Urbana Mapping as a Visual Rhetorical Tool for Design Teaching Change

The urban context is considered as a typical problem of master’s courses onDesign Studio’s assignments in architectural education. Conversely, bachelorstudents mainly learn basic design tools such as drawing and modelmaking, geometry, structural conception, and basic tectonic issues. Bachelorcourses, overlooking urban context and avoiding cultural and socialmeanings for architecture, subsume design, to design skills learning. Thequestion that comes about is, thus, how to incorporate specific urban topicson design studio assignments in a bachelor level? Moreover, what change inpractice is necessary in order that those incorporations may lead to a moreworld aware strategy for design studios?This paper addresses cognitive mappings of urban topics as a visual rhetoricaltool for design teaching on design studio. Mapping is an activity thatimplies collecting, choosing and inscribing information, bringing tacit intoexplicit knowledge. Only throughout the urban experience – walking, drawingand describing urban space – students may get empirical informationin order to map it. Besides, collected information must correspond to threetopics and respective types of urban mappings: Cultural mappings drawsocial use and functions of urban spaces for programmatic aims. Affectivemappings draw unexplored or hidden urban spaces for architectural articulations,and Critical mappings draw iconic or conceptual urban infrastructuresas a support for architectural design.From a teaching / learning approach, cultural, affective and critical mappingsand correlated cartographies allow a reflection-in-action practice, andhave a generative character over design proposals. Mapping the urban experienceis an iterative design process related to the argument of proposals,and results in the production of empirical urban cartographies. Moreover,mapping for the design proposal is a heuristic-creative process, as mappingsdo support the design idea, drawing a solid ground for architectural projectsdelivered by the students.Rhetoric is a process of meaning production, and as an art of persuasion itmay be understood as a tool for refinement of design proposals. The uses ofrhetoric communication strategies allow to structure oral as well as visualcommunication. The way visual rhetoric translates specific architecturalaims and objectives throughout urban cartographies is a very rewarding process,because it leads to the clarification of the purpose of each data mappingand its pertinence for the general argument of the design proposal.Researching specific visual rhetoric arguments is also a way of learningcommunication skills, and turns design proposals more comprehensive.This paper is supported by investigation collected from selected works developedby design studio students and it is centred on the rhetorical rolethat cultural, affective and critical mappings and correlated cartographieshave on teaching exploratory Design Studio at bachelor education level.The paper also explores visual rhetoric as a mean for architectural designcommunication.

Volume Editors
Martha Thorne & Xavier Costa

ISBN
978-0-935502-83-1