A.1

Seeing and Perceiving

The Urban Context

                                                                                                                                               


Sitting in a busy public space and using line, stroke and point (no figurative or symbolic forms):

 

            Draw in a continuous but varying line, the movements of passing people (pedestrians, bicycles, cars, etc.) while paying attention to the different pulses or fluxes of each.

 

            Draw the direction and distance of peoples’ gazes (either a person’s sequentially shifting gaze, or a momentary glance of many peoples’ gazes as they pass through the same space) as they wander through the space. You might 'sketch out' the object of their gaze at the end of each line.

 

            Choose an animated element in the environment (falling leaf, insect, flag, plant, piece of paper, smoke, water, reflections in a window, changing light, fork or pen in someone’s hand, someone’s hair, etc.) and study its movement through drawing. (Let your hand and body convey the movement, don’t try to represent it.)

                                                                                                                                   

            Draw the rhythms of urban blocks with short strokes, the rhythm of people, buildings, windows, or any other repetitive element; draw the street flow or elements of continuity with longer lines.

Wander through the city and look for spaces that offer different rhythms. (Distance between repeated elements will reflect the speed of drawing: tighter rhythms should be drawn faster, spaced rhythms slower - pay attention to this space-time relationship.)

 

            Paying attention to your spontaneous act of looking, draw freely and quickly what engages you at every instant. This can include various fragments of buildings, movements, scraps on the floor, a passing cloud, etc. This could be done as a blind drawing. (C. Webster)      

                                                                                                                                               


            On one page: draw the distant scene, close-ups and peripheral views without turning you head.

            Draw the space using different modes of attention: distracted looking, focused, sweeping glance, eyes jumping around, analytically, sensuously, etc.

                                                                                                                                               

 

            Close your eyes and listen to the noises of the city. Imagine and draw (respond to) elements of the scene from the sounds: travelling in open space, reverberating against surfaces or objects, muffled by crowds of people, etc.

                                                                                                                                               

 

            Draw the space from different positions (lying down, suspended, upside-down, bent over, etc.)

 

            Find ways to disable your drawing gestures (tie your hands together, lift your leg and draw underneath it, put your paper behind you and draw from behind, hold your sketchbook between your feet, etc.) Draw while your shoulder is touching your partner’s shoulder without breaking the contact.

                                                                                                                                               


            Bringing only water, watercolour paper, a brush and a scraper, navigate the city stopping at places that engage you. Using only your materials and available matter from the site, make a non-figurative drawing ‘of the place’ (mix earth and water to paint; use or scrape a piece of asphalt to draw with; rub your wet paper on a surface to leave a trace of its materiality, rub a dampened leaf into the paper; engrave the paper with a branch; have someone walk on, or drive over your paper; draw using large quantities of water and let the sun dry it out to leave the water’s trace, etc.).

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            Using loose-leaf paper and a pencil go on a shadow tour of the city. Trace the most interesting shadows you encounter on various surfaces.

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            Take a walk through a familiar part of the city then draw (from memory) the main references/landmarks that enable you, in a glance, to recognize the area.

           

Draw the elements or references that direct your navigation…what references prompt you to stop, cross turn, look up, etc. (avoid the obvious mechanisms such as circulation lights, pedestrian crossing, etc.). Try to identify the sensorimotor signposts such as the distance from the radius of a curve (i.e. I stop when I get to 9 inches from the curb), alignment with a post or with a building corner, an opening between two cars, a shadow line, the roof edge of a building, etc. (What part(s) of your body is solicited by this referencing event?)

                                                                                                                                               

 

            Get a map of your neighbourhood. Trace a line between public and private spaces (walk around and enter public spaces of commerce to determine the border where public becomes private). Indicate the porosity of the border by varying the quality of your line (freely traversed, traversed by some, inaccessible, etc.)

 

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Chose a trajectory on the metro that you take regularly (you will be required to repeat the same journey several times). Draw in section and plan the vertical and horizontal variations (topography) of the metro’s underground trajectory while paying close attention to ascending and descending slopes, vibrations and shifts traveled between stations. Horizontal lengths of the line should convey subjectively experienced time, not true distance. Repeat several times to fine-tune your body’s reading of gravitational variations and force fields of movement.

