Abstract:

Many architects, whether they are well-known or not, have developed essential architectural concepts and created significant works of architecture. The cultural implication for society, but specially their significance in relation to the architectural practice is enormous.

Most of these designers did not make use of the currently so called new media to explore and elaborate their design ideas.
Every design process is for all architects a process of ‘conversation with oneself’. Visualization media facilitate this process and make it even possible. The media record the different moments along the whole design process and, as a result, these visual records provide the designer with the necessary feedback.

Departing from the actual state of the art regarding architectural visualization, but specifically avoiding the limitations of the exclusive use of computer modeling and rendering, the students at our department review and explore those ideas.
But the context we experience architecture is changing. Not only for designers but also for an extensive public within our society, the visual media play nowadays an immense role. Moreover, we stay, meet and chat more and more within virtual spaces.
How does this all relate to the exploration of architecture?

mEYEmedia&I is the name of the Minor offered by the Department of Media Studies of the Faculty of Architecture at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.
The Department of Media Studies and its students explore the role the diverse available media play during the complete design process. Students get also trained in the different communication and visualization media.
In this paper we further elaborate the contents of the Minor: mEYEmedia&I is about communication, about different ways, analogue and digital, to develop, evaluate and communicate design ideas.
During the minor, important concepts and works of architecture are revisited by the designers themselves, now ‘reincarnated’ in contemporary students. They explore and take advantage of the opportunities and limitations of the various at present available techniques.
The combination of all these visual media -we introduce here the name augmented media for it- allows designers to explore space in many new, different ways and to better compose, develop and communicate their design ideas.
In addition to the media training, the students mainly work on a media production. Making use of an augmented reality-like approach, they perform research on techniques that combine images of the real world with analogue and digital representations.

Keywords:

Visualisation Media, Analogue and Digital Imaging, Architectural Design, Curriculum Development, Higher and Further Education, New Trends and Experie.