Analogue x digital: Parallel techniques for design learning

Abstract With urban space under the ubiquitous scrutiny of digital visioning technologies, the city is now imaged by means of a pixel grid containing ephemeral, qualitative data presented as colour, brightness and shape. Unlike traditional analogue pictorial representational modes, the digital image is a highly transformable mechanism with an unstable distribution of data across its pixel array. As a consequence, representation in the form of spatial abstraction demands not only a new approach to the learning and implementation of traditional disciplinary drawing practice, but a rethinking of the alignment and cooperative nature of analogue and digital drawing models when applied to effective design development. In a pedagogical context, the transition of spatial representation between analogue and digital modes has profound implications for how the student connects seminal drawing and design processes to both the sensorial realm and the physical experience of lived space. This paper therefore explores the enhancement of tertiary learning in digital and abstract literacy through new drawing techniques. Underpinned by a new relationship between representation and envisioned physical space, the techniques are applied within learning environments in parallel with existing analogue pictorial procedures. By building curriculum for foundational students that provides a framework of linked spatial experiences aligned across analogue and digital domains and coupled with tasks focused on the development of conceptual thinking, it proposes increased student success in future studios and professional practice.