Tracing Subjective Spatial Experience Through Architectural Drawings

Abstract

This essay argues for the inclusion of subjective experience of space as a quantifiable dimension in the representation of architecture. It aims to account for the dense layering of contextual information that an individual gleans from the environments as a product of proprioception in space. Recognising built environments as a constant presence defining the physical and perceptive boundaries of our spatial experiences, it focuses on how architecture’s geometric representation in drawings cannot reflect our subjective perceptions because movement creates a fourth-dimensional distortion in the articulation of space. Based on this, the essay exposes the limitations of conventional illustration techniques to capture and anticipate experiential dimensions of design from each individual’s point of view. With a selection of historical examples, it reviews alternative approaches for the representation of subjective readings of space, in images that offer insights beyond the traditional methods of orthographic drawings. It also presents these ideas as experimental visual methodologies employed within the Interior Architecture programme at Oxford Brookes University, which re-centres the user's experience as a primary concern of image production. The results offer new ways of illustrating interiors that acknowledge the value of architectural conventions without dismissing them, and instead advocates for a more empathic approach for spatial representation.