Articulating Space through Architectural Diagrams

This paper is directed to the use of architectural diagrams. Whenever architectural designers are confronted by a design task the beginning solution process entails a visualization of possible design solutions. The relationship between aspects of the beginning of the design process, the usage of architectural diagrams and the physical building as the final product of the design process is highlighted and discussed from the author’s practical design experience as an trained architect. Significant techniques and categories of architectural diagrams are analyzed and exemplified with respect to their usage in design practice. Finally, two different architectural design methods, namely objectoriented and context-oriented design are characterized and comparatively discussed. The information presented is based on observations, literature, and personal experience in architectural design practice. Sketching as an Instrument of Thought We sit in an office and we draw things for a building that might be twenty times, hundred times bigger than the paper we drawn on. And the relation between the drawing, and the big reality is fascinating: How could you imagine a fifty-story building when you are working on a three-foot by six-foot desk? Stern (as cited by Herbert, 1993) characterized the complex relationship between the building on the paper and the building in reality. The architect’ role is to be a creator of form, a design specialist who will initiate and lead a (building) design process. Thus, sketching and drawing play a central role in architect’s work. Tigerman (as cited by Herbert, 1993) questions: A drawing has distance from the building, so what is the building? The drawing isn’t the building. The drawing informs about the building, but does it really? As an instrument of thought, sketches, diagrams and drawings have a eminent influence on not only on the early phases of the architect’s working process, but also on the Copyright © 2005, American Association for Artificial Intelligence (www.aaai.org). All rights reserved. next phases concerning construction, and thus on the buildings that are the final goal of architectural design. The Building in the Architect’s Mind To articulate architectural elements is to clearly distinguish the parts that constitute the whole, especially at the points of their connection. Imagination generates a spatial concept, which is seeing in the architect’s mind's eye as a discontinuous, nondimensional image (Porter, 1997), and must be seen in respect to the multifaceted decision space of the design process (Bertel et.al, 2004). Somewhere a long the way, a colleague of mine characterized this phenomenon in respect to the drawing practice of other architects by saying: Most people sketch with images in their head. I think architectural designers have images, preconceived mental images, and drawings are materialization of these visual images. Le Corbusier viewed sketching as subordinate to the mental images within the design process. He explained this view at the beginning of the architectural design of his well-known chapel Ronchamp by memorizing project data, shapes and spatial information for a few weeks, but not making any sketches (Pauly, 1982). But after the long time of saving there was the ‘spontaneous birth ...of the whole project, all at once and all of sudden’ (Pauly, 1982). However, it is hard to believe that when he produced the drawings of Ronchamp for the first time he had a mental image of all the complex spatial configuration, distances, and relations to the topological building context. Further, Pauly (1980, p.34) precisely described the procedure one of Le Corbusier’s earliest sketches of Ronchamp: Figure 1: left: (author after Le Corbusier, 1950): One of the earliest sketches of Le Corbusier defining the spatial layout of the chapel Ronchamp. right: the final ground plan of the building. With only four lines he finds the plane of the chapel: two curved lines, one toward the south, the other toward the east. The space between the convexities of these two lines is closed by two straight lines meeting at an obtuse angel. This rough sketch articulates the general design of the building project as it was some years later developed. But, none of the lines is produced as a single stroke, so that with any starting point and technique he chose, his sketching steps were not a verification of a preconceived mental image of the whole building. It is more likely to show that the sketch is developed graphically step by step and each line marks the beginning of the next line. Quite contrary to his own description, Le Corbusier used his sketches as dynamic and active parts in his design thinking and not simply as a medium for recording complete mental images. As shown in the brief analysis of the drawing, it is important to identify that the sketching process is embedded within a step-by-step design loop of interpretation, and redrawing. The possibility of using mental images as an architectural design tool will be discussed later on. Spatial Codes in Architectural Diagrams Sketching and drawing play a central role in architect’s work. Every architectural design has started on a blank sheet of paper and with a scribble mostly both in words and lines. Architects make use of diagrams to help develop and formulate conceptions. They draw to think about design and to remind themselves of possible design alternatives. Even though drawing styles may differ, many architects acknowledge the use of diagrams as an essential part of their design process (Do, 2002). Structuring Spatial Design Thoughts with