Perception to Execution

Chapter 04 | Session 4C

The Abstraction of Order Systems. Teaching Ideation Strategies

Carlos L. Marcos | University of North Carolina Charlotte (Visiting Scholar) – University of Alicante, Spain

Chapter 04 • Session 4C • Pedagogy: Beginning Design

Abstract

Abstraction is a powerful tool that humankind has writing of this paper.

devised and used for thousands of years. Abstractive
processes have much to do with generic thinking, Keywords: abstraction, ideation, order systems,
avoiding the particular or the specific to address diagrams, graphic thinking
shared aspects common to a class. In philosophy this
was an old debate that dealt with what was known Introduction
as universals in opposition to particulars. This ability
allowed us to articulate language thus being able to One of the most significant inventions of mankind are
refer to a class with a single word. Verbal language languages; thanks to them we are able to communicate
alone is one of the most distinctive inventions of with each other. In the case of verbal languages, we
human beings even though not every culture has
developed the same levels of abstraction. In contrast
to alphabetical languages, which entail a further
stage of abstraction, logographic languages explore
a symbolic approach to the representation of things

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or concepts based on a certain level of resemblance
between the referent and its representation. This
resemblance is more evident in the depiction of
figurative drawings where the draughtsman tries to
provide a realistic representation of the object itself
which is precisely accurate in the case of architectural
drawings based as they are on projections.

Architectural students have always been taught

figurative representation as architectural drawing
has been the natural vehicle to convey and to think
architecture itself. For a number of years, some of us
have also posed our students a number of ideation
assignments that address the idea of abstraction in
different ways. Ching, in his extraordinarily didactic
Form, Space and Order, showed how architects
have systematically used organization systems. This
paper is an attempt to illustrate this teaching practice
that tries to trigger the student’s imagination on the
one side, and their creativity on the other. To guide
this process, they are asked to produce abstractions
Figure 1. Sistema de orden I (Abstraction of a radial order
of order systems, in two and three dimensions. The system). Carlos L. Marcos
successful output of their works encourages the
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arbitrarily choose a word —a specific combination
of sounds within a limited repertoire— for which we
agree a meaning; thus, those who know the coding are
able to decipher the message. These words are based
on the assumption of abstractive processes, being a
generic meaning attributed to such a single word.
The word ‘horse’, for instance, refers generically
to any horse, not to one in particular. Accordingly,
a single word refers to an unlimited number of
individuals within a given class. In alphabetical
Chapter 04 • Session 4C • Pedagogy: Beginning Design
languages, combinations of characters generate
words that stand for such generic objects or concepts
(1). In logographic languages, on the other hand,
every word is represented by a specific character or
logogram; Chinese, for instance, uses pictograms
and ideograms. The first are a rather figurative
attempt to depict an object or being, generally with
material existence; the latter are rather abstracted
representations of concepts, necessarily more
difficult to graph and a step beyond in the process of
abstraction. The invention of alphabetical languages
revolutionized communication and constituted a
further development in these abstractive processes
connected to verbal representation: a limited number
of characters generate a virtually unlimited number
of words.
Graphic languages, unlike spoken or written
languages, belong to the realm of symbolic systems
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(2). When they attempt to depict figuratively,
they base the relation between the referent and its
representation on resemblance much more obviously.
Different degrees of realism will require an increasing
level of resemblance between the representation and
the visual appearance of the represented. Although
many, including Nelson Goodman himself, have
pointed out, there is a general concern about the
many limitations this resemblance entails. However,
to make our point here, figurative representation and
visual appearance are effectively albeit limitedly
connected. Unlike the arbitrariness of the election of
the signifier and its meaning characteristic to verbal
languages, figurative representation is certainly based
on these visual relations of analogy (3).
Architectural drawings are strictly based on
projections: their accuracy relies on the relation
between reality and its representation being established
in a point-to-point geometric correspondence.
Plans are a step beyond regarding this analogic
resemblance as precise as it can be, even if they too
Host School: Kennesaw State University, Marietta, Atlanta
are a simplification and a dimensional reduction of
reality. This is the very reason why architects have
used them for centuries: they can precisely represent
the specific. Accordingly, they constitute a standard
of representation since the times of Alberti so that
architects can convey their designs to third parties
who are responsible for their construction (4).
These standards of allographic representation (5) in
architecture have been unchallenged until the advent
of the so-called digital revolution —a disruption
that has rocked the pillars of representation and of
architecture itself—. They are the main reason for the
tuition of architectural drawing competency amongst
architects for centuries. However, considering the
fact that the architect’s task is one of creative nature,
teaching our students to properly draw in terms of
mimetic and precise representation is, probably, only
addressing part of the problem and, maybe, not the
most important. Some of us have dedicated part of our
pedagogical efforts to address this issue, attempting
to develop ideation drawing strategies and, as part of
that problematization, addressing abstraction too.
Figure 2. Gridded order system. Student: Mercedes Naranjo
Ruiz-Atienza (University of Alicante)
Ideation and abstraction
Typically, the most undeniable authorial drawings
performed by architects are ideation sketches. Given
the scale and nature of architecture, the role of
drawing is evidently a subsidiary preliminary step,
a necessary stage on the way from conception to
materialization. As Evans (6) suggested some time
ago, architects don’t make buildings, they produce
drawings instead, or at least that is what they used

