Por que (não) se desenha - Percepção, representação e comunicação de imagem em arquitectura

Abstract

This study discusses the recent changes in the use of free-hand drawing as the main method for producing images in architecture. The ever-growing and diversifying usage of digital platforms supporting the design process is the cause for those changes. This transformation affects design methodology and the architects' relationship with images, having also allowed the emergence of new building shapes. The discussion generates a research about the function, nature and influence of the making of graphical records in architecture. The themes hereby developed are: visual perception, regulated by the field of vision, shape and colour; the representation systems as a matrix for the options in transforming space; the mysteries of designing without images, the role of the sketch in the establishment of a working method and the effects of drawing and design processes when resourcing to the computer and also the central role of images as a defining element of the steps for materializing an idea into a built artefac. All these themes are discussed with the aim of creating a broad field of discussion about the effects of the changes in image production methods within architectural practice. Based on a wide and contemporary definition of drawing, the initial problem is dismantled and rethought. This intends for a productive and unifying position of the different designing instruments, as well as for a comprehensive development of our relationship with images.