On-Site Architectural Drawing with Hand-held Mobile Instructions

The advances in computer-aided design tools have enabled design visualization and realization to become more efficient and effective. However, these fast-growing digital technologies are also gradually reducing the presence of hand drawings in architectural education. This leads to a reduction in the ability to be inspired from the direct observation of the architectural environment through on-site freehand sketching. This study aims to implement digital technology as a teaching aid to retrieve these lost abilities. Analytical drawing is a method that encourages thinking before drawing, laying out the invisible underlying structure, and finalizing it with a visible appearance. This method remains an effective way of three-dimensional visual thinking. Accordingly, this study presents an interactive smartphone application that brings computer-assisted instructions into mobile learning. Promising responses from students revealed that using digital technology as a teaching aid can help to retrieve the lost abilities of visual thinking through on-site sketching.

DESIGN FRAMEWORK FOR ABLUTION SPACES OF ICONIC MOSQUES IN MALAYSIA

Mosques are places where Muslims perform prayers and other social activities. Those are built as a place for humans to worship the Almighty Allah at all times, as well as to provide an environment that responds to the needs of devotees and educates the future generation by the Quranic verses and the Prophet's teachings. Derived from the Holy Quran and the Prophet, purity is compulsory at all times for Muslims, and has many meanings that are applicable during prayers and the day. The ablution room is integrated into all mosque designs because it is an unseparated element. However, Malaysian mosques have been questioned in their application of some Islamic regulations to uniform a hygienically clean space that can respond the needs of Muslims. The design of the ablution rooms in Malaysian mosques is encountering a serious issue regarding the spaces' cleanliness. Although the ablution room has been designed to respond the Muslim's need to conduct the ablution practice and to cleanse a person spiritually and physically, several problems related to its design aspects were revealed. This research investigates the cleanliness of the Malaysian ablution space. It examines how the design aspects of the ablution rooms of the Iconic Malaysian Mosques impact the area's cleanliness and its users. Five case studies were selected for this study. Three methods of study were utilized: physical observation, architectural drawing analysis, and interviews. Aspects of design form, ventilation, cleaning status, and user experience were discussed. This research suggested that the larger mosques in Malaysia were suffering from serious hygiene issues that resulted from many aspects, including poor design, ventilation systems, and users' abuse. The research suggested some design guidelines for future and existing ablution areas that will improve the cleanliness.

The Repository of Shadows: An Inquiry into Architectural Drawing and the Realm of the Shadow

<p>In Haruki Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, reality and imagination are infused in an interplay of narratives. The story is about discovering the identity of Self, using a walled city as a metaphor for the subconscious. The novel weaves the stories of two characters, the external self and the internal self, each chapter flicking between the real and the dream, from conscious to unconscious. Murakami provides the reader with a contemplation on the nature of existence, being versus non-being. Dr William S Haney, Professor of Literary Theory and specialist on culture and consciousness, argues that the shadow in Murakami’s allegory is a representation of the mind. As the narrative unfolds, the shadow—stripped from its owner—slowly dies, causing loss of memory, emotion and desire. The relinquishing of one’s shadow in the allegory suggests a loss of the metaphysical aspect of Self. The Shadow is not merely seen as an immaterial entity; rather it is the sign of full corporeality. The Shadow grants meaning to existence, illuminating the reality that we cannot perceive the light without the darkness. This thesis is born out of a concern for the dearth of meaning in architecture in an age of uncertainty. In the modern contemporary sphere, we have become obsessed with the image, with rationalistic tendencies; with evermore light and luminosity, architecture has primarily been caught up in trying to order and rationalise the world. In this condition of objectification and reduction, architecture risks falling into a trap of homogeneity, thereby limiting itself to an empty datum of quantification. Thus, the unhygienic, the disorder and the chaos, the darkness that grants life its pungency, have been ‘relegated to the shadows’. Roberto Casati, senior researcher and Professor of Philosophy at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientique and an authority on shadow perception, argues that shadows avoid direct reading: “[t]he interaction of the two unequal brothers has been described in different ways, from the notion that shadows are ‘holes in the light’ through to the opposite idea that they are ‘the remaining representatives on earth of the cosmic darkness, otherwise torn apart by light’”. Viewed in this sense, Shadows can be seen as both corporeal operation—bound to the physical cycles of earth, moon and sun—and metaphysical entity, alluding to the primordial darkness before the birth of light and matter. The allegory of the Shadow in Hard-Boiled Wonderland can be seen as a rumination on the loss of the metaphysical aspect of Self in a contemporary cybernetic age. In Murakami’s novel, the shadow cannot enter the walled Town; it must be left behind in the Shadow Grounds, the threshold between inner and outer realms. The Gateway, as described in Murakami’s novel, becomes the provocateur for this thesis. Interpreting Murakami’s architectural and allegorical program of the Gateway and Shadow Grounds in relation to Penelope Haralambidou’s seminal article “The Allegorical Project: Architecture as Figurative Theory”, this design-led research investigation interrogates the use of the Allegorical Architectural Project as a critical method. Allegory provides a structure of thought whereby meaning is not grasped immediately, but rather through progressive discovery and continual interpretation of its ambiguous traits. Ambiguity in architecture has the ability to appear ever-changing, resist resolution and remain open to interpretation. The methodology of the investigation explores the spatial realm of the shadow through the critical and creative process of drawing. The principal aim of this thesis is to journey into the darkness, to embrace the shadow of the unknown, searching for a space in-between—between light and shadow, architecture and art, reality and fiction, the constructed and the imagined. Using Haruki Murakami’s Hard Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World as a generator and provocateur, the research employs the notion of the shadow as both mythological entity and corporeal signifying process. Rather than seeking concrete conclusions, it posits a speculative allegorical architectural project that invites critical engagement and interpretation. It argues that architecture occupies the liminal position between darkness and light, the true place of human existence, and as such, the design of Shadow is essential to the meaningful design of architecture. The thesis investigation asks: how can the speculative architectural drawing be used as a means of interrogating the realm, and enhancing our awareness of, the shadow in architecture?</p>

