: Nat Chard, Instrument Eight in action.
in the drawings. As with the optical instruments, the picture
plane also plays a role. The picture plane is an imaginary under construction, the picture plane sits alongside the
surface that sits between the person making the image trajectory of paint, with a small extension sitting below
and their subject. The points on this plane that register the drawing pieces to catch any drips or bursting meniscus.
its interruption of the line between the artists eye and This position collects any splatter from one side of the
a particular part of what they observe is transferred to collision, yet it lets the paint that does not hit anything
the canvas on which they paint or draw. Since Leonardo, (and therefore does not have an opinion worth registering)
artists have devised ways to curve the picture plane, sail straight past. These folds are more subtle but have
usually so that the outermost edges are brought closer a much greater influence on the reception of the splatter,
in plan towards the eye of the artist, so that the peripheral as the projection is more anamorphic than the earlier
perspectival distortions are less pronounced, with the frontal planes. From my research into natural history
consequence that the picture appears more natural, in dioramas, the combination of anamorphism and a folded
effect replicating for a picture what our eyes and perception picture plane had promised a way of receiving projections
construct when picturing the three-dimensional world. that could help spatialise the image. With the later instru-
In the case of the optical instruments, the degree of fold ments, this had come togetherbut in a less figurative
on the picture plane provides a critical reception of the manner. The sensitivity of the latest picture planes to
image in such a way that the receiver is implicated in the a small adjustment in angle or fold has made the picture
content of the image they collect. plane as active as the catapult and drawing pieces when
making a drawing.
With the projection of paint, the nature of sciagraphy
changes from that in the optical instruments, where The act of making a drawing is somewhat complex, as
the picture plane distorts a projected figure to form its there are several forms of representation in play. Apart
shadow. When flying paint hits the drawing pieces, the from the image constructed by the splatter, the picture
shadow is shaped by the collision between the paint and planes in Instrument Eight9 already have a pre-made
the drawing pieces to produce a splatter that is usually drawing on them. These drawings understand that they
unrecognisable from the figure of the drawing pieces. will be understood from two different directionsfrom
In the test instruments (Instrument Four) and the first the origin of the projection and from the side view of the
series of operational instruments (Instrument Five), the camera that captures the paint in flight. The accretion
picture plane sat behind and under the drawing pieces, of splatter on these drawings alters their content but also
just as an optical screen would sit in the line of projection. their sense of trajectory. There are also adjacent small
As a consequence, the delicate splatter from the collisions models, protected from flying paint by glass domes,
Fig.3: Nat Chard, Two versions of Instrument Eight (a collaboration with a research colleague).
As with Instrument Five, they throw paint at each other. A difference is that the picture plane lies could be smothered by the general throw of paint. In which remind the person who is drawing of the content
beside the trajectory of the flying paint so as to catch just the splatternot the main throw of paint. Instruments Seven and Eight, as well as those currently that the drawings are trying to discuss. The high-speed

152 Future Fantasticals Papers 153

flash photographs record the paint in flight as it hits the
drawing piecesthe moment of occupation documented
desires, for the author knows that beyond what is in their
control the intervention of the flung paints own will might The Fall and the Rise: Lebbeus Woods
by the splatter. But there is another form of representation
that is drawn out through the process but does not
open up the discussion beyond what has been predicted,
so that there is one hope for what will happen but a
Metaphorical and Narrative Drawings
register as an image. While working with the instrument, second hope that the first hope will be eclipsed by greater Massimo Mucci
it can construct for the person who is drawing a condition thingsthe intervention of the instrument. The manual
analogous to that which it tries to draw. triggering of the camera and the speed of the paint Nowadays, digital architectural representation has implementation. In the writings and drawings of Woods,
means that only about one in three throws of paint are accustomed designers to the rapid consumption of images, conflict seems to find a solution in a form of active
The act of drawing might go like this: the author sets the captured, so there are two levels of expectation in the even when they are very complex, leaving us little time cultural uprising, started at first secretly and illegally and,
fold of the picture plane in relation to the drawing pieces photographswas the paint registered and, if so, what in which to analyse all their meanings. Blueprints and indeed, underground. The designer proposes the reuse
and aims the catapult. This aim holds a desire for a sort does it show? The accumulation of anxieties and desires drawings that hang on the walls like art are not supposed of abandoned subway tunnels to establish a heterarchical
of occupation; similar to the way an architect might played out in this process involves a range of uncertainties to be seen as theoretical and paper architecture, although community that pays no attention to political and territorial
imagine their architecture being occupied. The paint that can help construct the very conditions of the sublime this can happen. On the contrary, we expect to receive divisions of the surface city.
is loaded in the cup, and in the dark, holding the trigger and the indeterminate that the drawings are trying to a deeper theoretical message from what we perceive to
for the catapult in one hand and that for the camera discussthere is therefore a resonance between the be a sublime scene. Woods criticism of the Berlin Wall and the German states
and flash in the other, the author fires the paint and then process and enacting the process. The personal or tacit coercive control of citizens life becomes clear: In this
almost immediately the camera. At this point, the author knowledge accumulated through doing this helps the In the case of Lebbeus Woods, his drawings have great project the subversion of an existing authoritarian system
might have a desire for the sort of occupation represented author to understand the more explicit nature of the evocative power and are aesthetically appealing, but their of social control is accomplished by architectural means
by the flying paint and be inquisitive about what might be splatter with greater depth in such a way that drawing real message can easily be misunderstood if it is not [] The construction of a new city within and in opposition
drawn in splatter as a result. Yet there is a second set of in this case is simultaneously a verb and a noun. analysed in terms of its usefulness to architectural theory. to an existing one amounts to an act of renunciation and
Lebbeus Woods work is not currently collected in a single even of violence, more lasting in its effects than those
monograph; instead, it is spread over numerous articles achieved by the gun.1 Woods believes in architectures
and critical essays. A strong stimulus of the dissemination ability to change a citys culture and does not exclude the
of his drawings and theoretical texts has come from possibility that this change will be as violent as a weapon.
books written by Woods himself and, although they are The uprising takes place from below; the obscure depths
still rich sources of information and indispensable for of the contemporary city and the occupation of the Berlin
outlining any critical path, they influence any interpretation subway are unauthorised; instead, it is a spontaneous
we make because of Woods use of a narrative storyboard. refusal to participate in contemporary society.
However, what we need for Woods projects is a new
interpretation of his ideas of architecture and city recon- In some places, invisible underground architecture emerges
struction. This paper therefore proposes a consideration and appears with all its explosive strength, raising the
of the dialectic reasoning that could be said to exist Earths crust, pushing out skyward and finally throwing
between the rise and the fall contained in Woods out its subversive message: The hierarchical surface city
optimistic projects, from 198889 with Underground is met by the heterarchical subterranean city in structures
Berlin and Aerial Paris, when he began inserting visionary built to break the physical and ideological barrier between
architecture into the real background of cities. them. The projection towers are architectural weapons
par excellence. They have every intention of disrupting,
This essay takes both Woods designs and theoretical of tearing the fabric of the surface city and its way of life.2
texts into account in order to find a connection in their The drawing is made so that the focus is on the central
meaning. What are the figures of the rise and the fall in building, which has a dynamic form consisting of curved
the drawings? What writings justify them? Are there any and flat surfaces mounted as fragments on an unbalanced
recurring architectonic metaphors? This study searches skeleton, as if it were folded by dynamic forces coming
for the relationships between image and text in order from underground. The tower is brighter than the
1
L  eonardo da Vinci (14521519), identifies the marginal distortions
in linear perspective in a line of equal diameter circular columns when to illuminate any hidden layers of meaning. background and is in sharp geometrical contrast to the
using a flat picture plane. other grid-based existing facades of buildings. Hence,
2
Martin Matisoff and Larry Barksdale, Mathematical and Statistical THE RISE OF CITIES IN CRISIS Woods depicts the idea with the dialectical juxtaposition
Analysis of Blood Stain Splatter in The Forensic Examiner, Vol. 21,
No.11, Spring 2012, 26-33. of opposite-meaning couples: dynamic/static, bright/
3
Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension, Chicago and London, University Lebbeus Woods had drawn up several utopian city plans dark, irregular/regular.
of Chicago Press, 2009 edition (first published 1966), 40. by the end of the 1980s. His criticism of existing society
4
James Perry Wilson (18891976), trained as an architect at Columbia
University and subsequently applied the rigour of architectural
was expressed through a vision of alternative worlds which The second example is the set of drawings for Aerial Paris
perspective projection to natural history dioramas, starting at the had the typical characteristics of a utopia: the absence of (1989), which appear even more radical and visionary
American Museum of Natural History in New York. The author built a well-defined real place, the setting of an indefinite future precisely because they are inserted in a real context and
a set of cameras to understand his projection method that related
to his Cold Bog diorama at the Yale Peabody Museum.
time and the great faith in technological development accompanied by texts that increasingly have the tones of
5
Matisoff, Mathematical and Statistical Analysis, 33. being at the service of humanity. The society imagined by an exhortation to uprising. Antigravity, as opposed to the
6
Arthur Mason Worthington, (18521916), physicist who pioneered Woods is balanced both in its relationship with community detaining force of gravity, becomes a symbol of liberation.
high-speed photography.
and in its relationship to the Earth, from whose energy Antigravity refers to struggle, tension, anxiety and restless
7
Arthur Mason Worthington, The Splash of A Drop a reprint of a
discourse delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, 18 May 1894 sources it benefits. assertion of the kinetic and animate against stasis. Gravity
(1895), London, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1895, is an insidious enemy of the animate.3 The dialectic
(reprint by Kessinger Publishings Rare Reprints, LaVergne, TN, 2010). In his designs for Underground Berlin (1988), a previously between static and dynamic, which is also reflected in
8
Harold Eugene Edgerton (190390), professor of electrical engineering
at MIT who developed high-speed electronic flash photography. conceived utopian community is lowered into a real city, the metaphorical opposition of death and life, is developed
9
Instrument Eight was built in collaboration with Perry Kulper. highlighting a conflict between utopian thought and its in Woods political discourse as a dialectic between

154 Future Fantasticals Papers 155

authoritarian power and individual freedom; and it is the There is no room here to expound this issue; instead,
prerequisite for taking a radical position against societal we will focus our attention on the well-known section of
controlthe basis for his oppositional, symbolically Berlin Free-Zone where we can see the Freespace as
determined and continually changeable open society. a metaphorical representation of the impact of digital
I therefore declare myself against gravity, because I am technology on architecture. The drawing represents a
for animation and movement [] I reject gravitys arrogance hybridisation between the existing city, still exemplified
and claims, and assert a counterclaimI am a free by the prevalence of a regular grid, and the new
spirit, autonomous and self-determining, a being and Freespace, consisting of a fluid volume which, because
an architect of antigravity.4 of impact, is folded and crumpled at various points. Inside
this shell, there are technological objects and tentacular
In the drawings, these concerns are depicted via air- cables of interconnection passing through the space and
hovering aerial houses, which do not follow repetitive invading the rooms. This drawing is clearly a metaphorical
rules but rather express individual freedom. This is a representation of two different ways of thinking, or two
subversion of the concept of architectural tradition, systems that have to live together. In fact, the sharp
because in Woods vision the inhabitants are never inspired section seems like an anatomical and scientific drawing
by the past, as time is incapable of fixing any form in that shows how the organs work, and is a disturbing and
the air. The constructions are continuously adapted to surreal scene.8 The new technological age will lead to
the changeable forces of the air and are unpredictable anxiety and uncertainty, despite the fact that it could be
because they do not respect any plan. However, perhaps positive if the hybridisation leads towards a heterarchical
the most incisive symbols used by Woods to represent societyas Woods says: it is the ideal type of organization
this extreme autonomy are the huge sails unfurled in the for the increasingly democratic (not to say anarchic)
sky, which inflate and move as if they were flags of freedom. information and electronic-age.9

Yet to some extent the Underground Berlin and Aerial Paris What we want to highlight here is the architectonic theme
projects remain detached from reality because of their of the intersection between non-homogeneous entities
overly extreme visionary criticism, which at the same symbolically represented with conflicting opposite
time, of course, assures their sublimity. But what happens geometrical forms, according to the dialectic of regular/
when change really comes, as with the fall of the Berlin irregular, linear/curved, static/dynamic. The intrusive
Wall? What happens to this idea of dynamic architecture? object, the Freespace, is an empty space which invades
How is this sweeping change represented? the rooms of the host object, establishing new
connections between the internal spaces. This theme
As Peter Cook has written, the kinetic condition in had already been explored by Gordon Matta-Clark in his
architecture had already established itself in the 1960s performances, such as Conical Intersect (Paris, 1975),
and developed in the following decades via the concept where the empty volume inserted inside the existing
of metamorphosis, perhaps best represented by traditional building establishes a new radical order and
the explosive collision between architecture and high hierarchy through a different interconnection of interiors.
technology/the digital world.5 This condition emerges In a similar manner, Steven Holl composes this dialectic
clearly in Woods work when he returns to Berlin in 1991 in Simmons Hall (MIT, Cambridge, 19992002) and Thom
with the speculative project Berlin Free-Zone (1991), Mayne, too, in The Cooper Union (New York, 200609).
because he sees in the passing of crisis a great
opportunity for cultural transformation. The rise after the dissolution of the ordered world in Berlin
Free-Zone is the end of a period in which a metaphorical
This set of drawings is closely linked to the Berlin narrative binds together a group of projects that pursue
Underground and Aerial Paris projects through a narrative a representation of a positive social evolution, albeit
that was perhaps not foreseen at the beginning. driven by subversive forces. In subsequent years, the
The aerial habitations above Paris find their way back figures of rising are closely linked with the idea of the fall
in the Berlin Free-Zone projectto the city of their in Woods experimental radical reconstruction theory;
subterranean origins. Yet they do not return underground. the projects defined by this theory have in common the
Instead they enterin a conceptual sensethe existing image of physical collapse as a metaphor for the collapse
structures at the centre of the re-united city of Berlin, of the established order, enabling opportunities for a
at a moment of profound political, cultural and existential new social order.
crisis and transformation.6 But this fiction is a pretext
to introduce the new concept of Freespace: Having In fact, the book and drawing series War and Architecture
no pre-determined use or presupposed meaning, (1993), devoted to the ongoing war in Sarajevo, announces
being therefore useless and meaningless space [] the end of Woods period of visionary and optimistic
Taken as a group, the heterarchy of Freespaces comprise narratives about the spontaneous uprising from the
a Free-Zone of shifting interconnections and interactions underground. Instead, there emerges the awareness
between inhabitants using nodes of electronic
instrumentation located in each Freespace. Thus a type
Fig.1 (opposite): Lebbeus Woods, Architect, American (19402012).
of urban order is created without hierarchy or fixed form, Perspective View of the Project from the Hudson, Looking East (from World
changing continuously.7 Center), 2002, digital painting, 1926in. Estate of Lebbeus Woods.

156 Future Fantasticals 157

of a traumatic and violent deconstruction with unpre- avoiding the mistakes of the past. Woods states, these designing according to the orthogonal grid. The grid the fall and of its disastrous consequences [] This
dictable outcomes. These drawings show a violent houses respond to peoples powerful need to achieve structure is still seen as the symbol of a rational society is reasonable only if we do not consider them first aid
dynamism in which deconstruction and construction are freedom of movement in space through a fuller plasticity that excludes the unexpected and the irrational, not applied to a traumatic wound [] The deeper wound,
both seen as inherently configurative forces, able to create of experience, and to exist in the full dimensionality of only in the geological field, but even in the political, the trauma itselfembodied in the fall and its memory
new forms including fragments caused by the conceptual spaceto fly and yet, paradoxically, to be rooted, to belong social and artistic ones. It would be more rational to put is examined only in medical and academic quarters,
shattering explosion of the past world, in a similar way to to a particular place and time.13 in other words, the High aside doctrinaire ways of thinking and their inherently far from public forums and discussion.16 The message
that stated by Zaha Hadid in her early projects. The fall House conveys the idea of balance as a constructive vulnerable systems, and to create new systems of shaping that we can read in his next projects is his warning
and rise are intertwined; indeed, it is unclear whether the tension between contrasting forces, for both architecture space, new types of behavior and patterns of thinking that we must become aware of the political and social
new monstrous biomorphic figures appearing in the ruins and society. This concern also appears buildable thanks and living that incorporate earthquakes as an essential interconnection of globalisation in order to deal with the
are destroying or rebuilding the city, and if the fragments to the pencil technique. In fact, we can see perspective aspect of reality.15 However, the interesting aspect of this 9/11 trauma. Therefore he proposes a cathartic step-by-
are coalescing or bursting (Fig.2). We can see these with kinematic projection and technical cross-sections, analysis is that it has an original design outcome compared step project of two consecutive installations and a plan
drawings as the beginning of a new story, one about explaining the structure and its possible mobile to previous cases and carefully considers the seismic for the Twin Towers reconstruction, linked again through
reconstruction as a physical and existential transform- capabilities, although in fact it does not actually have characteristics of the site. a narrative that suggests a redemptive, optimistic
ation, which will be Woods main theme in the following its own engine. We think of it as an efficient metaphor for cultural and social evolution.
years. Moreover, in this case the coloured pencil the concept of social reconstruction understood as the As for expressive language, can architecture represent
technique has the important role of homogenising coexistence of opposite but inteconnected parts, which these balanced tensions? Woods suggests a shift in The first installation is The Storm (2002), set up at The
opposite entities, so that existing ruins, new forms have to move together to find a balance once again. structural thinking, no longer with grid-based frames Cooper Union in New York, comprising a horizontal bundle
and energetic trajectories appear as one. too weak to withstand dynamic forces, but rather with a of steel cables which hold metallic rods at their ends,
In subsequent years, this idea has been developed composition of variably sized plates, imagining that their inclined in various ways and sometimes joined by horizontal
Woods criticises the idea of reconstruction as mere elsewhere to understand other sociopolitical crises or juxtaposition has been completed by an earthquake. bars. The metaphor of the storm is generated by the
restoration of the pre-war city, because, he suggests, situations of neglect and decay, such as in Havana, or The composition created by the seismic wave sponta- effect of a flow of vectors with variable intensity depending
this would be the symbolic reaffirmation of the conditions the post-earthquake conditions in Inhabiting the Quake in neously finds balance and greater stability. Therefore, as on their density. Moreover, the work is also a real physical
of the society which caused the war. On the other hand, San Francisco, or in the destruction of the 2001 terrorist with Havana, there is in this process a random component model which enables us to visualise the operation of
he disapproves of the modernist tabula rasa and the act in New York. In the case of Havana, the revolutionary aside from the external action of the designerthe a complex interconnected system. In fact, when a rod is
idea of urban renewal, as this erases historyincluding uprising message is explicit in Woods writings: I do not earthquake and gravitythat transforms and completes moved, there are unpredictable effects on all the others,
the memory of the war itselfand therefore also loses want to see the Cuban revolution end. I want to see it the form and in this case the structural functioning as because they are not connected according to a regular
the variety and complexity of the old city.10 Hence, he succeed, even more so than it has been able to under well. We could call it a kind of settling of the composition, grid-based pattern. Furthermore, by adding other vectors,
proposes the acceptance of ruins as an existential the pressure of economic siege from without and which becomes architecturally expressive through the the tension throughout increases. The unexpected
remnant of war, and to use them as a source of inspiration oppressive, totalitarian governance from within. Because poetics of fragments. breakage of a weak element does not cause a general
for spontaneous new forms, requiring active participation of these two sources of pressure, which are closely collapse, because the load is distributed across many
by the people. The new spaces of habitation constructed linked, the revolution has not yet found its architecture.14 In the case of Slip House and Shard House, the fragments elements, reducing the tension of the overall system.
on the existential remnants of war do not celebrate the As in Sarajevo, Woods believes the restoration and are the collected and reassembled remains of previous Therefore, as Woods declares, the idea of transform-
destruction of an established order, nor do they symbolize reconstruction of Havanas historical old city should be civilisations, whereas the splinters of rock in Fault ation in a tension field is linked with the interdependence
or commemorate it [] There is an ethical and moral based on popular participation. For instance, the project House are inspired by the geometry of the local geology. of the elements within it, and, more accurately, to their
commitment in such an existence, and therefore a basis involves the construction of a new monolithic urban wall Everything is drawn with mixed technique and assembly interconnectedness.17
for community, he says.11 in this case, the reconstruction containing all necessary services, on which people can sketches, plans, sections, dynamic representations and
of ruins is the real act of uprising by the population, which spontaneously add temporary slab-formed structures the usual perspective view made using coloured pencils, The issue is taken up in The Fall, an installation performed
leads to a psychological and cultural healing through which over time become permanent and spread along full of details to give the effect of a sublime atmosphere. at the Fondation Cartier in Paris (2002), representing
a biological analogy with the physical healing process. unexpected paths. the trajectories followed by the structural grid-based
THE FALL AND THE RISE elements during the collapse with a maze of deformed
The first step is the injection of spontaneous inhabitable The rise here is a form of resistance against the fall metal bars. The theoretical rectilinear trajectory caused
structures in the gaps formed within ruins, which require of revolution, represented by the spontaneous and The themes which emerged from Woods projects for by gravity is disturbed by perturbation forces external
inventiveness and creativity to make inhabitable, as unpredictable forms filling the empty space around the Sarajevo, Havana and San Francisco are collected in his to the system, which make unpredictable and non-linear
they are not predesigned, predetermined, predictable, existing infrastructure, both in the old city and along the book Radical Reconstruction. In the following decade, paths. Thence ruins are the result of a spatial distortion,
and predictive spaces12exactly like Freespaces. After new wall. We can see this evolving process in the sections he develops them, changes his formal register with new but are not seen as irregularities, rather as a different
that, there begins the building of temporary protective in perspective, which show scenes of everyday life in abstract linear compositions and, in particular, begins form of regularity in ways unaccounted for by the former
structures called scab construction, and finally the improbable rooms with suspended and interconnected to eschew the architectural realistic image. This transition system.18 in other words, Woods has taken the same
permanent scar construction; that is, architectural floors linked in turn to sloping walls. Similarly to the High had already been anticipated in the study Terrain: concept of reconstruction adopted in Sarajevo and
parts bound together and fused with existing ruins, House, the image represents a potential kinetic energy tectonical landscape (1999), in which he developed the developed it, being inspired by complex systems, which
though remaining recognisable. Thus, even the most that, if released, would involve all other elements, perhaps idea of a settled composition caused by external forces, also include the unexpected perturbative element.
visionary images representing new tissue in formation with the exception of the great wall. Thus the drawings a phenomenon found in the analysis of the terrains Ultimately, as in Sarajevo, he wants to strengthen the
as if we were looking at the building processes of matter for Havana are the architectural representation of a morphogenesis and which becomes the model for thesis of the critical reconstruction without rebuilding
are metaphorical narratives of a reforming psychic dynamic balance as interconnection between different understanding how different components, both natural exactly the same as before and without tabula rasa.
and social tissue. components, in which individuals may continue to add and artificial, can reach a balance while maintaining
other parts in a similar manner, forever increasing the a state of internal tension. However, in this period, the drawings are an abstract
Perhaps the best representation of the new relationship complexity of the system. composition of linear vectors and shattered volumes
between rise and fall is the High House, a metaphorical But the event that induces Woods to apply this idea to the moving in space; only in some of them is there a nod to
house anchored to the ground by metal rods under The Inhabiting the Quake project is set in San Francisco, broader political dialectic of fall and rise is the 9/11 attack a vague tower shape, an echo of the World Trade Centre
tension and held in firm position by cables. It represents although it is inspired by the disastrous destruction on the Twin Towers in New York. Because we need to (Fig.1). Where is the architectural figure? Woods states
dynamic energy reassembled and restrained, expressing caused by the earthquake in Kobe (Japan) in March 1995, defend against possible and imminent recurrences, we that his interest is in these ideas and techniques in the
the continuous tension needed to rebuild society while where the collapsed buildings suggested the failure of naturally look for the most immediate and direct cause of service of building design in ways that emphasize process

158 Future Fantasticals Papers 159

 architectural form, perhaps to avoid it becoming an
empty icon. Is this the failure of architecture or an
admission of its power? Woods does not seek the
contemplation of a monument, but rather the participation
of individuals in the reconstruction process. He does
not even want to construct an architectural monument
in the world of images, perhaps because he fears its
externalisation and therefore that the image of architecture
might become the monument itself and impede the
change of history.

Fig.2: Lebbeus Woods, Architect, American (19402012). Meditation: Architecture resisting change,
even as it flows from it, struggling to crystalize and be eternal, even as it is broken and scattered
(from War and Architecture), 1993, graphite and coloured pencil on board. 2012in. Estate of Lebbeus Woods.

instead of product, and conceptual integrity instead of the second is for those who are looking for answers
finished form,19 but why does he destroy even the image and takes one week; the third is for holidaymakers and
of architecture? As Anthony Vidler wrote a few years later, takes two or three days; finally, the half-day path is for
when Woods proposed another similar installation and tourists. These temporary visitors will find themselves
performance in Wien, this way of stimulating change at the top with permanent residents, mostly artists and
through a dynamic and temporary event was one of scholars gathered in a constantly evolving community. 1
L  ebbeus Woods, Anarchitecture: Architecture is a Political Act
the artistic methods used by the Situationists, based on (New York: Academy Edition, London/St.Martins Press, 1992), 50.
the idea of psychogeographic energy, where people are In conclusion, we can see in the first period analysed 2
Woods, Anarchitecture, 51.
linked emotionally and create a community network in a Berlin and Parisa clear juxtaposition between rise 3
Woods, Anarchitecture, 64.
4
Woods, Anarchitecture, 64.
psychical spatial map of the city.20 This psychical relation and fall, where uprising predominates as a positive social 5
Peter Cook, Drawing. The motive force of architecture
energy interacts with physical spaces and events, and evolution through a strong individual autonomy. The (London: Wiley, 2008), 48.
Woods seeks to represent it and to act on it with his projects are linked by a metaphorical narrative composed 6
Lebbeus Woods, Lebbeus Woods: Terra Nova 198891
drawings and installations.21 However, nobody had built a of dialectic figures of opposing concepts: dynamic/static, (Tokyo: Architecture and Urbanism, August Extra Edition, 1991), 22.
7
Woods, Lebbeus Woods, 22.
work that matched their imaginary worlds of intersecting regular/irregular, linear/curved. In the second period, 8
Peter Cook, Drawing, 116.
psychic freedoms and physical ambiances that might on the other hand, from Sarajevo to New York, the fall 9
Lebbeus Woods, Lebbeus Woods, 22.
redeem the cities of capital.22 assumes a catastrophic role and introduces unpredictable
10
Lebbeus Woods, War and Architecture (New York: Princeton
Architectural Press, 1993), 10.
elements into the project. The dialectic fall/rise is 11
Woods, War and Architecture, 14.
The third phase of the cathartic process to get rid presented with less juxtaposition: there is more inter- 12
Woods, War and Architecture, 21.
of trauma is the shared construction of a new large connection and interdependence between the different
13
Lebbeus Woods, Radical Reconstruction (New York: Princeton
Architectural Press, 1997), 18.
perpetually under construction23 tower in place of the parts. The narrative does not link the projects but remains 14
Woods, Radical Reconstruction,19.
World Trade Centre, which, as a symbol of regeneration, within the single set of drawings, while the metaphorical 15
Woods, Radical Reconstruction, 21.
is constantly changing. This time, Woods returns to his figures represent the dialectic relationship between 16
Lebbeus Woods, The Storm and The Fall (New York: Princeton
Architectural Press, 2004), 1078.
visionary storytelling to launch a social renewal message construction and deconstruction, and the concepts 17
Woods, The Storm and The Fall, 51.
about the rise after the fall, to build a community that fall/rise are melded in the same world. We can see in the 18
Woods, The Storm and The Fall, 113.
brings together diverse social classesa new democratic drawings, models and installations an increasing use of 19
Woods, The Storm and The Fall, 22.
20
Anthony Vidler, Drawing into space/In den raum zeichnen,
realm rising above the competitive tumult of the city the image of physical dynamic balance as a metaphorical
in Peter Noever, eds. Lebbeus Woods. System Wien
below, a place where contentions can be informed by complex interconnection among several components. (Wien-MAK: Ostfildern-Ruit Hatje Cantz, 2005), 38.
new perspectives and possibilities.24 Within the tower, As in Sarajevo, the act of reconstruction after the fall 11
Lebbeus Woods, System Wien, in Peter Noever, eds. Lebbeus Woods.
he draws four ascending exhibition paths on the subject can precipitate the transformation of a community that System Wien (Wien-MAK: Ostfildern-Ruit Hatje Cantz, 2005), 13.
22
Anthony Vidler, Drawing into space, 40.
of 9/11, with different visiting times and which differ in wants to change after the mistakes of the past, but in 23
Lebbeus Woods, The Storm and The Fall, 176.
their difficulty. The first is for pilgrims and takes one month; New York Woods does not want to fix the process through 24
Woods, The Storm and The Fall, 177.

160 Future Fantasticals Papers 161

Creatures Afield: its potential as a technique to be harnessed towards
more subversive ends. Leaving behind the aspiration of
[overturning] daily routines and commonplace thoughts,
upsetting hierarchies and crowning fools.7 The masques
Drawing the Dioramatic Caricature realism, we learn from these dioramas about the creation
of worlds through the juxtaposition of 2D and 3D
turn the logic of the diorama on its headinstead of
containing taxidermy animals within the monumental
Joseph Altshuler representation, through the illusion or flattening of space form of an institution, Hedjuk animates architectural
Julia Sedlock and the selective inclusion of detail. Yet for the diorama animals and lets them run wild as companions to their
to operate as a truly productive and progressive machine urban and human counterparts, providing an opportunity
ANIMATING THE ANTHROPOCENE humourcan be used to produce a convincing, yet not of knowledge, we must heed Haraways call for a to challenge the fixed monumentality of the European
quite complete image of an alternative world, in which definition of social relations that include[s] the entire city as well as the rationalism of modernism. The realism
As scientists continue to debate the precise status of our own subjectivity is augmented and altered through complex of interactions among people [] objects, of the traditional diorama is thus replaced by the
the Anthropocene, architects have eagerly absorbed the subjectivity of other creatures and objects. Whether including books, buildings and rock [] and animals.6 surrealism of the situationist drive. Whereas traditional
the premise as a provocation for disciplinary speculation. through human engagement with live animals or through From an architectural perspective, this expanded social dioramas kept a safe distance and ensured a privileged
The fact of human impact on climatic, geomorphic and creature-like architectural form, the projects discussed environment invites human interaction and engagement gaze from human viewers to mounted animals, the
ecological systems triggers the architectural impulse to below use the disciplinary means of simple line drawings with both live animals and creature-like architectural projects discussed below assert the formal and operative
reimagine the terms by which we define our present and to portray an expanded environment of animated forms. These projects ascribe a subjecthood to potential initiated by creatures that, like Hejduks
future relationship to the environment, challenging interaction. As a deliberately reductive process of architecture such that companion subjects of people, masques, break free from hegemonic institutions,
binaries such as natural and artificial, inside and outside, representation, the dioramatic caricature playfully, animals and animated built forms might integrate be it museums, aquaria, farms or even the atmospheric
subject and object. In a recent symposium organised shamelessly and humorously asserts and amplifies the the ecological inputs and outputs that surround them. bounds of our planet, to produce a startling and surreal
by Columbia University GSAPP, Neyran Turan quotes perspective of both author and subject through its By letting creatures afield, these architectural examples new atmosphere of near-Earthly existence.
geographer Mike Hulmes description of climate change selective inclusion of information and biased promotion transform our built environments into diorama-esque
as an imaginative resource around which our collective of a particular worldview. The low resolution of these machines for knowledge-making and sustainment. THE CHARACTER OF CARICATURE:
and personal identities and projects can and should take drawings leave room for interpretation, distortion or further LIKENESS AND TRUTHINESS
shape.1 Hulmes provocation echoes the philosopher articulation by its audience. As an alternative version Studio Gangs recent proposal for the Gilder Centre
and design theorist Tony Frys proposal for the of Sustainment practice, the dioramatic caricature mines extension to the American Museum of Natural History If the dioramas of Akeley Hall used realism to simulate
Sustainmenta cultural movement on the scale of the the condition of the Anthropocene as an opportunity reconfigures the logic of the diorama within the interior a particular version of truth, the projects discussed here
Renaissance or Enlightenment that has very little to do for architecture to create a new vision of an animated layout of the institutions new wing. Exuberantly swooping use representational strategies aligned with caricature
with saving the world, but instead calls for a reboot of collective life that expands the boundaries of its concrete walls form large-scale arches and exhibition as defined and discussed by art historian Ernst Gombrich
how we make and think that manifests via critical inquiry, environment to include various subjectivities of both niches that resemble the interior skeleton of an enormous and psychoanalyst Ernst Kris in their 1938 essay The
argument, literary and visual creative projection and the non-human and inanimate kind. eviscerated beast. The interior is populated with animal Principles of Caricature. Unpacking the relatively recent
value-transformed lifeworlds.2 replicas on display, as if this prehistoric beast of a history of caricature, the two Ernsts describe it as an
THE EXPANDED DIORAMA: building had swallowed an ecosystem of contemporary art that is less interested in proximity to reality than in
Architecture is in a unique position to contribute to FROM CONTAINMENT TO COMPANIONSHIP species before going extinct. With humans and animal a projection of an inner image and a penetration of the
this process, as it exists as both fiction and reality specimens occupying the same space, the Gilder innermost essence of reality [] to reveal the character,
simultaneously [] The actualisation of the imaginary The inanimate taxidermy that fills the dioramas in the Centre demonstrates one step towards reconfiguring the essence of the man. 8 By deliberately distorting,
into the real is architectures fundamental mode, its Akeley Hall of African Mammals at the American Museum our relationships to animals, shifting the hierarchy of simplifying and exaggerating the physical features and
inescapable condition as a medium.3 This process of of Natural History represents an outdated worldview power and mechanism of agency away from a eugenic behavioural traits of human characters, caricatures
actualisation happens through the act of representation, that used captivity and conservation to maintain control elite and towards a more variegated public. Here, the produce a comic sensation and a likeness more than
in the production of images and drawings that are of a growing empire. Donna Haraways Teddy Bear diorama has expanded to the entire museum interior mere imitation could be. Despite their often primitive and
both artefacts in their own right and instructions for Patriarchy situates the invention of the diorama at the and humans are included within its ecological display. unserious appearances, caricatures manipulate subject
the construction of something new. In her response Museum as a meaning machine within the context of Nevertheless, all the animals remain captive within matter to sincerely transform an audiences perception:
to Hulmes prompt, Turan joins the Sustainment through early twentieth-century New York City, where the ruling this expanded and reconceptualised dioramic context. [The caricaturist] consciously alters his model, distorts
an expanded geologic realism that can engage the patriarchal elite manipulated an aesthetic of organic The architecturally ingested human visitors and animal it, plays with its features, and thus shows the power
material reality of environmental contingencies with realism to project an image of purity and order in a rapidly artefacts together glimpse a glimmer of the outside of his imaginationwhich can exalt as well as degrade.
the representational potential of realism. Her examples growing and diversifying city. According to Haraway, the world through the buildings open nostril-like clerestory. Instead of an objective portrayal of the outer world he
are photographic images that deploy realism as a form danger of realism is that it does not appear to be a point Escape into the city beyond is almost visible and substitutes his subjective vision.9
of strategic abstraction, [to produce] a subtle and of view, but rather hides the artifice of its construction teasingly palpable.
unexpected separation from reality.4 Visually complex so as to present the illusion of naturalised truth.5 Similarly, the political satirist and contemporary living
with the detail and richness of the material world, these From the point of view of Carl Akeley, the mastermind Over thirty years prior, on the European continent, such caricaturist Stephen Colbert promotes truthiness, the
images possess an eerie and quiet gravitas. Avoiding taxidermist behind the Museums great hall, the diorama architectural liberation was achieved by the masques practice of understanding the world through what feels
the extreme of a post-apocalyptic dystopia, yet unapolo- represented a direct translation of his safari experience of John Hejduk. A nomadic tribe of structures, each right in your gut rather than by thinking with your head.
getically devoid of life, they are ambivalent in their attitude in Africa via the composition of realistically preserved with their own distinct profile, character and story, these I dont trust books, Colbert explains. Theyre all
towards inhabitation, human or otherwise, and are animals set in a lifelike reproduction of their native exist on a scale that lies somewhere between a full-size fact and no heart The truthiness is, anyone can read
therefore mute in addressing the question of subjecthood ecology, with simulated vegetation and rock outcrops building and a sculpture. Though born from the context the news to you. I promise to feel the news at you.10
in the context of our new environmental reality. in the foreground and a painted mural of the native of a specific city, the masques move freely from place Truthiness capitalises on likeness, emotion and charm
landscape on the back wall to convey the larger context. to place, occupying and inventing new territories as to remake the world in the image of our desires. While
In contrast to Turans expanded geologic realism, this The intention at the time of its production was to they accompany Hejduk on future travels. In this sense, Colberts career-long commitment to propagating
paper explores the possibilities and potentials of what reproduce the truth of nature as it existed in the African the masques constitute a form of dioramatic urbanism, truthiness is in part a tongue-in-cheek gag lampooning
we call the dioramatic caricature. As opposed to the wild and in its taming by white American men. staging novel situations and scenarios that transform conservative sensationalist news outlets, it also attests
complexity, simulation and gravitas of realism, we explore a given context into a machine for new forms of to a larger cultural shift in which exaggerating essence
how the representational techniques associated with In todays high-resolution world, the artifice of the diorama knowledge. What appears playful is also deadly serious constitutes a truer identity than reality. Truthiness may
caricaturesimplification, distortion, exaggeration and is both obvious and unsettling, and therefore suggests [as] it invades and repopulates cities en route be truer than truth.

162 Future Fantasticals Papers 163

While caricature is often prematurely dismissed as DUDE RANCH DOPPELGNGERS:
an overly reductive or one-dimensional rendering of ANIMAL FARMATURES AND FARMLAND WORLD
a character, we see renewed potential in leveraging
the caricaturists tactics of visual simplification, bodily Design With Companys Animal Farmatures lets loose
distortion and serious pleasure to amplify subjectivity animatronic creatures into the agrarian landscape of the
and architectural agency in the built environment. American Corn Belt. These livestock-shaped overscaled
When applied to architecture, the notion of a building farm implements simultaneously cultivate farmland
having character and being a character enables and entertain adjacent interstate car travellers and future
a mindset in which built matter actively participates high-speed cross-country rail passengers.
in tandem with human actors to affect how the world
looks and operates.11 The notion of a building becoming The Animal Farmatures are zoomorphic caricatures of
a caricature does not detract from the nuance of conventional farm implements. Drawn primarily in section,
personality, but rather reinforces both the imaginative each of the six different Farmatures takes the shape of a
intention required to exaggerate character traits and simplified animal silhouette which is stuffed with technolo-
the truthy narration enacted by those characteristics. gical apparatuses. The beast-machine mashups cleverly
The artist Mike Kelley situates caricature in relation couple animal anatomy with mechanical functions. For
to the contemporary art of the 1980s, especially as example, the Cow Combines head serves as the primary
it informed practices of biomorphic abstraction and intake unit, using its teeth to cut grain from the stalks
aesthetics of sculpting with flesh.12 in a related spirit and ingest it for further processing.13 Threshing and
but with disciplinary-specific techniques, caricature also winnowing occur within an abdominal cavity and, in full
informs a cohort of architectural work that foregrounds comic effect, the fully digested grain berries are expelled
human interaction with live animals and creature-like by conveyor belt through an aptly located anal aperture.
built forms. By animating inert form or by outfitting live
animals to engage the environment in new ways, these Drawing explicit cues from Jean-Jacques Lequeus
creaturely caricatures help articulate new understandings famous rendering of a cow stable in the shape of an
about the world. Assyrian bovine, the Animal Farmatures restake a claim

Fig.2: Design With Company, Farmland World, 2011. While evoking tienne-Louis Boulles canonical
drawing of the Cenotaph for Newton, the simple linework section through Farmland World includes details
of human occupation, including an array of hotel rooms, stadium seating, jumbotrons and signage.

in the French theory of architecture parlantebuildings in a kind of two-and-a-half dimensions, as the mechanical
that use symbolism and pictorial reference to explain viscera are represented with both faux-illustrated
their function and identity. Architecture parlante is perhaps depth and diagrammatic vitality (e.g. big arrows, air
an ultimate manifestation of caricature in architecture: flow markings, drips of water and dashed lines indicating
it exploits perspicuous visual likeness to communicate movement) atop an emphatically 2D animal outline and
(this building is for cows!), it exaggerates the scale of scenic backdrop. The drawing stages a truthy appeal:
familiar elements to produce laughter and surprise (that it instructs us how the architecture might work without
cow is much too big for this pasture!) and it indulges in explaining how it really works. Instead of the sublime
bodily and tumescent forms to insinuate sexuality and to realism conveyed in Lequeus uncanny caricature,
project personality (is that building coming on to me?). the Farmatures dioramatic caricature intentionally
and humorously detains veracity and leaves elements
While the Animal Farmatures benefit from all of these of its realised identity open for interpretation and
qualities of parlante, they also push the techniques of further intrigue.
caricature in new ways. Lequeus cowshed is rendered
with charcoal shade and shadow, both to heighten its The Farmatures facilitate new agricultural interactions
sublime setting and to convey a sense of depth and between farmers and their implements, to be sure, and
realism. While colour renderings are included in the in turn they also suggest a new sense of subjectivity
suite of representations for the Farmatures, the primary in the interactions between farmers and their livestock.
architectural artefact is a cartoonish section drawn in And while the Farmatures contribute new possibilities for
hard-line black strokes (Fig.1). The bold outline reinforces working farms, they also interact with the non-farming
the familiar silhouette of the cow, and the unrendered public via a franchised chain of agro-tourist resorts called
technique liberates the architects to delineate the internal Farmland World. Part theme park and part working farm,
Fig.1: Design With Company, Animal Farmatures, 2011. A section cut through the
Cow Combine reinforces the familiar silhouette of the cow and delineates internal mechanisms with suggestive plausibility but without Farmland World invites people to interact directly with
mechanisms with suggestive plausibility but without technical specificity. technical specificity. Like a diorama, the section reads the Farmatures, as well as live farm animals, in ways that

164 Future Fantasticals Papers 165

transcend the visual spectacle provided by vehicular
windows. Within Farmland World, humans enter the
agricultural diorama.

