Collage Drawdels: A Tactile and Systematic Design Tool for Layering Architectural Fragments

Wentworth Institute of Technology, Architecture, 550 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

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Abstract

A creative and productive translation from idea to architecture for beginning students requires didactic tools to create structured learning, foster student engagement, and demonstrate how the parts relate to the whole. This paper demonstrates how collage drawdels are an accessible, tactile, and open-ended tool that can project architectural ideas from concept to schematic design. Drawing inspiration from the materiality, tactility, and immediacy of the collage work of Cubists and landscape architects and architects such as James Corner, Miralles, and EMBT Architects, students tested architectural fragments through a synthetic, active process of layering A)smaller-scale modules that expand or aggregate to form a B) structuralframework, C) paths of movement, D) and finally, programmaticpossibilities. This layered and process-oriented approach actively visualizesa systematic process of negotiating ideas, introducing the relationshipbetween modules, structure, space, and site, prioritising the building not asan object but as layers in an adaptable and expandable field.