The Repository of Shadows: An Inquiry into Architectural Drawing and the Realm of the Shadow

<p>In Haruki Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, reality and imagination are infused in an interplay of narratives. The story is about discovering the identity of Self, using a walled city as a metaphor for the subconscious. The novel weaves the stories of two characters, the external self and the internal self, each chapter flicking between the real and the dream, from conscious to unconscious. Murakami provides the reader with a contemplation on the nature of existence, being versus non-being. Dr William S Haney, Professor of Literary Theory and specialist on culture and consciousness, argues that the shadow in Murakami’s allegory is a representation of the mind. As the narrative unfolds, the shadow—stripped from its owner—slowly dies, causing loss of memory, emotion and desire. The relinquishing of one’s shadow in the allegory suggests a loss of the metaphysical aspect of Self. The Shadow is not merely seen as an immaterial entity; rather it is the sign of full corporeality. The Shadow grants meaning to existence, illuminating the reality that we cannot perceive the light without the darkness. This thesis is born out of a concern for the dearth of meaning in architecture in an age of uncertainty. In the modern contemporary sphere, we have become obsessed with the image, with rationalistic tendencies; with evermore light and luminosity, architecture has primarily been caught up in trying to order and rationalise the world. In this condition of objectification and reduction, architecture risks falling into a trap of homogeneity, thereby limiting itself to an empty datum of quantification. Thus, the unhygienic, the disorder and the chaos, the darkness that grants life its pungency, have been ‘relegated to the shadows’. Roberto Casati, senior researcher and Professor of Philosophy at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientique and an authority on shadow perception, argues that shadows avoid direct reading: “[t]he interaction of the two unequal brothers has been described in different ways, from the notion that shadows are ‘holes in the light’ through to the opposite idea that they are ‘the remaining representatives on earth of the cosmic darkness, otherwise torn apart by light’”. Viewed in this sense, Shadows can be seen as both corporeal operation—bound to the physical cycles of earth, moon and sun—and metaphysical entity, alluding to the primordial darkness before the birth of light and matter. The allegory of the Shadow in Hard-Boiled Wonderland can be seen as a rumination on the loss of the metaphysical aspect of Self in a contemporary cybernetic age. In Murakami’s novel, the shadow cannot enter the walled Town; it must be left behind in the Shadow Grounds, the threshold between inner and outer realms. The Gateway, as described in Murakami’s novel, becomes the provocateur for this thesis. Interpreting Murakami’s architectural and allegorical program of the Gateway and Shadow Grounds in relation to Penelope Haralambidou’s seminal article “The Allegorical Project: Architecture as Figurative Theory”, this design-led research investigation interrogates the use of the Allegorical Architectural Project as a critical method. Allegory provides a structure of thought whereby meaning is not grasped immediately, but rather through progressive discovery and continual interpretation of its ambiguous traits. Ambiguity in architecture has the ability to appear ever-changing, resist resolution and remain open to interpretation. The methodology of the investigation explores the spatial realm of the shadow through the critical and creative process of drawing. The principal aim of this thesis is to journey into the darkness, to embrace the shadow of the unknown, searching for a space in-between—between light and shadow, architecture and art, reality and fiction, the constructed and the imagined. Using Haruki Murakami’s Hard Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World as a generator and provocateur, the research employs the notion of the shadow as both mythological entity and corporeal signifying process. Rather than seeking concrete conclusions, it posits a speculative allegorical architectural project that invites critical engagement and interpretation. It argues that architecture occupies the liminal position between darkness and light, the true place of human existence, and as such, the design of Shadow is essential to the meaningful design of architecture. The thesis investigation asks: how can the speculative architectural drawing be used as a means of interrogating the realm, and enhancing our awareness of, the shadow in architecture?</p>

