Hernán Marchant Universidad de Chile Cecilia Mouat Universidad Finis Terrae, Chile 119
exerted by the changes in representational forms in the architecture that is produced,
even more so, if based on a new conception of the world.
This essay proposes an analysis of the so called fourth dimension, understood as
the one involving the motion of a body moving through space, a dimension which
we believe is fundamental in the conception of architectural projects.
With this análisis as a starting point, we propose a reflection on these new
technologies and how one can approach, through them, the conception of what we
call “designing in motion”. In the same way we intend to sketch out the use of new
technologies in the architectural workshop, those understood as technological tools
that give value to the body in motion in space, thus enriching the process of the
teaching/learning of design in the stages of: 1) Capturing information, 2) develop-
ment of ideas, and, 3) shaping the project. We also think there is a phase prior to
the process of designing (teaching/learning to look and to see). We call it “stage
of nourishment of the imagination’s or active memory; a gratuitous stage without
clear objectives in the short term (it becomes part of teaching history, part of the
workshop and/or architectural theory. It nourishes what we call projective culture)”^2.
We are then, facing four different phases in the process of conception and develop-
ment of the project.
Fixed image versus image in motion
The forms of representation traditionally employed in the processes of design, are
based on two-dimensional drawings, in physical and virtual three-dimensional models,
and in photographs. All these expressions are fixed, exterior and motionless. Even
though they represent space, they are unable to contain the perception of architec-
tonic space which is an experience of the body going beyond what is merely visual,
and accounting for the indissoluble link between space and time, which characterizes
and differentiates architecture from other arts.
In recent years, thanks to the progress in computing tools, experiences of “three-
dimensional visualizations” have been developed in architectural teaching and prac-
tice. These representations are usually used as a way of verifying what was projected.
We propose that it is possible to add these tools to the process of project formulation
in the studio, as long as, the sense of motion in relation to space-time and in the
creation of architectural elements, is understood.
Representation limits:
“We already knew that every representation is a reduction (in scale, in proportions,
contents, nature ...)”^3
Dimensions and measures in architecture have often been related to human dimen-
sions in order to give them an aesthetic value.
“In any building you can distinguísh three things: the dimension it really has
(mechanical measure), the dimension it seems to have (visual measure) and the sensa-
tion that such dimension conveys (corporeal measure). The last two have often been