Walking and Drawing - Overlapping Teaching Experiences in Architecture

Abstract

The exercise of architecture is an ethical and responsible act that implies a rigorous and wide knowledge of the site of intervention and of the relationships between people and the built or natural environment where the construction is to be designed. Within the methodologies used in the teaching of architecture, the authors propose and promote in their curricular units walking (walkscape) and drawing / investigating as tools and instruments of knowledge and understanding and understanding of the place. The walk, a little errant and free, allows the cognitive understanding of the territory, surpassing the knowledge of its physical, visible, and measurable dimensions. Drawing is a tool for research, analysis, and registry. In fact, walking as drawing are essential instruments of knowledge, not only intuitive, but also interpretive of the place. We found that this methodological strategy has two advantages: on the one hand it allows the student to better consolidate his conceptual strategies and on the other hand, not least, it allows the student to discover himself as a persona / architect who intervenes in the territory. In addition, in face of the pandemic situation taking profit of the fine Portuguese weather and time out from classroom transforms the path of walking into a renew opportunity for keeping fit and healthy as well as understanding the site and its opportunities. Throughout this communication / article examples of practical exercises developed with the students and their results are presented and relations and comparisons are established with the design and investigation process of Álvaro Siza Vieira in understanding the territory in the Malagueira project in Évora.