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            Go to a crowded place, event or festival. Navigate through the densest part of the crowd paying close attention to the nature of your every deviation, contact, obstacle, and opening as you slalom through the space. Then draw this experience in a continuous line that expresses the variation of intensities, flows, tempos and resistances encountered.

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            Sit on a pivoting chair (facing its back so as to rest your drawing surface on the backrest) somewhere in a room. Draw the room in a continuous fashion as you pivot 360°. Change positions in the space and repeat. Vary the speed or rhythm of rotation. Begin to roll more freely around the room as you draw. (Pay attention to space as always transforming relationships: changes in scale, distance from you, etc.)

                                                                                                                                               


            Lie on the floor or couch and draw the space from this horizontal perspective (ceiling and floor transformed into walls, walls become floor and ceiling), i.e. as if you were standing on a wall.

 

            Choose a place, indoor or outdoor, and draw the space without representing any architectural element or using architectural conventions. (For example, you could draw only the picture frames on the wall or objects in the space – without relying on perspectival relations; draw the space as if it were a lump of clay; draw the light/shadows without the surfaces; the sounds entering the space, the drafts or air currents through the space, etc.)

                                                                                                                                               

 

            Draw what is behind the walls (or what you imagine there to be), like making a hole in the wall to draw what you see through it.

 

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            Draw the movement above your head (if you are in a place that has another floor above). The denser the circulation (or sounds) the denser the ceiling will appear; or imagine the ceiling as an elastic membrane and draw the vibrations in it.

 

            Draw the wear and tear of your floor, as if it were made of soft earth_what would be its topography after years of use. Vary the density of the matter, from earth to sand, to water,…

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            Go to the market and draw the displacement of air ‘above’ people’s heads, around and through them, against the walls and surfaces, trying to grasp the accumulation of speeds and forces through which they travel.

 

            In a public space draw the architecture as if it were an extension of the activity. (ex: grasp the rhythm of a crowd’s movement and draw it as a dynamic ornament that vibrates up through the lines of architecture; draw the relation of a person’s activity with the ‘architectural’ elements that shape it).

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            Visit several places_ stand in a spot of your choosing and close your eyes. Feel the vibrations and flows from the public and environment. From some point within you, draw these forces around, across your body, reverberating in your organs and off of your body, emphasizing the quality of line (weight, speed, form,..) to convey what you experience. Change positions and repeat, change location and repeat. Compare the quality of spaces.

 

            In one of these spaces/drawings, examine where the vibrations, flows and forces are most invasive and insert a line as an interruption in the mass of flows to block them, deflect them or slow them. Anticipate (in another drawing) how these flows would deflect or die out. Vary the quality of line to more or less opaque consistencies and repeat. (The analogy may be architectural: imagine the line as a wall or membrane of various materials.)

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            In groups of three: blindfolds are worn. Two interact together and with the immediate environment while the third draws the forces at play between them as well as those transferring onto him/her.

 

 

X4How can the practice of drawing engage these questions in architecture education?

 

In-corporeal Diagrams: Drawing from Dance to Architecture, my MA thesis, examined the role of drawing and sketching in architecture education and attempted to reveal the importance of establishing alternate drawing practices in response to the proliferation of digital tools of conception in the field. It called for heuristic practices that could enrich understandings of the creative potential of drawing as a conceptual interface between the body, architecture and the environment in design processes.

            In tandem with this thesis, I had developed an archive of various drawing approaches and exercises that could constitute a pedagogical resource for drawing practices in architecture education, as a source for reviving our temporal engagement with space. The ensuing exercises[1] and projects were inspired in part by, and formulated primarily in relation to methods of dance improvisation and practices that drew on somatics. Ultimately, it aspired to open venues into the nature of thinking and perceiving in movement that would shift attention away from habitual corporeal responses and cognitive focuses to more affective/haptic kinesthetic awareness of experiences and processes that could sustain and revitalize creativity in architectural conception.

 

            I have decided to rework and continue the compilation of exercises in relation to, and as derivative of the research-creation work undertaken for my Phd.


