The Faculty of Architecture / Architecture (English taught)
1st Year, sem 1, 2025-2026

SFA-1E | Shape Study (1)

Compulsory Course | Hours/Week: 3L | ECTS Credits: 2

Department:

Study of Form and Ambience

Course Leader:

lect. Andreea Ivanciof

Teaching language:

English

Learning outcomes:

In the first semester, we propose a path from seeing to designing: light shapes form, and form becomes a project through verifiable rules. We practice traditional and mixed techniques (graphite, wash, color, collage), generate and refine volumes, explore metamorphosis in clay as a process over time, and build filter-limits that separate or unite space. Each exercise requires a clear rule, tested in light, iterated in material, and argued through documentation. The result is twofold: solid visual skills (values, edges, empty-full, transparency, etc.) and a designer's attitude capable of producing meaningful form and communicating it professionally through panels, models, and presentations.

Content:

Content:
1. PLASTIC WRITING TECHNIQUES - Graphite, Wash -FORM AND SHADOWS - Volume becomes painting through light
Support: Paper 50x70. Graphite/Charcoal; Watercolor. Material: 50x70 paper, pencil (HB, 2B,3B,etc), watercolors.

2. Trompe l'oeil technique, Polychrome Drawing - Optical Illusions
Support: 50x70; Material: Semi-matte cardboard, color of your choice, ink, graphite, colored pencils, watercolors, markers, collage. Colored cardboard, glue, double-sided tape, ink, graphite, colored pencils, watercolors, markers.

3. MIXED PAINTINGS - watercolor, wash/ink, gouache, acrylic, oil, tempera, casein, inks, collage (paper, textile) colored pencils, dry/oil pastel - ORGANIC FORM VS. GEOMETRIC STRUCTURE - Contrast of shapes: Support: paper 30x50, color by choise.

4.MODELING TECHNIQUE - CLAY - TRANSFORMATION OF FORM IN TIME - Metamorphosis as an artistic and architectural tool. Material: Clay, tools for molding.

5. LAYOUT TECHNIQUE - SPACE AND LIMIT - The contour that separates or unites
Material: paper, balsa wood, plexiglass, etc.

Teaching Method:

Theoretical exposure accompanied by images and video presentations, practical work in the studio conducted under the guidance of the teacher.

Assessment:

The average of the 5 works.

Bibliography:

• Louis I. Kahn – Silence and Light (1979).
• Henry Plummer – The Architecture of Natural Light (2009).
• James Turrell – A Retrospective (LACMA, 2013)
• Michael Fried (ed. Gregory Battcock) – „Art and Objecthood” în Minimal Art (1968)
• Donald Judd – „Specific Objects” (1965).
• Sybille Ebert-Schifferer – Caravaggio: The Complete Works (2012).
• Ernst van de Wetering – Rembrandt: The Painter at Work (1997).
• Eduardo Chillida – Chillida (Ed. Polígrafa, diverse ediții).
• Arnheim, Rudolf, Arta și percepția vizuală, o psihologie a văzului creator, Editura Meridiane, 1979
• Gombrich, E. H., Artă și iluzie, Polirom, 2018
• Williams, Sophia, 3D drawings and optical illusion - step by step
• D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson – On Growth and Form (1917/1961).
• Frei Otto – Finding Form (1996) – forme din tensiuni/forțe.
• Antoni Gaudí – Gaudí. The Complete Works (Rainer Zerbst, 2012) – modele catenare.
• Rudolf Wittkower – Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism (1949) – proporții/ax vs. curbe.
• Colin Rowe – The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa (1976) – disciplină geometrică.
• Farshid Moussavi – The Function of Form (2009).
• Zaha Hadid – Zaha Hadid: Complete Works (Taschen).
• Helmut Pottmann et al. – Architectural Geometry (2007).
• Umberto Boccioni – Futurist Painting Sculpture (Plastic Dynamism) (1914).
• Germano Celant – Arte Povera (1969/1985).
• Peter Eisenman – Diagram Diaries (1999) & Written into the Void (2007) – arhitectura ca proces.
• Andy Goldsworthy – A Collaboration with Nature (1990) & Time (2000).
• Rosalind Krauss – Passages in Modern Sculpture (1977) – sculptură, proces, timp.
• Robert Morris – „Anti Form” (1968) – material și gravitație ca agenți.
• Sanford Kwinter – Architectures of Time (2001).
• Kengo Kuma – Anti-Object: The Dissolution and Disintegration of Architecture (2008).
• Juhani Pallasmaa – The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses (1996).
• Colin Rowe & Robert Slutzky – „Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal” (1963/1971).
• Rachel Whiteread – Rachel Whiteread (Tate, diverse cataloage).
• Paul Frankl & Paul Crossley – Gothic Architecture (2000).
• Otto von Simson – The Gothic Cathedral: Origins of Gothic Architecture and the Medieval Concept of Order (1956).
• Edward S. Morse – Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings (1885) – shoji, planuri permeabile.
• Azby Brown – The Genius of Japanese Carpentry (1989).