As a slightly cheeky experiment in crowdsourced labour,

guests to Farmland World perform farm tasks as a
voluntary distraction from their humdrum urban lives,
reconnecting non-farmers to the labour and mechanisms
of their food production as a participatory alternative
to ubiquitous factory farms. If in the dioramas of the
American Museum of Natural History the detached
public viewers are completely divorced from the killing Fig.3: Fred Scharmen, Nonhuman Autonomous Space Agency, 2015.
of animals required to fabricate the myth of patriarchal A line drawing of NASAs astronaut manatee combines digitally precise
human-animal relations, then in Farmland World humans line-weight articulation with an analogue, organic flow to produce a
caricature that conveys the manatees character with an expression
participate fully in the slaughter of animals required to of confidence, curiosity and wisdom.
sustain the populace according to the American culture
of meat-eating. Humans have entered the diorama, asteroid is sent into orbit for manatees and chickens to
with blood on their shoes to boot. inhabit and explore. The exploits and interactions of the
space-bound animals is carefully monitored by autonomous
Formally, the section drawn through the bulbous interior robots, who digitally broadcast their activities to an
arena of Farmland World (Fig.2) evokes the geometric emerging public of Earth-dwelling human fans. In this
elegance and clarity of tienne-Louis Boulles canonical way, the Space Agency aims to amplify the subjectivity
drawing of the Cenotaph for Newton. Akin to the of these nonhuman astronauts (both animals and robots)
comparison with Lequeu, Boulles section is sublimely by giving them a comprehensible and emotional voice,
rendered with caricaturised light, shade and shadow, while understood by humans via the likes of Twitter.
the spectacles of Farmland World, including fireworks,
parade balloons and the Farmatures themselves, are The project operates via two prominent drawings. The first
drawn with simple single-stroke linework. More importantly caricature introduces us to the actor playing the leading
though, while the transcendental scene depicted by role: the suited manatee performing extra-vehicular
Boulle is devoid of almost any human scale or reference, activity (Fig.3). The composition leverages the familiar
which heightens the sublimely autonomous effect, the pose and uniform of a human astronaut floating in space. Fig.4: Fred Scharmen, Nonhuman Autonomous Space Agency, 2015. The space stations
cross-section cut through a hollowed-out asteroid features an Earth-like landscape illustrated
Farmland World section is complete with details of human As the manatee already exhibits anthropomorphism in by simple colour fills and cartoonish outlines of flora and fauna.
occupation, including an array of hotel rooms, stadium its physique, the subtle modifications to the human suit
seating, jumbotrons and signage. Humans emphatically to accommodate the sea cows fluke appear strangely The extraterrestrial lazy river is itself a far-flung diorama. interaction with the back-of-house scientific activities.
belong within Farmland World. Indeed, soliciting human natural. The drawing combines digitally precise line- Unlike the dioramas of the American Museum of Natural For example, one character houses a discussion forum
participation and worldly enthusiasm is the dioramatic weight articulation with an analogue, organic flow to History, this strange orbital diorama grants its resident with access to the zoological lab below, while another
caricatures reason to be. the lines themselves. This overtly drawn quality of the creatures many new affordances of subjectivity and pairs an apartment for a biologist-in-residence with locker
caricature heightens the manatees character; while spatial (and outer-spacial) freedoms. Yet it also intentionally rooms for volunteers.
FAUNA FANS: NONHUMAN AUTONOMOUS no excess lines are used to do so, the carefully composed stops short of full human participation. Retweets and
SPACE AGENCY wrinkles and expression on its visible face through the likes notwithstanding, humans are limited to following The primary representation for the project is a wide
helmet convey confidence, curiosity and even wisdom. the activities from afar with almost no agency in their perspectival drawing, with hard-line black strokes and
Fred Scharmens Nonhuman Autonomous Space Agency This is a manatee with agency. It aspires to be a outcomes. In this way, the new NASA is staging an precisely articulated swathes of bright colour fill.
launches communities of live animals and robotic revamped Vitruvian nonhuman person for our time. anti-diorama. This model reminds human earthlings Photographic scale figures of human occupants are
creatures into low-Earth orbit. The project leverages that they may not be the centre of the universe after all. montaged into the drawing. The logic of caricature
the communicative power of charismatic megafauna, The second caricature depicts a cross-section of the This is not necessarily to rid humans of their burden of operates here on multiple levels. First, the architectural
a species of animal that is well known and well liked, hollow ovoid orbital habitat (Fig.4). Because of the curved responsibility to save the planet, but rather to champion characters are themselves zoomorphic caricatures.
which serves as a stand-in and focal point for the complex- surface of the ovoids low-gravity hollow interior, the the agency of nonhuman actors in the complex ecological The characters are conceived as three-dimensional
ities of the ecosystem in which it lives. For example, familiar features of an Earth-like landscape transition workings of our world(s). Liking outer-space-exploring Tangrams, where a finite series of elemental geometric
Talking about manatees is a way to begin to talk about from section to plan and back to section again, lending manatees on social media may just translate into a blocks are assembled into multiple configurations that
how we use the landscape of Florida and the Caribbean a wonky sense of vision to quotidian elements such human cultural desire to like and safeguard aquatic solicit animal imagery. While the forms are specifically
recreationally, and how to possibly change some careless as trees, shrubs and rocks. The drawing demonstrates habitats on Earth. inspired by local endangered fauna (e.g. the bottlenose
habits associated with that use.14 By invoking human how what would otherwise be an extremely warped dolphin, whooping crane, gulf sturgeon, sea turtle and
empathy with their relatable anthropomorphic expressions or exaggerated caricaturising of reality as we know SURROGATE SUBJECTS: GULF COAST BESTIARY West Indian manatee), the abstracted colourful volumes
and postures, manatees serve as a mascot for habitat it can simultaneously act as a truthy vision of the world simplify, distort and exaggerate the prominent features
conservation and responsible water use. (or outer-world) as we imagine it. Unlike the more The Gulf Coast Bestiary positions an array of zoomorphic of their representative species. Occasionally, these bodily
painterly renderings of space settlements that NASA architectural characters alongside a sanctuary for features even provide humorous affordances to their
The Nonhuman Autonomous Space Agency continues commissioned in the 1970s,15 the simple colour fills dolphins retired from entertainment captivity as well as human companions; for example, visitors are invited to
the lineage of early experiments in space travel in which and cartoonish outlines of the flora and fauna flatten other injured and recovering coastal animals. While many bend down and stick their heads into the posterior cavity
dogs, monkeys and rabbits successfully launched into the scene and challenge its viewers to reconstruct of the programmes of the sanctuary are not accessible of the caricatured whooping crane character, which
orbit and subsequently returned to Earth. This time, its spatial possibilities within the unfettered bounds to the public, the animal characters of its architecture doubles as a recording booth to record and listen to
however, a semi-aquatic habitat created within a hollow of their imagination. provide image- and activity-based pavilions for visitor stories about wildlife recovery efforts. By reconfiguring

166 Future Fantasticals Papers 167

the same set of blocks among the multiple characters,
the architecture reads as a coherent cast with
caricatures discussed above deploy a selective
amplification to highlight and manipulate qualities of The Digital Renaissance
distinctively enhanced individual characteristics. While the world that we would like to imagine and cultivate Anna Andronova
the characters are iconic in their imagery, they do not as the basis for our near-future reality.
convey established meaning to an existing constituency,
but rather rally new publics around a movement of Letting lively and literary creatures loose into our cities,
environmental engagement. hinterlands and beyond may not solve environmental
problems directly, but it offers an oblique enactment of
Second, the drawing itself is a caricature of an architectural anthropocentrically responsible agency in the world.
rendering. Rather than being saturated with photorealistic Creatures connect us to something bigger; they give
textures and illumination effects, the materiality of built us license to suspend our inhibitions and disbelief in order
and natural elements are articulated with layers of to participate in the real-time myth-making that their
speckles, hatching and other drawn patterns that suggest fabulist subjecthood makes real. The Sustainment will
character without defining specificity. Additionally, by not be televised (no form of technology will solve its
exaggerating the curvature of the horizon line, the drawing problems or spread solutions), but its performance
suggests that the Bestiary occupies a miniature planet will be enacted by companion subjects of humans and
a visual effect that implies an architecture that can creatures within an expanded cultural environment.
transform its context and produce an autonomous world
(or diorama) of its own making.

The Bestiary is indebted to the drawings of John Hejduks

various masquerades, his tribe of architectural animals
on wheels that invade and repopulate the cities of
Europe.16 As drawn representations, the red steel frames
that articulate the Bestiary characters geometric parts
echo the heavy black outlines that delineated Hejduks
masques in his watercolour renderings. As operative
propositions for the city and landscape, the Bestiary
characters might register as Hejdukian masques
embedded in place along a fixed platform. But while
they may be stationary, the Bestiary characters leverage
their perceived vitality as animate creatures to project
surrogate subjectivity for the live animals in and around
the buildinga surrogate that enacts a responsibly
anthropocentric opportunity for interaction.

If the dioramas in the American Museum of Natural 1

N  eyran Turan, Measure for the Anthropocene in Climates:
History directed an institutionally controlled gaze inward Architecture and the Planetary Imaginary ed. James Graham
into the constructed exhibits, then the Gulf Coast (Zurich: Lars Muller Publishers, 2016), 120.
2
Tony Frye, The Sustainment and its dialectic in Design Philosophy
Bestiary leverages its cast of caricatured creatures to
Papers One (Ravensbourne, Qld: Team D/E/S Publications, 2004), 37.
enable a bi-directional gaze inward and outward as the 3
Sam Jacob, Make it Real: Architecture as Enactment
public peers into the privileged activities of the zoologists (Moscow: Strelka Press, 2012).
and out at the families of coastal species beyond.
4
Turan, 127.
5
Donna Haraway, Teddy Bear Patriarchy Social Text, No. 11
(Winter, 198485), 54.
AN OBLIQUE (BUT NOT BLEAK) CONCLUSION 6
Ibid., 53.
7
Anthony Vidler, Vagabond Architecture in The Architectural
Uncanny (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992), 209.
If we use social media as a litmus test for contemporary 8
E. H. Gombrich with Ernst Kris, The Principles of Caricature,
human desire, then the animal memes, GIFs and videos British Journal of Medical Psychology, Vol. 17 (1938): 319342.
that frequent the average Facebook feed indicate a
9
Ibid.
10
Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report. Television programme.
craving for connection with the non-human world that 17 October 2005.
is expansive and illuminating. Not only does this impulse 11
Joseph Altshuler, Animate Architecture: 12 Reasons to Get
to see and understand the social, cultural and emotional in Character, ed. Cynthia Davidson. Log, #33 (New York:
Anyone Corporation, 2015).
life of animals cut across demographic boundaries, but 12
Mike Kelley, Foul Perfection: Notes on Caricature in Foul Perfection:
it points us towards our most aspirational shared qualities Essays and Criticism (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002), 2038.
of affection, humility and humour. While the caricature 13
Stewart Hicks and Allison Newmeyer, Animal Farmatures in Life
at the Speed of Rail Competition (New York: Van Alen Institute, 2011).
is commonly considered a disparaging medium, intended 14
Fred Scharmen, The Nonhuman Autonomous Space Agency,
to make fun of or amplify faults and weakness, we see 103rd ACSA Annual Meeting Proceedings, The Expanding Periphery
in its origins a more profound desire to extract a legible and the Migrating Centre (2015), 500.
truthiness from an otherwise complex and contradictory
15
Fred Scharmen, The High Frontier, the Megastructure, and
the Big Dumb Object, 101st ACSA Annual Meeting Proceedings,
world, often with an air of absurdity or humour. Not unlike New Constellations, New Ecologies (2013), 540547.
these omnipresent internet novelty items, the architectural 16
Vidler, 207, 209. Fig.1: Anna Andronova, collage.

168 Future Fantasticals Papers 169

With virtual reality gaming technologies, which lead both The second stage is autopsy. By referring to the first
children and adults far, far away from actual reality; with drawing, certain nodes are distinguished and captured
the internet of things, which blurs the notion of distance; in detail. Relationships between the biosocial fabric,
and with the rise of artificial intelligence, which can an artificial transportation framework and an
process infinitely faster than a mere human, how can informational field are carefully studied using layers
we be confident that a future of architecture will still of drawing. Through this, the organism of a city is
include bricks and mortar? This Digital Renaissance dissected to its flesh, blood and bones.
project aims to reinvent how city spaces should be
inhabited and explored in the future and how people The third stage is a fragmentation. The overall urban
should perceive themselves in this new reality. It aims to landscape is studied carefully atom by atom; elements
resurrect the lost harmony between nature and culture, are depicted on separate pieces of paper and then
alongside the feel of community and mutuality in a city. arranged by dimensional qualities: point, line, surface
and volume.
It might seem contradictory to rely on analogue
techniques while the project itself is purely about In the fourth alchemy stage, all the systemised
the digital. However, its intricacy of ideas and spatial information is grasped, recombined into the full model
complexity are only realisable by hand. and represented in sections. This perfect cube
(figuratively speaking) is a womb of a speculative
The project is split into five stages, from analysis utopia, to later be expanded.
to synthesis.
The final stage is the renaissance statement
The first stage is an explosion, where drawing acts a comprehensive model, encompassing the later
as a conductor for the flow of ideas and forms, both stages of evolution. The large scale of the drawing allows
conscious and subconscious, resulting from ones inner the exploration of the landscape both in detail and in
experience. Collage is a perfect approach for finding relation to the wider environment. The final step takes
images for a future city. The key principle is not to the drawing from a self-sufficient utopian vision to a living
be restricted to any existing typology, but instead to biosocial city system developed through representation.
be spontaneous.
Fig.3: Anna Andronova, Alchemy, a set of three principal model sections (side view).

Fig.2: Anna Andronova, Alchemy, a set of three principal model sections (front view). Fig.4: Anna Andronova, Alchemy, a set of three principal model sections (top view).

170 Future Fantasticals Projects 171

New Lohachara intertwined invention, memory and possibility, cities laden
with mythology, critique and literary and political allusion
Kirsty Badenoch within the context of Soviet control.

New Lohachara explores an architecture of wonder and The drawings of New Lohachara draw heavily on such
the miraculous, weaving a fantastical future narrative inspirations that explore, invent and criticise through
through an imagined hand-drawn world. Within a context the creation of romantic, illusionary worlds based within
of increasingly hyper-digitalised representation, in which our own. Pen-and-ink rendering is by nature playful,
the architect is progressively further removed from the appealing to an innate childlike sense of curiosity, allowing
physical design and building process, analogue methods respite from reality for speculative thought and engage-
retain a physicality, an awareness of time and process ment through the imagination. It is visually reminiscent
and an engagement with poetic narrative that is lacking of times of narrative antiquityand forgiven its
today more than ever. Through re-engaging with hand- exaggerations and inaccuracies due to its inherent
drawing, New Lohachara looks to re-instil a lost wonder human nature.
back into architecture, a wonder associated with the
bygone narrative architectures of metaphor, motif and Compositionally, the drawings are in many ways traditional
folly, a wonder that challenges possibilities and ignites constructed as dioramas or layered milieus and
the imagination. grounded within the genus of preservationexploring a
futuristic vision that is sensitive to the old. But unexpected
New Lohachara is centred around the preservation of perspectives explore abstracted and surprising angles,
disappearing lands and cultures in the face of rising challenging the narrative through play and delight.
sea levels. It explores an architecture of wonder through The project was driven by an intent to critically explore
the augmentation of nature: an architecture of [Super] the role of hand-drawing in contemporary architectural
Nature. Speculating on future potentials for the embrace representationand to challenge the architects
of water, as opposed to defence against it, the narrative convention of plan-section-elevation alongside the
of the project constructs a new city that re-engineers neo-classicist painters frame. The drawings were
the water cyclea great water-processing well. The developed through studying, layering, 3D modelling,
project is sited in Venice as a context for the extraordinary redrawing and collaged composition. In this way, they
and the miraculous, a city historically both born from and were constructed over time in a dialogue between
doomed by water, taking inspiration from Italo Calvinos research and design, between invention and accident
Invisible City, IsauraCity of 1,000 Wells. and between pen and paper.

Piranesis eighteenth-century etchings of Venice depicted As architects working within a hyper-digitalised age, our
the city through the eyes of the Age of Enlightenment toolset for the imagining and realising of spaces is vast
glorious architectural recordings of a grandiose ancient and fast. We are like never before able to sketch, distort,
world. But through them he also challenged convention morph and throw away ideas often faster than we can
and extended his depictions to his own designutilising think them up. We can photo-visualise indistinguishably
representation as opportunity for his own personal lifelike imagery, produce dizzying fly-throughs and even
imagination, romanticism and speculation on the past and four-dimensionally occupy the virtual spaces we dream
future. The etchings become both historical records and up years before the site has even been prepared.
future possibilities, depicting half-imagined, half-ruined
places and incorporating mythologies within the fabric To draw by hand requires slowness. It requires a physical
of their imagery. They were driven bybut not bound presence of body and of mind to dwell within the spaces
bybuildability, thus liberating the imagination towards they imagine and construct. It requires patience,
early ideas of science fiction. frustration and a certain number of accidents, the traces
of which become bound within the final work. It allows
Jumping ahead to the 1980s, the Russian Paper Architects space and time for occupation throughout its creation.
Brodsky and Utkin employed a similar expressive Unlike photoreal renders, it is forgiven for its mistakes;
technique and historical language in the visualisations of it is allowed the space to breathe and be interpreted by
their dream landscapes. Operating between the worlds of the individual. It is allowed to exist simultaneously in the
architecture and fine art, they designed dense cities that past, present and future. It is allowed the space to dream.

Fig.1 (opposite): Challenges the vertical and horizontal planes of living

below the waters surface, inside the great well. Boats are upended to
become mirrored elevators, reflecting sunlight downwards as they move
vertically through the city. Hot water processing pipes become tropical
tree trunks from which hydroponic plantations are suspended, cultivating
tropical flora in a [Super]Natural rainforest.

172 Future Fantasticals 173

Fig.2: Super[Nature] IPreserving Venice takes on an abstracted cosmic
perspective, a conceptual fish-eye blueprint for the re-engineering of
the water cycle. Floodwater is drained from the Venetian lagoon into
the great well below, in cycle with the lunar tides and the dancing
of boats upon the waters surface. Venice hovers precariously just above
the waterline, its magic amplified by the shrouding mist exhaled by the
water-processing. With reference to Calvino, an invisible landscape
conditions the visible one.

Fig.3 (opposite): Pulls the narrative into Venice, looking up at the sky
from inside a Venetian well in reinterpretation of the Venetian Baroque
painted ceiling. A rainwater-collecting chandelier hangs suspended
delicately above the public square, while clouds gather overhead in
celebration of water.

174 Future Fantasticals 175

The Restored Commonwealth Club Fig.2: Adam Bell, Detailed Evaluation
Britannia Ward,frame detail. An archive,
collecting loci, is located within the ward.
Adam Bell

The drawing form of the Restored Commonwealth periods of time significant to the British Empire, while
Club (RCC) took a number of months to come together, still being contained within the mnemonic details
initially by experimenting with digital collage techniques housed in the Club.
and fusions of digital and hand-drawing before choosing
hand-drawing as the primary technique. This led to the analysis and representation of material
reactions and interactions within the realm. Standard
The evolution of the hand-drawing technique was in line materials and objects distort, fracture and at times
with the complexity of the subject. This ranged from an regenerate according to the movement of the
elevation such as the Empire Clockwhich integrates Empire Clock.
the dymaxion (Buckminster Fuller map) time zones of the
immersive realmthrough to the spaces of the British Materials that could cope with the strains of gravity,
Empire and Commonwealth that are fluctuating between time, space and scale were developed while referring
time and scale. to muscle tissue, bone and tendons.

The drawings consist of a series of plans, views and details This again re-investigated the spaces and the architectural
that give a short glimpse into an alternative realm. The details of the Club in an anatomical manner. The details
drawings were crucial to support the approach and at this stage were considered members of the Club,
execution of the project, providing a brief insight with and this influenced the approach of the examination
a great amount of detail while allowing for ambiguity and of particular studies. The drawings partly sliced and
interpretation, enabling viewers to form their own ideas opened up certain details to reveal the inner workings,
of the RCC within the collective gaze. always considering the impact of the fluctuating
environment. They also considered how future details
The key sets of drawings were the mnemonic details might be installed and at times the possibility of infection,
of the Club. Prior to this, only spaces in plan and should the detail be rejected.
perspective were developed.
The drawings had to demonstrate shifts of time,
The details were manipulated in such a way by using distortions of space and manipulations of scale, while also
the drawing technique to break the connections of time, respecting the society, Club and details that exist in the
space and scale. This provided the opportunity to form physical realm. In doing so, the drawings also represent
large-scale mechanisms, landscapes and specific the Commonwealth Clubs vulnerability to extinction,
something which it has experienced repeatedly.

Fig.1: Adam Bell, Detailed EvaluationDoor Push Plate. Mnemonic detail

reveals the formation of the Club following the demise of the British Empire.

176 Future Fantasticals

SCALEFULNESS Allergic to the ground, SCALEFULNESS is ambivalent
about the ambivalent. The city above derives its character
Kyle Branchesi from objects taken from the city below. Generic objects
are redeployed to become newly unfamiliar environments:
The city, as we have come to know any city, is a the soda bottle house, the watch gear office complex,
homogeneous soup. Bound, gagged and gasping for the ballerina tchotchke cul-de-sac, the tea kettle
air, it no longer represents us, it no longer represents neighbourhood, the pistol grip district. SCALEFULNESS
our thinking, but it lives with us and some say we are is the City of The Cold Press Juicer.
stuck with it. The qualities of its buildings are designed
but are of no importance. They are so minutely different; The city below is present only through a vague glimpse
they might as well not be different at all. under ones feet. Duck boats span between lakes of
grids, mountains are bound by radii, as stacks of suburbia
SCALEFULNESS is an attempt to undermine the are separated by motor grills.
conditions laid out by those who gave the twentieth-
century city its shape. SCALEFULNESS produces an Arrogant it is, and inconceivable it must appear.
architecture at a scale beyond their scope. To place SCALEFULNESS believes it could not care less about
architecture back in the city, one must avoid the ground context, it believes it demonstrates no awareness
altogether. It must develop away, above and around of siting. It believes it doesnt give a fuck about scale.
the city, but never in the city. But SCALEFULNESS does, because an awareness of
ambivalence is just as important as ambivalence itself.
SCALEFULNESS plays with colossal differences:
of scales, of morphologies, of effects, of legibilities SCALEFULNESS acts selfishly, only investing in its own
and of indices within its territory. qualities, in its own relationships and in its own nonsense.
SCALEFULNESS is unaware of its misgivings; it sees
SCALEFULNESS is aware of the conditions below and itself as an edifice, but behaves like a city.
laughs at them. The streets that make up the city below
are built with cowardice. SCALEFULNESS doesnt SCALEFULNESS is represented within five panes, in a
know that it is arbitrary; the city above takes pride in forced perspective that gives depth while never showing
knowing that it is. the full depth, size or limitations of itself. The colour
used within the drawings removes the reality of the city
above and forces its juxtaposition with the redundant,
grey city below.

Fig.1 (opposite): SCALEFULNESS, 2015.

178 Future Fantasticals 179

 The Silt House
Matthew Butcher

The Silt House project is a series of speculative structures

that act as a practical and poetic investigation into the
inhabitation of a future flooded Thames Estuary; a place
in which the environment and the weather alter the
material fabric of the architecture. These architectures
are sited in and around Cliff Marshes on the south side
of the river near the mouth of the Thames. They reside
where the existing sea wall would be removed to allow
water to splay during a flood.

The project primarily exists as a series of drawings

in a variety of media. They are projections, intended
to provide provocative visions of new ways of living with
the increased threat from flooding caused by increasing
global temperatures. The works aim to resonate with
certain historic drawn and speculative designs that were
produced in the 1960s and 1970s, such as those by
Raimund Abraham and Superstudio. Here, the project
seeks to draw from the ambitions of this earlier work,
particularly to produce architecture removed from
the problematic of building so as to explore the artistic,
poetic and philosophical ambitions of the discipline.1
In order to embody this legacy, the work utilises certain
methodologies of drawing that seek to sample, then
reappropriate, this earlier work to generate new
architecture in a new context. Methodologies of drawing Fig.1: Matthew Butcher, Axonometric of Silt House. The building
are also used to create images that are analogous to form is developed by identifying, then synthesising, key formal tropes
used by Raimund Abraham.
the character of the architecture and its relationship
to the landscape.

THREE ARCHITECTURES

Within the project, there are three main buildings: the Silt
House, the Filter House and the Chapel. The Silt House, a
communal residence, uses tidal processes to change the
levels of comfort in the building. During the flood season,
nets around the structure are set up to slow down the
water in the estuary, which in turn allows sediment to fall
and build up on top of the house when it is submerged
by high tides. This build-up of sediment acts as insulation
for the building during the winter months. Secondly,
during a high tide, water is allowed into the house, washing
out sewage that is then ejected through a pipe in the
back of the building. This process clears the building of
Fig.2: Matthew Butcher. Texture for formal invention created
its wasteessentially, when the land floods, the building by dragging a copy of a Superstudio drawing across the surface
buries itself and shits itself. The Filter House operates as of a scanner while it is scanning.
a house and saltwater filtration plant. Here, the filtration
process, driven by tidal movement, alters the internal
spaces and form of the building. As part of the process The operation of these buildings in relation to the flood
to purify the salt water, glass chambers fill up with steam, plain aims to create architecture that is explicitly of
obscuring views through the house and back across the ecology and the landscape in which it sits. It can
the landscape. The third and last of the buildings is be seen as a conduit attempting to channel the poetic
the Chapel, which acts a place of refuge and sanctuary characteristics of natural processes, including the very
within the landscape. Its floor takes the form of an floods that wash over it. Where architecture traditionally
undulating surface that can also provide places to sit sets out to protect its occupants from the unpredictable
or sleep. The building can only be accessed at the lowest nature of the environment, the Silt House merges the
Figs.25: SCALEFULNESS, 2015. tide and is often completely submerged by water. flood into and through the building.2

180 Future Fantasticals Projects 181

DRAWING FORTH AN ESSENCE seen as an analogy for the dynamic relationship of 1
F  or further exploration of an architecture that prioritises philosophical
and artistic exploration over building, please see: K. Michael Hays,
the Silt House building to the flood, emerging and Architectures Desire, Reading the Late Avant-Garde (Cambridge,
During the development of the project, there were two disappearing within the silt and sediment of the estuary. MA: MIT Press, 2010), 2 and Neil Spiller, Visionary Architecture :
main design methodologies that sought to appropriate Blueprints of the Modern Imagination (London, Thames & Hudson,
2006). In both books, the authors explore certain canons and histories
existing avant-garde architectures, in order to ensure THE FLOODED FUTURE
of theoretical or paper architecture and its meaning as part of the
that the Silt House maintained reciprocity to these discipline. Critical to their theses is the work of the avant-garde from
early designs. Paramount within the Silt House project is the use of the 1960s and 1970s.
distinct processes of drawing as a methodology for the
2
T he ideas expressed in this paragraph, in particular the idea that
architecture is traditionally seen as stable, and that by questioning this
The first of these was an analysis of the work of avant- development of the work, as well for as instigating and we can develop a more creative relationship towards the environment
garde architect and poet Raimund Abraham, and in communicating its meaning. The drawing, in this way, aims through architecture, is influenced by the writing of Jonathan Hill,
particular his 10 Houses project (197073).3 In 10 Houses, to be part of the legacy of certain figures in the avant- specifically Immaterial Architecture (London: Routledge, 2006).
3
R aimund Abrahams 10 Houses project existed as a series of ten
Abraham presents us with a series of poetic and drawn garde, such as Raimund Abraham, as well as acceding theoretical projects developed between 197073. The drawings are
explorations of architectures existing in a non-specific to a sense within present architecture of operating in a particular in their use of coloured pencil and graphite and all show
landscape. These designs contain a series of motifs, constant state of flux. Here, the reciprocity between past isolated dwellings in unspecified landscapes. An extensive catalogue
of reproductions of the projects can be found in Raimund Abraham,
including specific materials, burial mounds and formal and present and the movement between a stable and [Un]built, ed. Brigitte Groihofer (Vienna: Springer-Verlag, 1996), 5367.
components, which mimic natural forms. Together, these an unstable facsimile can be seen as analogous to the
were understood to comprise a kind of topological key fluctuation of the proposed architecture and its reciprocal
a grammar of sortswhich was then developed to relationship with the environment. This provides us with
Fig.4: Matthew Butcher, Interior of water filtration plant within
shape the spatial and formal logics within the Silt House. the Silt House project. Drawing created by scanning and photocopying a unique series of spatial and formal representations for
For instance, we can see the undulating cloud-like forms a photograph of a project model. the future flooded Thames Estuary.
present in the basement of the Earth-Cloud House (1970)
carried over to the Silt House, not as stratus-forming The second drawing methodology applied is mostly seen
vapour but as wave-like forms that echo the way in the truncated cone-like forms of the interior of the
sediment and mud settles after the tide has withdrawn. Chapel. The modulations of these forms were created
The semi-burial motif seen in most of the 10 Houses through the reappropriation of a drawing by the architect-
series works its way into aspects of the Silt House as ural practice Superstudio. A reproduction of the drawing
the building is slowly buried beneath the sediment of the was dragged across the surface of an image scanner
estuary mud flats. Finally, the presentation of spaces while it was in the process of being scanned. The result is
seen in the House with Three Rooms (1972), that appear a direct mapping of the action and the scanning process
to be carved from solid matter (rock), reappears in (Fig.2)a physical imprint of the drawing as it moves
the Chapel. Also present is the idea that Abrahams through time and space. The process acts as an attempt
architecture, within 10 Houses, is formed as much from to capture the shift between the material of the drawing
materials such as concrete and glass as the landscape and its eventual digitisation within the scan, from material
itself. In the House with Curtains (1972), we see the print to immaterial data.
billowing fabrics rise up, deforming the houses gridded
structure. This motif is then seen in the desalination Out of this new materialisation or abstraction of the original
chambers, which, when in operation, fill up with steam Superstudio image, a series of forms were then identified
that distorts and blocks the views through the building. in the image and spliced out of it using Photoshop.
This was achieved by tracing various contours and lines
within the new image. This process could be linked to
sampling in music, where a digital copy is taken from
an existing audio recording and can then be manipulated
and reproduced in different ways. Although a clear
distortion of the original image, this action could be seen
as an attempt to draw out an essence of the original
sampled architectures; an intrinsic formal and aesthetic
logic from the original source that can be carried forward
to another time and place. In this case, the reimagining
of the Superstudio grid is open to different constellations
of meanings.

IMAGE IN FLUX

Drawing is intrinsic to the project, as it can seek to embody

and represent buildings that otherwise would exist in a
constant state of flux. This is demonstrable in Fig.4, where
the original drawing was photocopied and re-photocopied,
creating a distinct grain, contrast and distortion. By
activating the drawing in this manner, the image becomes
Fig.3: Matthew Butcher, Axonometric of the Chapel. degraded and, if the process is repeated over time, Fig.5: Matthew Butcher, Water Filtration Plant.
Forms were created by using the texture seen in Fig.2. becomes fainter and fainter. Here, the drawing can be Section drawing by Tom Noonan and Matthew Butcher.

182 Future Fantasticals Projects 183

Deviated Futures and Fantastical Histories
Bryan Cantley

The architectural drawing: a set of instructions, have had a degree of separation, setting up a voyeuristic
a legal document, a reductive artefact. mapping. This type of document collapses the binary
condition of watching vs. performing within suggested
INSTRUCTION(S) FOR CONSTRUCTION architectural invention. We might assume that the future
of architecture would be based on the a posteriori condition
The history of (draw) has become a set of status quo of allowing the drawing to remain in its current role.
commands given for the production of building. As part
of this discourse, the draw has furthermore integrated DRAWING (@LTERED) FUTURES
written instruction; notations for the assemblies,
chronologies and materiality of a desired conclusion. The premise suggests that the draw locates the history
A product (building) other than itself (drawing). of itself instead of disclosing the future of its building/
result. If we suspend the idea that the draw must
Let us consider a new permission, where drawings develop in the future into a building, then we alter
might produce artificial mythologies. Since architectural its histories. Therefore forecasts taking place after
drawing has traditionally referred to the reduction of this suspension might arguably produce an alternative
information, or the creation of absolute truth(s), my initial condition of possibilities. The notion of projection
posture was to obfuscate that initial role of the truth- suggests a set of known data that inform a calculation/
maker, and to challenge the typical relationship of realisation implied by the observation: drawing (verb)
occupant/viewer to the subject matter. suggests building (noun).

I suggest that the drawing could be the thing itself, in the A trajectory that erases and refabricates its path as
nature of the Dasein being there, as opposed to being it moves, therefore eradicating typical predetermined
elsewhere. This condition requires a recognition and policy. Speculation over calculation investigation above
perhaps occupancy of the liminal space between there representation and amalgamation over segregation.
and elsewhere. One might be aware of the space linking
drawing and building and ultimately drawing and subject/ The termination of the drawing suggests that there is
object. The (t)here is where the drawing resides where a spatial cessation. Nothing more is to be generated
the occupant probes deeply in order to locate themselves, other than its specific objective. However, these drawing
ironically distanced from any potential physical conclusion. instructions suggest potentials for increasing expansion Fig.2: Bryan Cantley, Native Topography 05/Series 02. Fig.3: Bryan Cantley, Native Topography 04/Series 02.
Traditionally, the viewer and the suggested occupant of the drawing, and therefore the potentials of the thing.

Fig.1: Bryan Cantley, SurFace Excavator[s]. Photograph by Matt Gush. Fig.4: Bryan Cantley, Native Topography 06/Series 01. Fig.5: Bryan Cantley, Native Topography 07/Series 2.

184 Future Fantasticals Projects 185

 In human physiology, the interstitial space between organs to be the static information of prototypical variation.
and skin membrane is referred to as thirdspace. Fluid They are merely placeholders of generic data.
often collects here when the body is in a state of malfunc-
tion. The hollowness is designed to house internal organs, We may, however, make an analogy, in the sense that
but serves as an overflow container for breakdowns these printed histories convey a similar adjacency in
of these entities. Interstitial space is not a new term in concept to that of the building site/context. That condition
architecture and is quite common in drawing, yet most comes to us as accepted truthswith their own terminus
of the time we are encouraged to ignore or erase its and finite value. My suggestion is that these artefacts
presence. This is the thirdspace of drawing. When we may be utilised to inform experimental drawing, and
define the architectural drawing as a documentation of therefore it can be argued that they offer potentials of
elsewhereof a things representationthen this covert discovery of unorthodox spatial prototypes. The chronicle
zone becomes supportive at best, dismissed to clarify and artefact of the printer evolves into part of the dialogue
the objects definition. Construction drawings are meant of architectural language.
as highly specific instructions for understanding, and
have gone through the stage of reduction in order We make a move from:
to make them clear without interpretation. When we Paper Architecture
define the drawing as a condition of the here (the entity to:
itself), then the thirdspace becomes an active occupant Paper > Architecture
in the construct.
This is a condition that I have labelled postliminal fuzz
This understanding allows for the generation of historical/ a circumstance of the recognition of liminal space,
contextual information that might be found on the the physical and conceptual properties of the drawing
drawing surface predating impregnation by the architects surface and the production of new policies based on
hand/input. These particular drawings were fabricated their collision(s).
using the imprinted graphic data, Native Topographies,
to apprise and distort developing architectural data. DEVIATED FUTURES
Just as site influences structure and building distorts
site, these broadcasted excavations initiate a call and The context of the drawing evolves as the drawing
response scenario that utilises a previously unrecognised progresses. The chronological references of that which
(or dismissed) condition of the history of the page/ is fixed and that which emerges are shifted to the extreme
surface. This allows for a most interesting deviation and background. In this threshold region, the concurrent
eventual inclusion/acceptance of a context that emerges progressions of the two situations are foreground
from the union of surface data and drawing. subjects. Information derived from the drawing begets
additional drawing on top of the existingits start-shape
FANTASTICAL HISTORIES ever-evolving. It is convention to establish rule sets and
standards prior to the launch of a drawing. With these
The white space of any paper meant for the insertion constructs, the initial rules serve as a base upon which
of input information is at questionit is the pure space a second set of evolving and responsive rules are added,
of unlimited innovation. It has no expressed history looking to discover the performance logics of how the
or contextit is an open system devoid of any internal/ ideas/drawings behave as opposed to their pure visual
external reference except for its fixed dimension. characteristics.

Enter the infected the paper embedded with its own When we suspend the history of the history of (a) drawing
history of graphic impregnation. This information, the to pursue itself, we, by definition, alter the aforementioned
pre-printed forms meant for data insertion, is intended trajectory of spatial production and what it might become.

Fig.6 (opposite): Bryan Cantley, Native Topography 08/Series 2.

186 Projects 187

The Living Tableau light or shadow. The action of the different parts, if it
were to be represented, would require other drawing
them, as I progress, with the help of sketches, back
and forth from one technology to another, exploring
I mean that shifts in drawing technique, augmentation,
excursion, collage, mixing media, not even changing the
Pablo Gil Martnez techniques. Instead, the role of this drawing is to fix the the implications on the different levels of architecture diameter or hardness of the lead, which for me it is often
agenda of exploration that is being developed. It is a small technique, experience, tradition, scale and so on. In this 0.35 B, have no added value and in fact feel like delays
This set of drawings explores an architecture that could confirmation for me that things are going in the right exploration, I have produced 120 Din-A1 drawings drawn in my process.
potentially behave as a numinous animal. The drawings direction towards my vision, which is obviously changing in parallel with other means of experimentation that feed
show robotised units that operate as artificial animal throughout the process. But at this stage I was not back into the drawings. The drawings here play the role Instead, I see drawing as a tool for inquiry, with a great
organs, producing a series of effectsthermodynamic, interested in the truthful representation of a reality, of testing the necessary technology for my vision and potential to think with objects in the same way that ideas
behavioural, formal and functionalthat will be later but rather in discovering and developing my vision though are partial accounts of it, but are adequate to progress or concepts rely on words, text and arguments. The joining
coordinated in a composition in the form of two variations various means. This involved prototypes on 1:1 scale, to further stages of knowledge needed to one day be of objects or the composing and organising of future
of a building which are represented in axonometric material experiments with students, developing the able to execute ones vision. spatial situations has a great ally in drawing. But drawings
projection. The buildings, composed as an aggregation of means to control and generate behaviour through robotic do not always need to be readable to others. It is possible
artificial organs, are to be perceived as a choreographed systems, producing construction drawings and making Thirdly, Figure 1 applies the previous knowledge into the to conceive of codes that are only obvious for those who
herd of intelligent organisms that is able to communicate models. All these knowledge acquisition processes, design of two buildings. These are tests of the feasibility makes them; and maybe this would connect with the idea
fear, familiarity, divergence and understanding. The running in parallel with the drawings, may appear only of the different aspects that have evolved and are a of style, a particular code linked to a particular individual.
buildings form an ecosystem and also a performative vaguely apparent for others, but the author sees all the definition of what is, or was, my vision of the architecture In the world of words, this happens, too: mumbling,
living tableau that moves beyond our control. behaviour, applied technology, materials, colour and at that point. Again, they might be vaguely indicative speaking out, going through ideas mentally, extracting
shadows in them as they unlock the projected visions to others of what I was after, but for me they mark a very ideas or concepts from visual representations or memory
This exploration uses different approaches to drawing. The that Fig.2 was helping to fix. important point in this journey and were a great joy to or using metaphors or analogies to describe situations.
first drawing (Fig.2), aims to represent the exterior form make, too. They confirm the growth of, and power gained These can all take place in an individuals mind, on their
of the different organs selected, understood as volumes The second type of drawings are construction drawings over, the original ideas, and I see them as a demonstration tongue or with their pen. They may be not yet ready for
seen from the outside and put together to attempt a first (not shown) that mix reverse engineering, understood that a building like this could be realised. communication to others, as they do not operate yet in
compositional result of the idea behind this exploration. as a direct conversion from animal organs to artificial common codephrases, books, lectures or other forms
It is a sketch of what could be the architectural result of technology, and the repertoire of architectural What these types of drawings share is that they are of communications that have become historically institu-
this approach applied on a ceiling. It is certainly limited in technologies I have developed. They are sketches that iterations of a projection that could require a whole lifetime tionalised. This idea was culturally retrieved in works such
its representational qualities. The representation does not are not there to represent to others how these parts to explore. Architecture as a living organism is an idea that as Finnegans Wakealthough no one can ever think of
even show changes of form, movement, texture, colour, should be built, but to make me understand how to build first provoked me 14 years ago. It is potentially achievable that text as the preparatory mumblings of Joyce; instead,
with our present technology, but I have not mastered it is a finished piece of writing in the form of a book,
it yet. My understanding is that building is the only great an institutionalised object with a particular structure.
objective that the field of architecture can offer me.
From this point of view, I am not interested in thinking about We might use the analogy of practicing the piano to
representation as a theme, neither I have found, when understand drawing. A music student spends hours
I have tried, that drawings done in another way were going through fragments, exercising scales and arpeggios,
more helpful or had more of an impact on the design getting ready for performance. That music is not to be
that I was after. heard publicly, but serves as necessary preparation for
the musician him/herself. Drawing operates as a tool
to envision all the complex dimensions involved in the
design of a building. In this sense, a building could be
understood as the result of the art of fixing into reality
what you have been practicing to get built.

