WWW Drawing Symposium: Architectural Drawing from Pencil to Pixel

Co-organized by the Stuckeman School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Penn State University, and The Drawing Center

At this afternoon symposium, renowned architects will meet rising stars from the worlds of fine art and computational design to discuss the evolution of architectural drawing in a digital age. How might digital technologies become capable of producing the calligraphic and gestural qualities often thought to be the exclusive domain of hand drawing? Representing diverse positions with regard to contemporary drawing, invited speakers will present current projects — including robotic drawing machines, large scale hand drawings, and art installations — that point to potential hybrids between analog and digital techniques, for both poetic and practical purposes.

A specially-commissioned WWW Drawing workshop video, directed by Virtual Beauty New York, documents the drama of thirty students at Penn State's Stuckeman School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture producing three vast hand-drawings over three days in March 2013, using diverse strategies: rule-based "Exquisite Corpse" drawing in pastels; working on hands and knees to compose a giant floor drawing of the "city as expanding universe" in charcoal; and "seeing shapes in clouds" by selecting portions of superimposed digital images, to create a collective abstract image in graphite.

See time lapse sequences of the drawings made by the Penn State students, as they worked in teams led by the eponymous "Ws" of the workshop's title: architects James Wines, Mark West, and Michael Webb.

Speakers:

Daniel Cardoso Llach, architect, scholar of design and technology, and Assistant Professor of Architecture, Penn State University

Andrew Heumann, architectural designer and computational design specialist, NBBJ, Seattle

Jürg Lehni, artist, designer, and programmer, UCLA Design "> Media Arts

Ann Tarantino, artist and Professor of Art and Landscape Architecture, Penn State University

Seher Shah, artist, New York

Michael Webb, architect, founding member of Archigram, and professor, The Cooper Union

Mark West, architect, and professor and founder of C.A.S.T. (Center for Architectural Structures and Technology), University of Manitoba

James Wines, President, SITE Architecture, Art & Design, New York, and Professor of Architecture, Penn State University

Moderators:

Mehrdad Hadighi Department Head of Architecture, Professor, and Stuckeman Chair of Integrative Design, Stuckeman School, Penn State University

Janet Abrams artist and Director of Special Projects, Stuckeman School, Penn State University