Abstract
How can we introduce emotional conditions in architecture that would allow for the design and expression of existential space? Architects do not currently have the appropriate methods or the right tools of representation for articulating such subjective information during their design process. This article addresses this issue by evaluating a didactic approach and alternative means of representation in the architectural studio. This studio experience aimed at articulating people’s life stories in audiovisual narratives, which later inspired a number of students’ designs. First, the students conducted interviews with local people, and later worked with two tools – storyboarding and animatics – to analyze how space was signified through these people’s narratives. This article evaluates: (i) the introduction of interviewing and the particular audiovisual tools; (ii) how these students articulated the studio experience into their learning processes, and (iii) into the resulting architectural designs. Key words: life stories, means of representation, storyboard, architectural education.
Highlights
Personal narratives such as those evoked in regular conversations are a rich source of inspiration for design
The experience was a two week exercise developed in a second year architectural studio at the Universidad del Bio Bio, in Chile
The focus developed during the second year studios was the relevance of places for architectural designs
Summary
I had grown estranged from the studio environment. As a foreigner, I was not familiar with the colloquial language or the cultural commonplaces present in studio reviews and the educational institution. It has led to an understanding of place from an intimate self-referential perspective, and has only allowed the students to record the here and Since it has empowered the students’ perception, the approach cannot register how other people signify the spaces, paths and features from their own personal and collective experiences. Roberto valued the novelty of the new tools, and played down the importance of how effective the exercise was, saying repeatedly that “it is always good to experiment [with] new things.” He was enthusiastic because of the new media (the video) which made him play more than study and made him question the traditional spatial and conceptual analyses he was used to performing. The students who developed their own strategies of learning, independently of their professors’ requirements, seemed to feel comfortable with the exercise
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