[1] Anyone of which could then be reinterpreted in a three-dimensional work or installation to continually reinforce the potential of translating drawing into architecture and vice-versa.

 

A.2

Feeling

Body & Anatomy

                                                                                                                                               


            With eyes closed draw a continuous 8 motion in the air with your foot, as stretched out as possible. Visualize what you feel in your calf-ankle-foot; draw the tensions (pulls and pushes) that you feel; draw the connections between your tensions and the 8 shape.

Zoom into your toes; draw the connection/continuity of tensions within your foot.                                                                                                                                     

Rotate your shoulder tracing the largest 0 you can (the arm stays limp), draw your shoulder/collar bone joint as you feel it; draw the felt connections between shoulder and shoulder blade. (You may touch your shoulder in movement with your other hand if you have trouble visualizing.)

 

Draw the tensions, sensations, and connections in your hand, arm, body, as it draws.

                                                                                                                                               

            Sit or stand still in a comfortable position, your sketchbook resting close at hand. Concentrate on your body and trace all the sensations and micro-movements you can feel from within and without (pulsations, tingling, tensions, vibrations, contractions and dilations from breathing, etc.). Scan your motionless body carefully part by part with your mind’s eye.

                                                                                                                                               


            Continuously describe the process orally as you draw, describe what you are feeling in your fingers, hand, arm, body as you draw; the parts of your body that seem shut off from the movements, etc.

 

Grasp the first distracted (perhaps unrelated) thought that comes through your mind and talk about it as you continue to draw. Think of the last film you saw and narrate it. (How does this mind-body split affect your drawing?)

                                                                                                                                               


            Alternately squeeze and release your partner’s arm with one hand and draw, with the other, his bodily response to your touch (tensions, pulsations, etc.). Shift your attention from your touching hand to your touched hand. Draw the tactile feeling between your hand and his arm.

 

Repeat the exercise by placing your feet on his back and applying pressure. Draw the tensions and dilations in your feet and in his back.  Draw the exchange (connection) between feet and back, toes and back, heel and back. 

 

             Engage in a contact improvisation of stillness with your partner and simultaneously draw the exchange of forces at the center of contact.

                                                                                                                                               

 

            Select a series of your drawings and analyse them (what kinds of strokes, intensities, qualities, forms, etc. predominate?) Identify your gestural habits and dead spots.

                                                                                                                                               


            With a partner, mount a large sheet of paper on the wall. You are to examine the rotary and micro-rotary limits of your body articulations. Standing sideways with shoulder against the wall, your partner will trace the arcs of your arm’s articulations as it swings back and forth while maintaining the center of the radius (shoulder) pinned to the wall (he will pin your knee to the wall as he traces the arc of the tibia’s movement, your hips as he traces the arc of your leg movement, etc.). Pay special attention to articulations that are less obvious: the rotation of your jaw, fingertips, skull rotation, neck rotation, and as many vertebrae rotations as you can move. You may also consider the extension of your breathing by tracing the movement of your chest and stomach. Certain articulations such as the shoulder may have more than one type of articulation (it may rotate relative to the arm, the collar bone and the shoulder blade).

 

Stand with your back or front to the wall and repeat.

 

            With your partner study the rotations and micro-rotations of joints in a simple movement in space such as ascending or descending a stair, jumping, etc.

                                                                                                                                               


            Find fifteen creative ways of ‘measuring’ a space with your body. Any prostheses must be used as a measure of force and not distance. (Count the amount of times you repeat a gesture across a space: rolling or spinning on the floor; hopping backwards; spitting a small object as far as you can; bouncing a ball off the walls and counting amount of times it bounces off the surfaces, sliding along the periphery or diagonally across a space; using the time it takes to utter a sentence while walking, as a unit of measurement; counting amount of times you cross the room while reading a specific text, etc.)

 

Draw the space as an expression of these movements.

                                                                                                                                               

 

            Find a creative way to leave a qualitative trace of your body in a space (by spreading sand or paper on the floor or walls and moving on it to displace, wrinkle, tear it; soaking your clothes in water and moving around; blowing powder or pigmented soap bubbles in the space, etc.).

 

Have your partner re-enact your movements by interpreting the traces.

