TECRI

Critical Territories – The Binomial Drawing/Project in Art, Architecture and Design

Projeto semente | i2ADS

Desenho entre Disciplinas
  • Referência
  • i2ADS.2025.TECRI
  • Período
  • 01.01.2025 — 30.06.2026

In Portugal, the scientific and artistic study in the areas of Drawing and Project is vast, from books and articles to PhD theses and research projects. However, with regard to the analysis of the current situation, artistic-scientific research that promotes a critical, holistic and broad vision is scarce in terms of:

1. Reflection on higher academic training;
2. Crossing of areas of didactic-pedagogical practices of which they are directly or indirectly part;
3. Relationship between training and creation, not deepening the intersections between Design and Project, namely in the Art-Design-Architecture system, in its autonomy or disciplinary intersections, in the Academy and in Society.

This project aims to contribute to the disciplinary area of “Design between Disciplines” and, starting from the analysis of the present and the past, serve as a basis for the equation of the future. The object of this project, in the context of Higher Education in Portugal, is the current experience of the theory and practice of Drawing and Project in the areas of Art, Design and Architecture, twenty-five years after the Bologna Declaration and fifteen years after the radical transformations in the technological plan of a “smart” matrix.

Drawing is understood as a determinant in the construction of the Project, so its role in the training offer as an expression and creation is highlighted, and its multiple tangencies and disciplinary interferences are evidenced. We started from Porto as a case study, objectively focused on the processes of transformation and transdisciplinarity of common praxis in the three areas under analysis.

The objective of this project is the formation of critical thinking around the situation of the binomial Drawing/Project, today, at the University, in the areas of Art, Design and Architecture, its various expressions and materialities, considering analog and digital production. It is also aimed:

1. To think about Drawing and Project in its universal dimension, as a language, and its place and influence in the courses of the aforementioned areas, also equating its reflections on Society;
2. To think about the various levels, stages and complexities throughout the teaching-learning-research trinomial;
3. Assess the importance, influence, scope and scope of the aforementioned binomial in the years of training;
4. Consider didactics and pedagogical practices, to reconsider their emphasis on distinct subjects, but complementary in terms of nature and scale of approach.

From the outset, two questions are raised, which trigger critical reflection:

1. What is the role of Drawing in the teaching of Project in Art, Architecture and Design?
2. What is the impact of the introduction of digital and artificial intelligence on the praxis of Design and Project design?

With regard to the methodology, it is intended, after a work of critical analysis, with a qualitative root, ethnographic basis and based on a case study, to achieve syntheses capable of responding to our concerns, helping to understand the contemporaneity of the issue, serving as a basis for possible answers to current problems in the functioning of the Academy. After a first exploratory moment dedicated to the consolidation of a position on this theme, the proposed research aims at a critical reading, internal to the Academy, of Drawing and Project, in Art, Design and Architecture and, simultaneously, to understand its impression on today’s society.

  • Investigador responsável
    Mário Mesquita (i2ADS)

  • Equipa
    José Manuel Barbosa (i2ADS), José Maria Lopes (CEAU), Lígia Lopes (ID+), Raquel Paulino (CEAU)

    Consultores
    Antero Ferreira (ID+), Sílvia Simões (i2ADS)

    Consultores internacionais
    Lilian Kroth (University of Fribourg), Nikolaus Gansterer (University of Applied Arts Vienna)