Zander Fisker / Reflexive Practice

Reflexive Practice

Author: Maja Zander Fisker, The Royal Danish Academy

Supervisor: Henrik Oxvig, Ass. Professor, Head of PhD-program, IBBL, The Royal Danish Academy

Research stage: Initial doctoral stage

Category: Artefact

DDR Statement

The PhD project is called REFELXIVE PRACTICE – Trans-medial Process and Method in Architectural Education, and as the title implies a reflected approach to the artistic aspects of the creative process is of great importance. The creation of architecture deploys an array of different media practices, and it is thus an inherently trans-medial practice. This PhD project explores the interactions and transpositions between four specific media: text, drawing, photography and model. The investigations are conducted through three different components: a series of experimental inquiries, targeted didactic interventions with students at The Royal Danish Academy, and a theoretical study. The project investigates how trans-medial practices contribute to operate complex conditions in architectural creation, and how different creative practices inform and challenge each other in the development of architectural core competencies. The assumption is that trans-mediality – the transpositions between different media – plays a seminal role for the articulation and teaching of architectural creation. In accordance with this, the project will provide insight into how this approach to the process can become operational as architectural pedagogy by developing a didactic methodology based on the trans-medial architectural practice.

The presented work departs from the project’s experimental component, which progressively develop templates for the didactic interventions. To identify specific medial affordances, the inquiries establish sets of specific media environments, here instantiated as an encounter between different medial articulation through a photographic montage. It opens a discussion on the relations and deviations between the different modes of expression employed.