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Arts & Communication Nebula rasa: The diaphanous in architectural design

they fuse action and awareness, joining both capacities to process of exploring deferring decisions and lacking
reach high levels of achievement. One of the advantages direction. 33
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of this fusion is that it becomes easier to focus one’s In the phenomenological approach, the image itself
energy toward the external world, thereby aiding a deep is imbued with a kind of agency. As Albena Yaneva has
involvement with the surrounding environment and shown, this insight easily extends into the thought that the
highlighting the capacity to “see” new possibilities. Indeed, designer, the design tools, and the image are joined in a
as David Bohm has argued in his work on creativity, the network. Drawing on Bruno Latour’s version of Actor-
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capacity to perceive the new into the existing order of Network Theory (ANT), the designer is seen as one of the
things is what underlies creativity as such – the novelty many actors in a meshwork of (social and instrumental)
that is produced lies not only in making new objects or interactions and relations. The designer is no longer the
plans but also in conceptualizing relationships that were sole process agent, and design cognition becomes one
“hidden in plain sight.” 26 among many factors that shape thoughts and ideas.
In architectural theory, this line of thinking has been Over against the cognitivist paradigm, we can position
developed in the so-called “phenomenological approach.” an alternative, which we can describe as the agentive
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Put concisely, this tradition focuses on first-person, lived paradigm. Extending the insights of ANT, the core idea
experience and engaged forms of knowing to account for is that images or visual media more generally possess an
design creativity. In particular, the work of Peter Zumthor inherent propensity to effectuate, drive, direct, illuminate,
is relevant here. Zumthor held that drawings require a and actualize thinking processes that include deliberative
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degree of openness so that they can be “inhabited” by the reasoning but also include other forms of thought. These
imagination. Some sixty years earlier, Michael Polanyi thought forms can be emotive or affective, but at any rate,
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formulated a similar idea by advancing a notion that he they are non-conceptual and non-propositional. That is,
termed “indwelling.” The idea is that only intimate they cannot be framed as neat, determinate statements
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knowledge leads to insights that are truly creative. Without about a design concept or idea. There have been moves
denying the use of heuristic reasoning, both Zumthor and toward a so-called “esthetic epistemology” or architectural
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Polanyi supplement it with an aspect of deep familiarization image theories to emphasize the agency that images exert.
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and immersion. Instead of just focusing on the reasoning Building on this foundation, we turn to the work of François
of designers, the phenomenological approach stresses the Jullien, who provides an alternative way of conceptualizing
subjective and embodied experiences of designers while this agency, and whose insights allow us to understand why
working out their ideas. Zumthor emphasizes this point diaphaneity is a generative stimulus in design.
and states that the perception must “take the drawing
in possession.” That is, only an engaging attitude and 4. From cognitivism to propensity
willingness to be influenced by what is present allows one Diaphaneity subverts the cognitivist idea that drawings
to drive the design process onward. are primarily carriers of information. If an image drawn
Recently, the work of Juhani Pallasmaa applied the up during a design process is about clear communication,
insights of personal experience, hand drawing, and why do vague and indeterminate images stimulate such
embodiment theory to architectural design. For Pallasmaa, powerful creative thinking? Partially, the answer lies in the
working out an idea consists of keeping all loose ends structure of its semantic content. That is, the image contains
close by as a way to “dwell in the plasticity and multiplicity contents about which assertions can be made and which in
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of an idea.” Indeed, the architectural image is seen as turn spur reflection-in-action or associative thinking. Yet,
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an “organizing image.” We use this organizing image as there seems to be a surplus of openness. Diaphanous images
a representation of our most fundamental categories of invite indwelling, exploration, or “taking-in-possession.”
thinking and experiencing. By analogy, the architectural They set a kind of immersive movement in motion and
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drawing becomes a microcosm in which one can experience refuse to close. They are more like spaces to inhabit than
what the space-to-be will become. In emphasizing this flat visual representations.
lived aspect, Pallasmaa builds on McKinnon’s insight that The first thing to notice about the diaphanous in
creation thrives on the willingness to experience new creative processes is the fact that it is moving, dynamic,
impressions. The architectural image becomes not just the and layered. Initially, we may regard it as a figure-ground
site of reasoning, but the site of experimentation with a phenomenon. That is, it is structured in a relatively stable
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range of (spatial) experiences. It follows that the designer background and an emergent, dynamic foreground. This
must therefore grow accustomed to a degree of uncertainty foreground-background relation causes dynamic relations
or indefiniteness. One must as it were “learn to love” the to emerge. For instance, as per the classic Gestalt test, when

Volume 2 Issue 1 (2024) 5 https://doi.org/10.36922/ac.1922