Representation vs. Ideation in the Architectural Design Process

While using catalysts from various cultural modalities has been a common practice in architectural design since the 1980’s, the epistemic grounds of this practice and its pedagogical implications remain yet to be fully analyzed. The mainstream arguments in favor of using catalysts from other fields of culture in the making of architecture usually advance a sense of autonomy of the architectural design process in the construction of our cultural reality. However, a critical examination of the use of non-architectural cultural artifacts as generative devices in the architectural design process leads not only to an understanding of architectural making as a specific medium of intentionality, but also underlines the organic embeddedness of this intentional modality within a broader space of experience. The following study critically presents a design studio project that involves the translation of a filmic narrative into architectural spaces and places and articulates upon a notion of thinking in the architectural making as producing new nodes in our texture of experiential reality.