This course continues on the same methods and applications of the previous digital representation course, providing an overview of the methods and applications of digital representation in contemporary architectural design. Three pedagogical objectives guide our exploration:

Awareness of context
An understanding of the diversity of approaches to digital architectural representation
Proficiency in technical canon
A fluency in the digital methods typically employed in design practice
Capacity for appropriate application
A mature and controlled relationship with a range of digital forms and formats.

Course Themes

The course is organized into three thematic areas, presented in both lecture and workshop formats, and framed as a drawing practice appropriate for situations students are likely to encounter as practicing architects. Each week will consist of a lecture introducing a specific topic or skill that will later be explored in smaller group workshops during the second half of the session, followed by a weekly assignment. These skills will building off of those built in the previous semester in order to provide a full context of representational skills, however this term will provide more opportunity for digital exploration and challenging personal creativity. These themes will include:


Advanced Visualization - 5 weeks
Emphasis will be placed on both accurately representing the phenomenological experience of architecture while incorporating style and creativity, challenging the traditional methods of perspectival based representation. Ray tracing rendering techniques will be introduced, alongside post-processing skills and layering composite drawings.
Advanced Geometric Description - 5 weeks
Covering advanced 3d techniques of describing architectural form using the geometric elements of point, line, curve, surface, and solids. Emphasis will be placed on the utility of moving between drawings of limited-dimensionality (such as between plans, sections, and 3d models). Representational skills necessary to complete detailed construction drawings and complex architectural forms will be covered.


Visualization and Presentation - 5 weeks
, allowing for more time to discuss layout so that students could work on their portfolio + return to composite line drawings that may not be discussed in depth in the previous section?

Course Schedule

Course Introduction and Orientation _checking student software, specifically rendering programs

Week 2: Vray Review
This workshop will build off of your experience with V-ray from 100A, enabling you to make simple renderings with variable materials. You'll be exposed to specific materials, texture mapping, image mapping, bump maps, custom compositing and more. These skills will help you take your renders into another level of complexity.
Week 3: AutoCAD (Part I)
AutoCAD is built for drafting. Using this software will allow you to efficiently manage line types and annotations. You will practice cleaning up a section cut from a Rhino model. In addition to getting familiar with AutoCAD's interface, you will learn how to create and edit geometry, manage your drawings, and how to share information across platforms. These skills will help you take your linework to another level of organization and clarity. AutoCAD is an industry standard software, knowledge of which is a major component to getting hired upon graduation.'
Week 4: Orthographic and Rendering Composites
A rendered section-elevation can depict spatial depth and communicate the design intent of a project in ways beyond a simple utilization of orthographic drawing techniques. Although orthographic drawing may communicate basic technical, material, and spatial qualities through the mechanisms of line and line weight alone, additional imagistic devices found in raster images can provide for a stronger representation of design intent.'
Week 5: Pinup and Details
Today is mostly for reviewing your conceptual cut projects from studio, but we will also give a short presentation on the idea of the emblematic detail and how this should affect your design process.
Week 6: Program and Diagram
This week will introduce 3d and 2d diagrammatic techniques that aid in the understanding and reconsideration of complex building programs. Starting with visual representations that speak to the relative size and required relationships implicit in a written building program, we'll be emphasizing how diagrams can be used to recombine and understand programmatic elements in productive manners.
Week 7: AutoCAD (Part II)
This week will introduce tools and methods in AutoCAD that will aid in creating organized drawings at variable levels of detail. We'll look at how to create multiple scaled viewports in paperspace from a single 2d drawing and how to add information such as annotations and dimensions as a means of creating comprehensive design documents.
Week 8: Orthographic Entourage
In this session, we will discuss the importance of using entourage in architectural renderings, both in perspective and orthographic representations. We'll focus on how to interpret the relationships of space into the drawing's entourage, the methods used to obtain rendered orthographic drawings, and the tools in Photoshop necessary to complete them.
Week 9: Daytime Interior Rendering
In this session we will look at how to effectively convey different qualities of a design through an interior rendering. Emphasis will be placed on the ability to use Photoshop to achieve desired material and lighting effects without having to spend a ton of time rendering these qualities in a 3d model.
Performance: Direct Beam Solar Study
In this session we will produce an analytical animation depicting the effectiveness of your facade design in terms of the allowance of direct beam solar radiation. An initial "base case" analysis will determine the performance of the facade as presented at the mid-project review. Following this first pass, we will then adjust our facade designs to block sun that is entering the building during overheated periods, and to allow sun if it is being blocked during underheated periods. We will then run a new analysis based on the redesign. Finally, we will use Photoshop to sequence the analysis images into a movie. We will then produce two boards for presentation on April 19th - one showing the original design and a set of renders showing the "problem", and another board showing the changed design and a set of renders showing the "solution". Final animations of the solution will also be handed in.
Week 12: Visual Presentations
In this session, we'll be discussing how to create clear, cohesive visual presentations for project reviews. We'll focus on how to develop a narrative for a project through different modes of representation and the combination of a variety of images to describe a project. After reviewing some successful presentations, we'll diagram out individual student project presentations for final reviews.
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