Author(s): Jordan Kanter & Erica Dewitt
This paper outlines a curricular approach for an undergraduate architecture representation seminar attempting to support a more embodied and connected approach to architectural design and representation. Engaging techniques and conceptual frameworks of both cartographic and architectural representation, this class allows students to engage with a local landscape and all its subtle complexities through a single item: a rock. The rock and its surrounding context become a lens through which to explore and represent the world. Students produce hyper-local aerial photographic maps, as a stand-in for GIS technology, and extrapolate points, zones, and flows to create a dynamic narrative and visual representa¬tion of their rock and its context. Students explore the surface of their rock to develop tactile intelligence and fabrication skills, creating a mock-up of the rock itself. Finally, students reimagine their rocks as a multi-scale pavilion, exploring opportunities for fenestration, egress, and ultimate recon¬textualization in their original site of discovery. These tactics provide rising designers—and the field of architecture–with a versatile, engaged, and embodied set of tools to develop a critical approach to cartography and develop a thoughtful link between the maps we draw, the places we live, and the actions we can take.
Volume Editors
ISBN
978-1-944214-49-4