Docta Manus Drawing Structures 2024

Drawing constitutes a very powerful and critical tool of conceptual design. Drawing constructs thought, it acts as a communication interface between the work and the
mind and between different disciplines; it is the most powerful language of communication in the working together between architects and engineers. The UE Docta Manus – Drawing Structures will introduce the basic drawing techniques (sketch, plan, section, elevation, axonometry, perspective). Based on these techniques, we will further investigate analytical drawing methods capable of exploring structural concepts and their architectural solutions.
Through hand drawing we will analyse selected projects that embody an exemplary interplay of architecture and engineering, as e.g. the work of Mies van der Rohe, Jean
Prouvé, Luigi Nervi, Robert Maillard or Eugène Freyssinet. Our main focus lies on the load bearing structure and its tectonic and spatial articulation as common intersection
between architecture and engineering. Through analysis, students will enter into dialogue with construction in a direct way. They will get a sense for the adequacy of tools and refinements of solutions. We will investigate proportion, material innovation and tectonic articulation in relation to the structural idea and become aware of the importance of detail. Analysis will
take apart and make transparent the parameters and dependencies of the design process and will open the work into a condition of possibility. We will draw by hand, as this is the most direct and immediate way of becoming aware of technique in relation to intention (it forces to take decisions). Drawing by hand is a cognitive process where the dynamic relation between doing and thinking is essential. That is why ‘the more you draw, the more you see’ and viceversa. The construction of points and lines on a sheet of paper will sensitize students to the notions of scale, size, proportion, transparency and composition. The learning hand will build up tacit knowledge. It makes them aware of the importance of detail as a key moment of construction, as a mediator relating a structure to the perceiving subject.
This fifth publication shows a selection of 17 working drawings from an atelier of 22 students in civil engineering and architecture that took place during the autumn semester 2024 at EPFL. Each student analyzed one out of six selected projects of Pier Luigi Nervi (1871-1979), and projects of Eduardo Torroja ( 1899-1961), exploring adequate scales, drawing types and techniques to understand the project’s structure and construction principles. The drawings thus include dimensioning and fabrication notes up to catalogue of elements, mounting principles and sequence. The careful construction of layers of information by hand builds up into tactile working drawings that embody the spatial and tectonic ideas as well as the construction process of a structure. These ‘meta-drawings’ allow the observing eye to survey from one detail to another in a synchronous manner while integrating all information into the mental construction.