Abstract:
Design studios in architecture schools use the framework of the design process to teach students how to design a building in the simple steps of ideation, development, and refinement. However, there are hidden complexities of experimentation, problem solving and critique that place the process into mysterious uncertainty. The uncertainty seems intimidating when a building outcome is expected, but it is a curious opportunity to explore what actions of design thinking strengthen the process and building design. What architecture school truly teaches is the performance of design thinking.
How can the performance of design thinking be expressed through an architecture student’s body movement? And how do their bodies impact their development of design thinking?
Reviewing my sketchbook, drawing is a performative medium to express my design ideas. Its drawn marks on the pages trace the memory of my thinking. From this, I would like to know how my design thinking can expand from the scale of a sketchbook to a studio space with the discipline of performative drawing explored. Artist Nikolaus Gansterer combines choreography, drawing and writing to generate diagrammatic spaces of his thinking process. The drawing marks the progression of a student’s design thinking and reflects back to the form of their body. From a design course titled HOT.mess, the making of wearable drawing apparatuses inspired my methodology to form the Architectural Body, a costume embodiment of a student’s learning identity developed from their experiences of learning design.
A classroom installation extends from the Architectural Body, introducing interactive methods to teach the performance of design thinking. With a collective of Architectural Bodies, it constructs a performative school, The Learning Anatomy. This school is alive to grow with its students and bloom various approaches to architectural design.