to do (7). Architects, while immersed in the creative
process, generally begin the inception phase of
the project aided by loose drawings —ideation or
inception sketches (8)—, drawn to formalize an
architectural idea. This brings into the debate the idea
of graphic thinking (9), the way in which architects
and designers tend to couple drawing and thinking
unifying both activities in a heuristic complex one
which we have generally agreed to refer to as design.
In fact, etymologically the word is derived from the
Italian ‘disegno’ and ‘disegnare’, literally drawing
(noun and verb, respectively).
The question, raised in a pedagogical context,
would then be: is it possible to teach and engage
students in ideation activities without producing an
architectural design, without properly designing?
Of course, students do undertake this task in their
design studio courses. Nevertheless, what are we
to do in the early steps of their tuition if we want
to develop their ideation skills without specifically
addressing and architectural project? The key here is
to operate regarding form in a creative and intuitive
way without focusing on the design of a project, with
all the complexities inherent to program, structure,
construction, and the like. It is vital to address the
problem in an abstract fashion.
As Worringer (10) suggested, abstraction, was
more an intentional approach to representation than
a lack of ability of primitive or ancient cultures’
artists. Western pictorial culture, especially since the
invention of perspective in the Renaissance, focused
on figurative realistic representation for centuries.
The advent of Cubism was the turning point where
the two basic principles of pictorial representation
—unity of perspective and unity of light— where
radically questioned, proposing an alternative mode of
representation. Although cubist painters intentionally
avoided pure abstraction or nonrepresentation —
Picasso, for example, never attempted an abstract
painting in his lifetime— it is also widely accepted that
their work contributed to spark other pictorial abstract
movements such as Suprematism, Neoplasticism, or
Constructivism (11).
We ponder it convenient to establish a premise:
students must be shown and encouraged to discover
the avant-gardes in the first courses, not only the
most evident architectural references but also extra-
architectural ones that may serve as an intellectual
Perception to Execution
Chapter 04 • Session 4C • Pedagogy: Beginning Design
Figure 3. Central order system. Student: Maria Felio Pérez
(University of Alicante)
support and contribute to nurture their imaginary.
To a great extent, the visuality and the inspiration
for modern and contemporary architecture is greatly
indebted to the twentieth century avant-gardes
which have served, in different ways, as a source
of inspiration for architects ever since (12). All of
these references will serve as a background for their
creative support, be it consciously or unconsciously,
thus spurring their imagination. Of course, they
will eventually enrich it and put it to the test; it is a
problem of time, maturity, acquired criteria and their
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own personal interest or preferences.
Considering all of the above, abstraction can also be a
tool for ideation as it necessarily disregards mimesis
or imitation. As Gombrich (13) has given evidence
of, realistic representation based on imitation or the
resemblance of the image we perceive is never a copy
of reality itself. Any painter is always interpreting but,
if he is to delve into abstraction he must implicitly
ideate, even in the case where a visual image is the
pretext to produce the painting, as, for instance, in the
footballers series by de Staël.
Different approaches to abstraction may be found in
the history of painting; there is not such a thing as a
unique graphic abstract language: it is too rich and
complex to limit it to a particular artistic movement
or period. For instance, we can refer to the abstract
tendencies in primitive art which partially served as an
inspiration for Cubism and its intrinsic simplification,
geometrization and conceptualization (14). Then we
could also refer to the different geometric abstractive
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Figure 4. Linear order system. Cristobal Medel Martínez (Universidad Alfonso X el Sabio)
tendencies that emerged as an indirect consequence
to Cubism in Suprematism, Constructivism, or
Neoplasticism which so influential were to become
in the course of modern architecture. And then we can
also think of Abstract Expressionism, Action Painting,
and Informalism where the nonrepresentational
is more evident. And yet, of course, there is the
abstraction borne out of visual appearance as a
starting point —as has already been pointed out—
and which could at least be traced back to the early
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period of Kandinsky in Murnau during his Die blau
reiter epoch whose progressive abstracting tendencies
would lead to his improvisations and compositions,
this two unmistakably abstract. If we observe his
paintings during these years we may easily understand
the idea of gradations or levels of abstraction (15).
Any of these very different abstraction languages
imply, in fact, true ideation as no mimesis is sought,
and neither is the representational tendency which
establishes the major divides of graphic languages
between figuration vs. abstraction on the one side, or
representation vs. ideation, on the other (16).
Order systems and design constraints
As Ching (17) has proven, architects have always used
spatial organization systems to attain order based on
geometric organization patterns relative to grids, axis,
centers, etc. These systems which we like to refer to as
order systems are actually a set of a priori constraints
or pre-established geometric compositional devices
that help to organize and arrange architectural
Host School: Kennesaw State University, Marietta, Atlanta
designs (18). Indeed, grids —and diagrams at a later
stage in the history of the discipline— have served
architects as design devices that use compositional
strategies based on these pre-established constraints.
Although the idea of constraint apparently collides
with the notion of creativity or imagination, much on
the contrary, it turns to actually be a great aid for it.
As Stravinsky (19) himself explained in relation to
musical composition: “The creator’s function is to sift
the elements he receives from her [imagination], for
human activity must impose limits upon itself. The
more art is controlled, limited, worked over, the more
it is free”. This is true in every artistic discipline:
any creative work is the result of a set of ‘rules’,
‘limitations’ or ‘constraints’ set by the author in a
consistent way throughout that same work, and order
which governs and makes it meaningful. This can
also be predicated of abstraction. If we are to paint
in a nonrepresentational way, there is no reference
whatsoever to reality —the painting abides its own
rules and has autonomous sense and validity in itself
— and, most likely, not a meaning we may add.
Obviously, when we observe the floorplans —
typically a horizontal section perpendicular to the
gravitational field with all that this implies alone—,
we can easily understand the latent organization
system which underlies any architecture, be it linear,
central, radial, clustered or gridded, to use Ching’s
classification. Architects have used them for centuries
to ease them compositionally or as a prefiguration of
form.