Fig.1: Pablo Gil Martnez, Building test, 2013, pencil drawing, 840597mm. Collection of the author.

188 Future Fantasticals Projects 189

Fig.2: Pablo Gil Martnez, Building test, 2013, pencil drawing, 840597mm.
Collection of the author.

Projects
190 191
Speculative Morphology The hybrid technique allows for a certain degree of
unpredictability of visual dynamics. Painterly, organic
of Recurring Terrains sentiments reveal themselves amidst the otherwise
detached precision of digital drawings. By employing
Ryota Matsumoto this specific method, the degrees of depth, spatial
dimensionality and scalability vary, distort and warp
the finer details and overall composition. The drawings
are effectively liberated from the restrictive traditions
of the Cartesian coordinate system.

The application of this method allows the work to

bridge the gap between analogue and digital media
as well as between two- and multi-dimensional
domains. Compositional techniques imbue the work
with the very essence of post-digital constructs
beyond the conventional protocol of architectural
and artistic formalities. They conjure up synthetic
possibilities within which the temporal variations of
spatial semiotics emerge as the potential products
of alchemical procedures.

Recent work revolves around common themes that are

built on the mythology of future cities, with emphasis
on the socio-cultural aspects of innovation, resources
and planning processes. The wide range of compositional
techniques embrace varying scales and juxtapose
Fig.1: Ryota Matsumoto, Imaginary Echo Chamber, 2016,
mixed media on paper, 6874cm. The biomorphic structures amorphous and structural forms. They intertwine textures/
begin to merge into each other to form urban agglomerations. patterns, oblique projections and visual metamorphoses
and are employed to envision the potential scenarios
My work speculates on the morphological transformations of post-smart cities of the transhuman age. The clusters
of ever-evolving urban and ecological milieus that of bio-based phase-shifting cellular structures enveloped
are influenced by the eco-political reality of the in tactile membranes with tentacle-like sensory systems
Anthropocene epoch, emerging technologies of genetic are dominant components of urban tissues that constantly
modification, the advancement of biomaterial tech-
nologies, a socially constructed value system and
rapid environmental transformation accelerated by
the dynamic interplay of socio-economic, institutional
and technological activities.

A background in architecture and visual art has led to

exploring a hybrid approach in drawings, combining and
merging both traditional and digital media in his working
process. The various constituent methods of architectural,
graphic and mixed media conventions are synthesised
seamlessly in this approach. The drawing process
involves base images that are composed by 3D software
incorporating generative algorithms and then overlaid
with traditional media such as acrylic, ink and graphite,
as well as scanned images of found objects. These are
then further processed and looped through stochastic
and recursive operations by image-editing programmes
and plugins.

Some of the works cycle through phases and take a

long time to complete. In such cases, the completed Fig.2: Ryota Matsumoto, Rapid Gaze Polynomials Embedded
in Infinite Variables, 2016, mixed media on paper, 6470cm.
work is then disassembled and reconfigured by
The self-organisation process of semi-organic urban clusters
implementing iterative algorithms. I repeat this process with their layers of infrastructures.
until I find unpredictable dialogues among newly
assembled pieces. This almost autonomous, exquisite Fig.3 (opposite): Ryota Matsumoto, Those Who Affirm the
Spontaneity of Every Event, 2015, mixed media on paper, 84119cm.
corpse-like approach generates a dozen versions of The whirlpool of primordial chaos before the beginning of
completely new compositions. bio-organic systematisation.

Projects
192 Future Fantasticals 193
self-organise and cross-fertilise to replicate semi-living structures. Consequently, the myriad emerging biotech-
urban agglomerations in perpetual motion. They are nologies blur and undermine the fundamental distinction
autonomous, organic entities that regulate their internal between the natural and the artificial in the visionary
environments through the combination of artificial cityscape of speculative urbanism.
photosynthesis and biofuels. They maintain homeostasis
within their own adapted ecosystems, while simultaneously The paradox, contradiction and distortion of an alternate
living in symbiosis with pre-existing nature. These perception towards time and space have been a constant
biomorphic structures can reconfigure and expand through subject of interest in my drawings, manifested in the visual
preprogrammed mutation and somatic cell division in narratives on conjectural possibilities of urban futures.
order to meet ever-changing programmatic and economic Furthermore, most of the work is a personal expression
needs. As time passes, they outgrow the ravaged cities meant to merge and transcend the boundaries between
of the past and replace abandoned and dilapidated architecture and art, two cultural realms that both reflect
buildings with their biologically driven multiplying on and create contemporary society.

Fig.5: Ryota Matsumoto, The Indistinct Notion of an Object Trajectory, 2015, mixed media
on paper, 7556cm. The stacks of biologically enhanced urban farm towers embedded with
multi-functional components.

Fig.4: Ryota Matsumoto, Swirling Effects and Their Wayside Phenomena, 2016, mixed media on paper, 6772cm.
The hybrid cellular unit comprised of mechanical and organic elements.

194 Future Fantasticals Projects 195

Rowhouse the stretching, pulling and doubling gestures should
be emphasized here. Firstly, this reinforces the idea
Tom Ngo that they are intentional; secondly, it creates an artificial
compositional balance, both visually and architecturally;
When asked the difference between art and architecture and finally, it obscures programme and presents a
during an interview with Charlie Rose in 2001, Richard level hierarchy of space. As a result, this duplication
Serra responded that art was purposefully useless. of spaces represents an intentional blurring of
Elaborating further, he clarified that architecture architectural purpose.
could never be art because it was inherently functional,
while art, on the other hand, could be freely made This is built upon in the second project, Rowhouse.
without constraint. The crux of his argument lay in the This project reinterprets a rowhouse and situates it within
idea that function acted as a hindrance to an architects eight rentable units of a self-storage garage. The duplicate
ability to create. structures play off the symmetry of the row house
typology, but the rooms within the structure are presented
In my work, I challenge the idea that art and architecture as unprogrammed vessels. However, the aim of this
are mutually exclusive by proposing function as the project was not only to present a purposeless space, but
architects medium. My work attempts to blur the to examine it through the rigour of a set of construction
boundaries between utility and purposelessness within documents. Every aspect of the building is annotated
architecture. In my drawings, I ask viewers to ignore and detailed, from general construction notes to building
the operations that occur within spaces and encourage detail sections to door schedules. This brings up several
them to consider whether architecture can have as much questions. Does the architectural reading of the space
freedom as art does. The resulting structures attempt change? Does CAD alter the artistic reading of the
to straddle both disciplines, subverting the idea that image? By presenting it as a construction set, does this
architecture must be purposeful and proposing, instead, make the space imaginary or real? Finally, the drawings
that it can simply be art. are screen printed by hand and framed in such a way
as to ask the viewer to accept them as art. Rowhouse
This is illustrated in first project, Dimhouse. The aim of therefore proposes to shift the artful intent away from the
this project was to represent the concept of absurdity. presentation of drawings and towards the construction
Two houses have been stretched and pulled like pieces set. This act reinforces the idea of reclaiming functionality
of dough and doubled overand the project is named as a medium, as well as embracing architectures own Fig.3: RowhousePlan, 2015, Screen print on paper, 2428in.
Dimhouse as a nod towards this idea. The repetition of capacity for creating art.

Fig.1: Dimhouse 1, 2013, Coloured pencil Fig.2: Dimhouse 2, 2013, Coloured pencil
and graphite on paper, 2822in. and graphite on paper, 2822in Fig.4: RowhouseElevation, 2015, Screen print on paper, 2428in.

196 Future Fantasticals Projects 197

Tokyo Backup City IRTBBC
You+Pea

Tokyo IRTBBC was a plan first proposed in 2011 by of architectural scales, from the glowing exterior of
Hajime Ishii of the Japanese Democratic Party, addressing the building to the repetitious units of game cabinets
concerns that Tokyos current density puts it at mortal with their cacophony of light and noise to the tiny spaces
risk from natural disasters following the tsunami (of March and territories within which gambling transactions are
2011) and subsequent damage to the Fukushima 1 Power enacted through surrogate objects.
Plant. A group of high-ranking officials proposed a new
backup city for Tokyo that would keep the nation running In response, our methodology for representing our
even if its capital stopped.1 Our Tokyo Backup City proposals operates on two levels. Firstly, they are propo-
proposal is drawn in response to Ishiis NEMIC Initiative sitions for gamifying the urban realm through gigantic
(National Emergency Management International City), medals that tie together the backup city into a series
which floated the Tokyo IRTBBC scheme as a new of interactions between workers commuting to the city
emergency seat of power. The project would be located and their movement through space. The drawing becomes
in Osaka at a site suggested by Ishiis committee a way of testing the cause and effect relationship that
currently occupied by the domestic Osaka Itami Airport. comes from using the urban realm itself (and the people
within it) as a form of sportdata footprints and biometrics
The NEMIC proposal calls for construction under the collapsing the city into a landscape of information.
logics of the acronym IRTBBC: Integrated Resort Tourism
Business and Backup City.2 Alongside business zones Secondly, the drawings also represent a critical
and special amusement areas such as American Sporty transcription of arcade medal game cabinets, encoding
Stadium and Euro Healing Palace, the IR of the project their language of symbolic elements, ball runs and
would also introduce American-style gambling integrated user-operated mechanisms into a series of full-scale
resorts to Japan, which are currently illegal.3 Under this architectural elements. Having observed and recorded
initiative, an ersatz backup Tokyo would be subjugated
to the economic and symbolic models of other cultures.

Far from backing-up the characteristics of Tokyo,

Fig.2: You+Pea, Tokyo IRTBBC: Backup City Birds-eye (detail). Fig.3: You+Pea, Tokyo IRTBBC: Backup City Birds-eye. Overall view
the NEMIC proposal would sneak in spatial typologies
A detail from the drawing, showing the layering and compositional of the Tokyo IRTBBC project, showing the various medal structures
that would profoundly affect the future of Japan both techniques used to pull the eye across the page of the drawing. as luminous points of interest surrounded by the integrated zone.
economically and socially. It would be funded by a public-
private partnership of the type not currently common medal games during research trips to Japan, our to provide water for the city, and supernatural landscapes
in Japan, hurling the country into a new legal turmoil drawings frame these miniature structures as an such as a reconstructed Mount Takao are punctured
concerning gambling and new financial relationships architectural typology at a different order of magnitude. with geothermal boreholes that produce hot springs.
with the gaming powerhouses of the USA and Asia. The intricate mechanisms of games such as Segas These moments of architectural archiving are enmeshed
Hyozaaan!!, Galileo Factory and Medal Tower of Babel into the space of the drawing, woven into the aesthetics
Our project proposes an alternative vision of a backup are revealed and reconstituted through drawing. of the game (Fig.3).
city for Tokyo that antagonises the gambling resort as
a model by utilising the distinctive aesthetics of Japans Our work juxtaposes drawings and 3D models inspired Between medals and other significant buildings is the
own gambling (and religious) culture of tokens. by recordings of Japanese medal games combined with integrated zoneresidential and commercial structures
hand-drawn digital painting. The process involves the growing into the gaps of the site, their angular shells
The drawings are inspired by the luminous colours and overlaying of multiple views and scales and the unusual articulated by Tokyos shadow planning laws. The colour
hypersaturated landscapes of Japanese arcade medal framing of architectural features to draw the eye across burn of Tokyos neon surfaces is encoded into the
games. Due to legal restrictions on betting with money, the page in patterns like the token spiralling through drawing to suggest a new city of intensity and friction
Japanese gamblers exchange currency for tokens the arcade cabinet. As a result, the drawing becomes rather than preconceived zones. In the same way the
(also called medals) that are fed into elaborate miniature an intimate reflection of the supersaturated locomotive medal game overwhelms the player to distract them,
architectures, rolling, spinning and cascading through world of the medal, as well as a schematic for its function the drawing overloads the viewer to emphasise a spatial
their tiny infrastructureshopefully towards a prize. as a public building in a backup Tokyo. alternative to the NEMIC proposal of anodyne, clearly
Medal games are the mutant cousins of coin-pusher divided zones of commerce that would define the backup
games found in any British seaside arcade; car-sized We first draw a series of medals woven together into city. Drawing is a zone to test the medal game as an
cabinets holding games of chance where the token a gamified landscape sited at Itami Airport (Fig.2). They urban planning prototype.
tends to do all the real work (Fig.1). test the collisions of arcade aesthetics with a condensed
version of the Tokyo metropolis. Notable architectures The drawn surface is used as a tool to enmesh speculative
These games are ubiquitous in Japanese arcades, yet from the metropolis take on new functions in the backup ideas, remodellings of typologies, photographic
are rather rare to encounter abroadstrange worlds of city. A rescaled version of Tanges Tokyo Metropolitan recordings and sketches. These combine together
arcane rules and symbols, as impenetrable as pachinko Government Building becomes a data centre for admin-
but with even more booming sounds and lights. istrative legislation that forms an architectural cloud Fig.4 (overleaf): You+Pea, Tokyo IRTBBC: Exploded Medal, 2016.
Fig.1: You+Pea, photo of Hyozaaan!!, medal game by Sega Japan, 2015. An exploded view of a sports medal, where the four legalised gambling
To wander through a contemporary gaming arcade in A view into the miniature world of the medal game, photographed at backup. Shinjukus infamous Piss Alley of bars and sports are combined with the infrastructure of the subway station
Japan is to experience a sensorial overload at a number the equally bizarre Anato No Warehouse arcade in Kawasaki, Japan. yakitori joints is arrayed into a series of irrigation systems into a pillar of symbolic transactions.

198 Future Fantasticals Projects 199

Fig.5: You+Pea, Tokyo IRTBBC: Sketch studies, 2016. A sketch through space and time within
the Backup City, showing the moments encountered by workers and residents at different scales.

into an architectural language that embraces the collisions One often gets a similar feeling walking the streets of
of traditional tokenism with super-plastic arcade cabinetry. Tokyo. By exposing this and using it as a strategy within
Sketches such as (Fig.5) explore the landscape at multiple our drawings, we attempt to reinforce the idea of a backup
scales, conceiving of the architecture as a journey. Medal city that celebrates the inconsistencies and manias of
games typically work on complex schedules of random the modern metropolis. The drawings, like medal games
events, which are nearly impossible to understand for like Tokyo itselfbecome spaces of bewilderment
a novice player, with tokens driven on a tortuous passage through their layers of information: a representational
through the system by miniature infrastructures. The riposte to Ishiis idea of a business park backup city
drawing is a method to explore how people encounter trapped in the 24-hour mood lighting of the American
this new form of gamified urbanism as a journey through casino floor.
architectural space.

In Fig.4, we show a view exploring the inner workings of

a skyscraper-scale medal. The structure accommodates
the only four legalised gambling sports in Japan:
powerboat racing, speedway, keirin cycling and horse
racing, extending them by gamifying the interchange
of people within the metro station at the heart of the
building. People become tokens cascading through the
miniscule monuments of the arcade game. Inspired by
schematic drawings of arcade cabinets and pinball tables,
1
 Plug and play Japan looks at creating worlds first backup city,
we explode the medal, revealing logics and speculative World Architecture News.com, accessed 16 February 2016,
mechanisms within the structure. http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/project/2011/17908/
wan-editorial/irtbbc-in-irtbbc.html.
For all their flashing lights, chutes and spinning roulette
2
NEMIC National Emergency Management International City,
NEMIC, accessed 16 February 2016, http://nemic.org/index.html.
wheels, there is something inscrutable about medal 3
NEMIC Park Casino (translated), NEMIC, accessed 16 February 2016,
gamesan internalised logic held away from the player. http://nemic.org/amusement.html.

Projects 201
202 Contributor 203
MEGABEAM
Syd Mead Protocols
This illustration was produced for a commission from
an advertising agency in Cape Town, South Africa.
The idea was to depict mega-projects that would
challenge contemporary techniques in architecture,
space exploration and extreme climatic adaptation.
I created MEGABEAM as an architecture project
anticipating the future of materials that would allow
massive self-supporting structures to serve as habitat.

The construct is anchored at its lowest end at the edge

of the bay, with the upper end resting (also anchored)
on the top of a small mountain. The hexagonal cross
section is a robust choice for this huge structure.
Essentially, it is a load-bearing beam large enough to use
as a self-contained city. The structure is still in its finishing
process, as evidenced by welding light sources visible at
its centre, a hoist apparatus manoeuvring a frame section
into position and the foreground view of a mobile
contractor capsule.

A feature restaurant and club will open in the vertical

column and projecting hood shape. The terraces and
various transport routes on the vertical and upward-
facing exterior surfaces of the MEGABEAM provide
access to any point. All necessary infrastructure is inside
the MEGABEAM for utilities, transport links to surface
Our world is saturated with data. We speak of smart cities that might
routes and delivery of goods and services to residents. regulate themselves and metrics that give us information about
The population would be in the neighbourhood of every facet of our society. New tools for reading and recording space
6,000 residents. Lifestyle residences would range from
extensive terraced estates to view-homes primarily
challenge the primacy of the line as arbiter of dimension and scale.
on the two vertical side surfaces. Artificial intelligence systems can produce artworks through deep
learning via smartphone applications. Our world is striated by new
MEGABEAM illustrates an ambitious projection of massive
proportions as an engineered reality. It is at once an infrastructures such as the internet, which can only be mapped by
imaginative idea and a comment on future possibilities means of unforeseen representational methodsthe ping. What this
in architectural design.
suggests is that far from finishing representation off, computation and
all it entails will require increasing amounts of drawings. Turning raw
data into digestible informationdiagrammingis ever more important
as our world of networks becomes increasingly complex.

Each of the projects in the following chapter investigates the encoding

and transformation of information through drawing. We see LiDAR-
scanned data compared to traditional drawing techniques, artificial
intelligence as a collaborator in the drawing process and the use
of robotic drawing arms and custom-built software to transcribe three-
dimensional space into the planar. We even see cities created on the
virtual graph paper of Microsoft Excel. All of these projects explore
ways in which drawing may take on new agency in relation to the
plumes of data accessible to us, allowing us to sort our way through
space and resolve that data into informationsomething readable
Fig.1 (previous): Syd Mead, MEGABEAM. by another. Whichever technological direction the work takes, we
are always returned to one of the essential and everlasting properties
204 Future Fantasticals of drawing: communication.
Key Note 208
Whats the Difference? 260
A Room With a View
Hsinming Fung Alison Moffett

Papers 214
Tandem: Human Art in Collaboration 262
S IFTd Visualisations:
with Machine Intelligence The Defamiliarisation of


Harshit Agrawal
Arnav Kapur Architectural Drawings
Matthew Parker
217
Inscriptive Practice as Gesture
Ray Lucas
267
Phenomenon of Transparency:
Cityscape Transformations Mapping
224
Data Dreams: The Computer Group and Snezana Zlatkovic

Architecture by Spreadsheet, 196784 Contributor 270

Drawing the Map,
Ann Lui
Drawing out the Territory
Projects 234
Deconstructive Cartography Nicholas de Monchaux
Dominique Cheng

236
Recording of Heritage Buildings:
From Measured Drawing
to 3D Laser Scanning
Bernadette Devilat

241
Riots
Owen Duross

244
The Animate Drawing
Anna Hougaard

248
Variable Information Lineweights
Ryan Luke Johns

250
Timberland, or How to Design
a Sustainable City in Excel
Keith Krumwiede

254
House for a House
Chee-Kit Lai

256
A Collection of Circle-Spheres:
A Pre-Digital Post-Digital Convergence
Carl Lostritto
Whats the Difference? The Drawings are calculated to emphasise meaningful
features. While minimal in terms of tactile details, they
and a pair of dogsgive an impression of the activities
of the tenants. The realpolitik of one such drawing in
Hsinming Fung are rich in rhetoric. fact exposed the project to unfounded criticism aimed
at the lifestyle of the occupants, which doomed the
We can agree that it is possible to be enthralled, Often imbued with narrative devices, whether to describe project while also unveiling the implicit covenant between
even moved, by drawings made by hand. This is true an assembly process or to point to the manner in which architects and their clientele.
whether they are from the caves of Lascaux or our one might occupy a space, the stripped-down storyboard
contemporaries in the world of architecture. Sought approach fills the space commonly assigned to detail This was the case with the invited competition entry
by collectors and museums, bearing the hand and with anecdotal content. The conceptual organisation for Vesey Park. Situated in a dense urban triangle and
thoughts of the artist, original drawings offer invaluable of Blueprints for Modern Living, an exhibition covering squeezed between gigantic corporate towers and
insights into the era, the culture and ultimately the the Case Study programme in Los Angeles, took the a neighbourhood of deteriorating nineteenth-century
mind of the artist. It is this last categoryin which the form of a combine sketch that compressed planimetric townhouses, the design seeks to provide a common
mind is revealedthat interests me. ideas with visitor experiences. With references to the destination for workers and residents alike. Again, Drawing
cycloramas gleaned from motion picture sound stages was the medium populating the design with activities
Every stroke, every correction, every pause represents and a cinematic organisation, these sketches gave for runners who might take a break there or for vendors
a transaction between the hand, the eye, the imagination priority to the narrative milestones expected to structure who might use the stall for an ice cream truck or for
and the chosen medium, measuring the intention against the exhibition (Fig.1). children who, in this sketch, are playing with a model of
the result. An incredible algorithm judges instant by the play area in which they find themselves. In this way,
instant whether that last stroke achieved its objective, Other Drawings, such as these for a housing competition Drawings are also a literary form, able to accommodate
and prompts the next to take corrective measures. All (Fig.2), specify the narrative potential of the design, parenthetical comments, in-jokes and even political
this while the artist conspires with the vision that provoked and underscore the variety of interactions to a degree manifestos. One remembers the desk on the penultimate
her to put pencil to paper in the first place. that typical architectural drawings do not exercise. Simple floor of Stirlings Siemens project and the nearly invisible
devicesa straw hat and wooden clogs, a skateboard but ominously present Luger lying upon it, or the dog
This may seem like a great deal of effort, but in fact
it can be a source of intense pleasure. To observe the
progression of detail as the image matures and to
observe finally the moment when the hand relinquishes
the instrument is to observe the creative process in
one of its most revealing guises.

Yet today, one might be hard-pressed to find architects Fig.1: Sketch for the timeline: Interior graphics for the exhibition,
and designers who rely on such a skill. Instead, skeins of Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study
spiderweb lines with volumetric overtones defy tradition Houses at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles,
by Hodgetts + Fung, 1989 Property of Hodgetts + Fung.
to create new, luminous forms generated by algorithms All Rights Reserved. 2016. 210297mm, pen and ink drawing on paper.
and strategic conditions set by their authors. The physical
act of drawing has largely been replaced by a kind cannot help but marvel that they were possible at all
of poetic scripting. The search for the one line among without some sort of digital apparatus. Therefore, given
many has become a command for a new layer. The sigh the widening gyre, given that purposeful, speculative
of recognition has been replaced by clicking Save. drawing is no longer tethered to the expectation of
explicit communication, should we not celebrate the role
It can be argued that, as a design tool, drawing reigns of Drawing as a purified and rarified tool for exploration
supreme. Media constraining the immediacy of the act and speculation?
inhibit the linkage between imagination and the image,
inspiration and the napkin sketch. That is not to say that Applying this lens to our practice may offer some examples
drawing is the most effective way to communicate an of the role of drawing, from which more generalised
idea nor to delineate it in formal terms. For that labour- observations might be drawn. Such a practice came
intensive and often drawn-out process, one must be of age when James Stirling upended the way architects
grateful to digital media. visualised their work. Beginning with that notable freehand
sketch of the patent glazing for the Leicester Laboratory,
This is not to suggest that the importance of drawing Stirling perfected the axonometric view as a comprehen-
has been eroded or sidelined; but it marks a shift in sive, dimensionally accurate manner to visualise the
the balance of design intelligence. A shift in the relative complex forms he had in mind. For many, this represented
investment in, perhaps even utility of, drawing as a a far more engaging way to approach architectural design
discipline requisite for pursuing a product such as than the beautiful and evocative but vague charcoal
a building, a hoover or a subterranean pipeline. It is here studies then in vogue. These Drawings from Cookie
that one must pause and sift Drawing, with a capital D, Express demonstrate the power of the axonometric to
from drawing, with a lower-case d. For the expanding, organise volumes and materials while avoiding any hint
data-driven realm of production documentsthose of the picturesque. This approach to drawing is not
one might call small d drawingsthere is no substitute without empathy or visual appeal but, in its minimalist
Fig.2: Drawing for Franklin/La Brea low income invited housing competition, The Museum of Contemporary Art,
for digital media. In fact, when inspecting the small way, is simply stripped of non-essential flourishes, Los Angeles, by Hodgetts + Fung, 1988. Property of Hodgetts + Fung. All Rights Reserved, 2016. 210297mm,
d drawings of Gustave Eiffel or Mies van der Rohe, one avoiding appeals to craft and surface embellishment. pen & ink drawing on paper.

208 Protocols Key Note 209

Fig.3: Cyberville, La Citta Pulpa, by Hodgetts + Fung, XIX Milan Triennale, 1996.
Property of Hodgetts + Fung. All Rights Reserved, 2016. 914206mm. Composite.

210 Protocols Key Note 211

 Theater, the studio has often selected the axonometric.
Such Drawings, elemental yet surgically precise, foreground
the subject while suppressing or eliminating background
noise, and in the process celebrate what may ultimately
be overshadowed by the project as a whole (Fig.5).

While this selection is by no means exhaustive, it is

intended to underscore the diverse roles that Drawing
has played in architectural practice. Always purposeful,
at times at risk and constantly seeking an appropriate
voice for the task at hand, the Drawings of the practice
remain an invaluable tool.

Fig.4: Elevation sketch series of Towell Library, by Hodgetts + Fung, 1997. Property of Hodgetts + Fung.
All Rights Reserved. 2016. 26951mm each, pen and ink drawing on paper.

lounging in a cluttered kitchen in Le Corbusiers workers Prior to that, images of devices and environments were
housing. In the present idiom of digitally rendered, seamless created for an installation based on novelist William
environments, it is difficult to imagine such content, just Gibsons Skinners Room, which takes place in a colony
as it is difficult to picture such intimate detail within the of creative bohemians who occupy the San Francisco
contemporary fetish for high-resolution digital renderings. Bay Bridge. Juxtaposed with the bridge, which is
The beauty of a Drawing is the ability to emphasise festooned with all manner of jerry-built dwellings, and
significant features through composition, rather than marching through San Franciscos dilapidated core, is
acting as a passive bystander as a digital maestro sorts a phalanx of towers crowned by rotating solar collectors.
through its algorithms. This improbable but possible blueprint hovers disarmingly
close to the pulp science fiction magazines of the 1950s,
Drawings can also be impetuous, rapidly exploring variants yet presages many of todays mega-hit motion pictures
within the premise of the design. Sketches for the faade with its dark portrayal of the conflict between elites
of the Towell Library explore the patterns created by and the underclass. A more gestural style was adopted
different plastic glazing materials: polygal, corrugated for the competition entry for the Los Angeles Art Park,
fibreglass, sheet polycarbonate and so forth. Again, here, in part to convey the contrasting, scenographic settings
in studies for the seismic bracing for a church, it is apparent of this most public of urban environments and in part to
that religious symbols begin to take form (Fig.4). suggest that elements of mystery, drama and anticipation
expected to define the visitors experience of the park
Of course, Drawings reach their maximum potential as as well as the architectural manifestation. These Drawings
a vehicle for speculation and experimentation. Since the were accompanied by a suite of disciplined, pragmatic
practice evolved from earlier adventures in the world of exposs in the form of axonometric drawings on the
film and exhibition design, it applied cinematic storytelling mechanics of the attendant water treatment plant,
devices to projects such as La Citta Pulpa, which was subterranean exhibit halls and the iconic wing to house
commissioned for the XIX Milan Triennale under the exhibits on future ecologies.
challenging rubric of Identity and Difference. The basic
concept required a new kind of urban framework, for At this point, it may be worthwhile to discuss the intentions
which diverse lifestyles were the object of planning, of this work. As our practice is looking at the techniques
meaning in this case the creation of various enclaves and the craft of building, we find that Drawings such as
that celebrated and enhanced differences. After rejecting these lie somewhat beyond the usual boundaries of the
conventional planning tools, with their diagrams and discipline. Yet, given an approach grounded in a plausible
statistics, the decision was made to create a narrative physical reality, much of our effort is devoted to teasing
in the form of a comic book, which offered an opportunity out those aspects of a project that are uniquely amenable
to portray the novel conditions that might arise in a quasi- to the laws of graphic description. Thus, to articulate
realistic narrative with speech bubbles and a manga-type structurally complex conditions, such as the moment
picture frame (Fig.3). Reproduced at super-scale and that the limbs of the twin columns at the Menlo Centre
mounted in a spatially complex configuration, this was for the Performing Arts penetrate the slanted window
intended to create an immersive environment to envelop wall, or to elucidate the operation of the pivoting spiders
the visitor in the narrative. opening the glass clerestory above the open doors of the
Fig.5: American Cinematheque Narrative Sketches, Egyptian Theatre,
Wildbeast Pavilion, or to describe the assembly of the by Hodgetts + Fung, 1997. Property of Hodgetts + Fung.
acoustic armature within the cavity of the Egyptian All Rights Reserved, 2016. 10065mm each, pen and ink drawing on paper.

212 Protocols Key Note 213

Tandem: Human Art said to exist predominantly to offer a plurality of lenses
through which to view the conditions of modern life.
OHear dismisses the idea of machines originating art
entirely, because art in the full sense is based in human
in Collaboration with In recent decades, it has evolved into a critical medium to
generate discussions around how new technologies should
experience and requires a communication between
artist and audience drawn from that shared experience.2
Machine Intelligence be used and what potential impact they might have. Similarly, dInverno et al. argue that perhaps one way
to identify what we mean by human creativity is precisely
Harshit Agrawal
Artificial intelligence (AI) itself is one area of research that that which automation cannot do, so whenever
Arnav Kapur
has always been a rich source of discussion, reflection AI systems improve it shifts our interpretation to whatever
and prognostication about the future of humanity. It has is not currently possible by machine. They suggest two
Expression through art is core to our very being. From cave acted as fodder for numerous filmmakers, writers and broad AI directions for creativity, Heroic (fully autonomous)
paintings that date back 40,000 years to modern digital philosophers, most likely because the question of what it and Collaborative, arguing that art can benefit from
media, we have explored an enormous variety of means would be like to live alongside artificially intelligent beings the use of AI as a collaborative agent rather than it as a
of expression via the canvas. As much as art is about the is one which captures the imagination in both its uncanni- heroic one.3 This understanding highlights the importance Fig.2: Flower drawn using Tandem. The user drew an arrangement
resembling a flower in the centre with bolder lines around the corners.
internal drives and the expression of desire (and the desire ness and its strong possibility. It is a deeply intriguing of designing collaborative and interactive systems for The right image is the completed artistic output based on a happy
for expression), it is equally about the tools used to create question, one which when thought about for any length human-machine art processes, rather than designing personality, built upon the users initial sketch.
it and the media through which it is delivered. Art has of time leaves us inevitably trying to understand what it a machine as an autonomous art agent. After all, tools
always existed in a complex, continuously evolving relation- means to be human in the first place. Is it our irrationality, are something that let us do what we are motivated to do
ship with the technological capabilities of a time. While our sudden, unpredictable bursts of emotion, our ingenious in better ways, and that is precisely what AIs power can
some artists seek benefits from its advancements, creativity that cannot (yet?) be explained as a logical be. It is something that can vastly expand the spectrum
others abstain from it to maintain traditional practices. sequence of steps but rather feels magicalor really of human art, allowing for creation of art that wouldnt
Nevertheless, the inclusion of ever-changing technologies is it nothing special after all and in fact only a matter be possible otherwise. The motivation for the artwork
among the representative tools of successive generations of time before its essence is captured and reduced to therefore remains human.
is an inevitability. mere mathematical equations? From the earliest days
of computing, there has always been this hopein some TANDEM
Both artists and technologists have continuously sense, this greater purposeamong computer scientists
experimented with their tools to amplify and explore the to use computers to help understand ourselves better. We explore this theme by building a system called Tandem,
ideas they want to bring forth, be it creating chemical Artificial intelligence has been seen as the path to this where a persons drawing or painting input is imagined
experiments on paint pigments or using code as a means goal. AI itself as an area of research is as old as the upon by a computer to suggest an outcome (Fig.1). Fig.3: Leaping wolf. A users abstract drawing of a bold and stretched
shape was imagined as a leaping wolf by the computer collaborator,
of generating art. Also, the role that art plays in society first computers, if not older, and has had its peaks and The human iterates over the sketch and the machine demonstrating the capacity of unique additions by a CC to the creative
has changed over time. With documentation as a primary valleys. However, possibly due to its dramatic appeal, re-imagines, thereby indulging the two in a creative artistic process.
purpose in earlier times, todays works of art could be AI has stayed firmly within the popular imagination. dialogue. This sort of relationship goes beyond the
traditional use of a computer in an art process as an
The recent wave of AI advances shows tremendous assistant. Here, the computer plays a deterministic
potential. It is slowly and steadily becoming an integral role by imagining what it sees within a human input
part of our lives, with many exciting technologies and drawing along with it (Figs.24). Therefore the user
such as self-driving carsjust around the corner. nudges the computer towards a direction and, owing
As computers become equipped to perform relatively to the vastness and non-deterministic nature of the
more complex tasks, the bigger questions around deep neural network algorithm, the computer produces
AI surface againcan computers be creative after all? variedsometimes unexpectedresults. What is critical
Can they produce works of art like we do? In some sense, is that the motivation for the artwork is provided by the
we have always held on to creativity as the last frontier human(s), and this acts as a basis for the computer to
of something uniquely human. Such questions have offer its own interpretation and input. The user can tweak
Fig.4: Trees imagined as dogs by Tandem. The initial intention of drawing
also emerged through various research breakthroughs the personality of his creative collaborator as well, with trees was imagined to be dogs with large ears by the CC. In this
that hint at the creative possibilities of AI. With AlphaGo access to a range of recognisable traits, such as angry, collaboration, the direction of the final output was changed by the CC.
beating the world master at the game of Go, these claims dark or energetic, as well as to artistic styles, such as
are growing stronger by the day. As computers became cubism or impressionism, with the possibility of combining The first step in the pipeline is to find an approximate
eerily good at identifying images, researchers at Google them to form different personalities. This personality inverse of the image representation provided by the
moved a step further from identification to creation, assignment affects the outcome produced by the human artistic input. This is the first interaction between
asking the computer to create images as well.1 This gave computer. In some sense, the AI engine Tandem therefore the human and computer, which captures the semantic
birth to an internet sensation that caught everyones seeks to help humans explore different kinds of painting comprehension of the human art. In our tool, we use the
attention: deep dream images. References to art, and styles and personalities, creating room for serendipity GoogLeNet model,4 trained on ImageNet,5 as our base
to computers becoming creative or hallucinatory, started and innovation. convolutional neural network (CNN) that accepts human
doing the rounds. These images looked wonderful and, art as its input. These networks are comprised of a
as researchers from Google explained, they exploited the SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTATION hierarchy of consecutive layers. The lower layers capture
relationship between perception and creationflipping simple features like corners and oriented edges, while
Fig.1: Walk-through of the Tandem drawing tool. (A) The user sketches
the former to result in the latter. Tandems software implementation can be elucidated higher layers encode meaningful complex features like
an input (top left). (B) The user can then choose the personality of the
computer collaborator (CC)happy in this case. (C) The computer as sequential steps. The system is built as a series of whole objects. The computer contributes new content to
produces an output they imagine from the input sketch, as an analogue When thinking about creating art with artificial intelligence, modular deep learning methods superimposed upon the input by amplifying the neurons in a specific layer that
to collaboration with a real artist. Here the computer imagines a city it becomes important to address what passes as art human art in order to creatively combine them in were activated most strongly by the input. We empirically
surrounding the Christ the Redeemer statue, with the statue positioned
at the centre of the setting (bottom left). (D) The user can then iterate over and what does not. Various philosophers have debated an iterative manner (Fig.5). chose a layer higher in the network to give object
the initial sketch input based on what she/he perceives from this output. this within the context of machine-created art. visualisations that were meaningfully complete with

214 Protocols Papers 215

respect to human inputs. This is the imagination step,  Google research inceptionism, accessed 12 July 2016,
Inscriptive Practice as Gesture
1

http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2015/06/inceptionism-going-
where the software creates its own contributions to the deeper-into-neural.html.
artwork. Because the system adopts its own persona 2
Anthony OHear, Art and technology: An old tension in Ray Lucas
based on initial human art inputs, bright colours will elicit Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement (1995), 38, 143158.
3
Mark dInverno & Jon McCormack, Heroic versus Collaborative
a jovial response; amorphous shapes and a lack of A PROVISIONAL TAXONOMY OF GESTURES Contrast this with his account of photographing
AI for the Arts in Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on
human effort would make the computer contribute in Artificial Intelligence (AAAI Press, 2015), 24382444. (notably not photography):
a sombre manner; and rough strokes, for example, would 4
Christian Szegedy, Wei Liu, Yangqing Jia, Pierre Sermanet, Scott Reed, Modelling my argument after Flussers collection of
signal hostility and the computer artist would in turn Dragomir Anguelov [] & Andrew Rabinovich, Going Deeper with Gestures (2014), I propose to add a number of accounts A photograph is a kind of fingerprint that the
Convolutions, Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer
become aggressive. Vision and Pattern Recognition (2015) 19. that elaborate the gestures involved in various types of subject leaves on a surface, and not a depiction,
5
Alex Krizhevsky, Ilya Sutskever & Geoffrey E. Hinton, Imagenet drawing. It is often unspoken or unnoticed that the role as in painting. The subject is the cause of the
To give the computer different personalities, we created classification with deep convolutional neural networks, Advances of the hand is quite different according to the various photograph and the meaning of painting. The
in Neural Information Processing Systems (2012), 10971105.
a labelled dataset of images corresponding to different 6
Leon A. Gatys, Alexander S. Ecker & Matthias Bethge, technologies used; in this instance, the definition of photographic revolution reverses the traditional
human emotions and artistic aesthetics. This repository Image Style Transfer Using Convolutional Neural Networks, technology remains broad: pencil and paper constitutes relationship between a concrete phenomenon and
acts as a source of artistic motivation for Tandem, so in Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and a technology every bit as much as the latest PC running our idea of the phenomenon. In painting, according
Pattern Recognition (2016), 24142423.
that the system takes up personality traits based on the latest software. to this tradition, we ourselves form an idea to
the inceptive human art or as determined by the human. fix the phenomenon on the surface. In photography,
The output of the imagination step is passed through The exercise of cataloguing or producing a taxonomy by contrast, the phenomenon itself generates
a CNN-based system, 6 modifying image inputs based is not a neutral one, of courseit consists of a series its own idea for use on the surface. In fact, the
on different emotions to create the output. of judgments and decisions, an editing and selection. invention of photography is a delayed technical
Like the archive, not everything is kept: some things are resolution of the theoretical conflict between
CONCLUSION weeded out and discarded. rationalist and empirical idealism.3

Tandem tries to challenge and tackle a different kind What is interesting in the technology of architectural The gesture of drawing is different again, offering
of artistry, expression and communication between drawing, however, is that each earlier iteration has greater precision at times than the enigmatic painterly
the audience and the machine, mixing algorithm with an afterlife, an impact on the development of inscriptive gesturewhile some of the best architectural drawing
affection, interweaving intentions with imaginations. practices where good solutions can be seen to persist. maintains this uncertainty and lack of prescription,
With the rise of artificial intelligence and the general Iterative development is the order of the day, and offering a palimpsest of lines drawn, undrawn and
notion of machines taking over human activities revolutionary attempts to reimagine architectural suggested: dividing surfaces into those to be perceived
prevalent throughout science fiction discourses and representation are often held up as noble failures, as figure and those that are ground.
increasingly in mainstream culture, through Tandem as stable or curious forms of diagramming and notation
we hope to give the audience a more utopian view of which do not usurp the dominant conventions. The Further nuance in this definition of cause and meaning
the future by engaging them with something that comes function of the drawing convention is, after all, that it from Flusser helps with this discussion. Take, for example,
as naturally as drawing juxtaposed with the ultimate is a common language, a shared understanding of what the act of making a copy by using tracing paper. The
in artificiality: artificial intelligence. each line or combination of lines means. I should note drawing in this case has more in common with Flussers
here that drawing consists of more than lines, however description of the gesture of photographing: the source
much the literature might celebrate the line. is copied selectively by placing tracing paper over the
top of it and picking out lines. Sometimes all the lines
Elsewhere, I have asserted that the drawing is not an are replicated, other times only some of them. The
image.1 If drawings are not images, then what are they? gestures involved in tracing are quite different to those
Inception 4c Layer One answer is to understand the drawing as a record of an original drawing. The trace is more definite, more
of a gesture. Not all gestures have the same aim, though, assured, as there is a line to follow. The traced line is akin
and it falls to media theorist Vilm Flusser to describe to Bergsons speculative problem.
a great many human movements in his collection
DCNN Internal Intermediate on gestures. THE GESTURE OF RULING
(GoogLeNet [1]) Output Output
Human Flusser, writing on the gesture of painting, describes The ruler, the T-square, the set square and other tools
gestures as enigmas rather than problems: allow us to produce certain kinds of lines. The manner
Sketch Input
of drawing with a ruler is significantly different to
One analyses problems to be able to see through a freehand line. Too often this is results-driven, the
Personality Content Dataset them, and so to get them out of the way. Problems apparent perfection of the ruled line compared with
Editor Sliders (ImageNet [19]) solved are no longer problems. One analyses the imperfections and autographic nature of the unruly
enigmas to enter into them. Enigmas solved remain freehand line. To an extent, the origins of such tools
enigmas. The goal of an analysis of the gesture can be traced to the medieval stonemasons templates,
of painting is not to clear painting out of the way. where knowledge of arches and complex geometry was
Rather, it consists of entering into the enigma jealously guarded. Turnbull (1993) and Shelby (1971, 1972)
Personality Style Modify of painting more deeply so as to be able to draw document the use of templates by stonemasons in
Dataset (NeuralArt [12]) a richer experience from it.2 the construction of these grand pieces of architecture,
used both for inscribing into surfaces in a drawing action
and for guiding the hand when cutting stone.
Fig.5: Schematic. Tandems software implementation can be elucidated as sequential steps.
The system is built as modular deep learning methods.