                                                                                                                                               

 

A.3

Visualizing

Creating and Remembering Space

                                                                                                                                               


            Delimit a space (square, circle, etc.) on the floor of the studio with a tape or cord. One student enters the space and mimes the gestures of moving within an imaginary architecture. (He bends and steps over the tape as if entering a window, turns and climbs stairs, stops and leans over to look down, walks and stops at the tape line looking out, steps over the tape onto an imaginary balcony, enters and steps down into an imaginary space, looks up as if into a skylight, etc.) As the student creatively mimes a space, other students draw this space, reading the forces and qualities of gestures of the student. (Pay attention to how movements inform us on space.)

 

Another student repeats the exercise but creatively suggests unconventional architectural spaces through unusual movements.

                                                                                                                                               

 

            This project should be presented as one exercise option among others. It is to be done at any time during the session. You are to sleep with a sketchbook next to your bed. When you wake up to a dream, draw in plan the spaces or spatial fragments of your dream (areas that are ambiguous should appear ambiguous in your drawing). Choose an interesting dream and analyse the spaces trying to recall which real spaces they represent in your life experience. Be attuned to re-compositions of many spatial fragments into one dream space (some dream spaces may be constituted from the characteristics of many real spaces). How do the spatial fragments connect? What architectural elements are most recurrent (stairs, columns, doorways, etc.)? How did you navigate these spaces? How did you feel in them? What memories emerged with them? How do they differ from real spaces - how do they break the codes of architectural conventions?

                                                                                                                                               


            Remember a space from your childhood to which you have not returned but can still access. This could be an old school, house, gymnasium, park, shed, attic, hiding place, etc.) Draw the space in as much detail as possible, using any type of drawing you find appropriate. Also note the sounds, smells, feelings you remember, the corporeal movements you engaged in, etc. Return to the space, survey and redraw it. Analyse the differences between your memory and the reality of the place. Where are the blind spots? What had been exaggerated? What was perceived falsely? What differentiates your childhood perception from your adult perception? Why did you use that type of drawing, what specificity links it to your experience?

                                                                                                                                               


A.4

Improvising

Working with the Dancer

                                                                                                                                               


            Observe a sequence of movement of the dancer/model. Draw the shape of the dance (the overall sequence’s spatial form) from memory (see Laban’s icosahedron).

 

Observe the dancer again and attempt to draw the spaces of sequences within the overall dance as they overlap and flow into each other. Find the conductive flow (line) throughout.

 

Try to grasp the ‘center of movement’ that generates the forces of flow throughout. Draw the rhythm of this center (in isolation) as it moves (for example, are the hips and stomach generating the dance or is the torso?).

 

Draw the rhythmic flow from this center into the arms as it moves; from the center into the feet (does the floor push the centrifugal forces back towards the center or does the energy flow out of the feet and dissolve?).

                                                                                                                                               

 

            Draw the extensity of the dancer’s movements into space (the imaginary space around the model as she moves): respond to the forces of projection and reverberation of her movements in space. (Outgoing gestures should engender large spaces; introverted movements, closed spaces; directional movements, linear spaces; rotation movements, circular spaces. Shape, direction, size/distance, quality/texture, rhythm/reverberation, etc. should all be generated from the (forces of) movements.)

(In other words, draw the reverberation/echoes of the dancer’s gestures within the existing space like flows of reverberating water in an aquarium. The way the movement’s forces, bounce against walls and objects, slide along surfaces, dissipate in space, etc.?)

                                                                                                                                               


            While the dancer interacts with flexible linear elements, students draw the line in movement as an extension of the body.

 

            Cords are strung in space, dancer contorts and moves through (with) them while students draw the links between body and corresponding (interacting) cords.

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            Using mirrors around the model, draw all views of the body.

Using mirrors around yourself, draw yourself from different views. (Pay attention to the relationship of what you see before you and what is hidden behind you.)

 

Attempt the same exercises without mirrors, visualizing your (or the model’s) back.

 

            Draw from memory what you don’t see around you. (What would your back see, the top of your head, etc.?)

                                                                                                                                               


            As the model remains still, make a blind drawing of him/her while moving slowly around him/her. Repeat with another pose but begin to vary the distance between you, paying attention to the shifting scales.