What we want to illustrate in this paper, however, is
the possibility of using abstraction in combination
with order systems within a pedagogical context
aimed at the motivation and practice of architectural
student’s design creativity. Students are asked to
produce abstractions somehow directly or indirectly
inspired by avant-gardes’ imaginaries while using
this order systems as a priori formal constraints
to produce pseudo-architectures or architectural
protoforms: geometries which could eventually serve
as a concept design. This methodology increases
students’ confidence when shaping their designs as
this generic or diagrammatic approach to form is a
suggestive tool for architectural ideation.
One of the most interesting assets of this pedagogy
is the intuitive way to address form, not conditioned
by the constraints imposed by utility, construction or
functionality characteristic of architectural design.
As students must stick to a given compositional
order system, they realize that its inherent geometric
constraint is actually, just as Stranvinsky suggested, a
great aid to take the grips on ideation thus unleashing
a virtually unlimited number of possibilities or
range of different compositional designs, yet guided
or prefigured by such an open albeit constrained
system. Additionally, the fact that these geometries
are approached through an abstract language, none
of the typically traditional further constraints related
to these design tools that architects have used for
centuries such as symmetry or regularity, for instance,
necessarily apply.
Abstracting order systems
Obviously, there is a lot to be learned simply drawing
sketches of existent buildings. Yet, to a large extent,
this is what the academic method was based on:
learning through the imitation of exemplary models
of whose quality there was no. This is how architects,
painters and sculptors learned for centuries, copying
their masters. It is not surprising that during all that
time the production of the fine arts was a relatively
repetitive compendium of endless variations deduced
from classicist models.
The pedagogy proposed here should be considered
as a preliminary immersion in the creative process
of form during the first stages of architectural tuition,
but alien to the conventional studio courses to which
it should precede. It should thus be considered as
Perception to Execution
Chapter 04 • Session 4C • Pedagogy: Beginning Design
Figure 5. Gridded order system (collage and mixed media).
Student: Juan Más Rico (University of Alicante).
gymnastics for ideation, an initiation course focused
on easing students’ confidence in the design process
and a helpful tool to prefigure architectural form.
The question is to address abstraction as a source
of inspiration and as a characteristic language for
germinal architectural ideation. It is also important
to note that freshmen can barely understand formal
relationships if they are not exposed to the artistic
references that may guide them when delving into
this new formal universe as most of the students are
not familiar with them. If we want to obtain worthy
results, it is completely necessary to show the students
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a path, some abstract pictorial and sculptural referents
that may serve as an intellectual and formal support
that contributes to enrich their imaginary.
A question could be raised as to whether this use
of the renowned work of prominent authors within
the artistic panorama is not a return to the academic
method that we previously questioned. Such inquiry
was posed by professor Roberto de Rubertis in a round
table on the occasion of a retrospective exhibition of
works by the students of the Alfonso X University in
Madrid that was held at the University of La Sapienza
in Rome many years ago (20). The answer that I gave
then was as follows: the academic method consisted
on the copy of a given model considered worthy of
imitation; however, what we were proposing relied on
the reinterpretation of avant-garde imaginaries but no
specific works were never literally copied or imitated
as models themselves. The way of doing is what
served as a source of inspiration and that which was
considered to be exemplary. The formal imaginaries
to which the students referred their work to is known,
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but the proposed problem varied; it is possible to
