Spatial Momentums

A fixed and final architecture often follows the act of drawing, but what if architecture were to remain a sketch, with the vitality of an open drawing? Drawing brings performative gestures to life through records of its making – its traces. This research endeavours to experiment with the performative nature of drawing, seeking to re-frame and alter conceptions of architecture while offering new perspectives on urban environments. It is a contemporary critique on what constitutes the representation of built space, through performative drawing. It engages drawing’s capacity to be an ongoing, open process and directs it towards architecture, in an effort to discover sketch-like performative possibilities. This thesis thus poses the question: How can architecture remain a sketch? The research pursues this question through a process of three ‘acts’ or drawing experiments, which progressively increase in scale and architectural complexity, with each pursuing strategies that allow architecture to exist in a sketch-like state. The research uses this sketch-like agency to reorient the role of architecture within the city, through it being an open sketch.

The research orchestrates an inter-subjective encounter, bringing together the artistic realms of performance, drawing, and writing to expand architecture as a traditional discipline. The artistic research considers (the act of) drawing as a performance that unfolds through the interplay of thought, surface, and the drawing hand. The exploration delves into diverse forms of artistic knowledge that emerge in slippage and deviation when different modes of drawing practice engage in dialogue, overlap—and occasionally collide. The thesis is framed as practice-led research, and it weaves experimental practices and critical reflections, with each scripted act becoming a canvas for a comprehensive exploration of artistic knowledge. Through intensifying drawing’s sketch-like potentiality, this thesis seeks to contribute to understandings of drawing and architecture, as well as seeking to meticulously interact the potentialities of drawing with the city.