                                                                                                                                               


            A video projection of drawing in the making, as the student traces and interacts with the (potential) movements of the dancer/model, is simultaneously projected onto the walls surrounding the dancer so as to generate an improvisational exchange between drawing and dancing. (Drawing becomes a form of immediate scoring for the dancer and vice-versa.)

 

The improvisations could stem from spatial themes (passage, frontier, opening, rupture, etc.) or physical phenomena (compression, equilibrium, torsion, etc.) explored in design studios. They could stem from forms of vitality (fading, surging, swelling, pulsing, fleeting, bursting, etc.)

 

Improvisations could be constrained by pre-given instructions or by the incorporation of ‘obstacles’ (ex: translucent fabric ‘banners’ could be suspended randomly from the ceiling and be activated by wind sources to introduce movement to, and fragment the projected image; varying the intensity and amplitude of the affecting force on this third body of movement to further spatialize the act of drawing).

 

            A dancer moves in space according to given directions (ex: move left foot and right shoulder). Student draws it with left and right hand respectively as a video of her drawing is projected onto wall. A second student, with her back to the first, responds to the drawing by also moving left foot right shoulder. (Rochelle Haley)

                                                                                                                                               

           

            The dancer wears small lasers (or some sort of condensed flashlight) against her wrists and above her ankles. As she moves in a darkened space, light ‘lines’ of her movement will be projected onto the walls and surfaces of the space. (By cupping her hands and contracting her feet, enfolding or blocking off light, she will control light projections in her interpretation of space.)

            Students draw the space via these projections.

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A.5

‘Drawing’ in Space

Interventions

                                                                                                                                               

 

 

A/ Select a ‘conceptual’ sketch or drawing (not-yet defined) from your repertoire of work. Using metal wire create a three-dimensional interpretation of the drawing at the scale of your choice. Place the sculpture on a white surface and/or against a wall or corner. Project a (point-source) light onto the sculpture moving it around to examine the relation between wire line and shadow. Visualize the plane between the line and its shadow as a potential wall or surface and find a composition that will generate an interesting 3D volume or space. Construct the composition in the sheet material of your choice. You may also choose to include certain wire lines in the assemblage.

 

B/ Project two (or more) light sources simultaneously onto the composition to create volumes from single lines. Construct the volumes from the 3D drawing.

 

C/ Other variations on the project may include modulating the surfaces onto which the line is projected, placing the surface in the wire sculpture, varying the materiality of the surfaces, etc.

 

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Select a sketch. In a small white room interpret the drawing on all surfaces of the space i.e. projecting it on walls, floor ceiling.

 

            Insert another surface (wall) into the room and project a ‘section’ of the sketch on either side. Many other planes may be added to ‘dissect’ the sketch in space.

 

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A/ Select an architectural space with south facing window(s) and or skylight(s). Place a large sheet of paper over the surfaces that are most likely to receive direct sunlight. Throughout the day. at intervals of 30 minutes, trace* the light patterns projected by the openings.

 

        The following day, bring in a sheet (the size, shape and material of your choice) into the room and sculpt the sunlight (by interrupting, reflecting, diffusing, shifting, inclining,..) so as to create a more dynamic drawing on the floors, walls and/or ceiling. Trace the new patterns over a day. This may be repeated as many times as required.

 

 

B/ Cover the floor and walls with semi-rigid carboard and trace the oulines of sun patterns as above.

 

        The following day, cut, fold, bend, incline, raise and/or lower the cardboard surfaces to create a more dynamic sun pattern and trace their contours. Rework the surface until the drawing feels complete.

 

 

C/ The same exercises could be repeated with soft, mouldable and/or translucent materials so as to vary the quality of line in your drawing.

 

Remove the drawings from the space and transpose them into another space.

 

 

* 'tracing' may be interpreted as a simple contouring or in a variety of other manners.

 

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            Choose a space in the school (staircase, wc, hallway, etc.) and create a choreography that will change the nature of movement through the space by stretching cords, nylons, or other linear elements across the space.

