The Architectural representation studio is made up of two integrated courses: Architectural Basic Drawing (6 credits) and Architectural and Urban Modeling (4 credits). The aim of the studio is introducing to basic concepts of spatial description both in the architectural scale and urban scale. Freehand drawing, technical drawing and computer drawing will be supported by lectures of Descriptive Geometry as science of graphical representation of three-dimensional lines, surfaces and solids with emphasis and development of drawing skills. Students will focus, step by step, on many different techniques, from the sketch to the map, from drawing to modeling.

Students will be required to analyze a contemporary architecture inside a urban landscape and to develop visual drawing and physical interpretation of the morphology, the urban relationships, the frames of complex space; to produce clear drawings from observation and use these images; to support documentation and analysis, to hand-draw views and plans using the correct proportions; to develop the understanding of architectural “space”; to learn a wide-range use of design and visual techniques, to improve a thorough use of correct scale definition and drawing codes; to learn the possibilities presented by schematic representation in drawings, in spatial drawings of constructions and working details.

            Architectural and urban space will be experimented by conventional techniques of representation - maps, orthographic projection, axonometric and perspective drawings, – analyzing relevant contemporary designs both in the architectural scale and urban scale.

            To the same aim, the potentialities of modeling will be developed in different exercises in order to manage both building and its urban context model. Students will learn Basics CAD modeling.

            The Studio is made up in order to allow a continuous exchange between theoretical lessons and graphic exercises. The output of the Studio activities – drawings, models…- will be checked and valued.

            The final exam, requiring a positive rating of the whole exercises of the term, is based on a oral presentation about the theoretical contents of the Studio and the development of exercises.

Students are strictly required to attend the Studio activities and lectures because of its experimenting feature. The Studio is organized by theoretical lessons, graphic exercises, digital modeling, developing three different and related aspects:          

A. Theory – Space concepts, structures and geometries: Euclidean, projective, topology; –Dimension, measure, scale – Form, type, scheme – Perceiving, and communicating.

B. Technique – Tools, methods and drawing conventions – Basics of Descriptive Geometry and Digital Modeling

C. Exercises – Graphic Exercises will be introduced by specific lessons in order to develop students skills about technical and freehand drawings and to check how the theoretical elements are linked to practice.

Bibliography

-          Lorraine Farrelly, Representational techniques, Ava Publishing SA, Lausanne, 2008

-          Peter Bosselmann, Representation of Places: Reality and Realism in City Design, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1998

-          Matthew Frederick, 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School, MIT Press, 2007

-          Rendow Yee, Architectural Drawing. A visual Compendium of Types and Methods, John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2007

The evaluation of student work will be made according to: planned exercises, developing of products outside of the lessons, knowledge of the arguments offered by the course.