Methods 15
The photographic surveys were subjected to a series of transformations through drawing. The drawing methodology was structured similarly in both exercises in 1986 and 2011–12 and aimed to: — develop an architectural language that reflects the reality of the city’s surface; — use the process of photography as a library of urban objets trouvé and construct bas-relief drawings to reflect the evidence of human activity; — understand the impact of time and how traces of material, the scarring of surface and building degradation become significant indicators of history. The process was used as an exploratory tool, not just a method of representation. The act of taking a pictorial image and removing all colour abstracted the images. The process was iterative and each stage involved making hierarchical decisions about content. Critical forms of visual editing were necessary at each level of the process. [fig. 7–9]
Transformational design process The black and white photographs were then re-interpreted as hand-drawn sketches introducing mimetic texture and shape that maintained some visible relationship to the original materials. The process of pencil sketching was used as a developmental tool to extract as much formal and textual potential as possible. The synoptic language was producing an abstracted geometry that could be combined with surfaces of infinite variability. [fig. 10] The initial challenge was how to interpret this information and use it to create spatial propositions. The information was drawn as a series of flat planes together with frames enabling them to be interconnected. The combination of panels followed the sequential evidence found geographically, acknowledging both location and time. This process also included a more direct referencing system that incorporated many ‘as found’ objects from the site.