emulate modes, design strategies, but the literal
imitation of the model in a historicist sense would be
useless for learning purposes. The focus in this case is
generic and abstract, not specific and representational
or mimetic, that is the plain difference.
This is the reason why we must expose and lecture
our students to these artistic referents, just as Robert
Schumann, for instance, would insist in studying
Chapter 04 • Session 4C • Pedagogy: Beginning Design
the work of the acclaimed masters writing “I keep
my eyes fixed on my great examples, Bach and
Beethoven, whose far-off images give unfailing help
and encouragement” (21). Some of his compositions
show their indirect influence but, again, it is not the
imitation but rather the reinterpretation of the methods
and procedures —not the specific melodies—. And it
is for this very reason that we find most important
to manage the parameters and elements of abstract
language. It is easy to find in many of these student’s
works their sources of inspiration and their visual
connection to some of these artistic movements either
used as direct or oblique references. For instance, it
is easy to trace De Stijl aesthetics in figures 2, 5, 7 or
8. References to Pablo Palazuelo can also be traced
in figures 2 and 3, and to a lesser extent in figure
6. Figure 4 can be related to some of Zaha Hadid’s
gouaches and, indirectly, connected to Suprematism
or Constructivism through them. Far from diminishing
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their value, rather on the contrary, it evidences a deep
knowledge of these referents and the students’ ability
to put them into practice.
Thus, we propose students to analyze and produce
different abstractions which are necessarily
constrained by the so-called order systems after
Ching’s taxonomy. They must produce abstractions
which while referring to known visual imaginaries
they must also necessarily have to embody one of
these types of configural constraints which have
served architects to shape their buildings for centuries.
Figure 1 corresponds to a radial order system
although its complexity also shows the possibilities
of using different grids within the same composition
or the expressiveness of irregularity —I drew a series
of them to illustrate the concept of this pedagogical
approach to my students when I started these practices
years ago—. Figures 2 and 5 correspond to gridded
order systems, while figures 3 and 6 correspond to
central order systems. It is to be noted, however, the
flexibility and potentialities that these systems entail;
Host School: Kennesaw State University, Marietta, Atlanta
figure 6 is, in fact, a hybridization of two different
ones. Originally attempting to evoke the concept of
transparency —an assignment requirement in that
case—, the student also managed to superimpose
a gridded and a central system suggesting a certain
notion of depth in the composition. Figure 4
corresponds to a linear order system whose arrayed
combination of elements produce a certain sense
of dynamism highlighted by the contrastive hues
employed.
These assignments, purely abstract and to some extent
apparently pictorial may serve too as architectural
protoforms or compositional arrangements. The
objective is to enhance the freshmen’s motivation
and their initiation towards their first attempts to
produce a creative work. In this kind of pedagogy,
as Pedro Burgaleta (22) suggests, the work is at the
same time the order and the result of its embodiment.
In other words: both, the configuring form —the
form while being shaped— and the configured form
—the attained final shape—are one and the same in
reference to Pareyson’s formativeness theory (23),
who claims that the work itself is, in a certain way,
self-directed according to its inner logic while being
shaped.
When this pedagogical approach is applied to
three-dimensional ideation with physical models its
architectural nature is more clearly evident, as it can be
observed in figures 7 and 8. The models seem then to
be concept models of imaginary architectures and the
student’s creativity is greatly enhanced through them.
After all, the use of this spatial configuration systems,
Figure 6. Transparency (composition based on
superimposition of central and gridded order sytems).
Student: Andrely Torres Paredes (University of Alicante).
 Perception to Execution