The Autobiographical Hinge: Revealing the self in architectural drawing

Some argue that the tendency to ignore the self as an aspect of the relationship between architects and their drawings is a consequence of the hegemony of digital modes of representation, others that it is inherent to traditional perspectival and projective techniques. It is in this repressive context that architects struggle to consider their subjectivity in relation to the drawings they produce. This article aims to divert this subjective distance by proposing a method for revealing the unconscious forces that abide between architects and architectural drawings. Through a comparative analysis of this intermediate space with the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott’s theory of the Transitional Object, the author considers his own relationship to perspective drawing and materializes this through the production of a drawing apparatus titled: the autobiographical hinge. Bilaterally, the conception of this drawing apparatus is founded on examples of visual art practice that challenge the repressive qualities of linear perspective, this includes the work of Penelope Haralambidou (2003); Lawrence Gowing (1965) and Marion Milner (1950). In a time of dissolved agency for the architect, this article presents a method through which to mine one’s own relationship to architectural drawing, through which a disturbance to those codified regimes occurs as a consequence of one’s own subjectivity being recognized.

Orthographic Projection and the Elaboration of the Imaginary

<p>With the development of digital technologies, orthographic projection has been slowly removed from the process of architectural design. Instead, orthographic projection drawings are increasingly utilised purely post-design in the form of technical construction documents. Yet, according to Robin Evans orthographic projection is an active agency in the formation of images, and an effective agency for the elaboration of imaginary objects. Furthermore, for Iain Fraser and Rod Henmi orthographic projection produces conceptually sophisticated constructs whose abstract representation of space allows certain aspects and relationship to be seen which may not otherwise be visible. This thesis argues that the reduced role of orthographic projection in the process of design has affected architects' ability to elaborate the imaginary. To investigate the potential of orthographic projection in the elaboration of the imaginary, this thesis expands upon Marco Frascari's written theory of technological images as a palimpsest displaying three overlapping relationships: (1) between a real artefact and the reflected or projected image of it, (2) between a real artefact and its instrumental image, and (3) between the instrumental image and its symbolic image. To expand upon this theory graphically this thesis employs a methodology of architectural drawing as research. Outlined by Clemens Steenbergen, this framework proposes three distinct forms of architectural drawing that constitute research. This thesis couples these three forms with Frascari's three overlapping relationships of a technological image: (1) The Reproduction Drawings aim to register more accurately how something is made up through a process which interprets the object of observation and incorporates it into memory. These drawings embody the first overlapping relationship of Frascari's, technological image, between a real artefact and the projected image of it. (2) Analytical Drawings reveal abstract qualities and potentials by reducing the complex compositions of the first series to their elementary geometric forms, lines and grids. These drawings embody the second overlapping relationship, between a real artefact and its instrumental image. (3) Experimental Drawings project the reproduction and analytical drawings into an existing context to expand upon or reinforce the relationships and conceptual connections formed in relation to the site in the preceding two series. The effects of these interventions are assessed and altered, ultimately leading to new concepts and new compositions. These drawings aim to elaborate imaginative relationships between buildings and architectural ideas, through a process Frascari terms a mutual measure derived from a familiar nature. These drawings embody the third and final overlapping relationship between the instrumental and its symbolic image. By extending upon Frascari's theory graphically, this thesis argues that orthographic projection remains a valuable tool in the process of design. The real artefact chosen to demonstrate the continued value of orthographic projection is Wellington's Civic Square. This site was selected as the buildings located around its formal rectilinear domain offer a heterogeneous mix of civic architecture, ranging from the strictly orthogonal Town Hall and City Gallery to the curvilinear Public Library and City Administration Building. This site offers the opportunity to test both the advantages and disadvantages of orthographic projection, for the reading of architecture and the elaboration of the imaginary, within a formally diverse existing urban environment.</p>

