This workshop with Pedro Pitarch resulted in the production of 2D and 3D architectural drawings to visualise a chosen information within a part of the Valldaura Campus. The objective was to create a language while exploring non-conventional ways of representing information. The first step was to observe and analyse a space in order to then select a contextual factor to communicate. This workshop pushed us to illustrate in a readable way the impact of specific elements that wouldn’t typically be included in architectural drawings.
Information and space:
I chose to represent energy within the KUKA house in order to highlight the different appliances within the room and communicate their electricity intake. My goal was to showcase elements that go unnoticed in a space yet that are valuable to make them usable, such as the smaller electrical appliances that allow the robotic arm to function for digital fabrication. In order to emphasize this information, I changed the colour of all these elements, such as plugs, lights and machinery to yellow. This allowed me to dissociate more clearly the objects from the room and its context, making them stand out and thus highlighting their importance.
2D drawing:
Once the electrical elements were represented within the plan, I decided to create concentric circles around them in order to communicate energy use and consumption. The goal was to help people notice variations of voltage intake of the different objects and get an understanding of potential heat emitted from their operational use. While not accurate as it wasn’t based on data simulation, it still conveyed the electrical importance of the machine by visualising how much energy it radiates. Taking the first drawing a step further by combining the plan with sections to understand on a 2D level how these appliances can interact in different planes.
3D drawing:
For the axonometric drawing, the hierarchy of the information was more complex to represent as it took a three dimensional form. It needed to be adapted and modified according to new factors so it could stay readable. For this, the previous concentric circles became bubbles, with their size determined based on power intake/use and the number based on the attention paid to the object. For example, the KUKA uses 240 volts and is the main element of the room, making it have the biggest and highest amount of bubbles.
Takeaways:
As someone who usually works with data simulations, this workshop helped me focus on representing the information in a readable way through hierarchy and an architectural language. It helped me communicate contextual factors in order to highlight their impact rather than focus on their accuracy and the technical aspects. It allowed me to separate from conventional orthographic drawing standards and explore more freely ways to visualise information.
