Developed surface drawings

This project explores the drawing technique Robin Evans described in the essay “The Developed Surface: An Enquiry into the Brief Life of an Eighteenth-Century Drawing Technique,” (Translations from Drawing to Building and Other Essays).

dev-surf-01 — A living room drawn with the developed surface drawing technique

dev-surf-06 — Sketch for making a multi-layered model that merges living room with furniture in accordance with the drawing technique.

A developed surface drawing can literally be folded into the room it describes. The drawing technique brings orthogonal, rotational movement with it, so that should one draw an elevation or section of a room with the technique the whole thing would become a movement notation.

Developed surface notation — A Developed Surface Map. 2014, CAD-Drawing, no scale, ca. 70 x 70 cm. Plan and elevation elements are combined in an map of movements where change over time is described without beginning or end.

dev-surf-14 — Still from the animation, plan view

These drawings have been published in Hougaard, A., „The Animate Drawing,“ in Drawing Futures, ed. by Luke Caspar Pearson and Laura Allen, London: UCL Press, 2016.