216 Protocols Papers 217

Practically, the ruling of a line necessitates a certain drawing, iterative alterations can be introduced, and within a tripartite framework of score, sketch and
stability in the drawing surface. In the twentieth-century it is in this feature that tracing finds its great utility within script in his work in Languages of Art.
model, this would consist of a drawing board with parallel the design process.
motion, T-square or drawing head. The mechanical Because a painters sketch, like a composers
drawing board is a large item, a tool requiring skilled Gesturally, tracing can involve more manipulation of score, may be used as a working guide, the crucial
operation in conjunction with the paper, pencils, pens the paper. It is essential to tape the paper to the board difference in their status may go unnoticed.
and so on: it is simultaneously a tool and a context for securely, with the tension in the paper ensuring that the The sketch, unlike the score, is not in a language
drawing which generates a set of gestures. layers beneath can be seen. With the appropriate weight or notation at all, but in a system without either
of paper, one can see several layers down: paper is no syntactic or semantic differentiation.8
Those trained in mechanical drawing will remember longer a singular condition but something multiple, with
the difficulty in coordinating these movements at first, depth and temporality embedded into it. Finding lines This linguistic analogy runs through Goodmans work
but eventually a fluidity is achieved. The gesture I would to follow is the first task of the gesture of tracing, on art and the graphic practices used in the production
like to focus upon here is the gesture of making a mark followed by the decisions about which lines to keep of artworks. Here, he notes that sketching has a more
according to a template, such as a ruler. The steadiness and which to discard: again the metaphor of the archive, confused relationship to this language-based structure,
of hand is focused on maintaining a stable angle for where only the essential elements are kept. and thatunlike notations, which have a clarity of
the drawing instrument against the template; the speed communicationsketches are internal processes:
of the mark is also steady, as is the pressure applied. The key gesture is the drawing itself, following the line intended largely for the sketcher themselves rather
The character of the ruled mark is evenness and consist- rather than determining it. By tracing blurs, for instance, than an external audience. That sketches can sometimes
ency; altering the angle part-way through will cause the manner of the inscriptive practice is complicated, be understood by others is interesting, and something
imperfections in the line and applying greater pressure so that a traced drawing shifts constantly between to be discussed, but the original intention of many
might cause brittle mechanical pencil lead to snap speculative and creative acts. sketches is to understand something, develop an idea
or a drafting pen to apply an unintentional spot of ink. and otherwise to think.
The beginning and ending of such lines is therefore When I draw observationally, I am selecting and editing,
fraught and risky: some opt for a gradually increasing focusing on some qualities over others. Sometimes Sketching is not a standardised activity with rules common
pressure, feathering the line at the beginning, and a innovating and sometimes following a path, I move from from one practitioner to another.
corresponding decrease at the end; others might place Bergsons speculative problems to creative ones and
the instrument definitelya dot at the termini of the line; back again throughout the course of a drawing. When Fig.1: Photograph of tracing workshop held at the Knowing From In short, the sketchas a sketchdiffers from
a convention which emerged was the extension of the I am not drawing, I am often thinking about drawing, the Inside Kitchen event at Comrie Croft, Perthshire. Participants the score not in functioning as a character in a
are tracing drawings by other workshop participants, varying the
line, a deliberate additional length to each line, giving constructing ideas for drawings I would like to do: media used in order to interrogate the original drawings. language of a different kind but in not functioning
corners a characteristic crossing of lines. An argument planning or even dreaming them ahead of time without as a character in a language at all. The notational
is made for the precision of such practices, but this is producing a fixed image or plan of work. to the objectification of the beings and things that language of musical scores has no parallel in a
somewhat contentious. command our attention and their removal from the sphere language (notational or not) of sketches.9
But the truth is that in philosophy and even of our sentient involvement with consociates. As should
Other forms of guide could fall into a similar category elsewhere, it is a question of finding the problem be clear from the foregoing, to observe is not to objectify; Goodman, as an aside, exhibits a useful way of considering
were the focus not on gestures. Graph and gridded and consequently of positing it, even more than it is to attend to persons and things, to learn from them, any form of representation you might want to analyse.
paper, for example, are forms of template applied directly of solving it. For a speculative problem is solved and to follow in precept and practice.6 That is, to form a comparison between that kind of drawing
to the support, the paper. My own preferred drawing as soon as it is properly stated. By this I mean that or mapping or whatever else, and some stable form of
practice uses a dot-grid which effectively disappears its solution exists then, although it may remain While in some instances Ingold uses wayfarer as practice you know well and can understand the qualities
from vision once there is something more interesting on hidden and, so to speak, covered upthe only a pejorative here, rather than navigator, I argue of. By comparing sketching to musical notation,10
the paper to look at. The gesture here is quite different thing left to do is to uncover it.4 that these modes co-exist much more happily within
from the ruled drawing, however, and is more akin to the drawing practices, offering two poles for a spectrum of
freehand drawing despite the assistance in achieving The truth of Bergsons statement of speculative and responses. Each mode of inscriptive practice occupies
accurate lengths, angles and straight lines. creative problems is more nuanced when tested against multiple positions within this overall territory, shifting
an established practice such as drawing. One frequently according to the phase of practice engaged in at any
THE GESTURE OF TRACING moves from one mode to another, fluidly following and given point (Fig.1).
driving the process.5
Tracing is a related drawing practice, of course, owing THE GESTURE OF INKING
much of its existence to the technologies noted for the Following is an important aspect of the gesture of tracing,
gesture of ruling above. As an operation, tracing demands and a key distinction drawn by Ingold with reference to A footnote to the gesture of tracing is the gesture of
more attention, as it is a particular and notable set of navigation and wayfaring: inking. Another following practice, the gesture of inking
gestures which help us to unpack that drawing is about still has some flexibility and possibility for editing.
intention as much as it is about the embodied action. One The maze-walker, we could say, is a navigator; Simply stated, inking is the selection of which lines drawn
of the earliest references to tracing paper is about its the labyrinthine path-follower is a wayfarer. in a lighter medium such as pencil are to be retained.
preparation, in Cennino Cenninis Craftsmans Handbook In the carrying on of the wayfarer, every destination Additional prominence and permanence is given by the
(from the mid-fifteenth century), which instructs the reader is by the way; his path runs always in between. application of ink to the surface (Fig.2).
to copy the artists with the best reputations, lest you pick The movements of the navigator, by contrast, are
up the bad habits of lesser artists by copying them. point-to-point, and every point has been arrived at, THE GESTURE OF SKETCHING
by calculation, even before setting off towards it.
The aim of tracing is to copyin architecture, this is often Sketching fulfils a range of purposes from collection7
used to select and edit, but all with direct reference to It is important to refute, once and for all, the commonplace to preparatory work for a more substantial piece. Fig.2: As yet uninked drawing from the Graphic Anthropology
an existing drawing or other source. By reproducing the fallacy that observation is a practice exclusively dedicated The writer Nelson Goodman tackles the topic of sketching of Sanja Matsuri series.

218 Protocols Papers 219

we instantly form an understanding about something THE GESTURE OF ERASURE CONCLUSION: DRAWING AS PERFORMANCE
we might easily take for granted. Sketching is so familiar
to us that we do not question it, but it is interesting to Often overlooked in treatises on drawing and related to If a drawing is a record of a gesture, then that set of
really consider what it is that we do when we decide the elision of lines within tracing practices is the process gestures can be understood as a performance. Whether
to take a pencil or other inscribing tool and make marks of erasing lines. Tools for this include the eraservarious in public, for an audience, or the architect drawing
on a surface. This act, where we can translate something types of which can be used for different mediaand in front of their client as a way of communicating and
observed into a series of lines and tones on a piece of also the scalpel blade to scratch inked lines from paper. describing an intention, the sequence of acts that
paper, is a complex activity requiring a vast apparatus of It is not until digital drawing becomes widespread that constitute a drawing are performed.
understanding, artifice and transfiguration from a lively erasure becomes complete: the erased line leaves no
scene of real life to a captured image. trace or mark; even the chain of undo actions is limited Where a score is present (and performance suggests
to a certain number of actions once another branch of a script of some sort), this can give instructions which
The differences in Goodmans thinking between these decisions are taken. govern the performance, allowing variations within a
inscriptive practices can be expressed as belonging set of parameters. This could be Ruskins exercises for
to either the autographic arts or the allographic. Related to erasure is masking. More common in painting drawing, my own notations describing a drawing or any
Autographic arts are simply those where the work of practices such as watercolour, the eraser becomes a number of fine art practices. This could include drawings
the original hand is necessary, where an exact replica tool of the drawing itself here, removing a shaded ground I copied at the CCA12 or the artefacts I drew in a visit to
of the work does not stand for the work in any way and through a mask or shield in order to produce a mark: the British Museum.13
is considered a forgery. This is a complex issue, but is a negative mark, but a mark nonetheless. As such, the
further illuminated by Goodmans example: gesture of erasure here refers to the intention to remove Performance can suggest dance, particularly the profes-
marks rather than the production of a mark by using sionalised dance designed for an audience to appreciate
Let us speak of a work of art as autographic an eraser. within a theatrical setting. The Russian filmmaker Sergei
if and only if the distinction between original and Eisenstein himself makes this connection in his essay
forgery of it is significant; or better, if and only In practical terms, the erasing instrument is rarely as How I Learned to Draw (an essay on my dancing lessons).
if even the most exact duplication of it does not accurate as the drawing instrumentand more than Published by the NY Drawing Centre in a collection of
thereby count as genuine. If a work of art is intended might be erased, leading to repair work on Eisensteins sensuous and mystical drawings, he describes Fig.4: Drawing from Graphic Anthropology of Namdaemun Market, Seoul.
autographic, we may also call that art autographic. the lines that were unintentionally removed. Erasing a drawing and dancing as being branches of the same
Thus painting is autographic, music nonautographic, mark denies its existence and validity within the overall tree.14 The gradual transformation from learning steps Central here is the idea that the way human agency
or allographic.11 scheme, representing everything from a simple mistake in order towards learning the response and interaction works is in terms of the signifying enactments of
or slip of the hand through to changed plans and altered involved in dancing are most instructive here. moving persons. This position is commensurate with
This distinction is not used to make a judgment on the intentions. This reinforces the idea of drawing as a Ingolds dwelling perspective (2000) and his use of
relative merits of one form of art over the other; the process of selection, as a temporal and spatial more In many ways, a parallel practice can found in the Gibsons environmental theory of perception (1966,
performance-based arts represented by Goodmans than a visual phenomenon. practice of improvisational dance described by Maxine 1979). The varied discursive practices that constitute
allographic arts are every bit as valid as the autographic Sheets-Johnstone: meaning-making processes (semiosis) are performa-
arts. The manner in which the distinction is measured tively grounded in, and conventionally a structuring
by Goodman is, however, curious, and throws up one In view of its unique appearance, it is not surprising of, a suitable region of the mindful body that serves
of the interesting inconsistencies in his argument. that a dance improvisation is commonly described the purposes of socio-cultural livingsuch regions
This inconsistency far from invalidates his argument, as an unrehearsed and spontaneous form of dance. as the mouth and lips in speech, the hands in sign
but rather complicates and makes it interesting. What is not commonly recognised, however, is that languages, and the whole body in forms of dance,
that description hinges on the more fundamental ceremony, or practical skills of various kinds (Farnell,
The case of the architectural drawing can be considered characteristic suggested above, namely, that in a 1999). The human actions that constitute speech-act
as both/either allographic and/or autographic in nature. dance improvisation, the process of creating is not systems, action-sign systems, and any other form
An original drawing by the hand of a famous or influential the means of realising a dance; it is the dance itself. of semiosis are the creative outcome of a primary
architect is inherently valuable in a way that a reproduction A dance improvisation is the incarnation of creativity generative actsignifying enactments from the
of it is not. The autograph: the quality of that individuals as a process.15 body (Farnell, 1999; Williams, 2003). While Csordas
handiwork is present in the drawing. This aura of the proposed a paradigm of the experienced body,
original persists despite the intention behind that drawing, Sheets-Johnstones concept of thinking in movement for the 1990s, Williams, Varela and I are proposing
which is often allographic. The allographic nature of the is crucial to any study of drawing and, as a result, the a paradigm of the moving body for the beginning
drawing relates to it being a set of instructions for the design process itself. The description of improvisational of the twenty-first century.17
construction of a building. dance given above could easily refer to the close integra-
tion of drawing with the architectural design process. Defining what drawing is or can be is a more fruitful way
What of the gestures inherent to sketching? These Thus, the process of creating is not the means of realising to proceed. Institutions from Londons V&A Museum
are open and varied, arguably to a greater degree than a design; it is the process of design itselfto draw is to the Drawing Centre in New York struggle with pinning
other modes of inscriptive practice, but an internal to design. In this way, thinking in movement is understood this down, of course, veering from the vagueness of works
consistency remains important. A family of marks and not as the transcription of a pre-formed mental image, on paper to a wide-ranging discussion of the various
gestures are used in the sketch as a form of internalised but instead thinking is itself, by its nature, kinetic16 intentions which lie behind an assemblage of lines.
communication. The sketch is often produced without
the implied audience of other drawings, allowing for Further work in this field brings the argument back to My research agenda addresses one possible approach.
shortcuts and efficiencies that might render it impossible actual human bodies rather than the kind of theory that Dealing with a range of inscriptive practices, I discuss the
for others to read. The internal consistency allows finds presence, movement and actual people too messy, idea of what qualities each practice possesses at length.
each sketch to compose its own logic, a logic that might Fig.3: Drawing from Drawing Parallels: Knowledge Production preferring to abstract us out of the picture entirely. A call Nelson Goodman is increasingly important as I continue
not necessarily apply to the next sketch in a series. in Axonometric, Isometric and Oblique Drawing. to arms on this is made in strong terms by Brenda Farnell: to work in this area: his clear-minded descriptions of

220 Protocols Papers 221

scripts and scores, allographic and autographic marks I could place myself entirely into the context in which 1
R  ay Lucas, Why a Drawing is not an Image (and why that might REFERENCES
not be a problem) in Beyond Perception, edited by Peter Loovers
serve as a model for how to describe, rather than as each drawing was made, but a deeper understanding is et al. (London: Routledge, publication forthcoming). Cennino dAndrea Cennini, The Craftsmans Handbook, Daniel
stable categories which I would subscribe to unswervingly. possible through practising the relevant form of knowledge 2
Vilm Flusser, Gestures. Translated by Nancy Ann Roth V. Thompson, Jr. (Trans.), (New York: Dover, 1960 [c.1400]);
The conclusion is that any given inscription can simulta- production: drawing. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014), 65. Technology & Human Values, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Summer 1993), 315340
3
Ibid., 72. (Sage Publications, 1993).
neously possess a range of qualities, speaking to different 4
Henri Bergson, The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics.
audiences according to their knowledge and ability to I am also producing drawings as forms of graphic Translated by Mabelle L. Andison (New York: Citadel Press, 1992), 51. Ray Lucas, Drawing as Being in Visual Methodologies in
understand each quality. Thus, an architectural drawing anthropology, a deliberate play on visual anthropology 5
Ray Lucas, Towards a Theory of Notation as a Thinking Tool Architectural Research, edited by Igea Troiani & Suzanne Ewing
can have an aesthetically pleasing pictorial quality at the that prefers lens-based media to the neglect of drawing, (PhD diss. University of Aberdeen, 2006), 169. (London: Intellect Books, publication forthcoming 2016).
6
Tim Ingold, The Life of Lines (London: Routledge, 2015), 133 and 157.
same time as being a set of instructions: a notation for diagramming, mapping and notation. Recent visits to 7
Ray Lucas, The Sketchbook as Collection: a Phenomenology Ray Lucas, Drawing Parallels: Knowledge Production in Axonometric,
the construction of a building. Tokyo have been timed to coincide with the Sanja Matsuri, of Sketching in Recto-Verso: Redefining the Sketchbook, edited Isometric, and Oblique Drawings (Farnham: Ashgate, forthcoming 2017).
a three-day festival in May which involves a vast by Angela Bartram, Nader El-Bizri and Douglas Gittens (Farnham:
Ashgate, 2014). Lon R. Shelby, Mediaeval Masons Templates in Journal of the
Recent projects have brought me back to drawing disturbance to the everyday life of the Asakusa district 8
Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 30, No. 2 (May 1971), 140154.
more consistently. of the city. The festival involves a constellation of Company, 1976), 192. University of California Press on behalf of the Society of Architectural
temporary and mobile structures, the most celebrated
9
Ibid., 194. Historians, 1971.
10
In Ray Lucas, Taking a Line for a Walk: Flnerie, Drifts, and the Artistic
Most of the attention in architectural drawing literature being the mikoshiportable shrines which are Potential of Urban Wandering in Ways of Walking: Ethnography and Lon R. Shelby, The Geometrical Knowledge of Mediaeval Master
is spent on the emergence of perspective or the boisterously carried through the streets; the effort Practice on Foot, edited by Tim Ingold & Jo Lee Vergunst (Farnham: Masons in Speculum, Vol. 47, No. 3 (July 1972), (Chicago:
dominant modes of orthographic projection of plan, and weight involved giving a real practical presence to Ashgate, 2008); and Ray LucasGestural Artefacts: Notations of a The University of Chicago Press, 1972), 395421.
Daruma Doll in Fieldnotes and Sketchbooks: Challenging the Boundaries
section and elevation. Axonometric, isometric and other this radical and traditional architecture. Drawing is an Between Descriptions and Processes of Describing, edited by Wendy David Turnbull, The Ad Hoc Collective Work of Building Gothic
forms of oblique or parallel projections are the poor important way of understanding the spatial implications Gunn (Oxford: Peter Lang Publishers, 2009). Cathedrals with Templates, String, and Geometry in Science,
relations, however. My mode of inquiry is to copy and to of this event and its various stages, so the project will 11
Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art (1976), 113. Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Summer 1993),
12
Ray Lucas, Drawing Parallels: Knowledge Production in Axonometric, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1972), 395421.
redraw. Spending several weeks in the Canadian Centre include a series of axonometric drawings, long sections
Isometric, and Oblique Drawings (Farnham: Ashgate, publication
for Architectures library and drawing collection, I selected and Laban movement notations. forthcoming 2017).
works by twentieth-century architects who had made 13
Ray Lucas, The Sketchbook as Collection: a Phenomenology of
distinctive uses of parallel projection. Through careful A similar graphic anthropology is also underway Sketching, 2014.
14
Catherine De Zegher (Ed.), Drawing Papers 4: The Body of the Line:
copying, redrawing, retracing the steps, I found that to describe Namdaemun Market in central Seoul: Eisensteins Drawings (New York: The Drawing Centre, 2000), 26.
my understanding was enhanced enormously through another socially produced space with a great many 15
Maxine Sheets-Johnston, The Primacy of Movement (Amsterdam;
this act of retracing, re-enacting. That is not to say that lessons for architects. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1999), 485.
16
Ibid., 486.
17
Brenda Farnell, Dynamic Embodiment for Social Theory:
I Move Therefore I Am (London: Routledge, 2012), 17.

Fig.5: Drawing from Graphic Anthropology of Sanja Matsuri, Tokyo.

222 Protocols Papers 223

Data Dreams: The Computer Group and
Architecture by Spreadsheet, 196784
Ann Lui

In 1967, Skidmore, Owings & Merrills Chicago office of building design can be formulated, in a general way,
was asked to design an office building near the citys as an optimization programme, wrote G. Neil Harper,
international airport.1 A client came [] with a funny who collaborated with Sides on the project, in a conference
request, said David Sides, an architect who worked there paper on the programme.5 BOPs authors drew from
at the time. 2 He had just bought a piece of property SOMs tall building expertise and developed a programme
near OHare airfield. His requirement was a building that hinged on four key financial factors: structure, exterior
that could be built on that site to give a maximum return wall, mechanical system and elevators. For any given site
on [his] investment. He had no other requirements. and project, the cost relationship of these four variables
Restricted only in height because of the airports fly zone, could be explored through automatically generated
the project was otherwise a blank slate: the client had alternatives. For example, in-house architects estimated
no opinions on architectural form, only on his financial that the increasing size of window wall openings resulted
return. SOM took this almost unexpectedly simplistic in higher HVAC costs. BOP codified this relationship, Fig.2: OHare Plaza seen from the highway.
problem to its in-house architects-turned-programmers, and others, into its algorithms. The programme would
a team nicknamed the Computer Group that Sides return a range of results, including a literal bottom line: The potent dreams for computation in this moment the drafting room. This change manifested itself in the
led in the San Francisco office. Was it possible to design Optimum Solutions listed options for the lowest overall reflected SOMs emergence as a logistics-driven outside world in the buildings the office designed; OHare
a building on cost parameters alone? We [] quizzed cost and the maximum return on investment (Fig.1). corporate practice and its hopes for a future that would Plazas stark form that was authored, in part, by a digital
architects in the Chicago office, Sides said about the be optimised and bolstered by computer automation. application is a visible case. The effect of this early,
Computer Groups response to the OHare problem, BOP is a quintessential example showing the significance A building is a 3D spreadsheet, posited the Computer experimental integration of computers into SOM also
on how they went about estimating usage, estimating of these early computational research programmes Group.7 OHare Plaza, completed in 1970, manifested went beyond BOP and the office building: in terms of the
return. How did they go about deciding what a building at SOM, both for its holistic aspirations as well as for its as a group of three stark concrete structure buildings, internal changes it initiated, pioneering and also heralding
was worth, what they could build on the lot, what clients impact on the offices production. The Computer Group, one 10-storey and two 4-storey, with regular openings. changes across the industry in the years to come. The
wanted, and what [would] it cost? a team which spanned across SOMs offices but focused This first building executed with BOP, for a client whose research-driven work of the Computer Group at SOM
in Chicago, was the name given to a studio of architects sole interest was in the figurative bottom line represented during this period is a unique case study into the firm, one
The Computer Groups solution to the problem, after and systems engineers working intermittently between SOMs first foray into a dream of architecture by bits. which is often marked by historians as the quintessential
a four-week research blitz, was a crude3 computer 1963 to 1986, with different leaders and members When passing the building on the highway to the airport corporate officea relatively new type of practice at the
application that they called the Building Optimization through the years.6 In this period, before the widespread from Chicago, it is easy to overlook, its form almost time that has now come to dominate the contemporary
Programme (BOP). 4 Text-based, without graphic commercial availability of drafting software, large a caricature of the mundane office building (Fig.2). Yet landscape. The emergent logistics-driven architectural
interface, run on IBMs the size of refrigerators, BOP architectural firms, including SOM, undertook their it is in fact the epitome of such projectsOHare Plazas practice of SOM was, in a way, both indexed and formed
operated on a simple premise. The practical problem own research on computer integration. calculated shape, facade and floor plan was the first by the work of the Computer Group, including these
output of BOP, a seemingly innocuous text-based designers-turned-programmers attendant hopes
computer programme developed in search of the most for a prosthetically enhanced architect; total building
cost-effective commercial architecture. simulation and evaluation; and the potential for
interdisciplinary synthesis aided by computation.
Of course, BOPs authors and users were aware of its
limitationsof its reduction of architectural design to A WILLING AND CAPABLE PARTNER:
four numerical variables. Nonetheless, the reach of SOM AND THE COMPUTER
BOP in the Chicago office of SOM was wide. Any office
building designed by SOMs Chicago office between 1968 In 1968 and 1969, two significant conferences took place
and 1990 included a BOP analysis,8 including projects on computer integration in architecture: the first broadly
as outwardly dissimilar as the iconic Hancock Centre attended, the second behind closed doors. The first, in
(1965) and One Shell Plaza (1971) (Fig.3).9 Yet what they April 1968, was a public gathering at Yale University on the
both share is the efficient layout of the central core, the topic of Computer Graphics in Architecture and Design
window wall and the regular structure: features grounded and represented a cross-section of industry leaders in
in BOPs variables. Throughout this period, rising in the research, industry and practice. The second conference,
city centres of dozens of large cities in America and a year later in March 1969, was a private, invite-only affair:
abroad were structures of glass and steel, elevated off a strategic planning meeting held by SOM leadership.
ground level by a tall lobby, then unrolling as a repetitive Originally called the Sterling Forest Meeting, this SOM
orthogonal grid of disappearing curtain wall modules, meeting became jokingly known by its attendees as
fading into the sky. SOMs commercial office buildings the Appalachian Conference after the eponymous
became the firms calling card, drawing both praise scandalous summit of the American Mafia, revealed to
and critique for their ubiquity. What drove the shape, the FBI a few years previously.10 In attendance at both
form and organisation of these buildings? Yale and Sterling Forest was SOMs design partner Bruce
Fig.1: Overall Summary of Computer-Generated Solutions, Building Optimization Programme, Graham, who first supported the development of new
from G. Neil Harper, BOPAn Approach to Building Optimization. Credit: G. Neil Harper,
BOPAn Approach to Building Optimization, ACM Press, 57583. doi:10.1145/800186.810621. During this period, SOM went through a profound internal applications for architectural use at the office. The Yale
1968 Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. Reprinted by permission. change within the office as it integrated computers into presentation was a public proclamation of Grahams

224 Protocols Papers 225

intentions for computer integration at SOM; the Martin & Associates. Employees with computer expertise
Appalachian Conference a moment that represented an cross-pollinated information and ideas: informallysuch
internal reckoning with the tumultuous transformation. as over drinks16and when, as valuable assets, they
These two conferences set the backdrop against which switched employers and moved between these offices.17
the Computer Group rose in prominence.
SOM was unique, however, in its development of
The 1968 Yale Conference was organised by Murray Milne, software like BOP that drew from its existing expertise
an architect and professor, to discuss a potential [] in commercial office buildings and then transformed that
fantastic11 future at hand. The discussion of this future knowledge base through computing. In 1968, when the
included promises of speedier, more cost-effective Yale Conference took place, SOM was already underway
production of architecture and also softer topics like the with its own research. Bruce Grahams presentation
role of automation in design, its democratisation and the at the conference gave the audience a background
benefits to the city. Invited to speak at the conference for SOMs involvement with computers. Work was up,
were those who in the following two decades would have Graham said, pushing the office to the size of 450 people,
a crucial role in the development of computer graphics. not just employing architects but also diversifying through
From its origins in a back room at the Lincoln Lab, computer the hiring of specialists like planners, traffic analysts,
graphics would travel into a host of adaptations and hospital and equipment specialists and furniture
applications used in a variety of fields, and ultimately land designers.18 The size of contracts and the scale of
squarely in the centre of the architects office. A sense projects themselves had been increasing as well, and
of excited anticipation pervaded Milnes introductory the firm was responsible for $500 million in yearly
text to the conference proceedings. The computer, construction costs. Yet the office was wrestling with
he wrote, is a [] potentially willing and capable partner. this exponential growth. Graham found that his search
for a more highly trained and educated workforce was
The conference in the creaking lecture hall 12 at Yale not enough; consequently, the office turned to a new
represented broader shifts outside its walls. Soon-to- worker: the computer. SOM was ready to make the
be-giant corporations like Digital Equipment Corporation transition from the traditional practice of architecture
(DEC), Tektronix and IBM were mobilising to develop to the methodology of the future.19
commercial applications of military technologies to
be more suitable and desirable for office use. Nicholas In practice, this meant the acquisition of new key people
Negroponte and his team at MIT were finishing at the office who shared Graham and Fazlur Khans
The Architecture Machine, exploring the consequences vision, as well as early testing of how the computer could
of human-computer interaction. 13 Outside the US, be integrated into existing processes. G. Neil Harper,
the engineering firm of Ove Arup was using computer hired in 1964, had previously worked at IBM as a liaison
programmes to process structural calculations for to SOM. In the mid-1960s, E. Alfred Picardi, the head of
Jorn Utzon on the Sydney Opera Houses curving shells. the Structures group in the Chicago office, and Khan led
Massive early computers were carted into the drafting the deployment of computers for structural engineering,
room to perform tasks that ranged from personnel including on the Brunswick Building, Chicago (constructed
management to heavy-duty structural calculations to 1965), where it was used for checking manual
the design of architectural forms. Large architectural calculations.20 Picardi and Khan worked to advance the
practices with fiscal resources to make long-term use of computers in-house in their calculations for the
investments were going through a similar period of structure of the tapering John Hancock Centre in 1965.21
computational experimentation. The computer was integral to Khans structural design for
Hancock; consequently, its potential grew. When Harper
In the 1960s and 1970s, computer applications for left in 1968, Lavette Teague was hired, who had a
architectural practice as we know them nowmassively background in systems engineering at Rust Engineering,
available, commercially priced and available for personal as well as degrees from MIT in related fields. Fig.3: From Bruce Grahams Computer Graphics in Architectural Practice
computersdid not yet exist. Yet architecture firms, Hancock Centre and One Shell Plaza. Credit: Conference on Computer Graphics
especially those large enough to take financial risks, However, despite Grahams show of a united front at Yale, in Architecture, Milne. Computer Graphics in Architecture and Design: Proceedings.
Yale School of Architecture, 1969. Drawings: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP
were beginning to independently investigate their within the office the path towards computer integration (46, 47, 49). Rendering: Helmut Jacoby (48).
possible use. Caudill Rowlett Scott (CRS), a Houston- was not so clear. Walter Netsch, a design partner in
based firm, began by using computers for management the Chicago office, had tried to deploy computers in the
and accounting in 1965, taking advantage of systems design of the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs
developed for general office use. 14 The office also (1963), but found them lacking. I sort of hemmed
formed the Computing Research Systems 2 (CRS2) and hawed, Netsch said about computer integration,
that developed a suite of applications for in-house use because after the Academyand it didnt work for
and for sale, including streamlining cost analysis, project me thenI didnt see any relevance to spending a
scheduling and equipment specifications. Hellmuth, million dollars for the work I was doing.22 A faction within
Obata + Kassabaum (HOK) also developed a range of the office was skeptical about the pay-off for computer
applications for internal use and for sale.15 Other large integration: notes from SOM at the time suggest
firms also produced applications for their own use: resistance was based in concerns about the economic
this included Jung/Brannen, DMJM, TAC and Albert C. return of such a venture, and also a more vague

226 Protocols Papers 227

 anxiety that the automation of physical functions [] The specifics of the discussion remain unknown. However,
would not improve appreciably the decision-making Sides paper issued for the conference gives a glimpse
or design process.23 into both the head- and tailwinds facing SOM in the
transition towards computer integration. A vital element
Recognising the need to reckon with the advance of this transitional period is the establishment of a new
of computers in architecture, the year after the Yale attitude towards the architectural process, Sides wrote.29
Conference, SOM convened the Appalachian Conference This included a re-evaluation about what decisions
in an IBM research facility in Sterling Forest, NY. The architectural designers made regularly that could
conference is now cited as architecture, engineering be automated, as well as about SOMs methodological
and the construction industrys first strategic technology relationship with their partners and consultants.
planning session.24 Very little documentation of this
conference is available.25 The partners listened [and] After the Appalachian Conference, the Computer Group
had their own private discussions, Sides said of his memory rapidly picked up steam. The office strategically hired
of the event. They never published any result(s).26 Sides, who in addition to serving as a consultant at the
Yet an early memo from Lavette Teague to the participants conference had also been a colleague of Teagues at
of the Sterling Forest meeting, dated 28 February Rust Engineering. The office further added to the group
1969, about one month before the conference, reveals with Charles F. Davis, Bill Kovacs and Douglas Stoker
the scope of the ideas discussed: in the early 1970sa group of architects with a knack
for what was then called systems engineering. They
The first task is more than a matter of computer together made up the core members of the Computer
programmes and hardware, although it assumes Group, with applications focusing mostly on small-scale
a central role for the computer. It involves a specific solutions prioritising efficiency. During this
fundamental redesign of our entire design process decade following the Appalachian Conference, the
in relation to current and foreseeable information group also opened its doors to interested students
processing technology [] Implicit in a different kind and researchers for the sake of cross-pollination.
of design process are different kinds of personnel, What did happen occasionally would be people would
procedures, and organization. The required come into the Skidmore office who were students and
information system must facilitate control not only faculty members, said Sides. We would make a point
over the result of the design process, but over the to get them computer time. We did that independent
process itself.27 of the architectural practice, but we came out ahead
because they brought in ideas.30
Teagues note to the participants makes clear the
stakes of the Appalachian Conference: not simply the In the early 1970s, during a recession, early members
logistics of integrating the computer into SOMs office, of the group, including Teague, were let go from the office.
but a total rethinking and reorganisation of the way Douglas Stoker replaced him as head of the Computer
the firm practised architecture, based in the handling Group, taking charge of the groups identity and direction.31
and communication of information. In April 1976, Stoker sent a memo to Fazlur Khan asking
for a rethink of the role of the Computer Group at SOM.
Those attending the Appalachian Conference, based Stoker called for the group to be more fully staffed
on Teagues memo, were a combination of key members and considered as a resource for the office.32 He called
from SOMs leadership and relevant experts or industry for the Computer Group to be turned into an atelier-style
representatives brought in to brief those from the firm. group with the freedom to develop an open-ended
From within the office, the attendees included John research agenda. What had hitherto been a collection
Merrill,28 as well as Bruce Graham and Fazlur Khan of people answering to Fazlur Khan sought independent
the Computer Groups two champions. The list of the status as an applied research studio for the entire
experts to present to the partnership represented a firm, wrote historian Nicholas Adams on this shift.33
cross-section of industry and in-house expertise. These Stoker hired Bill Kovacs, an architect without training on
included Steven Lipner, a civil engineer from MIT who computers but with a knack for systems, who became
had been the project manager of COGO, a project central to many of the Computer Groups works. By 1980,
developed by MITs Charles L. Miller to handle geometric the team was 24 employees strong and SOM boasted
calculations used by surveyors. Also present was Jack more than 100 computer terminals.34 By 1983, the Group
Sams, a representative from IBM, a company which was at almost 50 people, had added more computers,
had an interest in selling timeshare rentals of computer terminals and plotters to the office and had linked their
equipment to SOM as well as learning what kind of needs success to the success of the firm, whose annual billing
a large architectural firman untapped marketwould was reaching new highs.
have in the following years. David Sides, a future member
of the Computer Group, was also present as a consultant. The computer group [] treated [SOMs] design
studios as if they were fourteen customers, explained
Fig.4 (opposite): Architectural Record, SOMs Computer Approach. Architectural Record in the 1980 feature SOMs
Credit: Printed with permission from Architectural Record.
SOMs Computer Approach. Architectural Record 168, no. 3 Computer Approach. (Fig.4) 35 They billed the other
(August 1980), 8491. studios for computation time and storage36 and also

228 Protocols Papers 229

 and also spoke to earlier analogue efforts of SOM allow a buildings many variables to respond to a complexity
(such as in the design of Oak Ridge, TN) to systematise, of information stemming from its future users, its
streamline and think experimentally about large and urban and governmental context and material limitations.
high-quantity design methods. A series of programmes
developed by the Computer Group reflected a new COMPUTATIONAL LOGISTICS: PROSTHETIC AIDS
generation of research into not only how to make the FOR ARCHITECTURAL OPTIMISATION
process of design faster, but also how to manage larger
scales of information and the relationships between It was no coincidence that SOMs own critical computer
them at a speed and complexity unable to be managed integration conference took place at an IBM research
by humans alone. facility. Throughout the Computer Groups existence,
IBM would be a constant presence, beyond its role as
This approach began with BOP (1967), which went through a provider of computer equipment. In the postwar period,
a series of iterations, including under Teague, who SOM had established partnerships with building material
expanded it to work with larger scale buildings (above manufacturers such as Celotex and Pittsburgh Plate
40 floors) and to incorporate more mechanical and Glass Company. The right partner for the 1970s was
structural engineering factors. BOP was also followed by IBM. Both companies capitalised and arrived on a tide
a series of more discipline-specific programmes, which of data-driven organisation: of architecture, offices, cities
focused on architectural design through accumulation and employeesa self-dubbed information explosion.48
of data and its synthesis. These included Planning and In the 1960s, IBM provided support and collaboration
Land Use System (PLUS) (1969), which deployed BOPs for SOMs architects-turned-programmers; on BOP,
analysis for urban-scale issues by breaking down taxes, for example, Teague spent many phone calls to IBM
mortgages and rental profits to find an optimised mix to determine how the embryonic PLAN [programming
Fig.5: Flythrough Screen Shot. Credit: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP. 9 Cities by Skidmore,
Owings & Merrill 1984. Scanned from the original 16mm film, 1984, http://vimeo.com/93315120. of programmes on a large site.44 A characteristic example language] was supposed to work.49 In 1969, SOMs
of this kind of attempt to use computer architecture Appalachian Conference was hosted at the IBM Research
offered the same services to outside offices.37 During simply making speedier a task already at hand. They holistically was the programme Storage and Retrieval Facility in Sterling Forest, NY; Jack Sams attended to
this fertile period, the Computer Groups design of included the handful Graham presented at the 1968 Yale of Architectural Programming Information (SARAPI) (1972) represent IBM. Sams was in part responsible for the
new applications was varied and diverse. Stoker led Conference, such as Auto-Spec (1965), Truck Turning (Fig.6). SARAPI, a data management system for interior second phase of BOPwhich expanded its capabilities to
the group with a sense of rapid discovery and with Problem and Auditorium Layout. Others included a compu- design, was designed to streamline the commercial office larger buildings with more complex parametersbecause
little apparent fear of failure. If it works, change it; if it tational automation of the design of stair dimensions, furniture layout and space allocation process.45 SARAPI of his development of IBMs programming language
doesnt work, document it, he would say to his team.38 given certain parameters, or the layout of fire sprinklers was used during a phase called Programming, in which for 1130s, SOMs in-house mainframe.50 Beginning around
This period, marked by the team members as a time in a ceiling plan.41 Others, which were developed for the SOM designers interviewed their commercial clients 1980, SOM also developed AES with the help of IBM.
of rowdy camaraderie and technological experimentation, management side of the office, included Project Return employees and developed a space plan in which to
indexes both the unique needs of an emergent large on Equity Programme (PREP) and Man Power Allocation accommodate their needs. SARAPI mechanised the
corporate architecture officea model of practice and Personnel Programme (MAP). While programmes organisation of this large dataset. Teague had previously
relatively new to the fieldand the early, potent promise of this kind were unique to SOM and authored at the firm, developed a similar programme for hospital equipment
of computation as a system with the potential to change similar tasks were being achieved at some of the firms layout, and adapted it to broader uses.46 Beginning
the design process entirely.39 rivals, such as HOK and DMJM. around 1980, SOM also began, in collaboration with
IBM, to develop Architecture Engineering System (AES),
A BUILDING IS A 3D SPREADSHEET: The office also tasked the Computer Group to develop which combined the interdisciplinary calculations of
APPLICATIONS OF THE COMPUTER GROUP a series of drafting and representational tools; BOP with 3D graphic visualisation efforts. Considered
these programmes attempted to transition both the an early precursor to what is today called BIM (Building
Over the course of its existence, SOMs Computer documentation and visualisation of buildings to the Information Management) technology, AES represented
Group designed dozens of original programmes. computer screen. These included the DRAW2D (1975) an early effort and vision to move away from two-
No complete list exists; only the traces of a few remain developed by Bill Kovacs; DRAW3D (1977), its successor, dimensional, orthographic drawing and towards the
through conference papers, references in industry developed by Nicholas Weingarten; and DRAFt (1981) complete representation of a building across many
literature on early computer graphics or by word of by Mirsante and Huebner. These programmes, in terms scales through computation.
mouth. They were created by the various members of of their technical development, hinged mostly on the
the Computer Group during their tenure at SOM, under development of computer graphics occurring in parallel In The Architecture Machine, Negroponte theorised
leaders in different offices. Some of the applications to SOMs research. Their scope extended to the about this kind of affordance: Machines [] are devices
were in collaboration with outside companies. Overall, marketing wing of the firm, such as the creation of that can respond intelligently to the tiny, individual,
these applications for the most part can be divided into nine flythrough animated videos featuring the buildings constantly changing bits of information that reflect the
three categories: solution-based, representational and designed by SOM in major cities including Chicago, identity of each urbanite as well as the coherence of the
building data simulation.40 New York, San Francisco, Portland and Boston. SOMs city, he wrote.47 SOMs SARAPI software, as well as BOP
towers are wire-framed in sparkling blue, the rest of the and AES, began on the road towards BIM. While overtly
The first category, solution-based programmes, city in a putrid yellow (Fig.5).42 primitive, in certain ways these programmes can be seen
represented how computing might be used to address as eclipsing contemporary software such as Revit that
the daily minutia which occupied any architecture firm. The applications that were most unique to SOM were remain largely limited to the construction of 2D and
They serve as a small window into the range of issues those that reflected the offices ongoing work circling 3D representation rather than design-driven algorithmic
that SOMs architects and engineers were tackling frameworks of efficiency and interest in the complete assessment of possible options. These early SOM
Fig.6: SARAPI. Credit: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP.
during these decades: a large quantity of early automation of a buildings design. These expanded on programmes began to speculate on the possibility of SOM Systems: SARAPI. Place of publication not identified:
programming efforts remained in isolated disciplines, Stokers aphorism that a building is a 3D spreadsheet,43 live-time, multinodal, architectural imaging which might Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, 1972.

