Igor Marjanovi? – Washington University in St. Louis
Bio:
Igor Marjanovi? is professor of architecture and chair of undergraduate programs at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the co-curator of Drawing Ambience: Alvin Boyarsky and the Architectural Association and co-author of its eponymous catalog distributed by the University of Chicago Press. He has written extensively on Boyarsky’s work and the role of pedagogy as an agent of wider architectural culture. He holds a Ph.D. in Architecture from the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, a Master of Architecture Degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a Bachelor of Architecture Degree from the University of Belgrade, Serbia.
Nicholas Boyarsky – Boyarsky Murhphy Architects
Bio:
Is a Director and founder of London-based Boyarsky Murphy Architects. He trained at the Architectural Association in London, graduating in 1988. He worked for Zaha Hadid on projects in Berlin and Hamburg, for Michael Hopkins on Bracken House, and for Stefano de Martino on Chiat Day’s London offices before establishing BMA with Nicola Murphy in 1994. Nicholas has lectured and taught at many European, North American and Far Eastern schools of architecture and contributed to conferences, symposia and workshops. He has been a Visiting Professor in the US, at Cornell, RISD and NJIT, at Bergen Architecture School in Norway, and at NCKU in Taiwan. He directed Syracuse University’s London architecture programme from 2007 to 2010. Nicholas taught a design studio at the Bartlett in the Masters of Urban Design course from 2010-2012. He is currently teaching a fifth year studio at Oxford Brookes with a project based in the post-soviet landscapes of Estonia alongside the Italian group Stalker and schools of architecture in Stockholm, Helsinki and Tallinn. Nicholas is a founding member of the Urban Flashes network. He is currently completing (April 2016) his PhD ‘Serious Play – A Deltiology of Practice‘ as part of RMIT University’s invitational Practice Based Research (PRS) program.
Alex Wall – University of Virginia
Bio:
Alex Wall is Practice Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia. After receiving his Diploma at the Architectural Association, London, he worked at OMA in London and Rotterdam (1982-1989). Between 1998 and 2013, he was Professor, Chair of International Urban Design at KIT, Germany, focusing on the urbanization and climate change, using the tool of integrated multi-scalar design and planning. In 2005, he published Victor Gruen: from urban shop to new city (ACTAR, 2005). Between 2009 and 2013, he was a partner of UMnet / `asp´- Stuttgart, winning competitions for a prototype energy efficient office building, the urban center of the Tuzla Logistics City, Istanbul, and for new offices for the German Council of Sustainable Building, Stuttgart. At UVA, he studies urban ecology and new urban place form. For three years, his 2nd year Masters of Landscape Architecture studio is engaging the interaction between settlement and ecosystem function in the Hampton Roads cities, which are threatened by recurrent flooding. His most recent paper, “Sprawl is Dead, Long Live the Low-Density City,” is part of MIT’s Infinite Suburbia project (2017). His current research is “Resilient Settlement and Productive Aquatic Landscapes: Framing Long Term Redevelopment Strategies for Virginia’s Coastal Communities.”
Abstract: Before Perspective and After the Digital: figure, narrative and sensibility.
How many forms of representation are needed to convey a sense of a building, landscape or planning concept? Convention is built on technical drawings, explanatory diagrams, and some form of three-dimensional view with perhaps light effects to give some idea of ambience. Yet, to convey the increasing complexity of urbanization, do we need other representational forms? Most non-professionals are not able to read architects drawings. Perspectives have long been the remedy for abstraction, and with tools such as Photoshop, the visualization of interiors, exteriors and landscapes becomes ever more “realistic.” Yet recently, some design competitions in Europe forbid Photoshop rendered images, asking instead for hand drawn perspectives, or sketches to better convey the sense of a project.
Using the Drawing Ambience exhibition piece “The Pleasures of Architecture” as a starting point, this presentation will consider the communicative value of a variety of narrative techniques as a mechanism for conveying other aspects and qualities of a project. Moving from the outlier sources of the Parc de la Villette drawing, the presentation moves on to similar work by the Belgian architect Wilem-Jan Neutelings.
In the second part, the presentation considers the depiction of changing attitudes towards landscape, from “nature” to urban ecosystems. Architecture, landscape and urban planning are confronted with the uncertainties of changing environmental conditions. Especially in coastal cities, can narrative drawings be used to help people understand and prepare for risk and uncertainty in vulnerable areas?