Leeds Beckett University  2017–2018 DC1

BA(Hons) Architecture

Timetable P1
Briefing: Tuesday, September 26, 10am Object’s Life Expansion
Drawing Workshop: Tuesday, September 26, 10:30am
Photography Workshop: Friday, September 29,10:00am +
Tuesday, October 03, 2pm Tutors
Drawing Workshop: Tuesday, October 03, 10am Mohamad Hafeda
Research & Reading: Friday, October 06, 10am Anna Pepe
Collage/Photoshop Workshop: Tuesday, October 10, 2pm Ann Stewart
Making Workshop: Tuesday, October 17, 10am
Crit: Friday, October 20, 10am
Study trip: tbc
Final Crit: Friday, November 03, 10am

54 Studies for Chair Transformations, Allan Wexler, 2007

PROJECT AIMS LEARNING OUTCOME

To explore a range of thinking, drawing and making meth-
ods by which the architect can begin to understand, inter-
pret, represent and produce space in all its complexities.
– Developing critical and investigative skills.
– Investigating a diverse range of representation tech-
niques.
– Communicating qualities of architectural space through
representation.
– Engaging with key ideas relating to form and material
qualities.
– Exploring human scale in relation to space.
BRIEF
Architecture is always about working within an existing set
of conditions that architects need to take apart, understand
how they work and rework their relationships, in order to
propose something new, giving them a second life. Our
personal curiosity and interpretations fuel our imagination to
invent, design and add to existing spaces. This process of
enquiry and invention requires a range of drawing and mak-
ing techniques and methods that are fundamental thinking
tools to the design process. However the relationship be-
tween these representations is not straightforward or linear
but complex and obscured. Drawing and making influence
our ideas as they emerge. There is a space of imagination,
interpretation, discrepancy and production between what
we see and/or think and how we express these or repre-
sent them in material processes.
During this project you will explore a wide variety of draw-
ing and making techniques and methods, as well as the
relationship between these representation processes.
Some of these will be introduced in order to enhance your
own visual and perception skills, others to break down
preconceptions about space, representation and design
processes.
You are asked to obtain an abandoned (not in use) every-
day object. You will employ a series of investigative and ex-
perimental architectural processes to survey the object and
to speculate on the possibilities of its reuse and after-life.
You will work in pairs at the start of the project. You need to
provide the object from a charity shop or a recycling centre
or you can use any abandoned object that you can find.
The object should comply with the following requirements:
- Has moving parts or mechanical
- Complex in its functioning
- Easily disassembled / broken into parts
- At a scale suitable to the studio and project (not too large
to not fit in the lift, nor too small so that it lacks enough
details to inform an interesting project).
- It cannot be a mobile phone, remote control, electronic
game, jewelry, keychain, key, cutlery, ceramics and decora-
tive items.
Note: Bring an inspiring and exciting object that you are cu-
rious about and want to work on.
STAGES
Stage 1: Draw – 2 Weeks
1.1 Survey your chosen object in detail. Observing, record-
ing, analysing and communicating details are an essential
part of an architect’s design process, we must look closely
to what is there and beyond the visible. Work in groups of
two to survey the object’s original form through 1 - sketch-
ing it on your sketchbook, 2- adding measurements and
notes, and 3- taking photographs. Then individually trans-
late your measured notes into a finished drawing in an
orthographic projection, showing plans and elevations.
Drawings must be detailed, accurate, to scale, and drawn
with suitable and varied line weights to show materiality and
depth with control of line weights and line quality. Work
on white A2 sheets. Use one of the conventional architec-
tural scales (suitable to the size of your object): 1:1, 1:2,
1:5, 1:10 and 1:20.
You need to analyse the object into different architectural
components;
Form: points (dots, pins, perforation), lines (columns,
beams, frames), surfaces/planes (slabs, walls), and vol-
umes (cubes, sphere, irregular)
Structure: through which the different architectural ele-
ments are fixed together, such as slotted, integrated, inter-
locked, suspended, woven.
Material quality: elastic, rubbery, shiny, reflective, sticky,
rusty, transparent, melting, permeable, etc.
Performance/activity: movement (rotating, sliding, mobile),
function (marking, punching, perforating), and mechanics.
On Friday 29 September: Research how architects draw
to inform your drawing method. Present to the studio
a drawing from the architect, assigned to you, and that
inspired you most. Use the library to conduct your research
and bring the book or a printed scan of the drawing with
you to the studio. You cannot use the Internet for this re-
search. Visit the Leslie Silver Library, second floor, sections
720.-- , for architectural references.
1.2 Cut the object in half or simply open it or dismantle it.
Each one of you should take one half to explore. Draw a
key section and an exploded axonometric of the object.
Choosing ‘where to cut a section’ and the arrangement of
the axonometric components are important to serve a par-
ticular purpose or show an idea, they expose the internal
system of the object including the vertical and horizontal
relationships across spaces. In this respect a technical
drawing is subjective and can develop an interest or help
answer a question or curiosity. The drawings need to show
the specific spatial arrangement and spatial characteristics
of the object that you discovered. Refer to the list below
to guide your investigation and clearly state what you are
exploring in drawing; you can add your own terms/nouns to
the list.
Spatial arrangement: Regular vs. irregular, ordered vs.
disordered, dense vs. sparse, angular vs. orthogonal,
smooth vs. sharp, sequential vs. interrupted, centralized vs.
dispersed.
Spatial characteristics: Light vs. heavy, dynamic vs. static,
introverted vs. extroverted, crammed vs. spacious, isolated
vs. integrated, inward vs. outward.
1.3 Throughout the drawing process you should be pho-