Orthographic Projection and the Elaboration of the Imaginary

<p>With the development of digital technologies, orthographic projection has been slowly removed from the process of architectural design. Instead, orthographic projection drawings are increasingly utilised purely post-design in the form of technical construction documents. Yet, according to Robin Evans orthographic projection is an active agency in the formation of images, and an effective agency for the elaboration of imaginary objects. Furthermore, for Iain Fraser and Rod Henmi orthographic projection produces conceptually sophisticated constructs whose abstract representation of space allows certain aspects and relationship to be seen which may not otherwise be visible. This thesis argues that the reduced role of orthographic projection in the process of design has affected architects' ability to elaborate the imaginary. To investigate the potential of orthographic projection in the elaboration of the imaginary, this thesis expands upon Marco Frascari's written theory of technological images as a palimpsest displaying three overlapping relationships: (1) between a real artefact and the reflected or projected image of it, (2) between a real artefact and its instrumental image, and (3) between the instrumental image and its symbolic image. To expand upon this theory graphically this thesis employs a methodology of architectural drawing as research. Outlined by Clemens Steenbergen, this framework proposes three distinct forms of architectural drawing that constitute research. This thesis couples these three forms with Frascari's three overlapping relationships of a technological image: (1) The Reproduction Drawings aim to register more accurately how something is made up through a process which interprets the object of observation and incorporates it into memory. These drawings embody the first overlapping relationship of Frascari's, technological image, between a real artefact and the projected image of it. (2) Analytical Drawings reveal abstract qualities and potentials by reducing the complex compositions of the first series to their elementary geometric forms, lines and grids. These drawings embody the second overlapping relationship, between a real artefact and its instrumental image. (3) Experimental Drawings project the reproduction and analytical drawings into an existing context to expand upon or reinforce the relationships and conceptual connections formed in relation to the site in the preceding two series. The effects of these interventions are assessed and altered, ultimately leading to new concepts and new compositions. These drawings aim to elaborate imaginative relationships between buildings and architectural ideas, through a process Frascari terms a mutual measure derived from a familiar nature. These drawings embody the third and final overlapping relationship between the instrumental and its symbolic image. By extending upon Frascari's theory graphically, this thesis argues that orthographic projection remains a valuable tool in the process of design. The real artefact chosen to demonstrate the continued value of orthographic projection is Wellington's Civic Square. This site was selected as the buildings located around its formal rectilinear domain offer a heterogeneous mix of civic architecture, ranging from the strictly orthogonal Town Hall and City Gallery to the curvilinear Public Library and City Administration Building. This site offers the opportunity to test both the advantages and disadvantages of orthographic projection, for the reading of architecture and the elaboration of the imaginary, within a formally diverse existing urban environment.</p>

