Thick Description
With the advent of digital tools that construct hyper-real renderings, it is easy to mistake the photoreal for reality. As a tool for designers, representation is more than mimesis, but a means of analysis, process, and communication. This course will introduce workflows for depicting layered elements of complex sites, including not only physical form and visible phenomena, but also the often slow, invisible processes and human impacts that shape sites over time. As a laboratory in both analog and digital media, this course will explore representation through analog methods, ArcGIS Pro, Rhino, LiDAR scanning, and animations. At the heart of the semester’s inquiry will be a deep, engaged exploration of a single site, which each student will revisit throughout the course.
Topics
- Demonstrate visual literacy and proficiency in using elements of representation, including mark, line, tone, color, point of view, typography, and visual hierarchy.
- Examine and compare a range of drawing types and their histories in design representation, including Section Perspective, Plan, Perspective, and Isometric and Axonometric Projections.
- Create workflows that integrate analog and digital representation methods and demonstrate hybrid drawing modes combining analog and digital tools.
- Demonstrate proficiency in creating drawings using both 2D and 3D methods.
- Apply research methods to collect reference materials and analyze site, including fieldwork directly from site (frottage, pho-tography, site sketching, terrestiral laser scanning) and other resources (Grass-hopper analysis, books, articles, etc).
- Apply LiDAR and other iPad tools (including FLIR one thermal imager) to document existing landscape conditions, including both visible (light, ground, materiality, microtopography, vegetation) and invisible (thermal conditions) using novel iPad-based applications.
- Utilize GIS software to compile, manage, and analyze spatial data.
- Create and refine 3D site models, including landform, using Rhino software.
- Use Grasshopper and plugins such as Bison to construct context models and perform analyses of topography, hydrology, aspect, viewshed, wind direction, and shadow.
- Iterate and develop over time a series of drawings, incorporating layers of information generated from on-site and other research methods, to produce a thickened description of a site.
- Use notational methods and After Effects to animate drawings through time, con-structing a cohesive narrative.
Official roster learning outcomes
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026-2027