The Captured Gesture: Studio Performance at the Intersection of Thinking and Drawing

Abstract

Gestures are inevitable and invaluable acts of expression that occur throughout the architectural design process. Students struggle at times to put complex ideas in drawings and words. Without fail, gestures telegraph this struggle; they are fleeting yet momentous links between thinking and drawing and between one's personal design sensibility and the complex social and physical realm of architecture. This paper seeks to develop insights about the role and value of gestures in architecture by investigating their frequency, form and influence in the design studio. A proposed framework draws insights from sources such as psychology and art theory to speculate about the role of gesture in architectural design thinking. It assimilates different disciplinary perspectives in order to consider ways gestures as simultaneously personal and inter-subjective acts promote designers' heightened intentionality and awareness. The framework is then applied to a design exercise that encourages the theatricality of gestures as living diagrams that bring haptic shape, motion and meaning to design dialogue.