Tūrangawaewae | A place to stand

<p><b>The landscape concealed beneath the concrete surfaces of our cities is replete with heritage stories representing the transformative evolution of the land, our culture and our ever-evolving society. The architecture upon these urban landscapes, however, is often only challenged to represent an architectural style (aesthetic), function (programme) or a public mask (branding) of the building. As a result, architecture tends to neglect the evolving identity of its context, allowing the stories of the site’s heritage to become lost beneath the growing layers of urban development. This thesis asks:How can urban architecture help to reawaken the transformative heritage stories that form place identity, enabling architecture as well as its inhabitants to have a place to stand | tūrangawaewae?</b></p> <p>Place identity for Māori is embodied in the concept of tūrangawaewae––a place to stand. For Māori, the place where a person learns important life lessons and feels a connection with their ancestors is usually the marae. In this place they have earned the right to stand up and make their voices heard. In this place they are empowered and connected to both the land and to one another. Tūrangawaewae––a place to stand––embodies the fundamental concept of our connection to place (“Papatūānuku – the land”). The research site selected to explore this question is the urban area in and around Te Aro Park in central Wellington, which was once the site of Te Aro Pā. This site provides the thesis with a rich polyvalent layering of stories, interweaving landscape heritage, Māori heritage and colonial heritage within a single architectural context. This thesis is framed as an ‘allegorical architectural project’, which is defined by Penelope Haralambidou as a critical method for architectural design research that is often characterised by speculative architectural drawing. The allegorical architectural project integrates design and text to critically reflect on architecture in relation to topics such as art, science and politics (Haralambidou, “The Fall”, 225).</p> <p>The design-led research investigation explores how an allegorical architectural project can help to enable urban architecture to reawaken the transformative heritage stories that form place identity—utilising speculative architectural drawing as a fundamental tool for enabling architecture as well as its inhabitants to manifest a sense of belonging. The thesis proposes an allegorical architectural project as a research vehicle through which place identity can be challenged and fulfilled. By positioning an architectural intervention and its context within a dialectic confrontation, it examines how an allegorical architectural project can represent and communicate the temporal and multi-layered nature of place identity within a static architectural outcome.</p> <p>By reconnecting architecture with site, and interpreting this connection allegorically within the design process, this thesis investigates how architecture can allegorically become the living inhabitant of a site, where the site itself gives architecture its tūrangawaewae, a place to stand.</p>

Drawing in Perspective: A Proposition for a Discursive Architecture in the Age of Digital Representation

<p>Contemporary architectural practise has come to depend upon digital representation as a means of design and for the production of architectural drawings. The computer is common place in architectural offices, relegating the drawing board as a machine of the past. Today, the architect is more likely to draw with a mouse than a mechanical pencil. The proposition of this research suggests such a dramatic shift within representational technology will not only affect how architects design, but also, what they design. Digital modes of architectural representation are reliant on mathematical code designed to artificially simulate visual experience. Such software offers strict alliance with a geometrically correct perspective code making the construction of perspective as simple as taking a ‘snap shot’. The compliance of the digital drawing to codes prescribed by a programmer distance the architect from the perspectival representation, consequently removing the architect’s control of the drawing convention. The universality of perspectival views is enforced by computer programmes such as Google Sketch-Up, which use perspective as a default view. This research explores the bias of linear perspective, revealing that which architects have forgotten due to a dependence on digital software. Special attention is drawn to the lack of control the architect exerts over their limits of representation. By using manual drawing the perspective convention is able to be unpacked and critiqued against the limitations of the system first prescribed by Brunelleschi. The manual drawing is positioned as a powerful mode of representation for it overtly expresses projection and the architect’s control of the line. The hand drawing allows the convention to be interpreted erroneously. The research is methodology driven, focusing on representation as more than a rudimentary tool, but a component of the design process. Thus, representational tools are used to provide a new spatial representation of a site. Computer aided design entered wide spread architectural practice at the end of the 1980’s, a decade that provided an ideal setting for speculative drawn projects. Such projects proved fruitful to architects critically approaching issues of representation and drawing convention, treating the drawing as more than utilitarian in the production of architecture. Whilst the move into digital imagining is not a paradigm shift for the act of drawing, it fundamentally shifted the way architects draw, separating drawing conventions onto visually separate ‘sheets’. The architectural drawing known today was that discovered in the Renaissance, Renaissance architects, the first to conceive of architecture through representation, thus was their endeavour to produce a true three dimensional image. The Renaissance architect executed absolute control of perspective, control, which has since defined the modern architect. Positioned within research by design, the ‘drawing-out’ process is a critical interpretation of perspective. In particular the drawing of instrumental perspective is unpacked within the realm of scientific research. The picture plane, horizon line and ground plane remain constant as the positions of these are well documented. The stationary point, vanishing point (possibly the most speculative components of the drawing) or the relationship between the two, behave as independent variables. In breaking the assumptions that underlie linear perspective as a fixed geometric system we may ask ourselves if we are in control of representational methods, or if they control us. Since architects are controlled by their means of representation this question is paramount to the discipline, particularly today, when digital drawing has shifted the relationship between architect and representation. The implications of this new relationship may result in monotony across the architectural disciple, where the production of critical architecture is secondary to computer technology.</p>