Drawing Spatial Movement

Abstract

In a world increasingly understood in terms of process and flow the only constant could be said to be movement. Yet our modes of designing and drawing architecture can sometimes seem almost resolutely static. A desire to encase our movement within design is nothing new however. Esenstein’s analysis of the acropolis reveals its presence in the 5^th century, and the landscape gardens of the picturesque were designed to unfurl in advance of their promenading viewers. But if we are to engage our architecture in our unassailable entwinement with a world made of process we need new tools. 

We think through our drawings, but conventional techniques do not readily open up or enter into conversation around movement, process or our place in time. The vital role our drawing conventions play as exacting translators of design to construction demand precision communication that holds no place for ambiguity or change. Yet as incubators for speculative futures this language of representation offers little space or scope to engage time. Might we therefore identify new forms of canvas, new languages, within which to incubate design ambitions; complementary drawing techniques within which we might think through in the language of our world, movement? 

The Moving Through masters course at the Bergen School of Architecture began to ask these questions, opening up an exploration of what it means to move through space, unpicking the implications for design. Over the short course highly speculative experimental work began to pose potential steps forwards.