Period: c21st

The Garden Transcripts

The Garden Transcripts

Eleanor Evason

For the past two years, our Writing Prize has attracted a large number of thoughtful texts from participants all over the world. This year we partnered with the Architecture Foundation to sponsor one of their three writing prize categories. The Drawing Matter category, titled ‘Architecture and Representation’, invited entrants to… Read More

fala: photography

fala: photography

fala

This is the seventh of eight articles in which the partners at fala examine different approaches to drawing and imagery within their practice as designers. We photograph the construction site a few times, to keep a certain moment for later. When construction ends, we photograph it again, intensely. Not just… Read More

Useless Terrain: The Ballynagrenia and Ballinderry Bog

Useless Terrain: The Ballynagrenia and Ballinderry Bog

Joseph Heffernan

Every hectare of drained peatland emits two tonnes of carbon a year. Known peatlands only cover about 3% of the world’s land surface, but they store at least twice as much carbon as all of Earth’s standing forests. Cutting turf for fuel has been practiced for centuries, and communities have… Read More

Open Letters: Harvard GSD

Open Letters: Harvard GSD

Paul Mosley

Drawing Matter has been enjoying Open Letters, published bi-weekly by Harvard University Graduate School Of Design, from the start. In part, this is because our own publishing initiative began at much at the same time – now ten years ago – and proceeds at the same pace, and with a little of the… Read More

fala: collages

fala: collages

fala

This is the sixth of eight articles in which the partners at fala examine different approaches to drawing and imagery within their practice as designers. fala started with collages. An abundance of images populated the internet; at some point, an online presence was decidedly claimed. Collages were the closest we… Read More

From Afar

From Afar

Ajna Babahmetovic

During the first lockdown in 2020, from my bedroom in Graz, I began to model a small Bosnian town named Kozarac. The indefinite postponement of life, as it had seemed at the time, made space for such an ambitious task. Equipped only with a .dwg survey map of the city… Read More

fala: execution drawings

fala: execution drawings

fala

This is the fifth of eight articles in which the partners at fala examine different approaches to drawing and imagery within their practice as designers. Construction documents include an array of scales. General drawings, partials, maps, details, and indexes are loaded with intentions and manic descriptions. They are supposed to… Read More

Queensway, Hong Kong

Queensway, Hong Kong

Sony Devabhaktuni

What I knew of Hong Kong before I moved here came from film and photography. It was a dense, post-modern city that in earlier decades had been characterised by its economic success. Since the turn of the century, the city has been pummelled by shocks and anxieties. Life in Hong… Read More

fala: renders

fala: renders

fala

This is the fourth of eight articles in which the partners at fala examine different approaches to drawing and imagery within their practice as designers. Low-resolution images are humble and straightforward. The textures are blunt and the colours are strong. Ambient occlusion is mostly off. Light, shadows and reflections are rarely under… Read More

How Big is Big – Does Scale Matter? A Reflection on Scale in Architecture and Drawing

How Big is Big – Does Scale Matter? A Reflection on Scale in Architecture and Drawing

Federica Goffi and Devon Moar

The bee drawing(s) by Devon Moar illustrate that changes in scale imply a passage of time. One drawing here becomes many drawings, each marking a different moment of discovery unfolding a process. One could say that when it comes to architectural media, there are two types of scales dealing with… Read More

fala: wireframes

fala: wireframes

fala

This is the third of eight articles in which the partners at fala examine different approaches to drawing and imagery within their practice as designers. Wireframes are snapshots of three-dimensional models built solely from lines. Single-line plans and sections are extruded to form a light envelope. Its colours dismantle the… Read More

Fronts and Faces

Fronts and Faces

Lera Samovich

The paper is cut without measuring. Rulers and set squares are neglected. Scissors are preferred over cutters and cutting mats. Circles are traced from nearby cups and glasses. The lines are never quite parallel. The edges are askew and the angles are uncertain. Alignments, perfect geometries and round numbers are… Read More

fala: comprehensive

fala: comprehensive

fala

This is the second of eight articles in which the partners at fala examine different approaches to drawing and imagery within their practice as designers. Normally, a project is depicted through a series of plans, sections, elevations, and some axonometric drawings, perhaps – every aspect of it explained and documented. We… Read More

