Diagrammatic Approaches in Architectural Design - Addressing architectural and urban design through the use of diagrams

Abstract

Diagrams have an extraordinary potential as a tool for the analysis of architectural and urban problems.They can also be considered a design strategy in themselves according to Eisenman's understanding of this graphic notation system. Diagrams have proved to be a valid design tool for architecture beyond the professional practice within the design studio. Students were given a design tool which was alien to their previous practices and it worked well as a propositional graphic device for the design of an architectural artefact. As a graphic tool that may be embodied in grids the possibility to enrich the design by superimposition techniques may well serve as a trigger for collaborative work, embedding in the design different layers of meaning and design solutions proposed by various students enhancing a level of complexity which the proposal of a single student may not achieve. From a didactic point of view, the use of these design strategy among the class, enabled to tackle different problems so that the work in the urban scale was also successfully addressed as part of the course aims.