Drawings of the City: Practice and Method, an experience

Abstract

How can the drawings contribute to the understanding of the complexity of the city? The discussion begins with the researcher’s attentive eye on the city during the process of drawing. When seeing the city from the drawing, it can improve the understanding of the urban phenomenon and suggests patterns and shapes collected in the sketchbooks, also called the graphic journals. Such shapes are related to the categories of identity, imageability, and urban quality present in the studies of authors such as Lynch and Cullen. The systematization of these morphology patterns, found when walking through the city, can be a way of relating a sensitive investigation method (the drawing) with a rational abstract method, suggesting the quantification of these forms as an index of urbanity. This article reports the investigation process of this method through a teaching experience practice when it was proposed to reflect on the practice of drawing using the graphic journal.