230 Protocols Papers 231

Yet this partnership that supported the Computer Group surfaces, released independently in 1998 as the 1
T  his paper was first developed for my 16
So much of the development and thinking 37
Fallon, Early Computer Graphics, 24.
SMArchS thesis at Massachusetts Institute happened on cocktail napkins. More on a 38
Adams, Creating the Future, 132.
may have also heralded its end. In 1984, IBM began programme Rhinoceros. SOMs Computer Group of Technology, under the generous guidance personal basis than company to company, 39
Ibid.
negotiations to purchase AES, rebranded as SKYLINE. dispersed, though some continued to pursue digital of Arindam Dutta and Ana Miljacki. Thanks from Sides, Interview. 40
This divide between camps of those involved
In 1986, warning bells rang at the office Christmas Party: applications for architectural design. also go to Brian Lee and Eric Keune at the 17
William Sommerfeld, for example, left SOM in architectural computation continues today,
SOM Chicago office for allowing me access to become the Director of Computer in the form of computation (Grasshopper)
SOM is Going to Town, the employees sang, to the tune
to the firms archives. Applications at The Architects Collaborative; types, rendering and visualization teams,
of Santa Claus is Coming to Town. You better watch Yet today, with the fascination for big data, embedded 2
C. David Sides, Interview with David Sides, his name is credited as such on the paper and BIM management. See Parametric
out / Our forces combined / Were making a product/ once again in the conversation are the echoes of what Phone interview conducted by the author, Computer Systems for Urban Design and Schizophrenia by Peggy Deamer in:
Well call it SKYLINE.51 This ominous jingle referred to was heard early in SOMs pioneering digital applications: November 11, 2014. Development, Journal of the Urban Planning Poole, Matthew, and Manuel Shvartzberg,
3
G. Neil Harper, BOPAn Approach to Division, April 1971. eds. The Politics of Parametricism: Digital
the sale to IBM of AES, the crown jewel of the Computer a shift from mechanisation to a more total simulation Building Optimization, in Proceedings of the 18
Bruce Graham, Computer Graphics in Technologies in Architecture (London;
Groups efforts that brought together past investigations on the bootstraps of computation. Architects appear 1968 23rd ACM National Conference, ACM Architectural Practice, (presented at the New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015).
in drafting and modelling into one comprehensive to be once again retaking the reins in the creation 68 (New York, NY, USA: ACM, 1968), 575. Yale Conference on Computer Graphics 41
Sides, Interview.
4
This anecdote is also described in: C. David in Architecture, New Haven, CT: Yale School 42
Peter Little, 9 Cities by Skidmore, Owings
application. After its acquisition, it became apparent of the digital tools used in architecture production, such Sides, Notes on Computers an Architecture, of Art and Architecture, 1968), 2430. & Merrill 1984. Scanned from the Original
that, compared to the other products in the field, as plugins like Grasshopper and Dynamo. In 1994, when in Reflections on Computer Aids to Design 19
Ibid. 16mm Film, 1984, http://vimeo.com/93315120.
SKYLINE was too expensive and too comprehensive Gehry Technologies was founded, Frank Gehry critiqued and Architecture, ed. Nicholas Negroponte 20
Yasmin Sabina Khan, Engineering 43
Adams, Creating the Future, 136, note 68.
(New York: Petrocelli/Charter, 1975): 128. Architecture: The Vision of Fazlur R. Khan 44
Teague, Sommerfeld, Sutphin, and Harper,
in its scope for the needs of other firms. It never sold architectural computer programmes for remaining 5
Ibid., 575. Emphasis added. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2004): 113. Computer Systems for Urban Design and
well and was ultimately shelved.52 However, SOM tethered to an analogous paper-based, two-dimensional 6
M uch of this research draws from a 21
Final calculations were outsourced to Development, Journal of the Urban Planning
continued collaborating with IBM, proving the offices world.54 Sociologist Bruno Latour critiqued the comprehensive text by historian Nicholas consultants with bigger computing power. Division, Proceedings of the American Society
Adams, which covered the work of the Ibid., 114. of Civil Engineers, April 1971.
close relationship; in 1988, InfoWorld quoted SOMs architectural profession for remaining with analogue Computer Group, and also led to a SOM 22
Oral History of Walter Netsch, interview 45
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. SOM Systems-
Douglas Stoker in an article about the roll-out of new Euclidian space, deluded by static images in glossy symposium reflecting on similar contents: by Betty J. Blum, 2000 1997, Art Institute SARAPI. Place of publication not identified:
products and cited SOM as continuing to co-develop magazines of buildings without recognising their perpetual Nicholas Adams, Creating the Future of Chicago Archives: 127. Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, 1972.
(196486), in SOM Journal 8, ed. Peter 23
C. David Sides, A Transition in Architecture: 46
SARAPI drew, in part, from a programme
software with IBM.53 movement and complexity of behaviour.55 These barbs
MacKeith (Hatje Cantz, 2013); also: Comments On Development of Architectural called TABLE that Teague developed at
signal a wider discontent with the state of software Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Digital Design Information Systems, March 22, 1969. SOM as an outgrowth of his masters thesis.
Within a few years in the mid-1990s, the applications building upon old analogue methods of drafting, and at SOM: The Past, Present and Future, Report provided to the author by Lavette (Teague, Memoir, 6).
SOM had helped to pioneer would return from the world point towards a reconsideration of some of the early Streaming video (Arts Club of Chicago, 2012), Teague, meeting organiser; memo was 47
Nicholas Negroponte, The Architecture
http://vimeo.com/100126982. issued for reference and use during meeting. Machine: Toward a More Human Environment
outside, changed and repackaged, infiltrate the office dreams of the Computer Group. 7
Adams, Creating the Future, 136, note 68. 24
Fallon, Early Computer Graphics, 24. (Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1973).
and replace the now-outdated customised solutions 8
Ibid., 135, note 16. 25
Information specifically on this conference 48
The Information Explosion, advertisement,
of the Computer Group. Over time, SOM relocated Ultimately, the Computer Group was not focused
9
Bruce Graham cites the use of BOP on these was requested from the SOM Archivist, Advertising B7, 196061, IBM. As cited in:
two buildings in his contribution to: Conference but none could be found. Most information Alexandra Lange, Tower Typewriter and
their practice completely from the drafting table to the exclusively on the effect of the computer in architecture on Computer Graphics in Architecture, Milne. gathered on this event are from interviews Trademark: Architects, Designers and
interfaces of a suite of commercially available program- on the built environment, but also on the potential effect Computer Graphics in Architecture and with Lavette Teague and David Sides, who the Corporate Utopia, 195664 (New York
mes. Across the industry, this first wave of architects- this new partner might in turn have on the architect. Design: Proceedings. Yale School of Art were in attendance, and kept some personal University, Graduate School of Arts and
and Architecture, 1969. documents which they authored or received. Science, 2005).
as-programmers operating under the aegis of large In his paper on BOP, Harper mourned that only a few 10
Sides, Interview. 26
Sides, Interview. 49
Sides, Notes on Computers, 128.
offices came to an end in the late 1980s, heralding the rare architects were able to propose, sort through and 11
Conference on Computer Graphics in 27
Lavette Teague, To: Participants in the 50
Ibid.
beginning of a new era of commercially available drafting synthesise the vast number of possibilities for a building Architecture, Milne. Computer Graphics Sterling Forest Meeting, March 2122, 1969. 51
Adams, Creating the Future, 131.
in Architecture and Design: Proceedings. Re: Agenda and Preparation for Meeting, 52
AES was pricey: between $22,000 and
software. Founded in 1982, Autodesk rose quickly to the that any site provoked. Yet he saw BOP as the next Yale School of Art and Architecture, 1969. February 28, 1969. Memo provided to the $35,000 for a minimum to typical configuration.
top of the market gap with their flagship programme stage in the architects evolution towards a perfectly 12
Ibid. author by Lavette Teague. Limited though it was to two dimensions,
AutoCAD, by targeting and reaching the small optimised building. It is conceivable, Harper wrote, 13
Nicholas Negroponte, The Architecture 28
Based on the date, it is not clear whether this AutoCAD, the word processor for drawings,
architectural firms with limited budgets and drafting that these as yet unexplained human abilities can be Machine: Toward a More Human Environment was John O. Merrill, the offices eponymous cost between $1000 and $2500, Adams,
(Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1973). founder (who passed away in 1975) or his son. Creating the Future, 132.
and documentation needs. Other independent software extended and magnified if proper use could be made 14
Kristine K. Fallon, Early Computer Graphics 29
Sides, A Transition, 11. 53
Alice LaPlante and Jeff Angus, IBM Promises
companies emerged to compete with them, including of appropriate computer techniques dealing with Developments in the Architecture, 30
Interview with David Sides, Phone conducted Major Rollouts Will Continue,
McNeel, which developed AutoCAD-based modelling that information processing.56 The average designer, through Engineering and Construction Industry, by the author, November 11, 2014. Info World: The PC News Weekly, February
IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 20, 31
Douglas Stoker worked in SOMs Computer 22, 1988.
allowed for the modelling of free-form and curves-based computational logistics, could be elevated to a genius. no. 2 (June 1998): 2029. Group from 197089 and was the Groups 54
New Gehry Technologies Will Enable Many
15
Currently, we are marketing HOK Draw, HOK leader in the Chicago office. to Boldly Go Where Only Frank Has Gone
Space, Plot Database (report format), and 32
Adams, Creating the Future, 123. Before, Architectural Record, October 2003.
Invest (lease analysis). By the end of the year, 33
Ibid. 55
Bruno Latour and Albena Yaneva, Give Me
we will offer six more systems from stacking 34
Skidmore Owings & Merrill, Computer a Gun and I Will Make All Buildings Move:
and blocking to an interface between HOK Capability, 1980, SOM Chicago archives. An ANTs View of Architecture, in Explorations
Draw and other CAD software. Progressive 35
SOMS Computer Approach in Architecture: Teaching, Design, Research
Architecture, Vol. 66 (Reinhold Publishing Architectural Record, August 1980. (Basel: Birkhuser, 2008).
Corporation, 1985), 141. 36
Adams, Creating the Future, 136, note 54. 56
Harper, BOP, 575.

232 Protocols Papers 233

Deconstructive Cartography
Dominique Cheng

Maps express varying interpretations of the land around The map is stripped of any reference to a specific
us through figuration and colour; they convey spatial geographical locationno text or borders are indicated.
information by organising and categorising symbols and Instead, the architecture of the city is represented as
codes into comprehensible diagrams. The lines we see a dense network of signs and shapes that are tentatively
on maps may vary in weight to describe both the hierarchy held together by a unifying strokethe flight path.
of borders between regions and variations in topography. The physical drawings themselves are multilayered
While some maps can be ambiguous, they are more in composition, comprising transparent Dura-Lar
often than not carefully curated, and occasionally themed, sheets on which the line work is imprinted and clippings
to impart a particular understanding of reality. But to of printed media superimposed. Each formal layer could
the extent that maps are constructed, they can also be be seen to signify a specific point of view or perspective
deconstructed: by combining the discursive, linguistic of the city:
and visual conventions of cartography with architectural
drawings, one can try to subvert what is known about a The first layer is an architectural drawing of buildings
place in an effort to evoke a different awareness of that and infrastructurethe urbanscape, then, can be read
place, one that is collectively evoked through the sharing as concentrations of built elements reduced to simple
of memories and experiences of a foregone urban Platonic forms with their heights accurately depicted.
phenomenonin this case, a spectacular landing
approach into a city. What happens when the relationship The second layer is an abstracted topographical drawing
between symbols and codes on a map is blurred or the terrain on which the architecture is situated appears
removed entirely? Can maps be used to describe the as a series of remote land masses floating in space.
procession of time and movement; to describe, in other
words, a fourth dimension? Aeronautical charts, which are navigation tools used by
pilots to fix an aircrafts position in space, provide an
The 1331 series, which began in 2013, belongs to a larger analytical layer of directional vectors and numerical data.
study of deconstructive cartography; more specifically, They describe optimal flight paths into, out of and around
it refers to the purposeful reduction of a map to one cities by demarcating the trajectories and boundaries
of its aspects through the erasure of known information within airspace.
and bricolage. The series was created to trace the
inextricable relationship between the growth of a city The fourth layer of scientific diagrams, derived from
and its airportin this case, South Kowloon and the old biology and chemistry textbooks, adds a layer
(now defunct) Kai Tak International Airport of abstraction that promotes an understanding
of the city as an ever-evolving biological organism.
When Kai Tak Airport (former Hong Kong International
Airport) was officially retired in July 1998, plane spotters The fifth layer consists of trajectory lines that trace
who frequently watched the spectacle of commercial all possible flight paths through the city by interpolating
aircraft sweeping across South Kowloon at dangerously the directional vector data from aeronautical charts.
low altitudes before making their final approach onto
Runway 13/31 were beset by feelings of loss. The landing The resulting drawing becomes more than just a static
approach, in particular, left an indelible impression on two-dimensional articulation of space; rather, it formulates
the urban fabric, virtually inscribing a path of distinct a much more complex narrative about the history
low-rise buildings along its trajectory as a result of aviation and memory of a place through the superimposition
clearance requirements. The relationship between the of disparate layers of information about the city.
city and the landing approach was a constant negotiation
of spaceurban space to aerospace.

Figs.1 and 2: Dominique Cheng, 1331 (Southeast). Studies of South Kowloon in isometric
viewed from the southwest. The trajectory of the landing approach is traced.

234 Protocols Projects 235

Recording of Heritage Buildings:
From Measured Drawing to 3D Laser Scanning
Bernadette Devilat

This essay explores different techniques used to record and twentieth centuries. Most early literature about
existing buildings through time and the application of the heritage conservation stems from around the fourteenth
most recent ones in the case of Ziga, a heritage village century.3 This entails a question: how did buildings survive
in Chile affected by a major earthquake in 2010, which prior to their preservation and conservation? Lowenthal4
had a magnitude of 8.8 Mw scale. Because earthquakes offers a theory based on tradition, where people
are common in Chile, regularly destroying built heritage, respected and used that which was left from previous
the idea of the record for reconstruction, replacement generations. This re-use of existing buildings can be
and replica provides a rich field of inquiry. seen as a form of preservation; by protecting them from
vandalism and ruination, not consciously but merely
The aim of this study is to examine whether 3D scanning as a tradition, the job of conservation is carried out.
could be an effective wayin terms of time and
resourcesof accurately recording historical dwellings In later eras, the risk of buildings disappearing due to
compared to measured drawing. By describing and war, conflict or various other developments generated
superimposing 3D scanning and hand-measured drawing a series of new conservation tasks. These efforts were
of one dwelling, the limits and benefits of 3D scan known as the Conservation Movement. 5 Buildings
technology are explored. The implications of this tool as were turned into heritage sites via a series of regulations
a recording method are also addressed, establishing the that were created in order to protect them as much
future challenges for drawing and the idea of replication as possible for future generations. This was when the
that it presents. recording of buildings became systematically guided
by heritage institutions and the establishment of heritage
Currently, one of the main reasons why heritage buildings charters. This record can then be used as a basis for
are recorded is for preservation, but it was not always future restoration and reconstruction.
thus. Before the nineteenth century, recording of
existing buildings was done to extract design criteria There is plenty of technical literature about how to
from them for construction aims, such as Vitruvius plan and execute a survey of historic buildings using a
Ten Books on Architecture. Although it was not written range of methods, from hand-drawing to laser scanning.
Fig.2: Bernadette Devilat, Dwelling the Record, 2014. Plan and section obtained using the 3D laser
with the aim of documenting existing buildings, because Measured drawing was used as the primary survey tool scan record from 2013 of an inhabited ruined house (House 1) in Ziga, Chile.
it shows how buildings were constructed in around for heritage recording and preservation until the most
2030 BC, it has now become an important piece recent recording technologies, such as photogrammetry
of historical documentation. and 3D laser scanning, displaced the role of drawing
for this purpose. However, the hand-measuring method
According to Siwicki1 and Choay2, the idea of preserving is still currently the most popular for recording existing
heritage is rather new. Others argue that the preservation buildings. It is cheap and anybody can do it. It consists
of existing buildings always existed, although some suggest of taking the measurements of a construction using
that it became a proper movement in the nineteenth a measuring tape and then translating those measure-
ments into a drawing. It has obvious inconveniences,
such as the speed of the process, the impossibility of
reaching heights and other inaccessible spaces and the
need for the person(s) carrying out the survey to reliably
determine its accuracy. Technical architectural drawings
based on hand measurements taken on site have become
more and more exact over the years as measurement
techniques have improved. The introduction of handheld
lasers and the use of photography have improved the
results of heritage surveys further. Photography offered
as well an unprecedented type of crutch: it introduced
a new standard of evidence.6

Despite photographys lack of measurements, it is probably

the most used recording method nowadays because
it is efficient and easily available. Although not accurate,
measurements can be extracted from photographs using
algorithms to correct perspective and distortions. This is
Fig.1: Bernadette Devilat, Ziga, 2016.Top view from the 3D scanning
model of the central part of Ziga, Chile, using the data obtained the starting point of photogrammetry, which revolutionised Fig.3: Bernadette Devilat, Drawing vs. 3D scanning, 2016. Superimposition of 3D laser scanning data from
on-site in 2013. the way heritage buildings were recorded. It began to be 2013 and hand-measured drawings from 2012 of House 2 in plan, elevation and section in Ziga, Chile.

236 Protocols Projects 237

 which is especially relevant when studying why a building
might have failed. There is a common need for a safe,
quick and economic survey of damaged built heritage,
and the usefulness of the 3D laser scanning for this task
has been proven.7 All these aspects convert this method
to an economic documenting toolin comparison to
traditional recording methods such as hand-measured
drawing and photographywith the potential for replication
in similar cases around the world.

Architectural plans of the houses that are part of Chilean

historical areas are usually not available, either because
they have not been designed using technical drawings
or because they are too old to be found in archives. Thus,
most of the records and surveys have to be done after
an earthquake. Following the 2010 earthquake, documents
and plans including as-built dimensions were needed
as a basis for any repair or reconstruction. Usually,
dimensions are taken on site by hand and then transferred
to a digital drawing, which tends to be a slow process.
This work is habitually carried out by architectural students
volunteering for that purpose, which frequently
happens after an earthquake. Other techniques such
as photogrammetry and 3D scanning were not massively
used on houses after the earthquakeonly on significant
buildings, as special commissionsas it was considered
too expensive, even for dwellings that were part of
declared heritage areas.
Fig.4: Bernadette Devilat, House and vegetation, 2014. Elevation image
from the 3D laser scanning done in 2013 of House 1 in Ziga, Chile.
It is interesting to compare the amount and quality of
widely used from the 1960s onwards and thereafter was data obtained and the time invested by using traditional
implemented by heritage institutions. As confirmed by surveying methods and 3D laser scanning, based on
the relevant bibliography, the use of photogrammetry previous experiences where the author has been involved.
to document historic buildings was suggested by heritage During the 3D scanning survey of 2013, most of the
institutionssuch as ICOMOS (1968)as a way to insides of the houses were scanned, but the focus was
preserve them, especially endangered constructions, set to scan most of the historic area from its streets.
encouraging governments to carry out surveys to 176 3D scans were taken in three days by two people.
record as much as possible of their architectural past.
Similar attitudes can be found in recent years referring The comparison has been drawn for House 28 In Ziga.
to 3D laser scanning. It is not only a house inside the typical zone, but also it
has been declared a historic monument for its distinctive
3D laser scanning is a quick recording technology (Fig.1) features on its access portico and faade. Thus, a
that provides a three-dimensional point cloud from which detailed plan has been obtained, which was compared
any view can be extracted later and any dimension can with a study of the same property done by Estudio 360,
be obtained within an accuracy of millimetres (Fig.2). The Beatriz Valenzuela & Associated Architects in 2012.
result is a measurable 3D digital model of reality. Images, Her practice was in charge of developing several
technical drawings (Fig.3), videos1 and even physical retrofitting and reconstruction projects for dwellings in
models can be generated from this data. The amount Ziga. That intervention was designed using traditional
and precision of data collected with this technique are survey methods, based on handmade dimensioning Fig.5: Bernadette Devilat, Domesticity, 2015. Axonometric view from
certainly the best possible so far, which has implications and drawing. Fig.5 shows a comparison between the 3D scan data from 2013 of the interior of House 2 in Ziga, Chile.
for new and existing architectures and poses a digital drawings based on the hand measurements and
question about the use of traditional drawing in a context the 3D laser scans, where it is possible to identify a series
where high-quality data can be obtained in less time of problems with the hand-measured drawings. First,
than ever before. in the 2012 survey, elements of the construction are
assumed to be rectilinear, such as its windows, doors,
Aside from the specificity of surveying heritage walls and heights. Second, the survey does not identify
buildings after disasters to planning and designing after the relevant distortions and cracks, but only the most
earthquakes, the record is also relevant as a practical damaged walls that require reconstruction. Third,
tool for intervention. As a post-earthquake survey tool, one part of the dwelling has an angle of rotation in
3D laser scanning provides quick and accurate information relation to the main faade, which was only captured
that can also be accessed at any time in the future, in the 3D scanning survey. Fourth, heights and other

238 Protocols Projects 239

measurements are also incorrect when compared to
3D scan data that has a precision of millimetres.
interventions. This is particularly important in seismic
contexts such as Ziga where destruction and Riots important as the resulting drawing itself. These drawings
do not capture the representation of a singular object.
reconstruction are regular and continuous processes. Owen Duross They are comprised of systems that constantly resituate
3D laser scanning has several limitations. In this case, and redefine through intervention and interference,
a terrestrial laser scannerFaro Focus 3Dwas used. The availability of these records poses an interesting Architectural representation relies on an implicit resulting in fragments with uncertain origins.
As it records surfaces only, the position and alignment of question for the conservation of buildings, regarding vernacular to communicate intent, where the means
the equipment before data collection is critical depending how we might preserve a three-dimensional digital by which communicating this intent is layered and The resultant complexity is compounded by iteration,
on the target. Also, mishandling the equipment can result version that could justify both its demolition and complex. Drawings give visual description to architecture introducing new overlaps and juxtapositions to proliferate
in data loss. However, even when data collection is done replacement or its replica. As recording technologies in a language that privileges translation over transcription, matter into offspring for repetitive manipulation. Through
correctly, some objects and areas can not be adequately advance, the record of buildings is becoming enough revealing specificity and difference in a composite of iteration, new matter is produced from the drawn entity,
recorded, such as shiny and transparent surfaces. justification even to return the building to a state that codified entities. The methods used to communicate building on its transformative conditions, and repositioned
However, as a tool that is being continuously updated, has not been physically present for years. We have come this information rely on the translation of its qualities and to create a relationship through its informational history
its limitations might soon be out of date and/or resolved to a point where reconstruction is highly dependent on the potency of its content. Within these methods are to the extracted original. Its effects shift what were once
by new developments in software and hardware. the availability of previous records, thus the importance logics that seek to mediate interpretation with a mutual its emergent qualities into systemic patterns and explicit
given to them is enormous. Yet in heritage contexts syntax, yet also to negotiate in a malleable process where results to then be mined for the invention of new devices
The uniqueness of this type of record for Ziga sets where destruction is a regular process, recording is distinctness and ambiguity coexist. When interlinked that nurture deviations from the legibility of the drawing
a precedent, not only as the first 3D laser scanning of not. Despite that, reconstruction is a consistentusually with digital protocols, generative drawing techniques in space. As the methods that comprise these devices
the village but also in terms of how it might acquire more not critically questionedprocess. These aspects are architecture have the capacity to augment imaging and become operative, extraction and invention become
relevance if its structures continue to be destroyed by further explored as part of the authors ongoing doctoral abstraction into active conditions for the development interchangeable as drawing and model present shifted
earthquakes in the future. Although the availability of research, titled: Reconstruction and record: exploring of the unknown. The act of drawing incorporates realities and undefined transgressions of time and matter,
records can always be considered positive because they alternatives for heritage areas after earthquakes in Chile, this with computation and visualisation techniques providing opportunities for opposition and conflict.
contain key information from a particular period, the 3D supervised by Professor Stephen Gage and Dr. Camillo as forms of spatial generation replete with useful Geometries collide, nestle and misalign to create adjacen-
scan record can also override other forms of document- Boano at the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture. representational languages. In their modified state, cies within complex surfaces and dense zones of data.
ation. Its accuracy and completeness might frame these languages introduce a series of relationships with
the scanned iteration as the most authentic one, Finally, the comprehensiveness and accuracy of 3D laser complex spatial encounters and atypical non-sequiturs Three-dimensional form is veiled by mapped surfaces
over previous versions only existing in drawings and scanning change the role of hand-drawing where the for dynamic investigation. of shadow and figure, making the full fidelity of objects
photographs. It is relevant to remember that the documentation of heritage building is concerned. 3D in the drawing half-known. Objects rendered as images
3D scan will always be the record of a specific moment scans are descriptive, complete and close to a perfect Motivated by the continuous mediation between digital are folded back into the geometry of the drawing space,
of a building and the amount and accuracy of the data record of a particular moment of a building. In contrast, modelling and representational drawing techniques, Riots merging rendered image with modelled form. Figural
collected with it does not transform it into the truthful hand-drawing would have to be understood as a vehicle attempts to use drawing as more than a static portrayal shapes and obfuscated geometries dissemble for
and real version that should be preserved in futurev for action and transformation. of likeness through explanation; these are amalgamations new readings of dimension and proportion. Hidden
of embedded histories with variable identifications, geometries are exposed with representational logics
to be understood through a catalogue of multiplicities. of space and measure, as depth is revealed through
This develops a method where each drawing is related shadow and line, only to become flat between planes
to one another, impregnated with the residual automata of information. This notation beguiles form into sprayed
of interconnected generations of drawings in translation. screens and scraped mass, expressing architectural
Each drawing is an artefact of this recursive process, data in sporadic clusters of saturated grit and debris.
embedding information that links its making and memory. Graphical marks reveal plotted logics with descriptive
Because of this, the making of each drawing is just as symbols and registrations, but posit formal anomalies
and spatial disjunctions which produce distant
misinterpretations and visual interruptions, collapsing
into a layered field of foreign matter. These operations
reveal new patterns and emerging systems that
become new sources for extraction and reinvention
back in the drawing scene.
1
C  hristopher Stephen Siwicki, Architectural Restoration and the
Concept of Built Heritage in Imperial Rome, (Ph.D. diss., University
of Exeter, UK, 2015). Accidents and corruptions are valued as effects
2
Franoise Choay, The Invention of the Historic Monument (Cambridge: that provoke a new capacity for operation, magnifying
Cambridge University Press, 2001), 9. the perceived verity of the native manoeuvres and
3
Jukka Jokilehto, A History of Architectural Conservation.
The Contribution of English, French, German and Italian Thought
fractured imagery. These simulated breaks alter the
towards an International Approach to the Conservation of Cultural expected or conventional systems of communicating
Property, (PhD diss., University of York, 1986). information, fostering distributed interpretations
4
David Lowenthal, Heritage Ascendant in The Heritage Crusade and
the Spoils of History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
of absolute formal depictions. As incorrectness and
5
Miles Glendinning, The Conservation Movement: A History of interruption infuse the conventional structures of
Architectural Preservation: Antiquity to Modernity (London: normative architectural description, the relationships
Routledge, 2013).
they manufacture are interrogated, delivering false
6
Choay, The Invention of the Historic Monument, 9.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 7
Bernadette Devilat, 3D laser scanning for recording heritage areas readings that alter their definition. Architectural
in post-earthquake reconstruction. The cases of Lolol and Ziga in representation uses notation to identify and deliver
Special thanks to Max Cruz, Fernanda Vargas and Francisca Carter, Chile, in VI AISU CONGRESS, Catania, Italy, 1214 September 2013. a relationship of graphical logic to formal complexity
who helped in the on-site data capture; and to Diego Ramrez, Scrimm Edizione, November 2014. p. 20132024. Available at: Fig.1: Owen Duross, Proxy Cast, 2015. Each bust is sequential, caught
who facilitated the 3D scanning equipment. Also, to Matthew Shaw http://bit.ly/1QItFW2. in a state of unstructured narrative characterizing an inexactness and spatial indeterminacya language that these
and William Trossell from ScanLAB Projects. 8
Video of House 2 in Ziga available at: https://vimeo.com/125778121. that intuits the individual and the destruction of their half-familiar figure. drawings seek to reinterpret and exploit.

240 Protocols Projects 241

 Fig.3: Owen Duross, Intimate Beast, 2015. Mixing bodies alters the
resolution of shape and image with black masses and pixelated fringes.

Fig.2: Owen Duross, Mongrel Battery, 2015. Markers of measure and dimension code unstructured
data space, expanding depth into a scattered field of floating poch and notational dust.

Fig.4: Owen Duross, DataTongue, 2015. Matter and notation visually collapse
through skips, lapses, and smears to re-seam the continuity of a graphical strip.

242 Protocols Projects 243

The Animate Drawing obstructed the possibility of elaborating the relationships
with the neighbouring rooms, unlike a conventional plan
Anna Hougaard drawing, and also because it made it difficult to set the
furniture free from the walls and draw a spatial scenario
Oscillating between life and death,1 drawing can be as with a perspective. So although mutations led to
described as an animate condition. As an architectural the techniques death, it was also during mutational
convention, drawing seems to find new forms over and phases that the openings occurred: openings for new
over again in congruence with changing architectural ways of drawing and new ways of living.
moods and with technological and social developments,
and as a subjective practice it can feel as if a drawing CONTEMPORARY DRAWING MUTATIONS?
is constantly regenerating itself as you draw along.
In the present text, drawing is contemplated as being Architectural drawing today is also undergoing change.5
evolutionary, mutating and animate, and framed If we define conventional architectural drawing in Evans
by Robin Evanss essay The Developed Surface: sense, it has three geometriesone for looking (projective
An Enquiry into the Brief Life of an Eighteenth-Century geometry), one for making (descriptive geometry) and
Drawing Technique.2 finally signified geometry; that is, geometry as a purpose
in itself, laden with symbolic and aesthetic choices rather
A MUTATING DRAWING TECHNIQUE than fulfilling functional duties.6 If we define drawing
accordingly rather than as a pen and paper activity,
In the essay, Evans investigates some interior drawings drawing is still a very widespread way of looking at and
from around 1760 to 1820 of upper-class British homes thinking about architecture7 that is hybridising with digital
drawn by architects such as Gillows and Co. and Thomas design media. While architectural working media are
Sheraton. These interior drawings make him wonder, changing, conventional drawing upholds an orthogonal
because they are drawn differently from usual, namely view of things and a shared reference frame for reading
with what he terms the developed surface drawing architecture, and this development creates drawing
technique. The technique allowed the architect to unfold mutationsanimate and searching drawingswhich can
the walls of a room as if they were hinged to the floor, cultivate and question the openings in the conventions
an operation that would make it easy to decorate all and look for emerging sets of related practices, to
the interior surfaces as one continuous skin. This way paraphrase Evans.
of folding a room out would focus attention on one room
at a time, delving entirely into its world and cultivating An interesting view in relation hereto is given by Mario
different historical styles; the technique has what Carpo in The Alphabet and The Algorithm, which fore-
Evans calls a centrifugal effect,3 obstructing relations to grounds digital design affordances. Carpo prognosticates
neighbouring rooms and focusing attention on a rooms that the creation of algorithms will replace drawing as
middle, which was left empty like the eye of a storm. This a broad media convention in architecture. Inspired by
effect, however, was in congruence with the way people Nelson Goodmans notational theory,8 Carpo emphasises
inhabited the room at the time, where the floor was the ever-developing role of digital notation and points
left empty and furniture was arranged along the walls, out that architectural authorship is changing when digital
mirroring a way of behaving in hierarchically defined notation is increasing: not only do architects today share
social patterns. So the centrifugal effect of the drawing authorship with software, but also the use of participatory
technique, interestingly, was in congruence with social social media offers new and quite untried architectural
behaviour and also in congruence with architectural design possibilities.9 This is interesting because
aesthetics, since it enabled the outspoken ornamentation as Evans outlined in his essaythe social space brings
of the interior surfaces. an important influence with it in the set of other related
practices that affect the creation of architecture.
Hence, Evans describes a set of related practices
where the drawing technique was embedded in a nexus I have worked with these ideas in the drawings presented
of other events;4 that is, different conditions were acting here, which reanimate the extinct drawing technique Fig.1: Anna Katrine Hougaard, Developed Surface Map, 2014, CAD drawing, no scale, c.7070cm.
The map notates the game pieces possible movements. Plan and elevation elements are combined
upon one anotheraesthetics, social behaviour and and a social space invoked by structuralist architects in in an abstract pattern where change over time is described simultaneously, without beginning or end.
drawing techniquein such a way that a mutation in the the 1960s. Structuralist architects desired urban, dense
conventional way of drawing happened, which led to the and flexible spaces, deliberately aiming at their being
use of the developed surface drawing technique. Evans changed over time in accordance with human needs.
considers the historical cause of events in an evolutionary A project such as The Free University in Berlin, by Candilis,
way, where both the emerging use of the technique Josic and Woods, approached this wish by means of
and later its retrogression are a sort of mutation in the drawing a mesh-like structure in which modules could be
conventions. Both mutations happened in close response placed and in principle be relocated according to needs.10
to changing social customs. For instance, the second Projects such as Constant Nieuwenhuiss New Babylon
mutation occurred where the use of the technique were also contemplating such ideas.11 In parallel,
regressed, influenced by the social impulse to inhabit the experimental musicians like John Cage were questioning
floor as social interaction became freer. The technique conventionalised notational forms and ideas of
made this wish difficult to design for, both because it authorship by drawing out fields for playing, in which the

244 Protocols Projects 245

 musician and sometimes the audience would have to
co-create the artwork.12 In such musical and architectural
open works, there is a desire for enabling a participatory
social space to meet with aesthetics in loosely organised
ways, an idea that has been contemplated in these
drawings, too. They are maps of loosely planned generic
sites that are open for reconfiguration over time. The
maps aesthetic is derived from the developed surface
technique, where spaces can fold orthogonally. Hence,
the developed surface technique is projected onto a
larger scale than the domestic and is related to a field for
playing where small spaces can be arranged in various
ways and reconfigured by the players.

1
C  f. the many current discussions of drawings future, e.g. Is Drawing
Dead? Conference held at The Yale School of Architecture in 2012;
David Ross Scheer, The Death of Drawing (London and New York:
Routledge, 2014); Mario Carpo, The Alphabet and the Algorithm
(Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: The MIT Press, 2011);
Neil Spiller, ed., AD Drawing + Architecture, vol. 83, no. 5 (Sept/Oct
2013); Paolo Belardi, Why Architects Still Draw, trans. Zachary Nowak
(Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England: The MT Press, 2014).
2
Robin Evans, The Developed Surface: An Enquiry into the Brief Life
of an Eighteenth-Century Drawing Technique, in Translations from
Drawing to Building and Other Essays (London: Architectural
Association Publishers, 1997), 195233.
3
Ibid., 20910.
4
Ibid., 200, 227.
5
See note 1.
6
Robin Evans, The Projective CastArchitecture and its Three
Geometries (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England:
Fig.2: Anna Katrine Hougaard, Developed Surface Animation, 2014, The MIT Press, 1995), xxvxxxvii, 349.
superimposed renderings. This map is made from some stills from a
7
See the authors PhD thesis for a discussion of drawing
3D animation depicting a field of game pieces in various states of foldedness. as an orthogonal way of looking. Anna Katrine Hougaard,
The Animate Drawing, (PhD Diss., 2016, KADK).
8
Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art, 2nd edn (Indianapolis,
Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1976).
9
Mario Carpo, The Alphabet and the Algorithm (Cambridge,
Massachusetts; London, England: The MIT Press, 2011);
10
For various discussions of The Free University see Toms Valena,
Tom Avermaete, and Georg Vrachliotis, eds., Structuralism Reloaded:
Rule-Based Design in Architecture and Urbanism (Stuttgart/London:
Edition Axel Menges, 2011).
11
Simon Sadler, The Situationist City (Cambridge, Massachusetts;
London, England: The MIT Press, 1999), 10551.
12
See, for instance, John Cage, Notations (New York: Something
Else Press Inc., 1969).

246 Projects 247

Variable Information Lineweights While computer-aided drafting (CAD) offers a more
plastic interface for rendering linework, the current
Ryan Luke Johns practice of prescribing weights to architectural lines
still bears a strong resemblance to the use of a fixed
set of Rapidograph pens. Digital line data can be divided
into an array of layers or objects that can be given a
unique line weight, but each line still maintains a uniform
width along its length. Despite the abundance of
parametric features in digital modelling software, no
clear CAD protocol exists for rendering a stroke with
a controlled, variable width.

Variable Information Lineweights is a work-in-progress

method for rendering three-dimensional models with
Fig.3: Ryan Luke Johns, Variable Information Lineweights, 2016.
non-uniform line weights that are dynamically linked Drawing setup with six-axis robotic plotter.
to datasets of object properties (such as light exposure,
depth and structure). At present, the software is used
to directly output drawing code to an industrial robot
(ABB IRB 6400), but the basic premise can be applied
to a number of rendering strategies: curves are stored
in a vector format, where each vertex is paired with a
corresponding line weight (Fig.3).

The relatively modest software ~2,000 lines is written

in Processing and creates a link between geometry data
(from Rhino) and surface attributesproviding a visual
interface for tuning the relationship between these
parameters and the rendered lines (Fig.4).1, 2 Geometry
data is divided into layers in Rhino and exported with a
custom descriptor document generated in Grasshopper.3
Once imported into the Processing software, each layer
is assigned an automatically generated control panel,
which provides a series of sliders and editable bezier-
Fig.4: Ryan Luke Johns, Variable Information Lineweights, 2016,
based mapping functions. These sliders control basic Rendered surface based on C.H. Waddingtons Epigenetic Landscape.
parameters, such as minimum and maximum line Linework determined by ambient occlusion and depth.
width, and more advanced parameters, such as
Fig.1: Ryan Luke Johns, Rigid Bodies, 2016, ink on Mylar, 91.4177.8cm. Variable line weight rendering the ratio of influence of various attributes over line their last axis indefinitely, certain long curves with
of rigid body simulation of random geometric primitives and terrain. Line frequency and weight are
determined algorithmically based on a combination of depth (distance from viewer) and light exposure. weight or the probability that a given vertex is rendered significant rotations require that the robot lift up the
at all. For example, a layer might be set up such that pen, reset the rotation of the exceeding axis and then
the foreground is more heavily influenced by scene continue with the line).
lighting, while the background is more heavily influenced
by the distance between the object and the camera The robot is equipped with a custom spring-loaded
or viewer. The attributes that determine line weights penholder that accommodates a variety of pen and
can be loaded and correlated with the vertex data marker types. A single calligraphy pen (6mm Pilot
in a number of ways: either as a list of values, as Parallel) is used in these sample images, which allows
an aligned black and white image or directly from for a stroke-width range of .0656mm depending
the 3D information. on rotation.

Once the shading strategy is tuned and selected, The included images represent the first stage tests of
the software outputs robot code directly. This process this technique, which remains in development. While far
involves optimising the drawing for robot motion by from streamlined, the process enables fast prototyping
reducing unnecessary vertices, sorting and reversing of drawings with various types of data embedded into
curve direction to minimise transfer distances (and the linework and an intuitive control panel for editing
drawing time) and adding routines for avoiding robot the influence of each data type over the final image
joint errors (as most industrial robots cannot spin (Figs.12).