design strategy, at least during the first stages of

architectural tuition. Abstractions produced using
these systems as a premise for design allow students
to intuitively explore and gain confidence in their
approach to the configuration of form. A given
constraint, contrary to popular belief, can actually
contribute to enhance a creative process in as much
as it constitutes a guidance for order and a rule to be
followed. These order systems can be used either in
two or three dimensions, although their architectural

Chapter 04 • Session 4C • Pedagogy: Beginning Design

connection is more evident in the case of the latter.

Students should be acquainted with extra-architectural

avant-garde referents to help them build up a rich
Figure 7. Collage and physical model based on linear system. imaginary from which, ultimately, the shaping of the
Student: Jesús Planell (University Alfonso X el Sabio). design may emerge. Obvious architectural references
must not be avoided but, to a certain extent, the value
of this pedagogy relies on its abstract approach which
to use Ching’s wording, has proven very efficient can be easily directed towards conceptualization. The
throughout the history of the discipline. Why could it handmade abstractions and the haptic exploration of
not be as effective for students while they are facing space inherent to the physical models should also be
their first ideation struggles? This abstracted and, esteemed in an age dominated by virtual.
consequently, stylized shapes may embody the very
concept of a latent architecture attained intuitively, just
as the tiny models are able to precisely and accurately
convey the very concept of the project being, by
necessity, deprived of everything unnecessary (24).
Moreover, student’s haptic exploration of space
must also be emphasized (25); the physicality of the

319
models and their tactile configuration allow students
to step over the limitations of virtual representations
and screen limited perception typically achieved by
CAD software.
Figure 8. Physical model based on linear system (exam).
The more we explore the possibilities of establishing Student: unknown (University Alfonso X el Sabio).
a preliminary design condition or constraint the
more it becomes evident the possibilities that these
approaches imply in relation to the initiation of
creativity to our students. Such is the case of the so- References
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complexity taken as a pretext to explore within a Intelligence (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2017), 19.
given geometry —however transgressed as it may
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a Theory of the Symbols (Indeanapolis: Hackett Publishing,
partially visible in the final proposal—. Likewise,
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4. Mario Carpo. The Alphabet and the Algorithm
Conclusions (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2011), 21.
5. Nelson Goodman, Op. cit., 221
Order systems may still serve as a contemporary
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 2021 Design Communication Conference

