Darren Deane, Eleanor Suess Kingston University, United Kingdom 59Similarly in a project-space, strands of elements can swerve between processual orbits
and media, helping to loosen the grip of an all-encompassing process or medium. Anoth-
er way of putting this might be that heterogeneous materials and slower processes can
interfere with and enrich design practice. This zone of interference is a crucial ingredient
in our project space. Here is an account of this strategy of interference at work in our
Second Year programme, which culminated in a digital workshop called ‘moving draw-
ings’. It describes the intersection (interference) of three investigative processes, each
of which represents three different material states of a project.
Moving Drawings: Touchrail
The moving drawing “Touchrail” by Paolo Scianna (f ig. 1), a Second Year student,
explores the temporal qualities of a dense architectural element - a timber handrail
designed to lead the user through a building and also function as a device to display
traditional timber detailing. The film, which simultaneously explores these two opera-
tions of a single architectural element is the culmination of three investigative tasks
that were deliberately grouped according to their contrasting materiality, (density of
media): a digital time-based drawing, a making exercise (metaphorical in nature), and
a brief loaded with typology and cultural decorum. Each element participates in a 3-way
dynamic, opening up an interactive space between co-present material states.
Fig. 1: Stills from Moving Drawing Touchrail, Paolo Scianna, Kingston University
Using the time-based software Adobe Premiere, “touchrail” is a film that navigates across
the surface of orthographic projection employing the filmic technique of the pan (from
ortho to tempo). Traditionally the ‘pan’ plays over a ‘view’, but in this instance it traverses
another medium of representation, the architectural drawing. Echoing the movement of
the viewer’s eye as they look at the ‘static’ drawing, the motion of the pan shifts the view
from the left to the right of the drawing in a non-linear configuration. The view changes