Fig.2: Ryan Luke Johns, Vault, 2016, ink on Mylar, 91.4220cm. Variable line weight rendering
of non-uniform thin-shell vault. Surface contour line weight conveys the von Mises stress diagram 1
p rocessing.org
of the structure, while border line weight is determined by the depth. 2
rhino3d.com
3
grasshopper3d.com

248 Protocols Projects 249

Timberland, or How to Design
a Sustainable City in Excel
Keith Krumwiede

Timberland is an ongoing investigation into the defining urban block, the grain of the urban fabric
production of a low-carbon building and city building itself transforms as a range of crossbred conditions
system. In the United States, it is increasingly clear that emerge between the base typologies: at one end,
conventional housing practices and products hold little the single family house standing alone in the centre of
promise of a sustainable solution to the environmental its individual parcel; in the centre, the urban courtyard
and economic crises we face. We must adapt. Wood, the building filling its city block; and at the other end,
most ubiquitousand inherently sustainablebuilding the freestanding suburban commercial box floating
material in use today, is used primarily in the construction in a sea of parking.
of single-family houses built at low densities, an inherently
unsustainable development model. Conversely, higher The projects continuously differentiated plan was
density urban districts are most typically constructed generated using a ratio-based formula and random
in concrete and steel, the least sustainable and most number generators to develop rows in which the
carbon-intensive of building materials. Essentially, we structure of each building block (with an area of 160 cells)
are either using the right materials in the wrong manner was linked to those on either side of it, with the core
or the wrong materials in the right manner. typologies functioning as anchors for the operation.
Each time the plan was processedeach time the
Timberland seeks to rebalance this equation by asking return key was hitthe random number generators
if it is possible to confront the conflict of efficiency and produced new iterations of the blocks with gradated
waste that characterises the production of buildings and arrays of built and open cells. These rows were then
cities today by linking the economic and environmental arrayed to produce the field of blocks shown here
benefits of building with wood to the social, political and (Fig.1). As can be seen in the drawingin which black
environmental benefits of building more densely. While represents built cells, green represents pervious cells
most research into the use of timber has focused on the and orange represents impervious cellsthe resulting
building scale alone, assuming that taller and bigger is field is marked by a gradient pattern of striated blocks,
necessarily better, Timberland works across scales, from all of which bear, to varying degrees, the genetic
wood panel to urban district, with the goal of producing markings of the core typologies.
not standalone instances of low carbon density but
variably dense and, in the language of parametricism, In order to extrapolate the promise of this quasi-figure
continuously differentiated urban settings. ground plan into three-dimensions, it was necessary
to translate the pixels of the plan into three-dimensional
The differentiation, however, is not smoothly defined. spatial units. Here, we returned to the material specificity
It is less about formal properties than about spatial of the CLT panels, projecting the 2424-foot cell into
qualities. A pixelated planproduced in Microsoft Excel spatial units measuring 242410 feet. With this new
calculates a distribution of building block hybrids of unit in hand, the Excel diagrams were transferred to
varying openness and density along a gradient, from Rhino 3D and Grasshopper, where a script was developed
the loose aggregate of free-floating houses typically in which the diagrams functioned as a kind of database
associated with suburban settings to the denser, more for a three-dimensional aggregation process in which
compact full block build-outs of traditional city cores. density was the primary parameter. The script essentially
In this manner, the system generates building blocks reads the coloured cells of the Excel diagramsnow
capable of adaptation to a range of situations that can raster imagesand, using a series of diagrammatic
be deployed as single instances, tuned to their specific curves that describe different levels of density, stacks
context, or as districts with a varied range of densities the pixels into three-dimensional clusters of different
and their associated urban qualities. densities with varying spatial and formal properties.
For example, if given a ten-unit-tall mass, a bell curve
All of this is tied back to a material modulean 8-foot would describe a distribution of units where the middle
by 24-foot cross-laminated timber (CLT) panel. Working levels would be the densest, while a straight curve with
up from the scale of the panel, a 24-foot by 24-foot cell a positive slope would describe a situation in which the
is the primary planning pixel for the project. The plan highest levels would be denser. In this manner, another
itself, never fixed, was developed, or more accurately set of iterative data was overlaid on the Excel diagrams,
computed, in Microsoft Excel using a formula that
modulates the ratio of built to open space (as well as the Fig.1 (opposite): Keith Krumwiede, assisted by John Vogt, Field of Blocks,
ratio of pervious to impervious surfaces) along a vector Timberland, 2016. This plangenerated in Microsoft Excel using a
from suburban to urban and back again. In this manner, formula that modulates the ratio of both built to open space and pervious
to impervious surfacesdescribes a pixelated field of building block
as the density shifts along a gradient from the two-storey hybrids of varying openness and density along a gradient from suburban
freestanding house to the eight-storey street wall- to urban and back again.

250 Protocols Projects 251

 thereby allowing for the creation and analysis of several The series of hybrid oblique drawings shown here
different formal and spatial configurations of each hybrid (Figs.25) represent the latest stage in the process.
building/block in the original plan. Each drawing is representative of a different block
condition in the full field of blocks. The drawing method
In order to assess the viability of the various iterations employeda zero-degree oblique view employing both
generated through this process, a series of diagrammatic horizontal and vertical cutsprovides a means of
sections were drawn. These were used to analyse and analysing the spatial/formal properties of each block
evaluate each block in relation to questions of access to both independently and in relation to the others studied.
light and air, possible programmatic mixtures and overall This method, more objective and less pictorial than
formal/spatial fitness. These drawings not shown here, perspective projection, provided a means of comparatively
functioned as a kind of check in the process, allowing for assessing the spatial texture of the hybrid blocks in
the optimisation of the parameters to prioritise certain comparison to the anchor typologies from which they
resultsgreater or lesser levels of porosity, for example were derived. Additionally, their fitness could be evaluated
and in that sense to exercise greater agency in the relative to the parameters driving their configuration
computational process. For example, considering the the ratio of both built to open space and pervious to
original ambition of the researchto imagine viable, impervious surfaces; the density of units in each block
sustainable alternatives to the freestanding single-family and the distribution of that density at various levels
houseit became evident that resulting configurations with the block; the bulk and massing of the block and
were not yet descriptive enough of the idea of dwelling, its impact on the potential for various forms of
at least in an American context. So the script was inhabitation; and, not insignificantly, the overall formal
revised to introduce sloping shed roofstheir orientation properties of the blocks in relation to the composition
randomly assignedat the uppermost position in any of the district as a whole.
stack of units.

Fig.2: Keith Krumwiede, assisted by John Vogt, Study of Building Block Fig.3: Keith Krumwiede, assisted by John Vogt, Study of Building Block
from Column 2, Timberland, 2016. The zero-degree cutaway oblique from Column 5, Timberland, 2016. The zero-degree cutaway oblique
study of a hybrid building block from the second column of the field study of a hybrid building block from the fifth column of the field of
of blocks shown in Fig.1 provides a means of comparatively assessing blocks shown in Fig.1 provides a means of comparatively assessing its
its spatial/formal properties in relation to those shown in Figs.35. spatial/formal properties in relation to those shown in Figs.2, 4 and 5.

Fig.4: Keith Krumwiede, assisted by John Vogt, Study of Building Block Fig.5: Keith Krumwiede, assisted by John Vogt, Study of Building Block
from Column 7, Timberland, 2016. The zero-degree cutaway oblique from Column 9, Timberland, 2016. The zero-degree cutaway oblique
study of a hybrid building block from the seventh column of the field of study of a hybrid building block from the ninth column of the field of
blocks shown in Fig.1 provides a means of comparatively assessing its blocks shown in Fig.1 provides a means of comparatively assessing its
spatial/formal properties in relation to those shown in Figs.2, 3 and 5. spatial/formal properties in relation to those shown in Figs.24.

252 Protocols Projects 253

House for a House There is a certain degree of deception; for if artists
were to give the true proportions of their fair works,
Chee-Kit Lai the upper part, which is further off, would appear
to be out of proportions in comparison with the lower,
House for a House is a design of a house that houses which is nearer; so they give up the truth in their
the memories of a lost home. The work is autobiographical images and make only the proportions which appear
and inspired by the house that psychologist Carl Jung to be beautiful, disregarding the real ones.
built for himself in Zurich; a house he described as a Plato, Sophist, 360 BC
confession of faith in stone.
The drawings, produced in traditional 3030 degree
To put my fantasies on solid footing something isometric, simultaneously address the conventions of
more was needed. I had to achieve a kind of plan, section and elevation. No orthogonal representation
representation in stone of my innermost exists for the house. The isometric drawings serve
Put another way, I had to make a confession of a fundamental architectural purpose, as instructions
faith in stone. That was the beginning of the tower, to build. Each drawing measures 700 by 1,000mm,
the house I built for myself at Bollingen. obsessively hand-drawn first with pencil on trace,
Carl Jung, 1963 followed by ink on film. Subsequently, this is transferred
onto white high-gloss Astralux paper and finally applied
We have all revisited an old school or childhood home with matte block pastel colours to contrast with the
and felt the uncanny sensation of revised scale in relation glossy surface. The idea of chasing a house that possibly
to our bodies; familiar yet different at the same time. never was seems so preposterous, so fleeting and
I wanted to explore the gap between leaving home as a ephemeral, that I wanted to produce one-off drawings
child and returning as an adult, the gap where memories as the mode of representation, drawings that cannot
and desires are intertwined. With the passing of time, be reproduced. Hand-applied Pantone Letrafilm (a semi-
the rebuilding of memory becomes fantastical, the translucent self-adhesive film used during the 1960s-80s
rewriting of history becomes fictional and even the most by graphic designers), used for the colours, was at the
faithful redrawing of a house becomes surreal. When time of production already rare and discontinued.
does a house become a home? Walls and floors do not
make up a home; the construct of ones home is formed The house is designed from the inside out, starting with
by the details of objects and memories. the detailed drawing of a memorythe furniture. This
process is followed by the drawing of the room which Fig.3: Chee-Kit Lai, Telephone Door. Hand-drawn black and white isometric
House for a House utilises stage set design and optical the furniture occupies, followed by other rooms, spaces drawing on gloss lux paper with hand-applied Pantone LetraTone, 10070cm.
illusion techniques to explore the psychological complexity and corridors that slowly make up the house and finally
of the house through artifice, illusion, memory and shifting the landscape in which the house is sited. Each drawing at the start of the processinstead, the occupation limitation of space and budget require elements to be
scale. House for a House exists as a series of fragments bears clues to the space beyond and contains a is suggested through choreography. In Dennis Severs reused and objects to behave differently when shifted
ranging from models to 1:1 installations, each time with miniaturised representation of the space as it was House (18 Folgate Street), visitors are carefully led from one film set to the next. Building fragments are
an illusion that explores the present perception of time through the shift in scalemuch like a Russian matryoshka through a sequence of rooms with furniture, food, drink, doubled-up (like the garden to Queen Marys Dolls
and occupation of different parts of the house, which in doll. The technique is inspired by the projects in People smells, etc bearing the trace of occupation. House House hidden inside a 1:1 drawer at the base of
turn alludes to the whole, while never revealing the overall in Architecture (Michael Gold, AA, 1983), although for a House utilises architectural conventions such as the model) to create paradoxical spaces, spaces
tectonics of the enclosure. in House for a House there is no figure/protagonist construction lines, setting out information and notations of multiple possibilities and conditions, as inspired
to suggest the viewers specific viewpoints, positions by Magrittes paintings.
and sequence they may take on a journey through the
house. The physicality of the drawings is crucial. They Everything we see hides another thing, we always
are like film stills, framing enough information to create a want to see what is hidden by what we see.
fragment of a space, with allusion to the next space, while Rene Magritte, 1946
withholding the construct of artifice at the same time.
Unlike painting, sculpture or other art forms, it is virtually
The ambiguity between representation and reality impossible for a single architectural drawing to hold
is a powerful source of meaning, but it can also be both the idea and construct. The isometric drawings for
a source of illusion which obscures the distinction House for a House attempt this ambition. While each
between architecture and pure scenography. isometric drawing can be read separately as fragments,
Dalibor Vesely, 1983 when combined together they form a giant fantastical
drawing of the whole building in situ, a nod to artist
Some of the spaces are modelled at dolls house scale, Paul Noble. The drawings use insertion points, another
a nod to Queen Marys Dolls House by Sir Edwin Lutyens. architectural convention, to enable the precise alignment
Other spaces are made at 1:2 and 1:1. The dialogue in order to produce the final overall form, which in turn
between drawing and making enables multiple readings reveals a composition similar to its origin, the furniture
of the architecture and the imagination of fantastical that started it all.
spaces. The specifications of the spaces are precise
Fig.1: Chee-Kit Lai, House Interior. Hand-drawn black and white Fig.2: Chee-Kit Lai, Anglepoise Light. Hand-drawn black and white
isometric drawing on gloss lux paper, 10070cm. isometric drawing on gloss lux paper with hand-applied Pantone in order to create the architecture and atmosphere One builds what one no longer knows.
LetraTone, 10070cm. intended. However, the constraints of fabrication and the Gregor Schneider, 2001

254 Protocols Projects 255

A Collection of Circle-Spheres: occasionally become so interested in the possibilities of
this visual output that they have started to make drawings
A Pre-Digital Post-Digital Convergence which bear no practical application, and for which the
only real motives are the desire to explore, and the sheer
Carl Lostritto pleasure of seeing a drawing materialize. Thus people
who would never have put pencil to paper, or bush
While drawing: to canvas, have started making images [] which
All Spheres are Circles, All Circles are Spheres. approximate and often look identical to what we call
All Artists are Scientists, All Scientists are Artists. art and put in public galleries.3 However, the most
compelling and challenging works of that time were
The winners of a Computer Art Contest in 1963 were the interactive installations, robots and sculptures that
scientists. As a byproduct of their work at the US Army [were] treated as separate categories by art critics,
Ballistic Research Laboratories, they produced Splatter art colleges and galleries. To some extent they still
Pattern using a Dataplotter, a massive table-sized are, largely because there is not sufficient historical
apparatus first released by Electronic Associates Incorp- background to suggest how we should think about
orated in the 1950s. The machine, larger but similar in them.4 According to Reichardt, the Evening Standard
nature to the pen plotters used in the work presented wrote about the exhibition, Where in London could you
here, produced small drawings by moving a pen across take a hippy, a computer programmer and a ten-year-old
a fixed piece of paper based on electronic input, which schoolboy and guarantee that each would be perfectly
could be generated by computer. Art criticsincluding happy for an hour without you having to lift a finger to
the authors of The Electronic Computer as Artist, entertain them.5 A hint of a paradigm shift was in the air,
published in Canadian Art, which Grant D. Taylor identifies but the emphasis was not on drawing. Fig.3: Carl Lostritto, D- 002- 008 Walking From Red to Blue, 2012, pen
as the first piece of Computer Art criticismwere plotter with felt pens, 2234in. The algorithm used to produce this
sceptical. Computer control required mastery of computer Drawing is slow. Drawing is discrete. Drawing defies the drawing, catalogued as D, treats the paper as space and ink as object.
Line remains open to interpretation. The series identifier 002 is
engineering. Artistry, as distinct from art production, third dimensionand the worldeven as it represents it. associated with marks made by a particle walking in a random but
requires analysis. Artists mastering the computer was as Interaction is only possible in the domain of perception generally curving path within an invisible boundary. The travelling particle
improbableabsurd, evenas scientists adjusting their and thought. In the time since 1970, the definition of leaves a dashed trail, which it is never allowed to make contact with.
If the particle is nearing collision with its trail, its angular acceleration
data based on aesthetic judgment.1 Fig.2: Carl Lostritto, DB- 002- 004 Piles of Blocks at a Perimeter, 2015, drawing has become muddied almost beyond productive increasesit steers out of the way. The gaps between the dashes are
pen plotter with felt pens, 2538in. The algorithm used to produce scholarly function. By some definitions, almost nothing openings, which the particle may move through. Over the course of the
this drawing, catalogued as DB, is identical to that described in Fig.1. produced with contemporary tools should be labelled drawing, the particle speed decreases (causing the curves to be tighter
002 in this drawings ID refers to an arrangement of rectilinear solids and smoother) and the proportion of dash to gap decreases.
on a ground plane. 004 indicates that this drawing is the fourth run a drawinga representation of lines in digital software
of this series. is surely a model. By other definitions, anything on paper,
having been captured or projected into two-dimensional
In collaboration, Charles Jeffrey Bangert and space, is casually called a drawing. Despite the
Colette Stuebe Bangert together accomplished what contemporary confusion about the definition oflet alone
was previously unfathomable. Colette Bangert recalls, the opportunities and futures fordrawing, the Bangerts
reflecting on her work in the 1960s and 1970s: work screams with contemporaneity. Its object-field,
smooth-striated and variation-versioned ambiguities
Using a computer-plotter extends my hand-eye- fit well within current architectural discourse. Space
head. The computer draws, my eyes see, my hand is captured between lines and form emerges as lines
draws, the computer is programmed by [Jeffrey], aggregate. Randomness, a still commonly misunderstood
the computer draws [] in an endless productive term that has been nonetheless completely assimilated
cycle. Computer drawn lines enrich my hand lines into design discourse, offers a useful stepping stone into
which in turn enrich my computer drawn lines [] issues of control, authorship and aesthetics.
Jeff and I use the computer as a traditional drawing
medium. The resulting drawings are to be seen, So what now? Whats the value of operating with a pen
to hang on a wall, to communicate. They are not plotter in a purposefully vintage setup in which the Python
just examples of computer technology, not just programming language controls a machine in the same
geometry, not just mathematics. We ask this new way the Bangerts constructed a medium with the Fortran
medium questions and get new (and old) answers.2 programming language and their machines? The novelty
of the single-run computational work is significantand
Fig.1: Carl Lostritto, DB - 001 - 012 Room C1 Blue Hatched, 2015, pen The Bangert collaboration produced Large Landscape: while resistance, difficulty and restraint are always valuable
plotter with felt pens, 2538in. The algorithm used to produce this
drawing, catalogued as DB, involves spherical projection and a system
Ochre and Black, which is an unusually perfect to the artist, what are the historical implications of this?
representation of the 1960s computer-drawing zeitgeist. This project proposes a history that eschews the fixation Fig.4: Carl Lostritto, D- 002- 007 Walking From Green to Blue, 2012,
of hatching to transform three-dimensional solid surfaces into lines. pen plotter with felt pens, 2234in. The algorithm used to produce
Each line on paper is informed by its position in (three-dimensional) Drawings from that era are a specific subset of an already on application that resulted from the personal computer this drawing, catalogued as D, and the series, catalogued as 002,
space and position on (two-dimensional) paper. Hatches are computed
marginalised, though recently celebrated, niche. In the revolution. Drawing is still relevant, as long as we respect are identical to those associated with Fig.3. In run 007, the seventh
first based on distance to camera and surface orientation and are run of this series, green and blue pens are used. The contrasting zones
projected to a position on paper, occlusions are resolved using a binary catalogue to the 1968 Cybernetics Serendipity exhibit, drawing traditions: one gesture leads to one mark, which
of light and dark, as well as the clarity of line path versus line segments,
space partitioning tree, lines are trimmed in two dimensions and which features some pen-plotted drawings, Jasia is constituted by the presence of ink and the pens physical can be compared to those of Fig3. The discrepancies are evidence of
finally machine language instructions are computed and sent to an Reichardt notes, The engineers for whom the graphic effect on the paper. Drawing with technology is more the cascade effect of a few initially random values on the final outcome
HP-DraftPro EXL pen plotter. 001 in this drawings ID refers to a room of the drawing.
enclosed by a three-dimensional array of rectilinear solids and 012 plotter driven by a computer represented nothing more meaningful than speculating about how technology might
indicates that this drawing is the twelfth run of this series. than a means of solving certain problems visually, have change, replace or kill drawing.

256 Protocols Projects 257

Fig.5: Carl Lostritto, C- 004- 001 Towards Spherical Figure, 2012, pen Fig.6: Carl Lostritto, C- 004- 002 Densely Towards Spherical Figure, 2012,
plotter with felt pens, 2234in. The algorithm used to produce this pen plotter with felt pens, 2234in. The algorithm used to produce
drawing, catalogued as C, draws lines in sets with respect to a focal this drawing, catalogued as C, and the series, catalogued as 004,
point. In the series catalogued as 004, a single coarse path is calculated are the same as in Fig.5. After the surprise success of the aesthetics
first, within a circular boundary. The path tends to avoid intersections. of the worn pen in run 001, another pen with similarly worn effects
A finer path with 50 points is generated per each initial point and forms was created to again capture the tonal variability within each mark.
an interpolated spine curve. Each new point marks the beginning of Run 002 ran for 120 segments, producing a much denser field
a drawn line towards, but not ending at, the focal point. Lines stop at compared to the first run.
any intersection with the path. As the 001 indicates, this is the first
run of the series. Initially intended as a test run, the spline was set
to a relatively course 70-segment length and the plotter was loaded
with a highly worn pen.

Fig.9: Carl Lostritto. DC- 006- 020 Cascading Lines Break the Circle, 2016,
pen plotter with felt pens, 2538in. 006 uses three points and concentric
circles as the trimmers and guides, while the shapes are drawn as
continuous lines at their boundaries. Each of those lines is assigned
randomly to one of four groups. In run 020 the groups are drawn with
four different pens, and one area of lines is allowed to grow beyond
the prescribed circle. This irregularity functions as a depth cue implying
three-dimensional surface.

Fig.7: Carl Lostritto, BC- 001- 001 Dashed Mass, 2014, pen plotter with Fig.8: Carl Lostritto. BC- 002- 001 Flat-Looking Sphere with Radial Lines,
felt pens, 1111in. The algorithm used to produce this drawing, catalogued 2014, pen plotter with felt pens, 1111in. The algorithm used to produce
as BC, involves a surface model of a sphere. The sphere serves as this drawing, catalogued as BC, is the same as that used to produce
a datum for the creation of many lines, which are orthographically the drawing in Fig.7. In series 002, L-shaped line segments are created
projected onto the paper plane and used to generate machine language on the surface of the sphere at even increments. The shape, size and
code sent to an HP-EXL Pen Plotter. In series 001 of this algorithm, orientation of those segments relates to the vector between a reference
line segments are created between randomly selected pairs of points point and the point on the surface. In run 001, a worn pen is used so
on the surface of the sphere. Segments are then divided into dashed that lines on the back side of the sphere, drawn last, are barely visible.
subsegments in three-dimensional space.

258 Protocols Projects 259

 The primary differencethe quantum leap, so to
speakthat would occur in a history that ignored the A Room With a View a comprehensive study, a performance, a mistake.
Drawing has also, since fifteenth-century Florence, been
years between 1971 and 2011 would, then, be a matter Alison Moffett inseparable from architecture. This is not to say that
of an expanded territory within the field of software. people before this who built did not also draw out their
Object-oriented programming allows a structure of the My practice maintains an interest in the built world, ideas; instead, that drawing came to define what it is to
line, and a representation of the drawing, to exist within space, perception and how we as conscious beings be an architectsomeone who draws the design, rather
the linguistic structure of computer code. Digital surfaces understand the world through the filter of an intermediary than someone who builds. It is this separation, drawing
allow the mapping and reprojection of geometry multiple such as drawing or mapmaking. This investigation seeks (or ideas) from building (trade craft), that has defined
times before being marked on paper. Even the drawings to reveal how space or landscape is often a constructed architecture to this day. This leaves drawing in the
that are computed with straightforward algorithms device. A view can be as simple as a signed pull-off position of a translatory object that can be read quite
algorithms C (Figs.5 and 6) and D (Figs.3 and 4), along the side of the road or a very obvious rendering of literally: one reads plans to build; or more conceptually:
for example, which are structured with a line travelling single-point perspective. Both are constructions created the process of drawing itself reveals more complex
around the space of the paper, avoiding its trailinvolve with a conscious aim at understanding or at least themes to be addressed. Not unconnectedly, this
a quantity of computation that would not have been humanising something chaotic and utterly beyond our elevation of drawing comes at the same moment in time
possible given the memory limitations of the 1960s. comprehension. In mapmaking, it is the overlay of the as exploration and conquest, great scientific advances
Algorithm DC (Figs.9 and 10) likewise operates in a logical grid that allows the wilderness to be tamed, and philosophical investigations, most notably humanism.
flat plane despite the overwhelming presence of form, in essence the act of landscaping. This grid is functioning Within all of these burgeoning fields, there seems a
surface and depth. Conversely, algorithms BC (Figs.7 in the same way as the signed roadside view or the disjunction between how the world is and a new logic that
and 8) and DB (Figs.1 and 2) play out in a mix of three- constructed linear perspective drawing. They are all is applied as it is striven to be understood. Often, drawing
dimensional and two-dimensional spaces. In the drawings matrices through which we view. Of course, these are is the object or tool of comprehension. It is in this way of
produced by these algorithms, dense hatching reasserts only a few examples of a much greater complexity. thinking that I question the role of the drawing in under-
Fig.10: Carl Lostritto, DC-007-001 Pink Circle, 2016, pen plotter with felt the planar presence of the paper. Numbers, geometry, language and signs of all sorts are standing or reading the environment around us. Drawing
pens, 2538in. The algorithm used to produce this drawing, catalogued necessary to simplify and order the natural world enough can be, like a screen, something that comes between
as DC, uses three kinds of base geometry: seed points establish The other leap is one of values. The circle and the sphere for comprehension. us and the outside world. In this intermediary role, it
epicentres of radiating lines; guide lines transform portions of lines that
cross over them, effectively pulling them along their path; and trim
bring the weight of the humanist notions of shape and illuminates our attempt, and often failure, at compre-
lines leave gaps along their paths. At each step in the algorithm, one new symbol back into play. The human author asserts a figure, My personal interest circles around drawing precisely hension. And yet it is this very failure that is interesting.
shape is drawn at offset from its previous position. Intersecting shapes as an artist provoking architecture. This is something because it sits so commonly in that place of in-between.
merge. Offsetting is irregular, with slightly more spacing at the right
than the left. This irregularity functions as a depth cue implying three-
the Bangerts would understand and sympathise with, It can be a work of an instant, a sketch, an idea, These three drawing projects each address this larger
dimensional surface. Series 007 uses three points and concentric but which would undermine many of the purist investigation using a unifying duality: order vs. chaos, the
circles as the trimmers and guides, while the shapes are drawn with motivations of computer art and architecture post-1970. grid and nature. First, the three Scenic View works map
many tiny individual segments randomly assigned to one of four groups.
The human reader is called upon to interpret, to close their twinned terrain. It is only within this act of mapping
an open ambiguity, to project intention and to decode that the creation of a landscape can be both illustrated
the relationship between process and product. and logically understood. In this, there is a small sadness,
for while the magic of transformation from rubbish paper
to topography is set free, it is at the same time tamed by
the rules of measurement and order: the practicality of
the coordinate system. As graph paper, the grid is always
there, functioning differently within the two halves: the
crumpled landscape graph is slightly distorted, following
topography; the drawn representation is slightly distorted,
following the grid. It is the combination of the dual actions
of the grid with the empathetic understanding of the
drawing process that the map serves to authenticate
with the creation of a new landscape, while the landscape
gives rise and meaning to the drawing.

The large drawing Impossibility of Clouds works more

directly at addressing the paradox of order and disorder
through the process of drawing itself. Order, the grid,
is built within the form of the work, each square of paper
drawn separately and only assembled when completed.
The image is modelled on a found photograph of a cloud,
a form of ever-changing ephemerality. Indeed, clouds
1
G  rant D. Taylor, When the Machine Made Art: The Troubled History were deemed too chaotic even for Brunelleschi to include
of Computer Art (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 5. in his seminal demonstration of perspective, famously
2
COLETTE S. BANGERT CHARLES J. BANGERT. Artist and Computer.
left to be real-time reflections in applied polished silver.
Accessed July 11, 2016. http://www.atariarchives.org/artist/sec5.php.
3
Jasia Reichardt, Introduction. Cybernetic Serendipity, the Computer This drawing is constructed as each square is carefully
and the Arts, a Studio International Special Issue, September 1968, 5. copied and connected within the grid system, but as it
4
Jasia Reichardt, In the Beginning White Heat Cold Logic: British is pieced together the drawing reveals an embedded
Computer Art 196080, edited by Paul Brown, 7181. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 2008. Fig.1: Alison Moffett, First Scenic View, 2014, graphite on graph paper failure: no square completely aligns with its neighbours.
5
Ibid. and crumpled paper, two A4 pieces of paper, 297210cm. The tool of the gridded systemto break down an image,

260 Protocols Projects 261

 to pixelateonly exposes my inability to capture the
image. Seemingly an error, it is actually this very human
failure of creation that highlights the magic of the paradox.

Lastly, Vanishing Point, an exercise in capturing a mark,

can be read as the most personal of all. Once again,
the act of drawing is embedded within the image. The
process begins with the most final of marks, a full stop,
made simply with a pencil. Also a vanishing point, final
in a more epic way, this point is the simplest of marks to
makea recording of presence. Scanned and enlarged,
this absolute point is shown to be as ephemeral as a
cloud, finally redrawn through the tool of gridded logic.
In redrawing this, I return to the simplicity of the original
mark. They are, in essence, the same thing, drawn with
the same material and the same hand, but their form
and authority have been turned inside out: from singularity
to nebulous. The drawing illustrates the connectivity
between the smallest, most discrete of dimensions
and the grandest, the most chaotic. Like the Eameses
Powers of 10, the ever-present logic of the grid both
enables and defines these associations.

Fig.2: Alison Moffett, Vanishing Point, 2014, coloured pencil on paper, 4055cm. Fig.3: Alison Moffett, Impossibility of Clouds, 2014, graphite on paper, 238357cm.

262 Protocols Projects 263

SIFTd Visualisations: The Defamiliarisation
of Architectural Drawings
Matthew Parker

Semi-autonomous algorithms, tasked with sensing and THE DESTABILISATION

making sense of the built environment abstract OF OPTICAL PROSTHESES
architecture into data for the digital (re)construction of
the city. Within this process, architecture has the capacity From the introduction of Alhazens camera obscura in
to produce multi-dimensional space by schizophrenically the tenth century through to the increasing number of
mapping polymorphic manifestations across the visual prostheses (lenses, astronomic telescopes, etc)
physical-virtual layers of the city. However, to exploit of the Renaissance, architects have continually deployed
this opportunity, architecture must first acknowledge optical prostheses to augment the contexts that define
a new type of non-human observer, one who does architectural speculation and visualisation. These devices
not possess human-level perceptual and aesthetic confront objects in a fundamentally inhuman manner that
capacities, but rather something that is uncanny and exposes excess data intensities otherwise concealed
interesting precisely because it does not posses these from unmediated human perception. Whereas previous
things.1 These non-human onlookers, specifically optical prostheses sought to flatten multi-dimensional
architectures algorithmic observers, see despite a lack data on to two-dimensional image planes (the use of
of eyeballs, rods, cones and visual cortex. Instead, they Albertis veil to describe the principles of perspective
produce vision through the use of sensors capable of ultimately exposing the phenomenon of foreshortening
detecting light, heat, motion and colour data to produce or the modernist use of photography to flatten spatial
images that mediate our relationship to the world. This and temporal dimensions), AO inverts this relationship by
inhuman vision has the capacity to distort, destabilise producing n-dimensional vectors from the data contained
Fig.2: Matthew Parker, Data-Rich Section 011, digital media, The speculative sections of fifteen projects
and disturb our perception of images and objects by within two-dimensional images. N-dimensional vectors are superimposed and composited through a computational workflow that mobilises SIFT algorithms
provoking new optical regimes that have the potential facilitate AOs perceptive capabilities, as they allow towards the production of new architectural assemblies.
to situate aesthetics at the forefront of how architecture for sorting, stitching, compositing and cataloguing of
is conceived and constructed. SIFTd Visualisations: the extensive image-based datasets that aggregate
The Defamiliarisation of Architectural Drawings explores to produce the gaze of AO. This new data (re)animates
the ability of algorithmic observation (AO) to produce and multiplies the image of the city, its artefacts and
novelty through the computational processing of its citizens, as it assists in constructing the narratives
architectures image towards the production of defamiliar that surround an objects digital footprint.
architectural drawings.

Fig.1: Matthew Parker, Data-Rich Plan 018, digital media. The speculative plans of nine projects are Fig.3: Matthew Parker, SIFT d Form Study 006, digital media. The n-dimensional vectors of five
superimposed and composited through a computational workflow that mobilises SIFt algorithms data-rich plans and seven data-rich sections are mobilised as the construction lines for an architecture
towards the production of new architectural assemblies. accessed and visualised through algorithmic observation.

264 Protocols Projects 265

 THE DRAWING IMPLICATIONS OF SIFTS DRAWING WITH N - DIMENSIONAL VECTORS

The machine vision protocols of AO computationally As large aggregate sets of architectural drawings
deconstruct images into collections of unique features (plans and sections) are processed through a previously
that can be identified, organised and matched across developed SIFt platform,4 they are abstracted to their
dynamic image sets. Often overlooked within this recognisable geometric configurations. These SIFtd
statement is that AO relies on images of existing plans and sections (Figs.1 and 2) are processed and
artefacts to produce vision. The implications of this superimposed, constructing n-dimensional vectors that
is that anything new produced through AO exists in are extracted as a vector-flow-range, a spreadsheet
relation to a set of input images and visual data that that includes the UV values for each pixels vector and
describes a previously documented artefact. This is the maximum and minimum vector difference between
not to say that AO cannot produce noveltyin fact, the correlate images. These vector values are mapped to
opposite is true; AO must produce new to signify the 3D model space by extracting the UV directional values
existing. Just as an artist produces novelty through the of a pixel and its associated vector magnitude to produce
intentional augmentation of a medium, AO perpetually dynamic vector-flow-fields that represent the amount
produces images that rely on an internal and autonomous of movement a keypoint undergoes as correlate keypoints
interpretation of data. Simply put, AO outputs should be are composited.
engaged in a manner more akin to paintings or drawings
than photographs. It follows that the value of AO for The vector-flow-fields produced through the processing
architecture goes beyond its (in)ability to accurately of plan drawings are mapped to the XY plane of
construct architectures digital footprint, but resides 3D model space, with the vector-flow-fields associated
instead in its ability to access previously concealed data with sectional drawings mapped to the XZ and YZ planes
intensities that are simultaneously present in the built (dependent on their longitudinal or latitudinal qualities),
environment and suggestive of speculative ecologies creating a three-dimensional vector field. By testing
and future worlds. plan-based and section-based vector-flow-fields for
intersection, new geometries start to take shape. Mesh
If architecture is to access the excess produced and faces are produced around the point of intersection,
Fig.4: Matthew Parker, SIFTd Form Study 026, digital media. The n-dimensional vectors of eighteen exposed through AO, it must first gain entry into the with the face extruded outwards, perpendicular to
data-rich plans and six data-rich sections are mobilised as the construction lines for an architecture computational logics that govern computer vision. the plane of the dominate vector. 5 The faces act as
accessed and visualised through algorithmic observation.
This project situates SIFts (Scale-Invariant-Feature- a tracing of complexity contained within and across
Transform)2 and their associative algorithms as the correlate keypoints, with the overall complexity of the
primary protocols of AO, as they enable AO to identify output image defined by the number of input images
specific invariant image features across extensive image and the number of overlapping and intersecting SIFT
datasets. SIFt algorithms abstract multiple images into descriptors inherent to a composite set of architectural
their geometric constituents in order to make sense drawings (Figs.3, 4 and 5 show varying complex
of a particular object or scene, a process that relies on assemblies produced through increased levels of soft-
the construction of locally defined SIFt descriptors, or body superimposition).
keypoints, that contain clusters of pixels representative
of a unique image feature. Once a series of images has FUTURE WORLDS AND SPECULATIVE ECOLOGIES
been codified through SIFt processing, AO algorithms
search image datasets for correlate keypoints, which Through a design strategy of heteromorphic deformation
are then superimposed and mapped on top of each other, to embed historical and speculative architectural artefacts
a process that flattens multiple datasets into a single into newly formed n-dimensional bodies, this project
data-rich-territory. A data-rich-territory is a datascape seeks to expose a veiled dimensionality concealed within
whose quantity of data trees does not change but the the withdrawn qualities of an object. By activating hidden
complexity of each data tree is magnified to respond bodies of new data, these drawings embrace AO as a
to the superimposition of multiple bodies of soft data.3 technological agent capable of shaping our experiences
This process of superimposition results in the construction and relationship to the city. Outputs of this methodology
of n-dimensional vectors, vectors that this project are merely a first step in accessing and mobilising
extracts and mobilises towards the conceptualisation architectures concealed vectorsa preliminary investi-
of an architecture otherwise withdrawn from unmediated gation into an architecture that utilises AO within a drawing
perception; an architecture capable of distorting, methodology that seeks to represent the concrete
destabilising and defamiliarising unmediated artefacts futurity of the city while simultaneously signifying its
of architectural production. digital spatiotemporalities.

Fig.5: Matthew Parker, SIFTd Form Study 059, digital media. The n-dimensional vectors of
thirty-four data-rich plans and twenty-one data-rich sections are mobilised as the construction
lines for an architecture accessed and visualised through algorithmic observation.

266 Protocols Projects 267

 B  enjamin Bratton (2015) discusses the uncanny qualities of the machinic
Phenomenon of Transparency:
1

visual subject, a subject that can be understood as transferable with

the algorithmic observer within the context of this investigation.
2
SIFTs, first developed by David Lowe (1999), are invariant to feature
scaling, rotation, illumination and 3D camera viewpoint. Due to their
Cityscape Transformations Mapping
strong matching capabilities and computational stability, they are Snezana Zlatkovic
deployed for the purposes of image retrieval, image stitching, machine
vision, object recognition, gesture recognition, match moving and,
for the purposes of this project, architectural drawing. The aim of this work is to explore the impact of transformation into new concepts has not yet been
3
Soft data is a term put forward within this project to describe datasets transparency in relation to transformations of a city, explored. In order to explain the phenomenon of
that possess the ability to elastically deform in response to external
forces while not altering their original unique characteristics. i.e. to reveal how many layers of transparency can transparency, I start from two basic activity states.
4
This research builds from the computational protocols of the SIFT Flow be placed within the heterogeneous urban structures First, I analyse a fragment of the city separately for each
Algorithm produced by Ce Liu and team (2011) and has been modified that our cities have become. The phenomenon of of the states. After that, I merge them through drawings
to reflect the intentions of this project.
5
The dominate vector is determined by testing intersecting vectors transparency constructs the cityscape from different according to how they have transformed and changed.
and identifying the vector with the largest magnitude. Extrusion layers of representation. Together, they compound the The first state is the result of a historical process: a
perpendicular to the plane of origin is utilised as extrusion along the complex situation of literal and phenomenal transparency. physical, closed, static structure that might be subjected
length of the prevailing vector or an averaging of all directional vectors
produced a general illegibility and fuzziness within the drawings.
The urban structure is becoming difficult to perceive to possible changes in the future. It is the product of
from its very size to its spatial values and its specific various design processes, as well as of unplanned
aspects. In other words, the city provides a significant constructions. Together, these form a unique urban whole.
REFERENCES domain for researching drawing: the insufficiently The second state of activity belongs to the dynamism
 enjamin Bratton. Machine Vision: Benjamin Bratton in Conversation
B
explored role of architectural drawing in interrogating of the city structure. Drawing can articulate the variability
with Mike Pepi and Marvin Jordan. DIS Magazine (2015). Accessed the transformations of heterogeneous urban structures and rhythm within the structure of a cityit is a series of
14 August 2015. http://dismagazine.com/discussion/73272/benjamin- and the meanings this could impart on the architectural single moments and lives that cannot be repeated, but
bratton-machine-vision/.
design process. might prove valuable for the process. On the other hand,
 e Liu, Jenny Yuen, Antonio Torralba. SIFT Flow: Dense Correspondence
C our study is not based on making clear distinctions within
across Scenes and Its Applications. IEEE Transactions on Pattern Rapid progress of urban changes has influenced the the phenomenon of transparency, but on establishing
Analysis and Machine Intelligence 33 (5) (May 2011): 97894. Accessed city so rapidly that such complex phenomena often the connections between actions in both identified
23 October 2013 from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20714019.
remain unexplained. Moreover, the possibility for their states. Without putting literal transparency ahead of the
 avid Lowe. Object Recognition from Local Scale-Invariant Features.
D
Proceedings of the Seventh IEEE International Conference on
Computer Vision (1999): 11501157 vol.2. Accessed 12 November 2013
from http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/lpdocs/epic03/wrapper.htm?
arnumber=790410.

Fig.1: Snezana Zlatkovic, Phenomenon of Transparency: Cityscape Fig.2: Snezana Zlatkovic, Phenomenon of Transparency: Cityscape
Transformations MappingThe Map of MethodologyThe Books of Transformations MappingThe City of New BelgradeExperiment 1,
Drawings, 2016, digital collage, transfers of hand pencil drawings on paper, 2016, digital collage, transfers of hand pencil drawings on paper,
59.484.1cm. The sum of the first analysis of the most variable drawings 59.484.1cm. The first experiment of methodology: encoding the
which research the relationship between the states of transparency. fragment of reality of the City of New Belgrade.