6. Robin Evans. “Architectural Projection”. In
Architecture and its image: four centuries of architectural
representation, ed. Eve Blau and Edward Kaufman
(Montreal: Canadian Centre for Architecture, 1989), 21.
7. The convenience of teaching our students the use of
digital tools is not discussed here although it is an academic
consensus.
8. Philippe Boudon, Frédéric Pousin. El dibujo en la
concepción arquitectónica (Méjico D.F.: Ed. Limusa, 1993).
Chapter 04 • Session 4C • Pedagogy: Beginning Design
20. The exhibit comprised a retrospective selection of over
120 works by students of courses Análisis de Formas I and
II taken from 1996 to 2002 and included drawings, paintings
and physical models (some of which are shown here). The
exhibition was curated by my colleague Yolanda Sánchez-
Montero and myself —I coordinated both subjects at that
time— in May 2002.
21. Karl Storck, ed.. Letters of Robert Schumann (New
York: Arno Press, 1979), pp. 112-13, Letter to Simonin de
Sire on Feb. 8, 1838.

9. Paul Laseau. Graphic Thinking for Architects and
Designers (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1980).
10. Wilhem Worringer. Abstraction and empathy;
a contribution to the psychology of style (New York,
International Universities Press, 1953).
11. Douglas Cooper. The Cubist epoch (New York:
London Phaidon, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1971).
12. The undeniable role of the influence of the avant-
gardes in the twentieth century in modern architecture has
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Giménez Ribera, et al. “Geometrización y abstracción”; in
Dibujar lo que no vemos. X Congreso Internacional EGA
(Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2004). Only truly
digitally conscious architecture can boast of avoiding their
influence to generate an imaginary of its own (Carlos L.
Marcos. “Complexity, Digital Consciousness and Open
Form: A New Design Paradigm”, in LIFE in:Formation.
Acadia 2010, (New York: Cooper Union, 2010), 81-87.
13. Ernst Gombrich. Art and illusion : a study in the
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22. Pedro M. Burgaleta. “Pedagogy of the initiation in
architectural creation: imaginary immersion and emersion,
matrix space and incipient project. Approaches to a poietic
pedagogy”, Revista EGA no.15, 2010, 137-148, (228-230).
23. Luigi Pareyson. Conversaciones de estética (Madrid:
Ed. Visor, 1987).
24. Alberto Campo Baeza. “An idea in the palm of a
hand”, DOMUS no.972, 2013, 10-11.
25. Juhani Pallasmaa. The eyes of the skin: architecture
and the senses (Chichester: Wiley, 2012).
26. Jorge Domingo, Carlos L. Marcos. “Configural
Containers and Physical Models in Architectural Ideation”,
in Enrique Castaño Perea, Ernesto Echeverría Valiente (ed.).
Architectural Draughtsmanship. From Analog to Digital
Narratives.

psychology of pictorial representation (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 2000).
14. Gill Perry, Frascina Francis, Charles Harrison.
Primitivism, Cubism, Abstraction: The Early Twentieth
Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993).
15. Juan Navarro Baldeweg. Constellations and crossed
relationships: on the fuzzy edges between architecture,
drawing, painting and sculpture. Revista EGA, no.23 (2014):
16-35.
16. Carlos L. Marcos. “Anatomía del pensamiento gráfico.
figuración, representación, abstracción e ideación”, in
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Vol I., 263-268.
17. Francis D. Ching. Architecture: Form, Space and
Order (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1979).
18. Carlos L. Marcos, Jeff Balmer. “Graphic Imprints,
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Aurelio Vallespín, Agélica Fernández, Graphical Heritage
(Cham: Springer, 2020), 403-417.
19. Igor Stravinsky. Poetics of Music (Cambridge: Harvard
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