Mapping the Croatian Coast

Mapping as a Research Method
in Architecture
Bernadette Krejs
•
Bernadette Krejs
is a member of the
Research Unit of Housing
and Design / Institute of
Architecture and Design
at the Technical University
of Vienna. Her research
focuses on “Architecture as
Image – image production,
regimes and representation
in current architecture
production.”
She lectured at the
Technical University
of Graz and was part of
the research project
“Intensified
Density – a small scale
densification strategy
for the suburbs by using
modular construction”.
She is co-editor and author
of the book “Cartography
of Smallness – Learning
from Japan, Small-Scale
Densification Strategies for
Vienna.” She aslo was
co-organizer of
the conference
CLAIMING*SPACES -
Feminist Perspectives in
Architecture and Spatial
Planning, at TU Vienna,
2019. She works and lives
in Vienna as an architect
and researcher.
Architecture often struggles with the idea of research.
Why is that? If we look at its tools and methods, research in general
all too often remains in the domain of the written word. Especially
in architectural research, graphic work is a very suitable tool of
knowledge production. Architectural research that uses visual tools -
like drawings, plans, sketches, collages, diagrams and maps - seems
obvious, because architects, designers and urbanists are much more
familiar with these methods of representation.
The architectural drawing can be understood as a research tool, a
valid form of investigating knowledge and meaning. The drawing can
help us to understand, to intervene, to find out or to suggest spatial
issues. “Drawing is not only an appropriate form of investigation, but
one that allows for entirely different forms of knowledge to emerge.”
[1] So is there “graphic-based” research in architecture?
The very foundation of research is to ask questions, not simply to
record things. In architectural research, we deal with spatial questions,
for instance: how do we use space, how do we live, how do we
inhabit space, who has access, and finally how do we design these
spaces? These questions have an enormous impact on society, politics,
and economy. In the research process, we are dealing with a broad
complexity of available information and data. Finding appropriate
and diverse forms of visualisation for an effective and democratic
communication is an important challenge. Diagrams and maps are
tools to understand certain phenomena and to make them legible for a
broader audience through visualization. But data collections are often
separated from lived experience and isolated from the geographical
terrain. For architects, this constitutes rather a daunting problem
because site, terrain, ground and landscape are among the most
important components in the design process.
Architects and designers deal with a set of techniques like drawing,
diagramming, cartography, etc. - which always involve the challenge
of translating three-dimensional information onto a two-dimensional
surface. The term “drawing” is an every-day term in a very broad
category. Drawings offer the opportunity to translate things into
another format. There are various visual appearances of drawings,
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