Where in the World are We? Melbourne Venice Studios 2022

Where in the World are We? Melbourne Venice Studios 2022

Peter Wilson

Remote teaching as a pandemic consequence has already been a theme for Drawing Matter, in the January 2022 Melbourne University Venice Workshop it reached an almost surreal zenith. Remoteness is fundamental to Australia, whether the extreme separations of the outback or a pre-digital geographic estrangement from global cultural discourses. At… Read More

fala: the single line

fala: the single line

fala

This is the first of eight articles in which the partners at fala examine different approaches to drawing and imagery within their practice as designers. It started from a rather liberating decision to omit thicknesses. Gradually, all the information that wasn’t central to our thinking was removed, avoiding any celebration… Read More

Gurdwara

Gurdwara

Ekam Singh

Sikhism is the fifth-largest organised religion in the world. The gurdwara (a door to the guru, a teacher), sometimes referred to as the Sikh temple, is a place of worship for those of the Sikh faith. As a typology, it is under-explored in architectural academia – thought to be a… Read More

Mies van der Rohe and the Universal Space Project

Mies van der Rohe and the Universal Space Project

Landry Smith

I must say that I was far more riveted by another Mies . . . who, in perfect International Style manner continued to insist on architecture and the production of truth as generated by a set of a priori and universalizing laws, and who was caught up in the entirely… Read More

Edifice

Edifice

Philippa Lewis

These slides were sent to us by Philippa Lewis in response to Gordon Shrigley’s article on render; photographs to expand on the possibilities of the material, some results purposeful and some incidentally beautiful. Gillian Darley and Philippa Lewis started Edifice in around 1987 – a stock library source for the… Read More

Power & Public Space 7: Mabel O. Wilson – Memorial to Enslaved Labourers, University of Virginia

Power & Public Space 7: Mabel O. Wilson – Memorial to Enslaved Labourers, University of Virginia

Matthew Blunderfield and Mabel O. Wilson

Power & Public Space is a podcast from Drawing Matter and the Architecture Foundation hosted by Matthew Blunderfield. You can find the full podcast series here. Or listen now: In 2020 The Memorial to Enslaved Labourers opened at the University of Virginia, designed as a collaboration between Höweler+Yoon Architecture, Mabel O.… Read More

Power & Public Space 6: André Patrão – Eisenman, Derrida, and Chora L Works (Parc de la Villette)

Power & Public Space 6: André Patrão – Eisenman, Derrida, and Chora L Works (Parc de la Villette)

Matthew Blunderfield and André Patrão

Power & Public Space is a podcast from Drawing Matter and the Architecture Foundation hosted by Matthew Blunderfield. You can find the full podcast series here. Or listen now: Parc de la Villette was emblematic of the strong ties made between the disciplines of architecture and philosophy in the 1980s, where… Read More

Power & Public Space 5: Mark Wallinger – State Britain

Power & Public Space 5: Mark Wallinger – State Britain

Matthew Blunderfield and Mark Wallinger

Power & Public Space is a podcast from Drawing Matter and the Architecture Foundation hosted by Matthew Blunderfield. You can find the full podcast series here. Or listen now: Much of Mark Wallinger’s art exists in public space. He’s made films and performance pieces set in tube stations and airports, and… Read More

Freddie Phillipson ‘The Ulysses Project’ – Review

Freddie Phillipson ‘The Ulysses Project’ – Review

Peter Carl

The exhibition of Freddie Phillipson’s drawings reconstructing the Dublin of James Joyce’s Ulysses opened on Bloomsday, helping to celebrate the centenary of the publication of the novel. The exhibition is essential viewing for anyone interested in how the European city and its architecture support a culture, and for anyone interested… Read More

Power & Public Space 4: Jonas Žukauskas – Forest Parts

Power & Public Space 4: Jonas Žukauskas – Forest Parts

Matthew Blunderfield and Jonas Žukauskas

Power & Public Space is a podcast from Drawing Matter and the Architecture Foundation hosted by Matthew Blunderfield. You can find the full podcast series here. Or listen now: When we think about public space, we tend to consider the street, the plaza, the park or the square – urban spaces… Read More