topos Greek: “place, region, space”
graphia Greek: “writing, recording, description”

The design studio in the first year of architecture studies at The Cooper Union is called Architectonics. Initially conceived by Raimund Abraham and John Hejduk in the 1970’s, its pedagogy introduces the conceptual dimension of architectural representation for the design process in the very beginning of a student’s education. The drawing of plans, sections, elevations, and the making of models is taught as an exploratory process, in which the craft of their making informs the thinking about tectonic conditions and spatial phenomena.

In this tradition, the Fall 2007 Architectonics studio focused on the idea of architecture as an interpretation of the geographical conditions of a site. Topography is a manmade abstraction of natural landforms. It allows us to draw a place and thereby inhabit it with our imagination. Searching for the most fitting way of representing the characteristics of a site is synonymous with the search for the architecture we want to create for it. The drawing of the site becomes its architecture; the actual building is an outcome of a particular way of recording what is already there.

The students analyzed distinguished buildings from architectural history that create the idea of the place as such: Falling Water House by Frank Lloyd Wright, the Casa Malaparte by Adalberto Libera, the Cuadra St. Cristobal by Luis Barragan, and others. Drawings and models of these case studies show, how site and building form a conceptual unity. The goal was to teach seeing the world as potential architecture, rather than as making buildings that are placed on a plot of land.

Type: Teaching

Place: New York

Year: 2007

Collaboration: Prof. Anthony Titus, Prof. Georg Windeck, Prof. Tamar Zinguer

Model photos: Steven Hillyer, Cooper Union Archive