Architecture nature: a dialectical relationship to teach architectural drawing

This article describes a teaching experience related to the course of “Architectural Drawing”. The course was addressed to second year students of the Faculty of Engineering - University of Bologna. The aim of the course (taught by Professor L. Cipriani, M. Ballabeni M., V. Baroncini and D. Cerri) was to allow students to approach drawing project of architecture. The project design is both an expressive act and a visual representation of the planning idea. On the other hand, project design is a working tool for which it is necessary to understand shapes, forms as it is a need to know the rules which allow the representation itself. The teaching approach was based on the use of case studies regarding the relationship between architecture and nature. The drawing of Architecture has many possible meanings. It is mainly a graphic language applicable to the design process. It is a process originating from the development of an idea and progressively getting to its executive definition. This process follows a path that returns a set of drawings for specific uses (development, diagram, formal verification and geometric ... engineering design) the definition of which need to know rules and methods. The main theme of the course was the development of graphics, specifically "designed" drawings for their specific purposes. The results expected from the drafting tables were different: the understanding and representation of form of object (geometry, volumes, bone, skin ...); the representation of the "space" through all the attributes that determine the size, organization and feeling. The general research theme "Architecture and Nature" has served to isolate relevant case studies, which were then classified into 4 categories: “architecture as mimesis of natural forms"; "architecture and landscape"; "architecture and geometry of nature"; "Architecture and natural elements". Each case study was functional to stimulate thinking about architecture: research and formal processes; geometries and graphics analysis of reality; graphic comparison studies between forms and volumes of natural shapes. The course involved experimenting different communication methods and graphic techniques; these exercises lead to the realization: • Techniques for design layout; • Analysis for the geometric / volumetric objects; • Analysis of reality through drawings for parties (PO, particular compiled correlations between different ...); • Visual interaction of different projections (plans-elevations-sections. ...); • Relationship enter the object and context; • Restitution of the physical characteristics of materials; • Representation of the time dimension; • Volumes and shadows. The drawings obtained show the largest amount of information about the building in the smallest space: a coordinated set of drawings that can fully represent the form and space of architecture.