The pandemic as an opportunity to integrate means and modes of representation

Abstract

This article reports the authors’ pedagogical strategies for the learning and teaching of architectural representations alongside first-year students from the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of São Paulo’s undergraduate course. The period of analysis comprehends the compulsory social isolation period when communication in the course became digitally mediated. A factor that allowed a group of teachers from the discipline ‘AUT0510 – Geometry applied to architectural production’ to face the challenge of remote education was the diversification of means and modes of representation, which was something this group had been seeking even before the pandemic. The collective practice of analyzing results in association with graphic experimentation aimed to modify the course workflow in order to transfer its center of gravity from the architect-author to the architect-collaborator. Since the beginning, students were introduced to simulation as a resource for decision-making in the design process. The activity with digital manufacturing kits produced by the teachers and carried out in the classroom before the social-isolation period served as a basis for sensorial diversification and provided an easy use of means and modes of representation in the design process. In conclusion, this preliminary experience confirms that the pedagogical strategies adopted here have potential applications beyond the constraints imposed by the current pandemic conditions.