Visualising & Presenting
Summer Semester Assignment 2020
As part of the course “Visualising and Presenting” at the Faculty of Architecture of the FH Dortmund, students from different semesters engaged with the question of what role representation and visualisation play within architectural design processes.
The course, supervised by Felix Schwake and Prof. Dr. Jörg Becker, led to an interdisciplinary competition in cooperation with Lumion Germany. The task was not the mere production of atmospheric images, but the development of precise architectural representations that communicate concept, construction, spatial effect, and design intent in a legible way.
The focus was on the insight that visualisation in architecture must not become decorative illustration. Images carry responsibility because they shape perception and influence decision-making. Good representation therefore emerges not only from software or effects, but from judgment, spatial understanding, and the ability to make architectural qualities of materiality, construction, and atmosphere visible.
Students developed visualisations of their own architectural projects with the aim of reaching international competition standards. What mattered was not only technical quality, but whether design intent, spatial idea, and construction could be clearly read within the images.
The course understood visualisation as part of architectural thinking itself. Representation is not seen as a post-production layer added to a project, but as a tool for reflection, clarification, and communication of architecture.
artist: Mr. Möllmann
artist: Mrs. Moore
artist: Mrs. Schulz
artist: Mr. Carstensen
artist: Mrs. Buran
artist: Mrs. Volkmer