SUBJECT OVERVIEW

To plan or design requires the imagining of worlds yet to exist.

Drawings and models undertaken with analogue or digital media operate as virtual environments that articulate proposals for environmental change in the physical world. An understanding of how media shape real environments is the aim of this intensive foundation year subject. A series of lectures will introduce students to the range of spatial media and techniques used to develop design concepts and planning strategies. The emphasis will be on developing knowledge of the critical relationship between media and outcomes, and how tools and techniques encourage or constrain possibilities. Concluding each lecture, students will be introduced to self teaching modules that will enable experimentation with media and techniques typically used in design and planning.

OBJECTIVES

In this subject students will:

Gain an understanding of the design, reasoning, and application of spatial and analog representations of physical models.

• Develop an historical awareness of pictorial traditions and symbolic representations in both 2D and 3D
• Understand object-centred representations from aerial, topographic, planar and volumetric perspectives
• Understand process-centred representations through digital, distributed/networked, time-based, quantitative, and kinetic/performative/responsive applications
• Develop ways of reading and interpreting such representations with a cultural and critical lens.

GENERIC SKILLS

At the completion of this subject students should have the following skills:

• Developed a familiarity with basic techniques in drawings and model making undertaken with analogue and digital media, as typically used to enable the planning and design of the environment
• Developed an understanding of how such techniques are related to creative thinking, and ultimately determine physical outcomes in the natural and built environment
• Developed their capacity for independent critical thought, creative inquiry and self-directed learning

THE HEADSPACE PROJECT

The Virtual Environments course is a first-year constituent of the Bachelor of Environments degree. The course focuses on design representations and teaches a broad range of skills essential in a number of professional occupations and creative practices.

The course is structured around a practical project – called HEADSPACE – that necessitates learning about design precedents, encourages understanding of theoretical concepts underpinning digital architectural design and convinces students to develop essential skills through practice.

The HEADSPACE Project invites students to take ideas from within their heads and place them, literally, on the outside. Students do this by building a geometrically complex form that is made from paper and can be worn on the head. Headwear is chosen as a design topic because it gives students an opportunity to design in reference to their own personae and produce visually interesting outcomes that can be manufactured and tested in context.

The course consists of four modules:

• In Module I (Engender), students use drawings and physical scale models to develop three-dimensional forms from the analyses of dynamic processes.
• In Module II (Digitize & Elaborate), students use orthographic projections, contouring techniques and/or point clouds to describe their models and convert them into three-dimensional computational representations. These representations are then modified and extended with digital modelling techniques.
• In Module III (Fabricate), students use computer software to unfold their models into two-dimensional components that can be cut out of paper. These components are then used to manufacture self-supporting paper structures, manually or with automated cutting machines.
• In Module IV (Reflect & Report), students produce documents describing their projects. These documents include justifications of design logic, evidence of analyses and precedent studies, precise geometric descriptions, how-to manuals and depictions of headpieces in context.