THE DRAWING ROOM

Monday and Thursday 3.00 > 6.00pm

Mid semester presentations, Thursday 14 September 6.00pm > 9.00pm

Final presentations, Thursday 26 October 6.00pm > 9.00pm

This architecture studio is based around the idea that the processes of design rely upon skills that reside within muscle memory.

This is not to say that ideas are not critically important. They are. But ideas come from somewhere, and our medium of inventing, exploring, and expressing them is that of design. Design is an action. The etymology of the word can be traced back to the act of making a mark. And marks are made by us using tools. Whether they be the tool of the computer, or the tool of the pencil, our acts of thinking are tied to our acts of making marks.

To think by designing we must be comfortable enough with our design actions that we feel free to let our tools, via our hands, do the thinking for us. And then, after the fact, we can review the marks that we have made – and find within them an idea.

To build habits that enable ideas to develop through the acts of design, this studio will focus on drawing. It will focus on how to draw, when to draw. Why to draw. What to draw on. What to draw with. We will be drawing at scale. And we will be drawing not to scale. We will be drawing by looking. And we will be drawing from our imaginations.

We will draw alone, but as a group. We will draw from each other’s drawings. We will draw from instructions. We will draw from instinct. We will draw with your eyes open, and with our eyes closed.

Tutor

Jan van Schaik is an artist and architect based in Melbourne. He is the director of MvS Architects, a creative-practice researcher and senior-lecturer at RMIT Architecture & Urban Design, the founder of +Concepts, designer of Lost Tablets, and a creative sector consultant at Future Tense. More at janvanschaik.com

DESIGN STUDIO: The Drawing Room

STUDIO LEADERS: Jan van Schaik

We will draw with our dominant hands, and with our non-dominant hands. And we will draw with our feet.

We will draw perfect drawings. Will draw messy drawings. We will draw with great care. And we will draw with exploding bursts of energy. We will correct our drawings making them living learning documents. We will add notes to our drawings so that our drawings can come to explain themselves to those viewing them in our absence.

The entire studio will be hand drawn on one piece of A1 paper. By layering all the tasks of the studio one on top of the other, students will learn the power of iterative design. And will learn how the mistakes made while learning are of essential value in and of themselves. There will be no use of printers or photocopiers.

After mid-semester, the studio will shift to drawing, and writing, as an act of reflection. These reflections will form the folio. And will also be done, by hand, in an A3 notebook.

Students will need to set aside $250+GST for framing for the final exhibition.

There is no need to already know how to draw to take this studio.

For glimpses of last semester’s work, follow this studio on instagram @architecture.studio.jvs

Material requirements

• 1 x 224gsm A1 sheet of C.a Grain Drawing Paper

• A1 hard flat folio

• A1 cutting matt

• A1 plastic drawings sleeve

• 1 x large Moleskin hard-cover 19 x 25 cm 165gsm notebook with no grid

• Blue painter’s masking tape

• 1 x can of workable matt fixative

• Pencils, erasers, eraser shields

• White-ink pens

• Scale ruler