 

Choose a threshold (with or without a door) and modulate the act of entering and exiting. (Set written parameters for the movement: do not touch the cords, or only with your feet; push or pull on every nylon rope with hands and feet as you traverse them; re-anchor/position ropes in wall/floor as you move through them, etc.)

                                                                                                                                               


            Choose a small space (bathroom cubicle, section of a staircase or corridor, threshold, etc.). Using line (in any medium: reflect on the possibilities of translating line in space), transform the felt qualitative nature of the space: modulate and/or infuse the perimeters with a vibratile intensity that activates the space.

 

            Choose a film or text that has moved you and transcribe its qualitative nature in the space.

                                                                                                                                               


            In groups of two or three create and build an apparatus or object that will put into play your sense of gravity (such as a seesaw, a pivoting or suspension mechanism, etc.). Find a way to use this apparatus to trace (on the wall, floors, ceiling, etc.) its movement and your response to it, in such a way that we can read/sense the type of disequilibrium that it puts into play.          

                                                                                                                                               


            On the entire surface of the floor of a public space (ex: lobby) lay down a thick paper, vinyl or other resistant membrane. Spread chalks or other drawing mediums around the space accessible to the public. At all entrances to the space place an instruction panel explaining that people may draw, write, impressions, thoughts, questions, suggestions as to their spatial experience in a particular spot.

            You might also add inscriptions on the floor surface: how does the light feel in this spot? Would you remove, soften or otherwise transform such an such an element in the space?...

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            Construct a large, life-size transparent vinyl or plexiglass Mobius strip. The flexible but self-supporting structure will be installed in various spaces.

            Standing ‘inside or outside’ the strip, students may draw on it as an interface between the body and the architecture, modifying architectural elements through drawing, blocking off elements, creating links between elements, etc.

            The Mobius may also be used as a spatial ‘deflector or resonator’. Students mould the strip in various places relative to the space, maximizing, harmonizing, or disrupting the experience of the space.

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A.6

Scoring

Writing Movement

                                                                                                                                               


            Choose the most interesting route from point A to B into the school and travel it back and forth a few times. Devise a personal score of your navigational movements through the space (see examples of various notation systems). These could be markings, symbols, etc.

 

‘Parallel’ to this score develop another one that indicates the body part(s) that is most solicited by the movement experience.

 

In a third score devise a notation that evokes the quality or the sensations created by the movement (breathing, heartbeat, body temperature, light on eyes, air currents, etc.). These may include (abbreviated) words.

 

In a forth, indicate up to three related architectural elements per movement that are responsible for the movement or sensation.

 

Combine these scorings graphically to shape your ‘text’ of the experience. Place more emphasis on characteristics that dominated others or that were more intense, using line weight, size, etc.

 

            Another scoring system could examine Laban’s factors of effort in the experience of traveling the same route:

           

Time: what is the tempo of your movements, accelerations and decelerations through the space?

Space: how are you attending to space? Is it a focused, direct attention or distracted,       indirect; is it a close or distant attention?

Weight: what is your engagement with gravity? Is it forced, heavy and resistant or free and light?

Flow: what is the intensity of your muscular tonicity? Are you controlling the movements and creating tensions or is it free and released?

                                                                                                                                               

 

            Create a choreography that relates to another, creative way of moving along the same route.

 

Working with a partner, have him interpret (with or without assistance) your score and perform it in the space. He may then suggest interpretations or variations on your score, etc.

                                                                                                                                               


            Imagine changing or adding one architectural element in the space that would completely alter the way one moves through it. (If you can actually alter it, all the better.) How would it alter the movement or its quality?

                                                                                                                                               


            Choose one of your (or another’s) favourite architectural drawings (plan, elevation, section, etc.). Working with tracing paper:

 

On the plan or section, use your scoring system to study all the possibilities of movement through the space (this does not have to be functional: think in terms of various movement types _ acrobat, gymnast, skate boarder, dancer, etc.).

 

Devise a more interesting score and rearrange your space to enable it.

 

            Choose another drawing and “scramble” it until it becomes a diagram (all it conveys are sensations of the immediacy of your gestures through line variation, as an expression of the space – how the space feels, pushes and pulls on you).

Revise your original drawing to incorporate the spatial vitality of your diagram.

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