438 EAAE no 35 Teaching and Experimenting with Architectural Design: Advances in Technology and Changes in Pedagogy
And while tracing paper and two-dimensional drawings were of course used
throughout the process, at this point the students were asked to start playing more
intensively with layers in order to discover/create relationships which they could
quickly shift, reject or reinforce. Each team was to create at least forty layers which
they should present as an unbound stack in one and a half weeks. The use of comput-
ers was allowed for the preparation of the layers at the stage of selecting a site, but
the medium promoted for this phase of the grouping stage was only tracing paper
and markers. It was clarified that sheets of varying transparency could be used, and
that the order between the layers could vary. In the text explaining the exercise,
‘layering’ was described as follows:
Rather than an outdated methodology, Layering is here considered as a form of
abstraction invaluable in Design. Layering is not simply stratification, folding, col-
lage or montage since in this conceptual model
- layers are separated by an in-between space which allows for their co-presence
- each layer may be a pattern, or a composition made up of discrete entities
- each layer potentially extends indefinitely in its plane
- the sequence between layers is not fixed. The observer can bring forth one layer
and make others recede. - no one layer is privileged in any absolute fashion.
- layers can be opaque, translucent or transparent, or may be rendered so as
desired - the observer is not situated outside the configuration but is immersed in it and
is part of it. It could be said that the observer is part of the in-between space
which partly defines spatially the foremost layer. - time is part of the configuration, not in any linear sense but in the fact that
change is inherent in the configuration - elements from one layer can ‘contaminate’ the other
- new layers can be created at will
- layering can be a physical arrangement available to vision, but is predominantly
a conceptual frame of mind, an attitude, a disposition.
Each layer in the pack produced by each team was a sketch of an idea, a configuration
of solids and voids, or a pattern of flows. These layers were sometimes found one
on top of the other, other times pinned up on the board, or simply floating around,
travelling between the four students in the group. The order of the layers was continu-
ously changing and with each new arrangement new layers were generated.
What was gradually evolving was the ability to deal with some of the parameters in
one level and with other parameters in another, allowing the group to focus, control
and eventually stabilize an otherwise chaotic situation.
Discussion
Architectural design is called in to deal with complex situations where the number
of parameters involved does not allow for the use of a more positive methodology