Analog:Digital New Orleans

Posted: February 2nd, 2010 ˑ Filled under: model, representation ˑ 1 Comment

LSU Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture . Spring 2006, First Year Graduate Studio

Faculty: Bradley Cantrell, Assistant Professor

At the core of any representation method is the physical relationship between the data and the user. We have to sense the data in some way, sight, touch, sound, to begin to process and interact with it. And how we approach that data and how it is represented determines to a large extent how we think about it, and how we use it. Analog representation systems, hand drafted paper maps and measured chipboard models, have given way to projections and digital models. With the massive digitization of data over the past fifty years the issue of how we physically relate to digital data has become increasingly important. It is particularly important in the design profession because of the spatial nature of data and the use of drawing and seeing as procedural tools to explore design ideas. The method of data representation in the design process is the first tool a designer uses to understand a site and define the parameters of a design study. These tools determine how designs can be manipulated, how problems will be formulated and give structure to the range of outcomes from the designer’s intervention.

This project explores the limitations and opportunities of mixing digital and analog representations of data. A 1:1000 scale plaster topography model of New Orleans was constructed and a matching digital projection was created on the surface. Issues of scale and resolution were reintroduced into the process of representation through this intermixing of digital and analog methodologies. The physical presence of the model rendered the digital data in a new tangible relationship with the designers and created a feedback between abstract data and design explorations.

full text originally published in the journal Batture, LSU School of Architecture by Bradley Cantrell and Wes Michaels