Undergraduate Course: On Drawing (ARCH10022)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | On Drawing is a studio-based programme of visual research focusing on the representation of the architectural site through drawing. Here the architectural site is understood as the extended context for design enquiry; as the ground upon which one might build and the histories that have informed that ground. And representation is defined as the act of drawing as thinking through making, using graphic, photographic, analogue and digital techniques to investigate and invent.
The architectural site drawing is a critical tool for design practice occupying the contested ground between site-data (measure, dimension, gradient and orientation) and site-culture (history, politics, geology and ecology). Over five hundred years the practice of architectural design has enacted an incremental withdrawal from the building site to the drawing studio, from the ground to the page. In this move the architectural site drawing has become the site of design. It is the primary reference for the myriad decisions that play out in the evolution of a design proposal. Sometimes fantastical, always rigorous, the architectural site drawing is a critical coincidence of measure and invention.
The On Drawing course foregrounds the act of drawing as a critical tool for research and invention. The programme of study will focus on the production of an individually authored architectural site drawing through a staged process of: project briefing, lecture, fieldwork and tutorial, desk-based research, drawing investigation, drawing test and drawing refinement to the point of resolution. It will introduce students to a tool kit for visual research including: precedents from architectural and fine art practice, fieldworking techniques, drawing strategies, archive and desk-based research all centring on the key themes of time, scale and point of view in the representation of site. The programme of study will result in the production of a complex and finely wrought architectural site drawing and an accompanying pamphlet publication as both a critical reflection and a documentary record, as an account of the evolution of an architectural site drawing.
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| Course description |
Lecture 1: Introductory presentation and delivery of On Drawing brief.
Introductory Presentation
Presentation to address the themes of architectural site, architectural representation, field-working and visual research techniques. The presentation will centre on examples from architectural and fine art practices.
On Drawing brief
The On Drawing studio is a cumulative project of enquiry where fieldwork, desk-based research and drawing exercises result in a sequence of drawn layers. Each layer is the object of a critical conversation/tutorial and, the subject of subsequent reworking. This is an iterative process which plays out through a series of moves described in detail in the brief.
Move 1: Field working undertake fieldwork visual research on site and in archives, libraries and online. Initiate body of visual research identifying territorial scope, and cultural, historical, material concerns in relation to On Drawing Brief. Pamphlet production begins as a process of collection, collation, annotation and design and runs throughout programme of study.
Move 2: Thematic drawing layers production and critical reproduction of a sequence of drawing layers addressing key themes relating to: point of view, scale, time in the architectural site.
Move 3: Drawing composite amalgamating layers of enquiry from Move 2 into a single drawing. The first pass at the composed architectural site drawing, bringing together found and made themes from research practice to date and the subject of a critical review.
Lecture 2: Intermediate presentation on representation and invention intended to reposition the key themes of the programme of study in relation to the specific findings of the studio to date and in doing so offer direction for the invention of a sophisticated architectural site drawing.
Move 4: Final development of the architectural site drawing to resolution.
Final formatting and publication of pamphlet as both a critical reflection and a documentary record of the evolution of the architectural site drawing.
The On Drawing studio is concerned with the practice of visual research through drawing and will:
1: Introduce key themes relating to the history of architectural representation and the understanding of the architectural site through the use of precedents from architecture and art.
2: Develop skills in visual research through the deployment of a range of drawing techniques in the context of fieldwork, desk-based research and studio practice.
3: Introduce strategies for the investigation of an architectural site and the subsequent invention of an architectural site drawing.
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Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Knowledge of the role of architectural site drawing as a tool for research, analysis and invention.
- Experience in a range of drawing techniques - graphic, photographic, analogue and digital.
- The ability to represent a complex architectural site in relation to a rigorous investigation of a given territory through the medium of drawing.
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Reading List
1. From Models to Drawings: Imagination and Representation in Architecture Edited by Marco Frascari, Jonathan Hale, Bradley Starkey Routledge: London 2008
2. Drawing Architecture Edited by Neil Spiller AD:London 2013
3. Architecture and Field/Work Edited by Suzanne Ewing, Jérémie Michael McGowan, Chris Speed and Victoria Clare Bernie Routledge: London 2011
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Ability to undertake visual research in the field and using desk-based resources.
Ability to work critically with a brief.
Ability to produce reflective documentation recording a design process.
Ability to deploy a range of graphic and photographic skills for investigation and invention of a design question.
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| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Victoria Bernie
Tel:
Email: |
Course secretary | Mrs Rosie Hall
Tel: 0131 651 5802
Email: |
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