Paper short abstract:

The paper explore a representational and pedagogical device, the Situated Drawing, developed by art and architecture group public works through practice and teaching in Architecture Schools.

Paper long abstract:

The paper explore a representational and pedagogical device, the Situated Drawing, developed by art and architecture group public works through practice and teaching in Architecture Schools. Traditional drawing methods used in urban practice often stand in the way for non experts to engage with and participate in the urban project, they don't equip urban practitioners with a communication device which supports or utilises direct engagement in order to access the various networks necessary for their projects to engender agency. The 'Situated Drawing' invents a way of drawing and acting directly on site which involves incidental actors and places which are unexpected yet relevant in the project. Drawing (understood in the broadest sense) becomes a way of becoming situated in a site while activating it. As such it reaches beyond the idea of representation and places its authors as actors, physically within the site and context of inquiry. Becoming embedded within what Irit Rogof describes as an 'embodied criticality' Acknowledging the limitation of representation the Situated Drawing explores ways to capture the relational moments of the action, its actors and the situation and embed them in the artefact of the drawing itself. The paper explores situated forms of engagement and pedagogy that encourages to test ideas and assumptions directly in the field as part of the design process, and so enable new forms of engagement with people and institutions. The paper will contextualise the ideas behind the situated drawings in current discourse around situated learning (Lave) and reflective practice (Schön).