Scales of Design Expansion
A graphic essay seeking randomness and accidents in order to study intersubjectivity in design projects.
This research is based on the interest to understand the phenomenology of the expansion of the design approaches in the contemporary city-making, produced by the critical imbrication between time, spatiality and intersubjectivity. By following a rigorous protocol , through a transscalar three-dimensional model the research generates an accidental cartography of concepts. The result becomes a complex visual haze of words, which suspends any analytical logic of interpretation and enacts mechanisms of accidentality, plurality and visual disorder. In this accidental cartography of concepts, intersubjectivity is traced in the unintentional interconnections between ideas and conceptual issues. In this way, harnessing randomness and multiplicity as graphic principles of representation, the research explores accident as an opportunity. Chance-based graphical relationships open a new field of critical interpretation, which inquires into new spaces for conceptual expansion out of accidentality.
Concept and implementation: Manuela Valtchanova
Published in Manzini, Ezio, Fuster, Albert and Paez, Roger. Plug-ins: Design for City Making in Barcelona. New York, Barcelona: Actar, 2022