Seeing architecture in action: designing, evoking and depicting space and form in embodied interaction

This article studies the visibility of creative acts and how the aesthetic experience of future architectural form can be seen in movements of the hands, in concert with speech and bodily conduct. Selected sequences are studied closely in two settings to examine the ways that our human interactional practices organise the depiction of architectural concepts and spaces, which can then be explored in movements of the hands. These fleeting but significant actions are proposed as acts of ‘aesthetic becoming’ in design settings, as design-relevant ‘things’ are visibly depicted in an unfolding design situation. Seeing this is remarkable, as this study suggests these acts draw our visual attention to the different landscapes that we move in when designing, where imagining and depicting ‘what is becoming’ is intricately interwoven with ‘what is happening now’.