268 Protocols Projects 269

 trying to establish the distance of observation in decode spatial contradictions, to describe what belongs
relation to our view of the cityscapes transformations. to the phenomenological experience, as opposed to
By drawing, the architect has to be able to analyse and the common understanding of the world as it appears
understand the speed of the spatial changes through to be. The role of the phenomenon of transparency is
the drawn process itself. Drawing these spatial reflected in the fact that essentially separated, dispersed
traces sets up a basis for the architect to understand parts of the heterogeneous urban space are being
how to weave these abstract traces of unexplained merged through new forms of representation. Layer by
phenomena in the future. The methodology captures layer, the drawings are slowly disentangling our field of
all specific individual atmospheres of life in the city view into new perceptions by inverting the contradictions,
within a drawing, before the view shifts distance in order deconstructing the sequences and merging what is
to perceive the ground of the cityto summarise all seemingly incompatible. Layers of transparency become
those lives. sections through the cityscapes transformation.
Uncontrollable appearances and disappearances of
This study of spatial relations, from inside to outside, the transfigured spatial volumes, anatomised through
from micro to macro, stimulates new points of view and drawings, build a new grid of traces, new moves
new analyses between two ends of the potentials of and new rhythms, which could challenge the future
transparency. I use drawing as a critical tool to try to organisation of our cityscapes.

Fig.3: Snezana Zlatkovic, Phenomenon of Transparency: Fig.4: Snezana Zlatkovic, Phenomenon of Transparency: Cityscape
Cityscape Transformations MappingSuburbs Meeting the City of Transformations Mapping The City of New BelgradeExperiment 3,
New BelgradeExperiment 2, 2016, digital collage, transfers of hand 2016, digital collage, transfers of hand pencil drawings on paper,
pencil drawings on paper, 59.484.1cm. The second experiment 59.484.1cm. The third experiment of methodology: encoding the
of methodology: encoding the fragment of reality of the City of fragment of reality of the City of New Belgrade.
New Belgrade and its boundary with suburbs.

phenomenal one, or vice versa, but by consciously taking depends upon materiality and is based on the intuitive
both into account, we are on the verge of capturing abilities of the observer and a certain level of his/her
the urban phenomena as a complete entity. own knowledge and understanding of the phenomenon.
Under these circumstances, we can reach the point
With two basic states of the phenomenon of of mapping transformations of the urban fabric where
transparency (static and dynamic), the methodology we can establish a common language in the drawing,
produces drawings as a sequence of experiments an abstract code that communicates dynamism to the
on cityscape transformations. The first results of this viewer. In order to create a poetic diagram for dynamic
experimental methodology are two books of a hundred mapping, we search for answers in the relationship
drawings each, researching scales of transparency between the hand-drawing as the first critical tool
(Fig.1). The changes of transparency are explored with and the computer as the second one. This relationship
subtle, hand-drawn lines extracted from colour. These between the intuitive trace of a hand and the mechanised
original drawings are then used as a resource material processes of digital tools provides our drawn methodology
for the next phase of researchthe digital processing with comprehensive tools to encode any transformation
of images via a series of computerised techniques using these techniques. While there is still something
(Figs.25). Using both analogue drawing techniques incomplete in the analysis when we draw purely by hand,
and digital image processing brings new opportunities there are many computer techniques that could upgrade
for analysing the complex and chaotic network of cityscape these drawings to new levels of information; so that
transformations, both working together to make them drawing becomes a critical tool to extract and explain the
readable. In order to comprehend differences, we use potentials of the layers of transparency within our cities
the visible and the material to expose the invisible, the that conventional tools may not address. Fig.5: Snezana Zlatkovic, Phenomenon of Transparency: Cityscape
immaterial and their relation to the unbuilt. The study Transformations MappingThe City of New York, Manhattan
of spatial conflicts that are not directly visible through Methods of encoding levels of transparency through Experiment 4, 2016, digital collage, transfers of hand pencil drawings
on paper, 59.484.1cm. The fourth experiment of methodology:
drawing stimulates new points of view and new analysis drawing also change our own attitudes to the space being encoding the boundary between natural and artificial on a fragment
and finally yields new information. Therefore immateriality drawn; at the beginning of each new drawing, we are of the City of New York.

270 Protocols Projects 271

Drawing the Map, Drawing out the Territory housing units in Spokane, each offending hand-drawn
block obscured with a computer-plotted asterisk that
instructor only and, while demonstrations of SYMAP
had roused interest at both MIT and the University of
Nicholas de Monchaux foreshadowed its resulting demolition.8 Chicago, very little credence was given to his academic
qualifications (or rather, his lack of them).12 The solution
A large part of an architects life is spent beating his building his brother Walters house in his native Chicago Such a connection between resources and mapping came in 1965 with an appointment as a lecturer at the
brains out trying to establish himself enough so that he proved too tempting, and he left Cambridge without was trueat a literal and continental levelof another Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), since 1936
can make a decent livingthen when he arrives, his receiving a masters degree in the spring of 1928.4 pioneering computer mapping programme of the time: its own professional school within the university. But
career is about over So reflected the then fifty-one- the vast Canada Geographic Information System, the GSD, focused on professional training, needed to
year-old Howard T. Fisher in 1954. While this may After six years of building in Chicago, he became a which gave its name to the emerging field. The Canadian create a proper research-focused institutional setting
be good for building strong moral fibre and advancing contributing editor of Architectural Record and turned GIS emerged from a policy discussion of the continents to potentially receive the Ford funds.13 And so, under
stamina, he concluded, its a pretty tough racket.1 himself to the problem, in his words, of the low-cost natural resources and the fact, in the words of the Fishers direction and with the cooperation of Dean Sert,
The irony was that Fisher, a patrician, well-mannered factory fabricated house.5 After detailing the history systems founder, Roger Tomlinson, that [a]lthough the Laboratory for Computer Graphics was created.
architect of shopping centres and prefabricated houses, and prospects for prefabrication in the pages of Record, these resources had long been regarded as limitless, It was there, finally, that the Ford Foundation awarded
was to make the greatest impact of his long career in he leapt into the problem himself, organising the General there was now competition among the potential uses of $294,000 ($2 million today) in January of 1966.14 The
a field largely unknown to him until several years later Houses Corporation in 1933 to produce his own models land in the commercially accessible parts of the country.9 grants purpose was explicit: to develop and distribute
the drawing of maps with computers, today known of panel-built, prefabricated dwellings. Beyond the claims A 1968 film produced by the Canadian government, Data SYMAP as widely as possible.15
as geographic information systems, or GIS. Fishers of economy and speed, the emphasis in General Houses for Decision, highlights the sort of overlay-based map
encounter with GIS, and in particular the way in which his marketing materials was on the houses good design. questions the system was intended to automate: What THE SOFTWARE ITSELF
architectural training caused him to deploy and demand After coverage in Fortune and the display of a prototype resources can be developed? How fast? At what
from it more than had ever before been accomplished at Chicagos Century of Progress exhibit in 193334, cost?10 At their core (which, by virtue of the primitive The first version of SYMAP, created in 1964, was later
graphically and conceptually, would have a seminal (if not General Houses would demand his full-time attention nature of the hardware they used, the first mapping credited with establishing the basic functions of all
often acknowledged) effect on the field. His outlook and for much of the rest of the decadebut without providing programmes were not far from), computers parsed subsequent cartographic display software: separating
goals, moreover, offer a tantalising glimpse at a series of him with a dependable income. It would take the demands the world in a language of thresholds and decisions the base geometric data from the thematic attribute,
possible historiesand so also contemporary alternatives and opportunities of wartime to alter his prefabricated black and white, not shades of grey. scaling the map to different sizes and permitting distinct
for architectures new encounters between drawing, fortunes; after limping through the 1930s, he was able graphic treatment of the same source material.16 Its
technology and information. to secure wartime contracts for prefabricated housing Fishers interest, by contrast, was precisely in shades instrument for doing sothe idea for which had occurred
beginning in 1940.6 Having entered government service of greyboth literally and conceptuallyas well as, to Fisher upon observing Edgar Horwoods line-printed
GRAPHICALLY TENTH-RATE through the provision of demountable wartime housing, in further contrast (as it were) to those who came before map layers in 1963was a treatment of the thirteen-
Fisher stayed in it through the postwar 1940s and early him, in making the tools for digital mapmaking as widely inch-wide surface of line-printed paper, output from
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the origins of the firm in 1950s. First, he served as a consultant to the veterans available as possible. In this, he was guided by a vision the IBM 1403 electromagnetic chain printer, as a graphic
nineteenth-century census counting, one of the first uses housing programme; then, through 1953, he served as of the process of shaping the physical environment field. The technique literally coaxed scales of grey from
of IBMs computers by 1950s researchers was for the a consultant to the Inter-American Development Bank, of designthat was as much intuitive as it was a system otherwise incapable of providing it.
mapping of census data. This was not an entirely digital the Organization of American States and the United systematic. Fisher sought, in his own words, an
process, but rather one that added a layer of computer- Nations, primarily in Honduras and Bogota, Colombia, interaction of man and machines [that] emphasizes The 1403 printer was a device sufficiently iconic at
produced numbers and symbols to a series of transparent where he became familiar with the machine-driven the power of each. The computer acts as a repositery the time that it featured in the set design and plot of
overlays, bound together in a final, photographic compo- accounting and analytic procedures used in development [sic] and processor of information i.e. it deals with Kubricks Dr. Strangelove (where it fatefully hides the
site. 2 It was at a two-week workshop at Northwestern work.7 It was partially in recognition of this wide-ranging quantitative information, while the designer controls the transistor radio that reveals that the remote-sensed
University in 1963, led by Edgar Horwood (the pioneer experience that Fisher was offered an adjunct position design process and performs the final evaluation which Soviet attack is not real). Instead of moving a type
of these techniques at the University of Washington), at Northwestern on his full-time return to Chicago in is not readily quantifiable [emphasis added].11 The result head to each position on the pageas in, for example,
that Howard Fisher was first introduced to the concept. 1953, where, a decade later, he would first be exposed of this approach, initially cemented during a year-long a contemporaneous electric typewriterthe iconic,
Almost immediately, Fisher thought he could do better. to computer mapping techniques. collaboration with programmer Betty Benson at computerised chain printer moved a chain of raised
While he had closed his professional practice in 1957, Northwestern from 1963 to 1964, was what Fisher called letters behind an inked ribbon in front of the cog-driven
retiring (or so he thought), he was moved by his own DRAWING TOGETHER the SYnagraphic MAPping programme, or SYMAP. paper. Within this mechanism, SYMAP could manipulate
aesthetic outrage to begin a new career: As I work on this Synagraphic, a characteristic neologism of Fishers, the printers instructions so that, rather than printing
whole problem, he would write in 1966, I am impressed While the techniques Fisher was exposed to in 1963 at combined the Greek root , or syn, meaning together, recognisable strings of text, the device instead layered
by how graphically tenth-rate a major portion of Northwestern were highly original in their own way, they with a, meaning graphic or drawing. It emphasised one character on top of the other to create a series of
statistical maps are, regardless of the technique used.3 were also representative of the institutional origins and the programmes ability not just to envision the world tones and lines, forming a recognisable image or map.
character of much of digital mapping. Even in the 1960s, as a separate set of layers, but to manipulate and encode Unlike standard IBM code, which was designed to allow
HOWARD T. FISHER computers were only owned by large institutions, and multiple variables together, in the same graphic field; overprinting of two characters onlyto produce, for
so the chief concerns in computer mapping were the its goal was, literally, to draw togethervisually, example, underlined textSYMAP hacked the printer
Drawing had been the central thread of Fishers career. interests of these institutions, who alone could fund strategically and creatively. In this, SYMAP emphasised to overprint up to four characters on every point of the
Arriving at Harvard in 1922, the well-born son of President the enormous costs associated with computer work the map less as method of optimally acting on the world maps surface: the lightest texture could be given by
Tafts secretary of the interior, Fishers skill in drawing (the rental cost for a single IBM 7090, on which SYMAP and more as a method of seeing it anew. a period; the heaviest by overprinting four characters
drew him to the fine arts department and then to the first ran, was $63,500 a monthor more than $500,000 such as OXAV or MWI*.17 From this humble misuse
nascent Faculty of Architecture (which had been formally in 2015 dollars). Edgar Horwoods work, for example, was To help advance his work on SYMAP, Fisher turned to came an expressive range of tone and texture.
organised only ten years prior). He graduated magna cum funded largely from the enormous outlay of government the same foundations and public interest groups he had
laude with a BS in architecture in 1926 from Harvard funds associated with Title I urban renewal, in particular been moving among since wartime. Fisher and the Ford At Harvard, Fishers Laboratory grew quickly to meet
College, having won two summer scholarships to draw from the Federal Department of Urban Redevelopment. Foundation discussed the idea of a large-scale grant several goals: the further development of SYMAP and
and study architecture in France. Until 1928, he taught The data-driven composite overlay maps produced to develop SYMAP further, but as of 1964 it was unclear related tools, the support and training of those at other
classes in drawing and architectural history while taking by the University of Washington surveyed, for example, who the institutional recipient of such a grant would be. institutions eager to use the software and, finally, the
graduate classes. But the opportunity to begin work on census blocks with ten percent or more deteriorating Fishers appointment at Northwestern was as an adjunct project of encouraging and experimenting with the use

272 Protocols Contributor 273

 particularly in terms of its increasingly fabulous capability Natureheavily featuring hand-drawn map overlays
for storing information in memory ready for use. The set itself squarely in the countercultural environmental
computer must, however, be directed by human beings movement and sought above all a utopian merger of
and thus can never be thought of as other than a tool. city and countryside.24
He then adds, for emphasis, it is particularly important
that this fact be recognized in giving thought to its potential Yet map-based practice in this context developed into
role in architectural design.20 Presciently and perceptively, something distinct from the purely presentational tool
Fisher openly declared the centrality of drawingthat that Fisher had originally envisioned or the related
is, representation as opposed to technical knowledge gestalt approach of observation advocated by McHarg.
to urban, landscape and architectural practice. In addition to a device for visual demonstration and
This was SYMAPs great strength, and his own goal. The subsequent intuition, the map became the framework
professions at the core of the GSDs mission, he argued for a systematic, procedural design process.
in the same memorandum, had always been primarily
concerned with visual communication. It is unthinkable, Part of this can be traced, somewhat unintentionally,
Fisher contended, to try to communicate from one back to Fishers own graphic production. As a developer
person to another information as to the complex variables of GIS in his late sixties, he was well-schooled in the
existing in an urban area without the benefit of graphic awkward nature of reality and advocated mapping chiefly
displayor to communicate the facts regarding an as a tool to better perceive it. Fisher was insistent, however,
architectural design of more than the most elementary on a diagrammatic clarity when it came to preparing the
simplicity.21 Yet what interested him about graphic conceptual outlines of a map for the SYMAP software,
expression in design was as much its subtle complexity which was crucial for the intense structuring of data
as its superficial clarity. Nowhere is his awareness of the and calculation involved in the maps punch card-based
subjectivity of visual representation, and so of mapping production. To this end, he borrowed the visual language
as well, more vividly shown than in what became one of the programming flowcharts often used in the prepa-
of his last, great obsessionsthe visual perception of ration of Fortran code to explain the procedural steps of
tone and colour (or, in his belaboringly precise words, mapmaking and their translation into code. Such symbols
the psychological evaluation of colour, as reflected from had been developed as early as John Von Neumanns
non-luminous surfaces).22 first writings on computer logic in the 1940s, and were so
essential to the preparation of code in the 1960s (before
EXPANDING OVERLAYS higher-level coding and development environments
gained widespread use) that IBM distributed plastic
Fig.1: A detail of a 1966 map prepared with SYMAP, showing a Fig.2: Nicholas de Monchaux, Local Code San Francisco Case Study, After Fisher, SYMAP was to become deeply influential drawing templates to allow their efficient if-this-then-
surface contour of car thefts in Boston Harvard University Archives, 200916. Key to 1,375 drawings of individual proposals for San Francisco. both inside and outside academiaeven as the that construction.
Howard T. Fisher Papers. conceptual character of its use was to fundamentally,
and influentially, change.
of the software by studios and programmes within the about the contributions of this brief, mid-century
GSD. And yet the Lab did not own or administer a single moment, as well as about the alternative possibilities One of Fishers first hires on receipt of the Ford Foundation
computer. Rather, it simply prepared punch card stacks, that might have emerged (and might yet) from its mould. grant was a PhD student at MITs School of Architecture
including those containing the source code of SYMAP and Planning, Carl Steinitz. Brought on as a research
in Fortran, for what was (at the Labs founding) Harvards Firstly, SYMAP established for the first time the nature associate in the Laboratory, Steinitz would add an appoint-
only such devicean IBM 7090-series mainframe of digital mapping as a visual tool and not just an admini- ment as assistant professor in landscape architecture
located in the raised-floor computing centre several strative technique. Unlike the more specific pieces of in 1966 and remain a full-time landscape faculty member
buildings away.18 software prepared before and around it, SYMAP was not at Harvard until 2007. Steinitzs particular contribution
intended for a specific administrative purpose. And as a at this time was to connect the field established by Fisher
Yet for all the singular success of Fishers tenure as result, it had to define its own internal toolsof managing with the emerging practice of overlay mapping as it was
director of the Lab (which saw SYMAP become the most features, scale, data structures and a variety of graphic developing in landscape architecture and with the larger
widely distributed software of its kind in the world), it representationsfar more broadly. More often than not, 1970s trend towards system-based approaches in design.
was also singularly brief. He would reach Harvards then these functions were created out of a deliberate misuse
mandatory retirement of sixty-six in 1969, the same year and reappropriation of the information technology of The use of overlays in landscape architecture was a
that the Ford Foundation funds were depleted, and in the timemost visible in the overprinting and layering of direct result of their advocacy by the Scottish landscape
the event chose to step down a year earlier in what would supposedly singular alphanumeric outputs, but also visible architect and UPenn professor Ian McHargalthough
turn out to be an unsuccessful attempt to allow the throughout the softwares economical source code. Steinitz and his students, seeking to widen the foundation
Labs new director, geographer William Warntz, to better of their own efforts, subsequently traced their use as far
establish his leadership.19 Nearly shuttered in 1974, when Secondly, a result of his encounter with computing as back as the office of Frederick Law Olmsted.23 McHarg
a sharply worded report judged its software distribution a mature practitioner, Fisher made contributions towards joined Steinitz in 1971 for one of a series of studios
activities to be ill-suited to Harvards goals and culture, an understanding of the precise limitations of digital Steinitz led with procedural map-based techniques (the
and its efforts reduced in scope until its eventual mapping and practice. It must be recognized, he wrote first of these, using SYMAP, had looked at the Delmarva
disbandment in 1991, the Harvard Laboratory would never (in response to a 1974 GSD memorandum recommending Peninsula in 1967). At times unapologetically anti-urban
again hold the central role in digital cartography that it did closure of the Laboratory), that the computer at its (the city is home to those indistinguishable from the
during Fishers tenure. Yet, viewed from a half-centurys very best is nothing more than a tool. It is a remarkable patients in mental hospitals as well as the bitch goddess Fig.3: IBM flowcharting template, 1962, collection of the author.
distance, several essential observations can be made tool in terms of its accuracy, speed and economyand of success), McHargs seminal 1969 Design with Collection of the author

274 Protocols Contributor 275

 11424000 SAN JOSE AVE /
INGLESIDE / $1,864 ,994.40
ESTIMATED SAVINGS PER YEAR

12914000 ALEMANY BLVD / OUTER MISSION /

$3 ,630 ,281.60 ESTIMATED SAVINGS PER YEAR

6131101

9815101 9815201

Fig.4: SYMAP V Generalized Flow Chart, 1968. A diagram of the data processing of
the SYMAP code in FORTRAN. Harvard University Archives, Howard T. Fisher Papers. 6131201

In this progression, we see first the flowchart of SYMAPs In such a systems-planning context, the computer map
operations, prepared by Fisher in 1968, and then Fishers was only one point of feedback in a larger superprocess
4051000 CIRCULAR
later diagram of the strategic preparation of data of cybernetic planning and feedback. Indeed, the report AVE / SUNNYSIDE
and map design. The symbols, and logics, are precise of Steinitzs 1970 studioA Systems Analysis Model 9814101
and near identical. of Urbanization and Changeexplicitly advocates
for a procedural, systems-based approach not just
Yet in Steinitz work, and in the larger field of systems- to the practice of design, but to its education as well.
based urban planning, we see an extension of the logic This procedural and Boolean bent was to receive further
of such diagrams; not stopping, as they did in SYMAP, reinforcement by another departure from SYMAPs 8584000

with the map itself, but flowing out and around the map original template; this related not just to GISs
into the landscape of practice, in a series of ambitious conceptual architecture, but to its literal ownership
9814201
simulations and design strategies. The result was a truly and distribution as well.
strange hybridan ostensibly open, ecological approach
with military-industrial origins. Technocracy is victorious ESRI
over drawingyet that victory is belied by the central
role of such representations in the triumph. Really nowwho is or what is ESRI? wrote Fisher on
12945000
24 January 1973 to Laura Dangermond, the partner
996000
In the report of the 1970 studio, designed by Steinitz as (both marital and business) of Jack Dangermond, one
a model for future practice inside the GSD and in the of Fisher and Steinitzs students at Harvard.26
fields it sought to lead, we see a flattening of the diagram,
leading directly from the ingesting of data at one end
11977000
to the implementation of actions within it (if, for the sake
of the studio, in the bounds of simulation). In such a Fig.5 (opposite): Nicholas de Monchaux, Local Code San Francisco
diagram, the map is not the end to a process, but merely Case Study, 200916. Selection of drawings for local ecological
interventions in San Francisco, arranged from West to East and
a symptom of it.25 The territory of action is inside the sized according to ecological contribution. (Stormwater remediation,
machine and out in the worldbut nowhere in between. heat island mediation, and carbon capture).
12946000

276 Protocols
Dangermond had come to Harvard in 1968 from Harvard for the correspondence lessons for SYMAP Edgar Horwood) conference in the late summer of 1972; procedures that deploys the arrows, decision points and
Redlands, California, some eighty miles west of Santa and SYMVU (SYMbolic VU, a Lab-authored follow-on to his submission announced a new programme, Automap 1, outlines of latter-day programming flowcharts. The firms
Monica in the Inland Empire, east of Los Angeles (where SYMAP that allowed the depiction of continuous surfaces for sale by ESRI, that does everything that SYMAP does subsequent success has been less in promoting the
his Dutch immigrant parents owned a landscaping using a pen plotter). Wouldnt it be great, Dangermond and also fits on small computers.32 Especially given use of GIS by designers (few of which can afford the
supply store). After undergraduate studies in landscape proposed, if one organization were responsible for the two programmes shared Fortran code, this produced full softwares expensive license) than in selling software
architecture and environmental science at California standardization and distribution of the various forms of a pointed, if mannerly, response from Fisher: I think your and services to more deep-pocketed local governments,
Polytechnic State University, Pomona, Dangermond computer graphic systems?, adding, I think I am very failure to give full and proper credit to SYMAP as the corporations and the military (this despite a recent
completed a one-year course in urban design at interested in grabbing hold and assuming responsibility source of your endeavors has prejudiced a number marketing effort around so-called GeoDesign, complete
the University of Minnesota and an MS in landscape of this project, if you feel [] I am capable.30 of people against you in an unfortunate way, he wrote with a Steinitz-authored textbook).38 Here, the ultimate
architecture at Harvard, the latter specialising in systems (I never felt personally upset, Fisher hastily adds).33 procedure is not so much representing the world and
for geographic information.27 He then returned to Fisher was in turn so convinced of Dangermonds skills its possibilities for change, but targeting the resources
Redlands to found what was initially billed as a nonprofit that he strongly encouraged him to take the position SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE of its powerful actors.39
consultancy: the Environmental Systems Research of Lab Director after William Warntz resigned suddenly
Institute, or ESRI. Most of its early work was conducted in 1971. [Y]ou are, Fisher wrote to Dangermond in Writing in 1959 about a new machine developed to replace THE MAP AND THE TERRITORY
using SYMAP.28 May of 1971, the single best living person for this job.31 the 7090 on which SYMAP was developed, the IBM
engineers F. P. Brooks Jr., G. W. Blaauw and Werner In 1931, the Polish-American scholar Alfred Korzybski
While the Harvard Lab had charged money to distribute And yet a different, and more difficult, tone enters into Buchholz were the first to apply the word architecture coined the phrase the map is not the territory to describe
copies of the programme on punch cards, especially the conversation between teacher and student starting to the relative arrangement of computer components.34 the seemingly inevitable semantic and structural gap
after the depletion of the Ford Foundation grant, its in late 1972: within the space of several months, ESRI For the computer in question, the IBM 7030, or Stretch, between the description of a landscapeof thought or
code was open, modifiable by its users and in the public would shed its nonprofit status and begin selling its own they proposed a rearrangement of the computers interior earthand its representation.40 Yet, in regards to todays
domain. By 1970, Fisher was recommending the extremely proprietary GIS software to government and industrial circulation of information to achieve greater usefulness ubiquitous encounter with digital cartography, we are
inventive and competent Dangermond and ESRI as a organisations. Dangermond publicly announced this and functionality thatargued Brookswas analogous to experiencing an ever-accelerating collapse of these two
consultant on SYMAP.29 Shortly afterwards, Dangermond strategy in a paper presented at the Urban and Regional the rearrangement of physical space designed to achieve semantic conditions. This transformation is not limited
approached him about taking on responsibility from Information Systems Association (or USIRA, founded by the same goal.35 to the design professions, but is transforming them just
as surely nevertheless. And so, to a large extent, our
In the case of SYMAP, ESRI and modern GIS, two territory has become the drawn map, and the drawn map
questions about the software become relevant: first, itself an essential kind of territory. Thus, the final lessons
its internal architecturethe way, that is, that the from the story of Howard Fisher are these:
software draws in and treats the world. And second,
its external architecturehow the software itself is Firstly, maps remain at their most powerful when used
shaped and distributed. From an Inland Empire storefront, not as instruments of unattended action or procedure,
the privately held ESRI has grown to control more than but rather as devices to change our perception of the
40 percent of the now enormous global market for world and our understanding of its possibilities. As Fisher
mapping software and services, and far more within implied, at their best they draw out and draw together.
the military and large corporations; this dominance
proving resistant even to the disruption of digital mapping And secondly, alongside its necessary precursor of
resulting from more freely available tools like Google drawing, architecture matters. This is true both inside
Earth.36 (The Dangermonds resulting financial worth and outside of the computer, and in particular along
is estimated at $2.9 billion.37) the connection between the two. Particularly as the
distinction between the space of information and the
However, the ESRI-driven version of GIS hewed closely space of our own cities is subject to its own, evermore
not to questions of surfaces and their display, as had complex shades of grey, we need to be mindful in a new
been SYMAPs original concerns, but rather to the way. We need to remember that the way in which we
simpler, Boolean logic that replaced it, in Steinitzs work would seek to operate in the citycarefully, transparently,
and others. This remains true to this day, when the latest collaboratively and creativelymust hold true in the
version of ESRI ArcMAP provides a visual editor of GIS irreversibly interlinked space of city and data as well.

Fig.6: Flowchart showing software, simulation, and design, from Carl Steinitz and Peter P. Rogers,
A Systems Analysis Model of Urbanization and Change: An Experiment in Interdisciplinary Education
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1970) Courtesy MIT Press.

278 Protocols Contributor 279

 Biographies
1
H  oward T. Fisher to Turpin C. Bannister, 15
Fisher, memorandum response, 22 May 1974, 33
A subsequent exchange of letters then takes
2 March 1954, Papers of Howard T. Fisher, HTFP, I2. place between ESRI and a distressed Laura
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 16
Chrisman, Charting the Unknown Dangermond (with Jack Dangermond abroad
(hereafter HTFP). (Redlands CA: ESRI Press), 21. in Japan at the time, by her telling). Fisher
2
Timothy W. Foresman, GIS Early Years and 17
Ibid., 26. presses Dangermond most of all on whether
the Threads of Evolution in The History of 18
Standing for FORmula TRANSlation, the ESRI was or remained a nonprofit; hence the
Geographic Information Systems: programming language had been introduced question that opened this discussion. To fail
Perspectives from the Pioneers, ed. Timothy by IBM in 1957. See Cerruzi, History of to give full credit to SYMAP in accordance
W. Foresman (New York: Prentice Hall, Modern Computing (Cambridge MA: with customs and traditions of the academic
1998), 3. The use of overlaid layers to create MIT Press, 2003), 67. world gives the impression that you are trying
complex maps itself became common in the 19
Fisher, memorandum response, 22 May 1974, to take credit for something improperly []
nineteenth century, and found its roots even HTFP, I9. of course, if you are a strictly business
earlier; Louis Alexandre Berthier used hinged 20
Howard T. Fisher, memorandum response, enterpriseand that is [made] obviousthen
overlay maps at the 1781 siege of Yorktown May 22 1974, HTFP, I5. people wouldnt expect you to have the same
to show troop movements to his own 21
Ibid., 18. standards, but the title of your organization is
commander, Rochambeau, as well as 22
Fisher to Don T. Hill, 27 July 1971, HTFP. definitely such as to imply that you are above
General Washington. 23
Carl Steinitz, Hand-Drawn Overlays: the mere [] standards of the marketplace
3
Fisher to Phil Christiansen, memorandum, Their History and Prospective Uses, Fisher to Jack Dangermond, 8 January 1973,
18 July 1966, HTFP. Landscape Architecture 66, no. 5 HTFP. In fact, ESRI had reconstituted itself
4
Howard T. Fisher, biographical sketch, (September 1976): 44455; as a for-profit corporation only three days
dated August 1930, HTFP. 24
Ian L. McHarg, Design with Nature (Garden prior. Business Incorporation Certificate
5
Ibid. City, NY: Natural History Press, 1969), 20. for Entity # C0672337, Environmental
6
Fisher to Frederick Fisher, 24 March 1944, 25
Carl Steinitz and Peter P. Rogers,A Systems Systems Research Institute, Inc., California
HTFP. Analysis Model of Urbanization and Change; Secretary of State, accessed 30 June 2015,
7
And here, a moment of unexpected disclosure: An Experiment in Interdisciplinary Education http://kepler.sos.ca.gov.
as I learned only in 2012partially through the (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1970). For 34
F. P. Brooks Jr., G. A. Blaauw, and W. Buchholz,
surprising inclusion of a 1959 Christmas letter a comprehensive explanation of Steinitz Processing Data in Bits and Pieces and
typed by my grandmother, business-machine activities in this period (albeit not mentioning Architectural Philosophy by F.P. Brooks Jr.
programmer Nell de Monchaux in Fishers Fisher), see Catherine F. McMahon, in Planning a Computer System: Project
Harvard archiveFishers housemate in Predictive Machines: Data, Computer Maps, Stretch, ed. Werner Buchholz (New York:
Tegucigalpa was my grandfather, French- and Simulation, in A Second Modernism: McGraw-Hill, 1962), 517.
Australian business machine consultant Emile MIT, Architecture, and the Techno-Social 35
While a commercial failure, Stretch provided
de Monchaux. And as a result his summer- Moment, ed. Arindam Dutta (Cambridge, essential technology for the real-time
time assistant in housing work in Bogota, MA: SA+P and MIT Press, 2013) 43673. computing of NASAs Mission Control Centre,
Colombia, in 1952, was my then sixteen-year- 26
Fisher to Mrs. Jack [sic] Dangermond, and also led directly to the highly successful
old father, Jean Pierre de Monchaux. 24 January 1973, HTFP. System/360 product line. Cerruzzi, History
His recollections were an unexpected delight 27
Jack Dangermond C.V., 1970, HTFP. of Modern Computing (Cambridge MA: MIT
in developing a full sense of his character, 28
Jack Dangermond C.V., 1970, HTFP. Press, 2003), 15157.
although the thesis and argument of this Of the twelve projects listed on Dangermonds 36
Michael Helft, You Cant Kill Jack
essay was crafted in the archives beforehand. 1970 CV, four are listed as using SYMAP; Dangermonds Company. Try, And It Will Only
8
Edgar M. Horwood, Using Computer Graphics as discussed below, SYMAP also served, Get Stronger, Forbes, 31 March 2015, http://
in Community Renewal; Computer Methods certainly in Fishers opinion, as the basis for www.forbes.com/sites/miguelhelft/2015/
of Graphing, Data Positioning and Symbolic much of the other work as well. 03/31/you-cant-kill-jack-dangermonds-
Mapping (Seattle: University of Washington, 29
SYMAP and [] one or more programmes company-try-and-it-will-only-get-stronger/.
1963), 5.01. that are based on SYMAP. Fisher to 37
#628: Jack Dangermond, Forbes, accessed
9
Roger Tomlinson, The Canada Geographic Dr. D. R. F. Taylor, Department of Geography, 30 June 2015, http://www.forbes.com/
Information System, in The History of Carleton University, 2 June 1970, HTFP. profile/jack-dangermond/.
Geographic Information Systems: Perspectives 30
Dangermond to Howard T. Fisher, 38
Carl Steinitz, A Framework for Geodesign:
from the Pioneers, ed. Timothy W. Foresman 27 July 1970, HTFP. Changing Geography by Design (Redlands,
(Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall PTR, 31
Fisher to Jack Dangermond, 17 May 1971, CA: Esri Press, 2012). Full disclosure
1998), 21. HTFP. While Dangermond had initially I was invited as a speaker to the Geodesign
10
Department of Forestry and Rural demurred, he finally came to Cambridge with meeting held at ESRI in 2011, where I received
Development, Data for Decision directed Fishers encouragement to speak with then an audience-voted award.
by David Millar (1968; Ottawa, National Film GSD dean Maurice Kilbridge. However, 39
To its great credit, especially given the
Board of Canada). he wrote shortly after to both Fisher and $10,000+ cost, ESRI has consistently allowed
11
My basic approach to involvement with Kilbridge, I would like at this time to say no free or heavily discounted use of its desktop
computers Howard T. Fisher, in an undated to your offer, but would very much like in software by nonprofits and academics
manuscript, HTFP. the future to participate in the Laboratorys including me. This has not incidentally
12
Fisher to Louis Winnick, 14 January 1965, activities. Jack Dangermond to Dean Maurice served to cement the softwares ubiquity.
HTFP. Kilbridge, Graduate School of Design, 40
The phrase appears in Alfred Korzybski,
13
Fisher to the Committee to Review the 7 June 1971, HTFP. A Non-Aristotelian System and its Necessity
Laboratory for Computer Graphics and 32
Jack Dangermond, A Classification and for Rigour in Mathematics and Physics (paper
Spatial Analysis, memorandum response, Review of Coordinate Identification and presented at a meeting of the American
22 May 1974, HTFP, I2. Computer Mapping Systems, in Urban and Association for the Advancement of Science,
14
William A. Doebele Jr., Associate Dean Regional Information Systems: Information New Orleans, LA, 28 December 1931).
for Development, memorandum to George Research for an Urban Society, Papers from Reprinted in Alfred Korzybski, Science
Bennett, Treasurer, GSD, Ford Foundation the Tenth Annual Conference of the Urban and Sanity (Lakeville, CT: International
Grant of $294,000 to the Graduate School and Regional Information Systems Non-Aristotelian Library, 1933), 74761.
of Design for Training and Research in Association, August 28September 1972,
Computer Map-Making, 1 April 1966, HTFP. San Francisco, CA, vol. 2 (Claremont, CA:
Claremont College Printing Service, 1973), 185.

280 Protocols
Editors Executive Editors Contributors SOPHIA BANOU studied architecture at the National Technical
University of Athens in Greece and at the University of Edinburgh.
She currently teaches architectural design and theory at the University
of Edinburgh and Newcastle University (UK), and she is an editor for
LAURA ALLEN is Professor of Architecture and Augmented Landscapes FRDRIC MIGAYROU is Chair, Bartlett Professor of Architecture HARSHIT AGRAWAL is an HCI researcher who builds tools to study the architectural design research journal Drawing On. She has recently
at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where she teaches U11 at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, and Deputy Director of how technology can blend with and enhance human creative expression. completed a PhD in Architecture by Design at the University of
on the MArch Architecture. Smout Allen, her practice with Mark Smout, the MNAM-CCI (Muse National dArt Moderne, Centre de Cration He has presented his work at international HCI and electronic arts Edinburgh. Her thesis, The Kinematography of a City: Moves into
focuses on the dynamic relationship between the natural and the Industrielle) at the Centre Pompidou, Paris. He was the founder of the conferences (SIGGRAPH, UIST, UbiComp, TEI, ISEA). Harshit believes Drawing, was funded by the Bodossaki Foundation in Greece and
man-made and how this can be revealed to enhance the experience Frac Center Collection and of ArchiLab, the international festival of that one of the key narratives of our age is about how we build tools focused on the concept of space as a temporal and ephemeral
of the landscape. Lauras work is instantly recognisable and has featured prospective architecture in Orlans. Apart from recent publications using machine intelligence and how they interact with humans. condition and the understanding of drawing as a situated experience.
in many publications, exhibitions and collections. Smout Allen teach, and exhibitions (De Stijl, Centre Pompidou, 2011; La Tendenza, Centre His work seeks to expand the horizon of such explorations. Her work has been published and presented in exhibitions
lecture and exhibit internationally. They have been selected for both the Pompidou, 2012; Bernard Tschumi, Centre Pompidou, 2013; Frank Gehry, internationally and is also in the permanent collection of the Benaki
Venice Biennale (2012 and 2016) and Chicago Biennale (2015). In 2005, Centre Pompidou, 2014; Le Corbusier, Centre Pompidou, 2015), he was JOSEPH ALTSHULER is an architectural designer, writer and founding Museum in Athens and the archival collection at Virginia Tech, USA.
they won the Summer Exhibition Award for Architecture at the Royal the curator of Non-Standard Architectures at the Centre Pompidou in editor of SOILED, a periodical of architectural stories that makes a
Academy of Arts. They have successful carried out collaborations 2003, the first exposition of its kind devoted to architecture, computation mess of the built environment and the politics of space. Joseph designs JAMIE BARRON is a designer from Los Angeles. He received his
with international individuals and institutions, including the University and fabrication. More recently, he has curated Japan Architects 1945 affordable housing with Landon Bone Baker Architects in Chicago, and Bachelors of Science in Architecture from the University of Illinois
of Southern California Libraries, Williams F1 Advanced Engineering, 2010 (21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, 2014); Frank Gehry is also a founding partner of Could Be Architecture LLC, an architectural at Chicago in 2011 and his Masters of Architecture from the University
the Centre for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI), Los Angeles, the British (Foundation Louis Vuitton, Paris, 2014) and Naturalising Architecture design practice that explores storytelling, humour and character in of California in 2016.
Council and the Land Art Archive, Nevada. (ArchiLab, Orlans, 2013). In 2012, he founded B-Pro, The Bartletts architecture. His writing and design work has been published widely in
umbrella structure for post-professional architecture programmes. journals and online media, including Log, PLAT, CLOG, Cite, Pidgin, Post, PETER BEHRBOHM is an artist, architect and filmmaker based in Berlin.
LUKE CASPAR PEARSON is a designer and teacher at The Bartlett MAS Context and Steppenwolf Theatres blog. Joseph holds a Masters Peter studied in Stockholm and Berlin and holds a diploma in architecture
School of Architecture, UCL, where he has taught since 2009. He is BOB SHEIL is an architect, Director of The Bartlett School of Architecture, in Architecture from Rice University, where he also assistant-taught from Berlins University of the Arts. In 2014, he received the BDA-SARP
the founding partner of You+Pea, a design research practice that was a UCL, Professor in Architecture and Design through Production and the architectural history and theory. Award from the German Architecture Association and the Association of
member of a collaborative team from UCL that designed and fabricated Schools Director of Technology. He is a founding partner of sixteen* Polish Architects for best graduation project. For his urban interventions
the Universal Tea Machine for the London 2012 Olympic Games. (makers), whose work in collaboration with Stahlbogen GmbH 55/02 ANNA ANDRONOVA is a recent architecture graduate from Kazan State and short films, he was awarded the Baumgarten Scholarship twice,
Their recent work has been exhibited at the RIBA and Peckham Levels, won a RIBA award for design in 2010 and also includes a ten-year University. Her academic group is part of TIArch Studio, an educational and in 2012 he received the Rudolf Lodders Award for his architectural
and they were the curators of UP-POP at the 2015 London Festival of catalogue of experimental projects both internationally published workshop in experimental design led by Ilnar Akhtiamov. She also has approach to the Esso Houses in Hamburg. At Brandlhuber+, he was
Architecture. Luke has been the previous recipient of the RIBA Bronze and exhibited. He is an educator, critic, researcher, collaborator and a BA from the University of East London. The My Breathing City project in charge of the exhibition Archipel at n.b.k. and K.O.W. (both galleries
Medal and a Leverhulme Trust Grant. He is currently undertaking a practitioner, as well as an experimental designer who is fascinated by was awarded second place in the d3 Natural Systems competition (USA), in Berlin) in the same year. Currently, he is working on a book/exhibition
PhD in Design in Architecture at The Bartlett, exploring videogames and the intersections between making, craft and technology. He has played the Mediatheque project got an ISArch Special Mention award (Spain) about the work fetish.
architecture, and was awarded the UCL Graduate Research Scholarship a leading role in the Schools investment in digital technologies since and an extract of her thesis received third prize in the International
for this work. As part of this research, he is developing a videogame he took over as Director of Technology in 2007, including founding the Shopping Plaza Design Competition (China). Her professional interests ADAM BELL undertook both his BA Hons and MArch at the University
in collaboration with games studio Shedworks Interactive. Lukes work Digital Manufacturing Centre (2009) and later evolving it into The Bartlett lie in social construction, spatial imagination and developing a strong of Greenwich on a part-time basis while working for a small architectural
has been exhibited in the Royal Academy, as well as being published Manufacturing and Design Exchange (B-Made). He has recently founded graphic language. practice based in Kent. The Restored Commonwealth Club formed
in journals and magazines such as ARQ, Architects Sketchbooks, CLOG, The Protoarchitecture Lab at UCL, where he is currently developing the thesis project of his MArch. Following graduation, The Restored
The RIBA Journal and Interstices. new strands of collaborative research between making, performance and MATTHEW AUSTIN is a PhD candidate and an associate lecturer in Commonwealth Club received the SELSA Award and the Serjeant
3D scanning in collaboration with the Royal Central School of Speech architecture at the University of Technology, Sydney. Matthews expertise Award (RIBA President Medals). Adam is currently undertaking the
and Drama, SHUNT and ScanLAB Projects. in advanced digital processes has been invaluable in establishing a Part 3 qualification at the University of Greenwich while working at
research agenda that focuses on the critical exploration of the architectural Foster + Partners.
potential offered by the glitch and glitch aesthetics. Specifically,
this interest is a valuable lens into understanding how the glitch, as an KYLE BRANCHESI is currently an architect for The Office Of HH
example of an aberrant digital process, can be used critically to resist The Crown Prince of Dubai and a graduate of the Southern California
valuing architectural objects solely as instrumental outcomes of Institute of Architecture. He is a founder of the collaborative TALL.
explicable processes. Through exhibitions, publications, loose imagery and whatever else
they can get their hands on, TALL challenges the assumed depth
ALESSANDRO AYUSO is a senior lecturer at the University of of objects within the current creative economy.
Westminster and an MArch thesis supervisor at The Bartlett School of
Architecture, UCL. Before moving to London, he taught at universities JESSIE BRENNAN is a London-based British artist whose practice
including Virginia Tech and Marywood University, co-founded a practice explores the representation of places through drawing and dialogue,
in New York, exhibited in venues such as the McCaig-Welles Gallery informed by their changing contexts and a direct engagement with
in Brooklyn and studied as a fellow at Syracuse University in Florence. the people who occupy them. She graduated from the Royal College
of Art in 2007 and has exhibited nationally and internationally, including:
KIRSTY BADENOCH works between architectural urbanism and REGENERATION!, HS Projects, London (solo and publication, 2015);
territorial landscapes. Educated at the University of Liverpool and Progress, The Foundling Museum, London (2014); Talents Contemporains
Aarhus Architecture School, Denmark, she graduated in 2011 under and Franois Schneider Foundation, France (2014). Jessie is a freelance
the tutelage of C.J. Lim and Chris Thurlbourne of The Bartlett School educator, visiting university lecturer and current artist-in-residence
of Architecture, UCL. Her thesis project, New Lohachara, has won at Metal in Peterborough, where she is developing her Arts Council
numerous awards, including the RIBA Presidents Medal Serjeant Award England-supported project Inside a Green Backyard. She is
for Excellence in Drawing, and has been widely published and exhibited currently (2016) a visiting research fellow at The Bartlett School of
internationally, including in the RIBA Journal, The Architectural Review Architecture, UCL.
and the IAACs Self-Sufficient Habitat. Kirsty was awarded a series
of grants from the Danish Arts Fund for her private artistic research PABLO BRONSTEIN is an Argentine artist based in London. He attended
project into rising sea levels, The Disappearing Islands. In 2011, she Central Saint Martins at the University of the Arts, London, the Slade
founded the drawing company Drawn by Numbers and she actively School of Fine Art, UCL, and Goldsmiths, University of London. In
pursues representation as a form of architectural investigation in and 2015, Bronstein had solo shows at both Nottingham Contemporary and
outside of architectural practice. Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, as well as at the Museo Marino Marini,
Florence, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Other solo exhibitions
THOMAS BALABAN established TBA in 2009 as a multidisciplinary include: REDCAT, Los Angeles (2014), Centre dArt Contemporain,
studio focusing on architecture and design. The office seeks out every Geneva (2013), The Institute of Contemporary Art, London (2011),
opportunity to challenge conditions, expand current conventions and Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2011), Sculpture Court, Tate
create better environments. Thomas Balaban, OAQ AAPPQ MRAIC, Britain, London (2010) and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
received his professional architecture degree from McGill University. (2009). Bronsteins work is currently exhibited as part of the touring
He has worked for Frank O. Gehry & Associates/Gehry Partners for 8th British Art Show (201517). Previous group exhibitions include:
several years in Los Angeles, as well as for Saucier + Perrotte in Collected By Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner, Whitney
Montreal. In 2012, he was appointed professor in practice at the School Museum of American Art, New York (2016), LAnne Dernire
of Architecture at Universit de Montral. He was previously an adjunct Marienbad, Kunsthalle Bremen, and History is Now: 7 Artists Take on
professor at McGill Universitys School of Architecture, teaching design Britain, Hayward Gallery, London (2015), Folkestone Triennial, curated
from 2006 to 2012. by Lewis Biggs, Folkestone, Kent (2014), CuriosityArt and the Pleasures
of Knowing, curated by Brian Dillon, Hayward Touring exhibition (201314),
Ideal Standard Forms, Galleria dArte Moderna, GAM, Turin (2013),

