Socio-spatial Manifestations

Selection of initial experiential drawings

Linear master drawing of site

View along parallel Copenhagen Street

View along parallel Copenhagen Street

View along parallel Caledonian Road

How can the role of architectural process encourage stronger ties between the subject and their environments?

In light of reports suggesting that cities are having a negative impact on the well-being of their inhabitants, this thesis project interrogates our relationships with the spaces around us. Here, surrealist methods of automatic and experiential drawing become a language that reveal our existing experiences as we move through urban space – communicating both the conscious and unconscious conditions and relationships between the subject and the city.

Through these techniques, architectural representation becomes an inhabited process rather than a set of instructions for physical construction. The architect’s role is transformed into one of translation, assisting in the development of initial experiential drawing into an intangible, living archival world that exists in parallel with reality. The resulting manifestations then become inhabited by the participant on viewing, allowing them to extract representations of their own experiences of the city for themselves.

By calling for an alternative perspective to architecture, this project’s adopted drawing process becomes a mechanism that is able to highlight tensions in real space. Those who participate in experiential drawing are able to engage with their environments at a deeper level, but also produce valuable documents that are stored within a manifested archive. One day, data from these kinds of processes may help everyday people positively inform planning processes – and even inform authorities and designers of areas that need attention or development.

Name: David Baldock
Instagram: @dr_davey
Project name: Socio-spatial manifestations
Site: King’s Cross and Caledonian Road
University name: Birmingham City University @bcu_march
Course and year: M Arch Thesis Project
Tutor: Matthew Lucas