188 EAAE no 35 Teaching and Experimenting with Architectural Design: Advances in Technology and Changes in Pedagogy
Fig. 6
Michael Fedak, 2007
The plans and sections were directly generated from the movie with the application
of a set of rules enforced by the student. Each static image selected created a plan;
actual depth was replaced by visual depth and form within the static images, and
sections were then derived from the generated plan, with vertical dimensions taken
from the observed dimensions of the museum.
The result is a series of distorted spaces, absorbing and speculative with an accom-
panying journey line that elegantly and holds the spatial exploration together.
The third task required the use of digital technologies to continue the student’s
ongoing research and investigation of their activity. The programme was explicit
in its approach to the use of the computer as a tool to allow further, deeper visual
exploration, where the digital media directly relates to the activity. Form and space
are not being derived in isolation, but are anchored in the activity.
The students were encouraged to use the RHINO drawing package, which the
entire student group had been introduced to, and subsequently used in the first year.
This programme allows complex 3d geometries to be drawn with relative ease. We
ran refresher courses to get less able students ‘up to speed’ and to help alleviate the
technology hindering their creative processes. The results were various, with some
very literal interpretation of the activity being studied, despite regular encouragement
to experiment, in order to communicate movement across time in a static image.
Experimentation into the possibilities that the computer offered was also encouraged,
and some abstract representation emerged that in some cases visually communicated
the more metaphysical qualities of the activities.
As in the previous 2 exercises, plans and section were required to be constructed of
the digital model. The students were asked to consider carefully relationships between
the participants, the physical container, light, sound and the sensual qualities of the
activity all through the creation of a 3D computer generated model.
Taking all this into account the selection of the cut line was important and as
the technology allowed for testing, in a way that had not been available with the
manually produced constructs, with students encouraged to critique their work based
on their stated intentions.
The example we have selected to illustrate the Digital Space component of the
programme follows a student through the process, and is illustrated in figures 7-9.