Toward a post-digital practice of architectural representation: an animated re-engagement of architecture, visual effects and the moving image

For over a decade there has been a great deal of interest in the creation of architectural forms from digital processes. Though this has undergone extensive experimentation and critique in academia, there has been significantly less attention paid to the way architects digitally represent architecture. Amid the abundance of digitally rendered images and animations of late, which have provided new opportunities for illustrating and disseminating architectural ideas, there are some concerning trends. They include: the narrowing of aesthetic outcomes through the current digital methods, leading to greater homogeneity and limiting the communicative potential of the outcomes; the complex, inappropriate and redundant techniques employed to develop imagery and animations; the privileging of a geometric description over the poetic qualities of architecture; and, perhaps unintentionally yet importantly, the re-characterising of representation as primarily an explicative practice as distinct from the equally reflective, reflexive and contemplative practice it once was. Exploring and addressing these concerns is the interest of this research. This research examines through theoretical writings the current practices of digital representation and their results, and through two projects proposes more appropriate methodologies that would enhance the outcomes. By looking to the practice of visual effects in cinema through notable examples pertinent to architecture, we may begin reviewing current techniques and our ambitions of architectural representation. This is not merely to couple cinematic visual effects with the long-established tradition of architectural drawing as a fashionable counter, but rather to recognise their historic overlap; there was a time before the medium of film when visual effects sat clearly within the domain of architecture and painting. As a Research by Project model of PhD, this exegesis explores and views all its interests, including the historical and theoretical work, through the lens of a practitioner