EXHIBITIONS

DRAWING FOR PLACEMAKING: Doctoral research and master dissertations

Studio The Drawing And The Space

30/01/2023 - 06/02/2023
Politecnico Milano
Department of Architectural and Urban Studies
Room J.2 - Building 11

Via Ampère 2
20133 Milano (Italy)


Master Dissertation Studio The Drawing and The Space
www.thedrawingandthespace.info

Thierry Lagrange & Jo Van Den Berghe

DRAWING FOR PLACEMAKING: The Drawing and the Space master dissertation and doctoral research (KU Leuven Department of Architecture).

Studio The Drawing And The Space

04/11/2022 - 18/11/2022
DiARC_Department of Architecture
Polytechnic and Basic Sciences School
College of Architecture
University of Studies of Naples "Federico II"

Palazzo Gravina
Mostra Ambulacro Biblioteca Area Architettura

Via Toledo 402
80134 Naples (Italy)

Drawing is one of the most prominent activities of an architect, who draws with different media that range from the pencil to the computer mouse. The act of drawing is a multi-layered, multi-sensorial activity with a significant impact on creativity, creative output, thinking and knowledge production. It is above all an act with a long history related to mankind, hence to many disciplines that adopt the map, the symbol, the sketch, the plan, the section, the detail, ..., all related them to their discipline-specific acts of drawing. All this includes direct and vivid connections, back and forth, between the outcome and the first sketch.

What is space today? This question seems to recur time and again asking for a precise and well-focused approach. History proves that we can re-think and re-design space in such a way that it opens new avenues to innovation and reflection. We can see spatiality in such a way that it opens up debates on emotional, political and social topics. There are numerous strategies to be investigated here, ranging from the transformation of immaterial and mental aspects in tangible space (so-called analogous spaces) to looking at old masters who focused on how space is related to mental aspects such as thinking, reflecting and understanding the world.

Drawing and space share common histories, and all along these historical lines that reach as far as today-strong dependencies between the drawing and the space exist, which appear to make them inseparable, both in their conception and in the observation and understanding of them. In architecture, looked at from a historical perspective, space is often that which drives architects to drawing, whereas drawing is often that which leads to new spaces. Innovative ways of drawing have led to innovative concepts of space. The urge for the latter has often instigated the quest for the former, and the other way round.

The investigation of the co-existence of both entities -the drawing and the space- benefits from intense collaborations that lead to crosspollinations, and this lays at the base of this research environment. We believe that bringing these topics together may deeply change our view on this research landscape, and further expand it.

The exhibited work consists of the production of the Master Dissertation Studio The Drawing and The Space (KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture Campus Ghent 2019-2020 & 2020-2021) and doctoral research that has come forth of this Master Dissertation Studio and that is imbedded in the research group The Drawing and the Space (KU Leuven Department of Architecture)

Master Dissertation Studio The Drawing and The Space
www.thedrawingandthespace.info

Thierry Lagrange & Jo Van Den Berghe

WHEN MIDNIGHT COMES AROUND

Studio The Drawing And The Space

07/03/2022 - 01/04/2022
Hoogstraat 55, 9000 Gent (BE)
In honour of the graduation projects developed during unusual times.

This master dissertation studio is linked, through its promotors, to the research group The Drawing and The Space, and starts from the research statement of this research group: "Drawing and space share a common history, and all along these historical lines ―that reaches as far as today― strong dependencies between the drawing and the space exist, which appear to make them inseperable, both in the conception and in the observation and understanding of space. In designing, looked at from a historical perspective, space is often that which drives designers to draw, whereas drawing is often that which leads to new spaces. Innovative ways of drawing have led to innovative concepts of space. The urge for the latter has often instigated the quest for the former. This co-existence of both entities ―the drawing and the space― requires intense collaborations that lead to crosspollinations, and this constitutes the base of this research environment. We believe that bringing these together may deeply change our view on this research landscape, and further expand it."

The architectural drawing and the analogous space are also examined in their historical context, in which it is important that every student brings his/her relevant/necessary historical references into the research and compiles and deals with a suitable list of references.

Through this research, the student takes a clear position in the tension field between the architectural drawing and the analogous space, and with this he/she explores his/her own critical reflective practice, and more generally meaningful undercurrents / countercultures through designing new architecture propositions, by proving the feasibility of these propositions (materializing and anatomizing them in their contexts) and by carefully situating them in the discipline of architecture. This master dissertation can have a significant impact because it incorporates new practices as a series "follow-up practices" that gradually infiltrate into the heart of the discipline.

The architecural whole (including intimate dialogue with the context), the architecture fragment (the strategic intermediate scale) and the architectural detail are the three scales on which the student will operate judiciously in this Design Driven Research. These three scales are investigated in an integrated way throughout the entire process, with alternating accents on one of these scales. The architectural drawing, and certainly the vertical section, will occupy a central place in the research method as discipline-specific instrument in this master's thesis.

The program and context can be freely determined by the student, but will come forth from a careful analysis of possibilities, which will be debated in the design studio.

The studio is conceived as a high trust collaboration between student and his/her promotors, imbedded in a network with any mentor the student can choose. In this way, the studio setting results in a network in which different actors are involved. This network forms an interdisciplinary Community of Practice in which the student can achieve a better rating of his/her research and design actions, and in which the individual processes are more precisely nurtured and calibrated.

Due to the specificity of the research track that each student explores, the output will be specific for each student. But: this master's thesis gives an important status to the architectural drawing (and scale model) as the discipline specific research tool. Consequently, the architectural drawing will play a central role in the research method, and in the form of the research output.

This exhibition has been postponed many times due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, together with the team of our ex-students (2019-2020 and 2020-2021) we stubbornly resisted the harsh circumstances in which we had to work. But we are very proud to share the research output with the public today.

www.thedrawingandthespace.info

Thierry Lagrange & Jo Van Den Berghe

FIELD STATION STUDIO: Architecture and platforms

10/01/2019 - 21/01/2019
Design Museum Gent
Jan Breydelstraat 5, 9000 Gent (BE)
Recently, the notion of platforms has taken on different meanings through the increasing digitization of many areas within society: from production and commerce, over media, science, culture and politics. Field Station will present their collective work on the notion of platforms in architecture. The studio explored a wide range of ideas, possibilities and frictions related to platforms as a spatial metaphor, a structural system, an architectural typology, an interface where data space and physical space intersect, as a modus operandi, a model for novel architectural entrepreneurship, or as a site for counter cultural resistance. DING, the extension of the Design Museum Ghent, functioned as means to confront these concepts with a concrete situation. Confronting the site and project with a specific perspective and considering several aspects (the site and existing buildings, its position within the context of Ghent, the ongoing competition, program and function, the ambition to become a third space), resulted in a series of architectural reflections and propositions.

Field Station Studio is an ongoing Architectural Design Office and Master Studio at the Departement Architectuur - KU Leuven, Field Station Studio part of the international network Fieldstations e.V.

www.fieldstations.net
www.fieldstationstudio.org
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