282 Drawing Futures Biographies 283

Arkhaiologia: Archeology in Contemporary Art, Centre PasquArt, Biel JANA C ULEK is an architect from Croatia, living and working in the BENJAMIN FERNS is currently employed at Hopkins Architects He is an associate teacher at ESNE and UCJC, Madrid. Fernando Nieto
(2011), Scene Shifts, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2010) and MOVE: Netherlands. A graduate of the Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in in London. As a student of MArch Unit 12 at The Bartlett School of graduated from the School of Architecture in Valladolid and has a
Choreographing You, Hayward Gallery Touring (201011). Architecture and Urban Design in Delft (Netherlands), the focus of her Architecture, UCL, he has developed a profound knowledge of Italian Master of Advanced Studies in Collective Housing and a PhD from
In 2013, Knig Books published a major monograph, A is Building, B is design projects and research has been architectural representation and postwar architecture and the Italian Baroque. He graduated with the Department of Architectural Design at the School of Architecture
Architecture. Other solo publications include Enlightenment Discourse narrative. Her thesis project at The Berlage looked at representational distinction and subsequently received the RIBA Serjeant Award, SOM in Madrid. Jos Manuel Lpez Ujaque trained in architecture at the
on the Origins of Architecture (2014), Gilded Keyholes (2013), A Guide and narrative methods in Dutch architecture and visual culture. Fellowship and Sir Banister Fletcher Medal. University of Alicante and is a PhD candidate at ETSAM. Katerina
to Postmodern Architecture in London (2011), Pissoir (2011), Ornamental The project A Flat Tale was published in the book Scenes from the Good Psegiannaki is an architect from the University of Thrace, Greece,
Designs (2008) and Description of Casa Scaccabarozzi (2008). Life and presented and exhibited at the Scenes from the Good Life HSINMING FUNG has been principal and co-founder of Hodgetts + Fung holds a PhD from ETSAM and is an associate teacher at the International
symposium, held at the TU Delft Faculty of Architecture in January 2016. since 1984, a studio with expertise in the design of unique places for University of La Rioja.
KONRAD BUHAGIAR is an architect and founding member of the learning, cultural events and civic functions. H+Fs approach is
Architecture Project network. He is associate professor at the University NICHOLAS DE MONCHAUX is Associate Professor of Architecture and multifaceted, embracing visitor experience, technology and iconic ANNA HOUGAARD received her diploma in architecture from The Royal
of Malta, a tutor at the Centre for Sustainable Heritage at The Bartlett Urban Design at the University of California, Berkeley, where he serves presence in a disciplined process, resulting in a bold, uncompromising Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture in Copenhagen
School of Architecture, UCL, and at the International Summer School as director of the Berkeley Center for New Media. He is the author architecture. The firms award-winning projects include the redesign of (KADK) in 2007, where it received the Vola Prize. She has worked as
in Aix-Marseille Universit, France. Previously, Buhagiar was an architect of Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo (MIT Press, 2011), an architectural and the Hollywood Bowl, Menlo-Atherton Performing Arts Center, CalArts an architect at Nobel Arkitekter (Copenhagen), Holgaard Arkitekter
in the Antiquities Section of the Ministry of Public Works of Malta and urban history of the Apollo spacesuit, winner of the Eugene M. Emme Wild Beast Pavilion, Jesuit High School Chapel and Nashvilles new (Copenhagen) and Schultes Frank Architekten (Berlin), and has been
President of the Heritage Advisory Committee of the Malta Environment award from the American Astronautical Society and shortlisted for the Ascend Amphitheater. Current projects include the renovation of Culver a teaching assistant at the KADK since 2007. She recently handed in
and Planning Authority. Buhagiar has been a member of the Expert Art Book Prize, as well as Local Code: 3,659 Proposals about Data, Citys historic Robert Frost Auditorium and a West Hollywood mixed-use her PhD thesis The Animate Drawing, on the effect of computers on
Committee of the European Prize for Urban Public Space since 2012. Design, and the Nature of Cities (Princeton Architectural Press, 2016). development. H+F has been awarded the AIA Gold Medal and the AIA architectural drawing. She lives in Berlin with her family and since 2015
He co-edited the book The Founding Myths of Architecture (2016). His design work has been exhibited at the Biennial of the Americas, CC Firm of the Year Award. Following an eight-year relationship with has been a member of the Berlin-based network of architectural
the Venice Architecture Biennale, SFMOMA and the Museum of the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) as Graduate researchers architekturwissenschaft.net.
MATTHEW BUTCHER is a lecturer in architecture and performance Contemporary Art in Chicago. He is a Fellow of the American Academy Programs Director and Design Studio faculty, Ming was appointed to
at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where he is also director of in Rome. the position of Director of Academic Affairs in the fall of 2010, and then ADRIANNE JOERGENSEN is an architectural designer and research
the undergraduate BSc Architecture programme. Recent projects and in 2015 was appointed to serve in her current role as Chief of Strategic coordinator for Tourism and Cultural Heritage: A Case Study on
exhibitions include Stage City (exhibited at the V&A Museum, Prague BERNADETTE DEVILAT is an architect, and co-founder of Devilat Advancement and International/Special Programs. She has taught at the Explorer Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn, a multidisciplinary travelling
Quadrennial and the Royal Academy), 2EmmaToc/Writtle Calling, a Lanuza Architects and the Tarapac Project, an initiative to address Yale, Ohio State and Cal Poly Pomona. She is a past president of both research project at the ETH Zrich Future Cities Laboratory (FCL)
temporary radio station in Essex, which was named in Artforum as one reconstruction in heritage villages affected by earthquakes, created AIA Los Angeles and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. in Singapore, led by Professors Philip Ursprung and Alex Lehnerer.
of the best projects of 2013, and Flood House, a floating architecture after the 2005 earthquake occurred in the northern area of Chile. She has been a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Rome Her previous research has focused on the architectural structuring
developed in collaboration with Focal Point Gallery in Southend as Her work has been exhibited at the Expo Shanghai (2010), Venice Prize Advance Fellowship. She was appointed by Bill Clinton as a Council of views, especially in tourist contexts around southeast Asia. She
part of their Radical Essex programme. Matthew is also co-founder Architectural Biennale and Architecture Biennial of Chile. Her Masters Member of the National Endowment for the Arts and has served as a has catalogued the design impact of plotlines on urban contexts
and editor of the architectural newspaper P.E.A.R.: Paper for Emerging thesis was awarded in two national competitions and also exhibited national peer for General Services Administration. from Chicago to Jakarta, and has been a visiting critic or lecturer
Architectural Research. at the Architectural Biennale of Chile (2010). She was also a lecturer at, among others, the National University of Singapore (NUS) School
at the Architectural Design Studio at PUC in 200910. PABLO GIL MARTNEZ is an architect with eleven years of postgraduate of Architecture and Yale-NUS College. Her design work has been
BRYAN CANTLEY received his BA in Architecture from UNCC and his experience as a professional practitioner. After graduating from The published in SOILED, The Draftery and The Economy Magazine and
Masters in Architecture from UCLA, and is a Professor of Design Theory DRAWING ARCHITECTURE STUDIO was founded by architect Li Han Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, he worked for David Chipperfield shown at the Storefront for Art and Architecture and the Chicago
at CSUF. His work is in the permanent collection at SFMOMA, and he is and designer Hu Yan in Beijing, China. Drawing Architecture Studio (DAS) Architects, Richard Rogers Partnership and Yael Reisner Architects, Architecture Foundation. She holds a Masters in Architecture from
a recipient of a Graham Foundation grant. He has lectured and had solo is a creative platform integrating architecture, art, design, urban study and then founded GilBartolom Architects with Jaime Bartolom. the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) School of Architecture, where
exhibits internationally, including at SCI-Arc and The Bartlett School of and pop culture that aims to explore new models for the creation of He completed a PhD at The Bartlett, supervised by Professors Stephen she was a graduate teaching assistant and organiser of the student-
Architecture, UCL. His first monograph, Mechudzu, was published in contemporary urban culture. Li Han is a National Class 1 Registered Gage and Marcos Cruz. He also teaches architecture at the Univerisdad run Department of Urban Speculation.
2011 by SpringerWein. His solo exhibition Dirty Geometries + Mechanical Architect in China. He received a BArch from the Central Academy Europea de Madrid. Previously, he taught at London Metropolitan
Imperfections was installed at SCI-Arc in 2014. of Fine Arts in Beijing and a MArch from RMIT University in Melbourne. University and the Instituto Empresa Business School, Madrid. RYAN LUKE JOHNS is a visiting lecturer at the Princeton University
He worked as a senior architect at the China Architecture and Research His recent project The House on the Cliff was covered by media School of Architecture, adjunct assistant professor at Columbia
NAT CHARD is Professor of Experimental Architecture at The Bartlett Group in Beijing for seven years before establishing DAS. His current throughout the world. University GSAPP and co-founding principal of GREYSHED, a design-
School of Architecture, UCL, following professorships at the Royal practice includes architecture design, urban research and publication. research collaborative focused on advanced workflows and robotics
Danish Academy, Copenhagen, the University of Manitoba and the Hu received her BFA from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. DAVID S. GOODSELL is an associate professor in the Department within architecture, art and industrial design. Recent projects by
University of Brighton. He taught at The Bartlett throughout the 1990s She has years of experiences in branding and product design. of Molecular Biology at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, GREYSHED explore nonlinear design workflows, which leverage
and has also taught at North and East London Universities. His work California. He is the author of Bionanotechnology: Lessons from Nature interactive technologies, sensory feedback and robotic fabrication tools
has been published and exhibited internationally. His research practice GUILLAUME DREYFUSS is an art historian and heritage consultant at (J. Wiley and Sons, 2004), Our Molecular Nature: The Bodys Motors, to reduce the divide between design conception and materialisation.
develops means of discussing uncertain conditions in architecture and Architecture Projects (AP), based in Malta. Guillaume obtained a MSc in Machines, and Messages (Springer-Verlag, 1996) and The Machinery Ryan holds a BArch from Columbia University and a Masters in
his recent work has been acted out through a series of nine types of Sustainable Heritage from UCL and is co-editor of The Founding Myths of Life (Springer-Verlag,1993). Architecture from Princeton University. He has worked for KPF and
drawing instrument. of Architecture (2016). Before joining AP, Guillaume gained experience of DS+R, as a fabricator for Robert Lazzarini and as a research assistant
museum curatorship and exhibition management in France. PENELOPE HARALAMBIDOU is a senior lecturer at The Bartlett School for the Gramazio & Kohler Chair of Digital Fabrication, ETH Zurich.
GRGORY CHATONSKY is a French artist based in Montreal and Paris. of Architecture, UCL, where she coordinates the MPhil/PhD
He has a PhD from UQAM, a Masters in Multimedia and Hypermedia Art OWEN DUROSS completed his BA in Architecture from the University of programmes and MArch Architecture Unit 24. Projects include Drawing EPHRAIM JORIS is a partner at the international architecture practice
from ENSBA-ENST, a DEA in Aesthetics and a Masters in Philosophy Kentucky, College of Design (UK/CoD) in 2015, and is currently pursuing Fix, an installation for the Museum of Modern Art, Athens, 2002, and Architecture Project, with whom he produces work in renovation and
from Paris I-La Sorbonne. In 1994, he founded the netart platform his Masters in Architecture. He was a research assistant and project exhibition designs at the RIBA, London, 2003, and the Art Directors Club, restoration. Dr. Joris has a PhD from RMIT University, evaluating the
incident.net. Grants and awards he has received include Dicream (2014), designer at D.O.T.S. (Design Office Takebayashi Scroggin) in 2014, New York, 2003. Her current work lies between architectural design, idea of an architectural phenomenology that recasts history as the
CAC (2013), CALQ (2012), CRSH (2011), Cap Digital (2010), Arcadi (2010) and is currently a project designer for Martin Summers at PLUS-SUM art practice and curating, experimental film and critical theory, and experiential content of speculative architectures. As Co-Director
and CNAP (2008). In 2013, he launched Telofossils at the Museum Studio in Lexington, Kentucky. His ongoing research is in conjunction has been published and exhibited internationally. Curatorial/research of Program at the Faculty of Architecture at KU Leuven University,
of Contemporary Art, Taipei. In 2015, Extinct Memories was showed with the Point of Departure Studio at UK/CoD as a team member and projects include Spatial Imagination (2006), The Blossoming of he continues this research through projects concerning mobile tensile
at IMAL (Brussels). He has participated in group exhibitions including project designer. As a multidisciplinary project with the Center for Perspective (2007) and Speculative Models (2009). She is the author architecture that seeks to combine mechanical efficiency with local
Erreur dimpression, Jeu de Paume (Paris), The Beginning of Applied Energy Research (CAER), it was awarded a University of of Marcel Duchamp and the Architecture of Desire (Ashgate, 2013) and identity, culture and history.
The End (Timisoara), Mois de la Photo (Montral), Extimitat (Palma), Kentucky Sustainability Challenge Grant in 2014 and 2015 to pursue The Blossoming of Perspective: A Study (DomoBaal Editions, 2007),
Der UntergangDoomsday (Berlin), Connect the dots and see the design and construction of sustainable bus shelters on the UK campus. and has contributed writing on themes such as allegory, figural theory, DAMJAN JOVANOVIC is a tutor and research associate at Stdelschule
unseen (Roma), Interlife Crisis (Seatte), The Radius (Chicago), Il He is currently collaborating with social media group Super//Architects. stereoscopy and film in architecture to a wide range of publications. Architecture. His MArch thesis won the AIV Master Thesis Prize in
Pardosso Della Rupetizone (Roma), Augmented Senses (Shanghai) 2014. Damjan received his undergraduate degree in architecture in 2006
and the Biennale Montral. ECOLOGICSTUDIO is an architectural and urban design studio SIMON HERRON trained at the AA, London, and Stdelschule Frankfurt. and completed an MArch at the University of Belgrade, Serbia, in 2008.
co-founded in London by Claudia Pasquero and Marco Poletto. The He is currently Academic Leader in Architecture at the University of His interests lie in computational design and his work explores the
DOMINIQUE CHENG is an architect (by training) and illustrator/ studio focuses on systemic design, a method defined by the combination Greenwich and postgraduate design studio tutor for Diploma Unit 16 relationship between aesthetics and the computational medium. Recent
installation artist (by choice). He received a Masters in Architecture and integration of ecological thinking, computational and interaction with Nicholas Szczepaniak. His current research interests reflect on projects include video installations for musical theatre performances
from the University of Toronto (2007) and has since worked for numerous design and digital prototyping. Claudia Pasquero graduated from Turin architecture in the age of the Anthropocene. Previously, he was a Senior staged in Frankfurt, Vienna and Warsaw, as well as software applications
firms across the US. In 2012, he co-formed WE-3, a collective of Polytechnic in 2000 and completed her graduate studies at the AA. College Teaching Fellow at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, that are positioned between gaming and design culture.
architects, graphic designers and designers interested in creating She has exhibited in the London and Venice Architectural Biennales and has taught at the University of Westminster, SCI-Arc Los Angeles
experiences that are layered in meaning, specifically/spatially located with an installation called STEM and is co-director of the Fibrous and at the AA, London. He worked for Michael Hopkins Architects before ARNAV KAPUR works at the confluence of human-machine collaboration
and impeccably executed. He is the recipient of the OAA Architectural Structures Project. Claudia has taught and lectured internationally. joining Ron Herron Associates, where he became a partner in 1989. and machine intelligence. He explores how machines could emulate
Concept Award (2016) and is currently a finalist for the prestigious She leads the Urban Morphogenesis Lab for the MArch Urban Design human cognition and in the process augment our own abilities. With his
Arte Laguna Prize in Venice (2016). programme at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. Marco Poletto HIPOTESIS is an independent publishing platform created in 2009 by understanding of machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies
is an architect, author and educator. He has taught at the AA (London) Francisco G. Trivio, Fernando Nieto, Katerina Psegiannaki and Jos and his passion for artistic and musical expression, he is excited by their
and IAAC (Barcelona). Poletto and Pasquero are the authors of Manuel Lpez Ujaque. Francisco Garca Trivio trained in architecture close intersections. His previous experience includes work at MIT CSAIL,
Systemic ArchitectureOperating Manual for the Self-Organizing City at the University of Granada and has a PhD from ETSAM, Madrid. Harvard Medical School and the Google Lunar X Prize.
(Routledge, 2012).

284 Drawing Futures Biographies 285

PARSA KHALILI is an architectural designer based in Vienna and Chicago. practiced with Marble Fairbanks in New York City, where he served as Artistic Visions of the Urban Realm (2014). In conjunction with his visual recently completed temporary installations for arts organisations in
He spent a year at the Ecole Nationale Superieure dArchitecture de project architect for a number of award-winning educational and public art practice, Tom is also a senior designer at Moriyama and Teshima New York City and the Hudson Valley and has work published in PLAT
Versailles (2005), where he was awarded the Earl Prize for Design projects. Adam is Assistant Professor of Architecture at California Architects and an instructor of architectural representation at the Journal, MAS Context, SOILED and Conditions Magazine. Julia has an
Excellence and went on to graduate summa cum laude from the University College of the Arts, where he coordinates the Integrated Building Design Daniels Faculty of Landscape, Architecture and Design at the University MArch and an MA in Design Criticism from the University of Illinois at
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2006). Parsa received his Masters at curriculum, teaches design studios in computational design and digital of Toronto. Chicago and is adjunct faculty in the graduate program at New Jersey
the Yale School of Architecture (2009). In 2013, he was awarded the fabrication and collaborates with CCAs Digital Craft Lab. He has previously Institute of Technology.
Plym Fellowship by the University of Illinois to fund his speculative design taught at the undergraduate Department of Architecture at Barnard THI PHUONG - TRM NGUYEN is a trained architect living in Canada.
project The End of Western Classicism, the End of the Near East: & Columbia Colleges, the University of Minnesota and the Architectural She also holds an MA in the History and Theory of Architecture from ELIZABETH SHOTTON is currently Director of Research, Innovation
Structural Translations in/of Piranesis Anachronistic Project. Currently, Associations Visiting School Los Angeles. McGill University and is currently working on a practice-led PhD in and Impact in the UCD School of Architecture, Planning and
he is Assistant Professor for Greg Lynn at die Angewandte, University Architectural Design at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where Environmental Policy. She teaches in construction technology and
of Applied Arts in Vienna. In Vienna, Parsa is developing his architectural RYOTA MATSUMOTO is an artist, designer and urban planner, and she is exploring the temporal encounter between the body and the design, with an emphasis on sustainable building and development,
practice, having entered and been recognised in a number of international a principal at award-winning interdisciplinary design office Ryota space of wonder using anamorphic images. Her research encompasses at both undergraduate and graduate level. She holds undergraduate
design competitions, as well as collaborating with a number of offices in Matsumoto Studio in Tokyo. Born in Tokyo, Ryota was raised in Hong a historical investigation into the development of anamorphosis in the degrees in Commerce and Architecture, as well as a PhD in Architecture
the design and construction of projects in Europe and Asia. Kong and Japan. He received a Masters degree in Architecture from the seventeenth century, with a particular interest in the discoveries and from UCD. In addition to teaching architecture, she was active in
University of Pennsylvania in 2007 after studying at the AA in London and advancements at the Minims Convent by Jean-Franois Niceron architectural practice from 19882006. Elizabeths research focuses
KEITH KRUMWIEDE was born in New Orleans and raised in single-family the Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow School of Art. His art (161343). Her practice attempts to unfold the potential of encounters on the sustainable use of material resources through advances in
houses across the globe, from Bangkok to Washington, DC. His writing, and design work are featured in numerous publications and exhibitions between the body and moving images in installations that combine materials, construction technologies and design processes. She is
teaching and design work explores the use and misuse of found forms, internationally. His current interest gravitates around the embodiment film, sculpture and text. currently involved in a national research collaboration on the application
materials and words, in order to examine the world and imagine other of cultural possibilities in art, architecture and urban topography. of wood-welding to construction products and assemblies, Birch
ways it might have been and may still be. His work has been exhibited NORELL/RODHE is an architecture studio founded in 2012 by Daniel WoodWeld, the CASWOOD project led by Dr Ken Byrne, University of
widely and published in numerous journals, including Domus, 306090, ERIC MAYER is a founding member of studioRON, a collective of Norell and Einar Rodhe. Norell/Rodhes work draws from odd couplings Limerick, to develop a model to assess the environmental impact of
Perspecta, Praxis and Log. In October 2016, Park Books published his architects and designers who have been selected to design and construct of abstract architectural traits, such as proportion and frontality, with a the cascade effect in wood flow in Ireland, funded by the Department
book An Atlas of Another America, which includes the complete drawings multiple installations by the Philadelphia AIA, Temple University and gritty world of untamed materials and found objects. Their work to date of Agriculture, Forestry and Marine; and a study on the evolution of
of Freedomland, a satirical ideal city constructed with single-family various private collectors. Eric received his Bachelor of Architecture includes competition-winning projects such as the new HC Andersen maritime structures, Minor Harbours of Irelands east coast, funded
houses. He has taught at Rice University, Yale University and the from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia, Museum in Odense, as well as the internationally acclaimed installation by the Irish Research Council.
New Jersey Institute of Technology, where he is currently an associate Pennsylvania. His architectural investigations consider productive Erratic, first exhibited in Helsinki. Daniel Norell studied architecture at
professor and director of graduate architecture programs. methods of representation at the intersections of drawing, UCLA in Los Angeles (MArch 2006) and at the KTH Royal Institute of NEIL SPILLER is Hawksmoor Chair of Architecture and Landscape
prototype, model and installation. The work explores representational Technology in Stockholm. He has previously worked for Greg Lynn, Zaha and Deputy Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University of Greenwich, London.
CHEE - KIT LAI set up Mobile Studio Architects in 2008, after working methodologies which exploit the corporeal properties of materials, Hadid and Kjellander & Sjberg. He is a senior lecturer in architecture Before this, he was Vice-Dean and Graduate Director of Design at
with a variety of award-winning architecture practices such as in conjunction with psychological theories of false memory applied to at Chalmers University in Gothenburg. Einar Rodhe studied architecture The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. He guest-edited his first
Featherstone Associates, Peter Barber Architects and Ken Yeang. various communal and personal senses of nostalgia that are related at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (MArch 2009) Architectural Design, Architects in Cyberspace in 1995 (with Martin
A graduate of The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, Chee-Kit is to site, in order to develop architectural responses. The products of and at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. He has previously Pearce), followed in 1996 by Integrating Architecture (1996), Architects
a visiting critic at a number of the UKs leading universities, including his architectural investigations have been on display at various galleries, worked for Anders Wilhelmson and Ghilardi + Hellsten. He is a lecturer in Cyberspace II (1998), Young Blood (2000), Reflexive Architecture
UCL, Central Saint Martins, the University of Nottingham and the including the WUHO Gallery of Art and Architecture in Hollywood, CA, in architecture at the KTH in Stockholm. (2002), Protocell Architecture with Rachel Armstrong (2010) and Drawing
University of Westminster. He is also an RIBA Awards Assessor. and the AIA Philadelphia in Philadelphia, PA. Architecture (2013). Neils numerous books include Cyberreader: Critical
Chee-Kit is a keen runner and is fascinated by airports and air travel. OG UL ZTUN holds a BArch degree from Istanbul Technical Writings of the Digital Era (2002), Digital Dreams: The Architecture of the
SYD MEAD is a visual futurist and a neofuturistic concept artist. He Universitys Architecture Department (2014). His graduation project, New Alchemic Technologies (1998) and Visionary Architecture: Blueprints
CARL LOSTRITTO is Assistant Professor of Architecture at Rhode is best known for his designs for science fiction films such as Star Trek: Zoetrope/Open Air Performance Museum, was selected as equal best of the Modern Imagination (2006). He is internationally renowned for
Island School of Design. He regularly exhibits drawings and conceptual The Motion Picture, Blade Runner, TRON, 2010, Short Circuit, Aliens, project in the ITU Architecture Faculty Official Selection and won first his drawn architectural design work, which has been published and
works of architecture. His architectural agenda involves framing Timecop, Johnny Mnemonic, Mission Impossible 3 and Elysium. Mead prize at Archiprix Turkey 2014. He is a 2014 recipient of the Helmut exhibited worldwide and is in many collections. His new book, Surrealism
computation and representation conceptually. His modus operandi in has a close relationship with a number of major Japanese corporate Hentrich Foundation Travel Bursary, and presented his research paper and Architecture: A Blistering Romance, will be published in October
practice and pedagogy involves writing software that controls machines clients, including Sony, Minolta, Dentsu, Dyflex, Tiger, Seibu, Mitsukoshi, Transforming the Image of War Machines at the Freie Universtt in 2016 by Thames and Hudson.
and extends the role of the human author in the design process. He has Bandai, NHK and Honda, as well as contributing to two Japanese film Berlin. He has participated in and tutored many workshops, including
written hundreds of programs and scripts that control vintage pen plotters, projects, The New Yamato and Crises 2050. In the 1990s, Mead supplied at institutions such as the AA Visiting School, Politecnico di Milano, JENNIFER THOROGOOD received her MArch degree from McGill
and has indexed, catalogued and written about the resulting drawings. designs for two Japanese toy icons, The New Yamato and all eight robot EASA 2012 Wastelands, Herkes iin Mimarlk (Architecture for All), University in 2009. Prior to her education in architecture, she studied
A recent exhibit, Landlines, was shown at the MIT Keller Gallery. Lostritto characters in the new Turn-A Gundam mobile suite series, which were Atelier Bow-Wow, Istanbul Design Biennale and VBenzeri Design fine arts at the University of Western Ontario in London. Her current
studied in a post-professional research program at MIT within the Design also seen as characters in television shows. In 1993, a digital gallery Marathon. He is a research assistant and tutor at Istanbul Bilgi Universitys practice focuses on three avenues of production: architectural work,
and Computation Group. comprised of fifty examples of his art with interface screens became architecture department. installation and material and product research. Since 2009, Jennifer has
one of the first CD-ROMs released in Japan. With the Gnomon School worked at TBA, where she currently runs its research and development
RAY LUCAS is Head of Architecture at the University of Manchester. of Visual Effects, Mead produced a four-volume How To DVD series, MATTHEW PARKER completed his Masters of Architecture at the work. Its multidisciplinary approach to making ensures a systematic
Lucas has a PhD in Social Anthropology on Towards a Theory of Techniques of Syd Mead. His one-man shows, Cavalcade to the University of Calgarys Faculty of Environmental Design, where he rigour while creating work that is memorable, engaging and responsive
Notation as a Thinking Tool from the University of Aberdeen, and works Crimson Castle, consisting of 114 original paintings and illustrations, received the AIA Gold Medal. Currently, he is a researcher at the to contemporary culture.
at the interface between architecture and anthropology, with a specific and Syd Mead Progressions, have toured the US. In 2007, Laboratory for Integrative Design (LID), an interdisciplinary research
interest in drawing. Lucas recently published Research Methods for alongside director Joaquin Montalvan, he completed Visual Futurist, group that aims to develop protocols for navigating across different MADELON VRIESENDORP co-founded the Office for Metropolitan
Architecture (2015) and will soon publish a study of and with axonometric a documentary of his career. disciplinary territories through algorithmic thinking, computation, Architecture with Rem Koolhaas and Elia and Zoe Zenghelis. Their
drawing, Drawing Parallels. digital fabrication and material exploration. His current research work at that time was exhibited at the New York Guggenheim and
ALISON MOFFETT is an artist and lecturer at the AA. Born in Knoxville, explores how computer vision facilitates a class of inhuman architectural Max Protetch galleries, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Stedelijk in
ANN LUI is an assistant professor at School of the Art Institute Chicagos Tennessee, she studied art and anthropology in the US before coming observers that augment the contexts in which images of the city are Amsterdam, Berlins Aedes Gallery and Gallery Ma in Tokyo, among
Architecture, Interior Architecture and Designed Objects department. to London to attend the MFA in Painting programme at the Slade School constructed, stored and retrieved. Additionally, Matthew is a studio others. From the mid-1980s, she taught art and design at a number
With Craig Reschke, she is a co-founder of Future Firm, a Chicago- of Fine Art, graduating in 2004. Following an interest in architecture, designer and parametric consultant with Minus Architecture Studio of schools, including the AA and the Edinburgh School of Art. Over
based architecture office focused on the intersections of landscape she obtained an MA in Histories and Critical Thinking from the AA in 2011, and Synthetiques/Research + Design + Build. the last ten years, she has worked in collaboration with Charles Jencks,
territories and architectural spectacle. Ann received her BArch from where she has since been teaching. She lives and works in London and producing drawings and models to accompany many of his publications,
Cornell University and her SMArchS from Massachusetts Institute of has exhibited internationally and in the UK. GAVIN PERIN is a lecturer in architecture at the University of Technology, and with her daughter, Charlie, on several books and art projects.
Technology in History, Theory and Criticism. She was assistant editor Sydney. With over 35 publications in national and international forums, Vriesendorp has produced illustrations for Built, Domus and Abitare,
of OfficeUS Atlas, the official publication of the US pavilion at the Venice MASSIMO MUCCI is an architect (University IUAV of Venice) and a Gavins main research focus examines the disciplinary effects that while working on costumes, built objects, paintings and short stories.
Architecture Biennale in 2014; co-editor of Thresholds Scandalous professor of technology and technical drawings at the Technical Institute emerging modes of digital representation have on architectures She has exhibited internationally. She received an Honorable Fellowship
issue, MITs peer-reviewed journal of art, architecture and culture; and of Technology (ITTS) in San Don di Piave (Venice). He is a PhD processes and artefacts. Gavins interest in digital representation has from the RIBA in February 2009.
is assistant editor of the forthcoming Public Space? Lost and Found with candidate at the University IUAV of Venice (Italy), currently in his first led to a range of cross-disciplinary design activities. Gavin is currently
Gediminas Urbonas. Ann has been awarded fellowships and grants year of doctoral research. He worked as Adjunct Professor of History of enrolled in a DPhil in Architecture at UTS. His thesis examines how the ANDREW WALKER is an architectural researcher and academic,
including the Schlossman Traveling Fellowship, the Eidlitz Fellowship and Architecture at the University of Trieste and held lectureships at Trieste rejection of semiotics in digital architectural discourse in the period founder of experimental practice Atelier14 and is currently working as
from the Council for the Arts at MIT. and Venice University. He has published the book La Risiera di San between 19902005 resulted in the development of a very specific formal a designer at Jason Bruges Studio. Through interactive luminokinetic
Sabba. Unarchitettura per la memoria (1999), as well as several essays basis by which architectural processes and objects were understood. props, immersive audiovisual installations and aleatoric/reflexive drawing
ADAM MARCUS is an architect and educator whose work has been about architecture in Trieste after the Second World War. environments, Andrews work attempts to hack, subvert and destabilise
recognised, published and exhibited internationally. Adam directs JULIA SEDLOCK is a designer, writer and founding partner of Cosmo our perceptual mechanisms, with the aim of creating more participatory
Variable Projects, an award-winning design and research studio in TOM NGO is a Hong Kong-born visual artist based in Toronto. Toms work Design Factory, an upstate New York design practice with several house spatial systems and conversational architectures that stir more active
Oakland, California, that operates at the intersection of architecture, explores the impact of logic and convention in design and examines the projects currently under construction. Through a combination of forms of occupation. Most recently, his work has been expressed
computation and fabrication. He is also a partner at Futures North, necessity of function in architecture. Toms work has been exhibited in commissioned projects and independent research, her work explores through a series of deployable luminokinetic drawing machine prototypes,
a public art collaborative dedicated to exploring the aesthetics of data. Canada and New York and published in print and online. His recent work ways in which architectural form playfully engages with the world to designed to be embedded within sites, forming new interactive sub-
A graduate of Brown University and Columbia Universitys Graduate was included in the exhibition TBD at the Museum of Canadian solicit multivalent interpretation and to promote novel social and cultural architecturesscotopic labyrinths of perpetual novelty and surprise.
School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Adam previously Contemporary Art, Toronto, and in the publication Imagine Architecture: interaction. In addition to their house projects, Cosmo Design Factory

286 Drawing Futures Biographies 287

YOU+PEA is a London-based architectural design practice founded by EDITORS First published in 2016 by
Sandra Youkhana and Luke Caspar Pearson. You+Pea has a fascination
with the media that define modern cities. These forms of representation
Laura Allen, Luke Caspar Pearson UCL Press
lead to work that examines the potential varying resolutions of University College London
architecture today. Their proposals celebrate the graphic and the PROJECT EDITOR Gower Street
immediate, and demand attention through a vibrant conversation both Eli Lee London WC1E 6BT
with local context and further afield. Their work encompasses different
fields of architectural media, including drawing, digital fabrication and
videogame development. Sandra and Luke teach on undergraduate EXECUTIVE EDITORS Available to download free: ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press
and masters programmes at The Bartlett School of Architecture, Frdric Migayrou, Bob Sheil
UCL, where they both studied. They were the curators of UP-POP at
the London Festival of Architecture 2015. Their research work has been Text Bartlett School of Architecture and the authors
featured in publications such as Blueprint, Architects Sketchbooks, DESIGNED BY Images Bartlett School of Architecture and the authors
CLOG, Architecture Research Quarterly and Interstices and exhibited at A Practice for Everyday Life
the RIBA, Peckham Levels, Architecture Foundation and Royal Academy.
This book is published under a Creative Commons
EMMANOUIL ZAROUKAS is an architect and lecturer on the MArch PRINTED BY Attribution Non-commercial Non-derivative 4.0
Urban Design programme at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, Albe de Coker, Antwerp, Belgium International license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). This license
where he teaches theories related to morphogenetic processes in
the urban realm. Emmanouil holds a postgraduate degree in Digital
allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit
Architecture Production from the Institute of Advanced Architecture the work for personal and non-commercial use
of Catalonia (IAAC), Spain. He has co-taught the MSc Architecture: providing author and publisher attribution is clearly
Computing and Design in the School of Architecture, Computing and
stated. Further details about CC BY licenses are
Engineering, University of East London since 2011. He is a PhD candidate
at the University of East London, UK, where his research on artificial available at creativecommons.org/licenses.
cognitive processes and neural networks allows him computationally
and theoretically to explore the possibility of creativity and novelty A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
in non-human, non-neuronal cognitive processes, towards an alien
ontogenesis of architectural form. from The British Library.

SNEZANA ZLATKOVIC is an architect and a PhD student at the ISBN: 978-1-911307-27-3 (Pbk.)
University of Belgrade Faculty of Architecture, where she obtained her
Masters in Architecture in 2012. Her diploma project, Extension of the ISBN: 978-1-911307-26-6 (PDF)
Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade, was awarded first prize in DOI: 10.14324/111.9781911307266
the Sestre Bulajic
Foundations Student Graduates Awards Competition.
After graduation, her portfolio was selected as one of the 33 best
portfolios of young Serbian architects under the age of 33 by the journal
Arhitektons Portfolio 33 competition. Along with her PhD research,
she has been involved in international projects and architectural
interventions as an architect with Energoprojekt, and has taken part
in various international and national architectural competitions,
conferences and exhibitions.

Drawing Futures is part of The Bartlett School

of Architectures 175 Anniversary events,
kindly supported by:

Allford Hall Monaghan Morris

Foster + Partners
Imagination Academy
Hawkins\Brown
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
Saint-Gobain
Scott Brownrigg
Pollard Thomas Edwards
Derwent London
Piercy & Company
Duggan Morris Architects
Hopkins Architects
Adrem
288 Drawing Futures Haines Watts
Despite numerous developments in technological manufacture
and computational design that provide new grounds for art and
architecture, the act of drawing still plays a central role as a vehicle
for speculation. There is a long and rich history of drawing that
is tied to innovations in technology as well as revolutions in
our philosophical understanding of the world. In consideration
of a society now underpinned by computational networks and
interfaces allowing hitherto unprecedented views of the world,
the changing status of the drawing and representation as a
political act demands a platform for reflection and innovation.

Drawing Futures is a compendium of the many approaches and

directions in which drawing practice and research is heading.
Featuring 60 projects from architects and artists to computer
scientists and educators, the book opens up the discussion of how
drawing may expand synchronously together with technological
and computational developments. Produced alongside an
international conference held at the Bartlett School of Architecture,
UCL, Drawing Futures serves as a marker of what drawing
currently is, and also as a signal of drawings yet to come.

drawingfutures.com
@drawingfutures

30.00
ISBN 978 -1 - 911307- 27-

9 781 911 3 07273