The Drawing Project by Riet Eeckhout :

Organizing spatial understanding explored through drawing the moment of collapse.

This project is an exchange across disciplines between an architect (Riet Eeckhout) and an artist (Jon Tarry).

The collaboration started with a brief conversation at the RMIT Research Conference (GRC) in Melbourne and was followed by a long trail of email and phone communications between two work stations one in London and one in Perth.  The study shares a concern with spatial configurations however the applications of the outcomes differ. Jon is an artist exploring sculptural construction and Riet is an architect exploring the architecture of the built and un-built environment.  For the artist and the architect an affinity with the drawing process and how this translates forms a common ground of
visual communication.

Drawing out collapse refers to the investigation of generative methodologies of spatial
construction, (building up) and their collapse, (breaking down).

Jon Tarry is artist who predominantly makes sculptures.  He also makes films that are environmental, post structuralist films that he calls Relays. http://www.jontarry.com/

Following below are extracts out of the drawing process of ‘Drawing Out Collapse’

The drawings are drawn by Riet Eeckhout and are based on consecutive video frames of ‘ Prix d’Amour‘,  a Relay by Jon Tarry.

CILYhouse- design diagrams

Conceptual continuity
Negotiating a direct link between Concept and Form

Conceptual Continuity nurtures a direct connection between concept and form as a principle that dislocates form from its conventionally assumed association to function, meaning and aesthetics without denying the presence of these conditions.

Conceptual Continuity as part of a design discourse seeks the connection of architectonic components.

Linearity and the in-betweenness

Performative space between the scale of the interior and of the architecture, between the furniture and the interior, between a function and its context

CILYhouse- sections

Methodological continuity

The methods by which this conceptual continuity is negotiated are subject to the concept of abstraction and linkage; both the Process Drawing and Contexture stand at the basis of a design methodology in search of continuous architectural narratives; sometimes gigantic, sometimes minute.

Continuity articulates the property of being uninterrupted. A continuous line can be drawn without having to lift pencil from paper; all points are accurately defined devoid of disconnections. The nature of the line changes continuously subject to impetus.

Contexture and Process drawing

Context versus typology

Process drawings

Intuitive conceptual hand drawings explore a given context graphically for the creation of another; a process of interiorizing, making it your own, understanding through the hand. The hand is taking a lead and leads to many unpredictable beginnings.

The automated drawing (through a process of Contexture) exists to find implicit qualities such as a rhythm of a site, to find tension and start a process of redirecting this tension.

The drawing encapsulates the simultaneous act of analyzing and intervening of what is revealed. The act of observing through drawing thus holds the implicit act of design.

The act of drawing as a performance combines reflective and irreflective processes; the intuitive use of recourses, the informed hand on the loose to produce the initial drawing; multilayered, total, uncluttered.

As a multilayered medium the drawing holds process and includes discourse as interwoven commentary towards a proposal.

Contexture is explored through process drawings.

Lines are drawn in layers; layers to be unraveled with meaning and purpose to be discovered. I name these initial drawings process drawings and contextures; an exploration of the context in an attempt to understand and nurture the generation of new context. Contexture; Context and Texture The word Contexture interrogates the intricate relationship between context and its interiorized graphical understanding as annotated texture. Texture defines itself as the visual and tactile quality of a surface Contexture explores the texture of a context; the visual and tactile quality of a context Contexture explores the layered identities of an urban fabric with its implicit history Transformations on a site, happen through processes of exchange and consolidation, through additions and demolitions. Annotated texture refers to the exploration of site-texture with an agenda, a program, a client, a conviction

Drawing is a thinking tool; Asian Olympic Council, Kuwait City

The importance of drawing as a non-representational tool yet redefined as a tool for discovery is used through different media such as photography, portrait drawings, architectural drawings, cardboard drawings

Ink on paper; 2 minute portrait drawing

Cross Medial Extraction, B/W photo; Altered frozen moments of the film The Kingdom, Lars Von Trier

Context generating texture; accumulating significant information to be worked with to process form. The process drawing is closley related to a process of Ecriture Automatique; the automated drawing operates as a tool to self-read design intentions. The white canvas does not exist; the mind exists within the drawing, even before the drawing is materialized. The process of tracing lines on paper is a process of appearance and creation simultaneously.