Neutra through a dark-adapted eye: using design to visualise the relationship between concept, theory and form

Design knowledge is typically compartmentalised into graphic, spoken and written modes of communication. In architectural scholarship, this situation is described as the separation between the architect’s ideas (theory as it is developed), words (theory as espoused) and deeds (theory as applied). To date, the methods used to connect these three dimensions of a design have tended to privilege words over images; reinforcing the traditional academic practices and values of the architecture discipline. In this project, design, as a mode of critical thinking, is adopted to propose one alternative way of reading the often-fraught relationship between form, theory and concept. The complexity of this relationship is demonstrated through the process of reinscribing the theoretical foundations and conceptual armature of Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann Desert House, into the design itself. In this way the language of architecture is used to illuminate the concordances and discrepancies between ideas, arguments and forms.