tographing the object to explore and reveal its qualities.
Use photography to document the object inside out, but
also to investigate material qualities that are not necessarily
expressed in the orthographic drawings. Explore how these
different processes challenge your knowledge of the object.
Visit the photography studio on the 3rd floor.
On Friday 6 October: You need to read the assigned text
and be ready to discuss it. You will be asked a question to
answer.
Stage 2: Experiment – 1 Week
2.1 Conduct an experiment using the B&W photocopy
machine to explore further the spatial/material quality that
you highlighted of the half-object. Identify clearly the quality;
pick one or two from the lists above or add your own. By
the end of the exercise your experiment should be focused
and present a full investigation. Present 20 different photo-
copies, giving them (as the body of your experiment) a clear
title.
2.2 Construct an A2 collage image using the 20 photo-
copies. Collage is a tool to speculate on and propose new
constructions by bringing elements from different contexts,
media and scales to the space of the drawing. The collage
should construct a spatial arrangement and a series of
spaces with specific spatial qualities instigated from the ex-
periment and the processes you undertook so far. Refer to
the list provided above to inform your actions and to name
the spatial arrangement and characteristics that you are
expressing. Through this process the object is transformed
into something new and is further detached from its actual
physicality.
To construct the collage employ: photocopying, cutting,
pasting, overlaying, multiplying and changing scale. You are
advised to use copies of parts of the orthographic drawings
in this collage and to layer your drawing. Title the collage
inline with its intention.
Stage 3: Make – 1.5 Week
3.1 You have spent time observing, recording and experi-
menting with the object’s form, spatial qualities and ar-
rangement in 2-dimensional processes of drawing, pho-
tography, photocopy and collage. You need to expand the
life of the object through exploring the spatial possibilities
generated out of these processes in a 3 dimensional inves-
tigation (model making) using white cardboard (and parts
of the half-object’s components if needed). This stage is
not about replicating the object in cardboard, for the object
has already transformed. It is more about learning from the
object and studying particular aspects, and speculating on
generating 3-dimensional forms and spaces.
Follow the steps below:
- Identify the particular spatial arrangement and char-
acteristics from the collage and the whole process that
you would like to explore further. Refer to the list provided
above.
- Give attention to the positive and negative spaces of
the collage/drawings/object, have a strategy on how you
will express them in model making. The positive being the
solid, volumes and foreground and the negative being the
void, in-between space and background. You can use the
collage shades from black to white to decide on and differ-
entiate between positive and negative.
- Use two of the making techniques/actions below or
ones that you have highlighted throughout your process to
build your models.
Techniques or actions: Bending, stacking, twisting,
wrapping, corrugating, curving, folding, pleating, perforat-
ing, packing, extruding, subtracting, rotating, replicating,
exploding, shredding, shearing, intersecting, interlocking,
lofting.
Stage 4: Scale – 1.5 Week
Your previous model had no scale. You explored making
techniques and the possibilities to generate form and spa-
tial arrangements and qualities at different shifting scales.
At this stage you will study how the agent of scale asks you
to look and think differently at what you have, and requires
new considerations and making decisions. You need to
give your model a scale of 1:50 in relation to your body and
the activity of: working. Produce a new model and set of
drawings investigating the alterations and the new spaces
required to cater for the activity and human scale.
Follow the steps below:
4.1 Photograph your body in the ‘working’ activity by which
you will inhabit the model. Produce a drawing of a se-
quence/series that shows the different body positions and
dimensions of that activity in space. Create a ruler or scale
bar for the measures. Rework the scale of the photograph/
print to fit the scale of 1:20. Refer to Eadweard Muybridge,
modular system of Le Corbusier, Da Vinci Man/Vitruvian
Man and Neufert Standard.
4.2 Make a final inhabited model at a scale of 1:50 and a
dimension of 50cm x 25cm x 25cm.
4.3 Draw a section of the model inhabited by your body
activity and movement. You need to employ all the rep-
resentation skills and media you explored so far - from
orthographic drawing, photography, photocopying, layering
and collage to unpack and narrate the specific qualities of
the new expanded space. Your drawing should be textured,
layered with information and complex in composition, at a
scale of 1:50 and a dimension of 50cm x 25cm or 25cm x
25cm.
SUBMISSION
Minimum output
- Research of an architect’s drawing method.
- Finished orthographic projections: 2 Plans, 4 Elevations,
1 Section, 1 Axonometric on A2 sheets and to scale.
- Photographic exploration on A2.
- 20 photocopies experiemnt.
- A2 Collage
- The expanded object model.
- Inhabited model scale 1:50.
- Section drawing of the inhabited model 1:50.
- Documentation of design process including experiments
and drawings.

Note: don’t allow the cardboard materiality/thickness limit

your investigation; if you build a plane, don’t let the thick-
ness of the cardboard dictate the plane’s thickness.
TO RESEARCH
Architects List
Pick accrording to your surname (first letter)
Diller Scofidio (A)
Rem Koolhaas (B)
Bernard Tschumi (C)
Lina Bo Bardi (E, F)
Atelier Bow-Wow
Archigram (D)
Haus-Rucker-Co (G)
Cedric Price (H)
Brodsky and Utkin (I)
Sant’elia (J)
Ben Nicholson (K)
Super Studio (L)
Enric Miralles (M)
Morphosis (N)
Friedrich Kiesler (O)
Paul Marvin Rudolph (Q)
Alison Smithson (R)
Zaha Hadid (S)
Lebbeus Woods (P)
Sou Fujimoto (T)
Neil Spiller (V)
Peter Eisenman (W)
Herzog de Meuron (X)
David Adjaye (Y)
Tadao Ando (Z)
Peter Zumthor (U)

READINGS
Robin Evans. ‘Translations from Drawing to Building’. In
Translations from Drawing to Building and Other Essays.
London: AA Documents, 1997.