Conventionally, in architectural design the two phases of research and design are treated as independent phenomena: the research phase being concerned with observing and analysing the reality and the design phase being associated with creativity. Such a clear distinction is usually vivid in the drawings made in favor of each of these two phases. But is the border between the research and the design phase so clear? Is the design process necessarily a linear path starting after the research phase is finished? Is there a precise moment during the process that the architect can claim to be the start of the design phase? Indeed, there are several creative ideas that are introduced during the research phase. Some of these ideas eventually vanish during the process due to several reasons such as the practicalities and conventions that architectural design is bound to or simply because of their irrelevance to the final outcome. What happens to those “dead” ideas?
By deviating from the linear understanding of the creative process, one can start to think of the research drawing as an autonomous creative project which can already include design - or creative - decisions. The process of abstraction is an inherent part of any drawing regardless of how realistic the drawing is. Abstraction breaks the analysis down to the fundamental components of the project. Thus, any drawing includes design decisions already due to this very abstraction. Making the drawing is indeed a design act.
The first four submitted drawings are an attempt to deviate from the conventional understanding of research as a separated phenomenon from the design process. They are research drawings made to analyze physical or real spaces but they include the main architectural decision already; they also consist of the imaginary. In this project, the intention was to look at a certain city (Istanbul) as a theatrical phenomenon. Two specific case-studies were analyzed through this point of view: (1) a bridge that its initial functionality was transformed by the fishing activity and (2) the benches that were transformed to a theatre scene due to their specific backgrounds.
The first four drawings are analytical drawings of real or physical spaces. The last drawing is a somewhat vague collage of the abstracted elements developed during the previous drawings. All the five drawings are “dead” drawings as they were not necessarily in-line with the final outcome, but they can function as (an) autonomous project(s).