Seeing is believing: A design process of visually experienced truths; limits, advantages and lies

Abstract

Current architectural practice gives unarguable truth to the dimension, and also to the orthographic methods which are aligned to the dimension. The same orthographic conventions have come to be the means by which architectural practitioners conceive, communicate and construct our realised environment. As measurably truthful as these methods are on paper, the logic to also trust these tools to produce our spatial environments must be questioned. For the orthographic drawings, so unarguable to modern, professional practice, are in fact non‐experiential, physically unattainable abstractions.

What is suggested is that truth, not of dimension, but of visual experience be prioritised. To use design, not to quantify built space, but to design the qualities of that space. This idea has developed into an architectural proposal that critically investigates the advantages, limitations and the perception of lies in a visual design process. Specifically a process that gives priority to the user of the architectural result, by the use of design tools restricted to those which are representative of a visually experienced reality.