some selected architectural objects and the analysis

Morphosis Drawings and of their related conceptual documents, it becomes

Models in the Mid 1980s: possible to disclose the geometric manipulations they
conceal and explain how some codes of architectural
Graphic Description of representation are mastered and transgressed to
realize an architectural breakthrough.
Graphic Thinking
DCA Conference, Sept. 2016.

Denis Derycke (denis.derycke@ulb.ac.be)

AlICe lab, Faculté d’architecture La Cambre-Horta,
Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium.

Thom Mayne (1944) and Michael Rotondi (1949),

the founding partners of the California studio
Morphosis, have set out the principles of generative
design processes through graphical representation so
as to create a coherent, recurrent formal vocabulary
and compositional grammar. These principles were
made explicit in a set of projects designed between
the end of the 1970s and the end of the 1980s.1
During the second half of the 1980s, their method
was at its peak. They generated extremely complex Figure 1. Malibu House (1986), 6th Street House (1987), Was
House (1988), Reno House (1987) – Morphosis.
objects, creating a global and abstract realm of
Photos: Tom Bonner – www.tombonnerphotography.com
architectural geometry rather than a specific and
potential built reality. The usefulness had moved
This essay explores the characteristics of the
back for symbols, fiction had replaced function, the
Morphosis architectural realm through the
architectural object was now referring to its design
examination of a corpus of conceptual documents
process and to its associated graphic objects. Every
related to four projects (Fig. 1): Malibu House
project was described by a set of figurative
(1986), 6th Street House (1987), Reno House (1987),
documents – plans and models – and by several
and Was House (1988). Those projects are some of
conceptual documents.2 Those documents, even if
the last of the pre-computer era. They were still
intended to represent a single aspect of a project,
engendered by conventional graphic means, even if
conveyed symbols referring to a poetical wholeness,
those means were transgressed and used in an
surpassing the architectural object they were likely to
unconventional manner. Methodologically, in this
describe. This architectural speculative thought,
essay the original graphic representations of the
existing mainly by means of graphic representation,
corpus are analyzed precisely by graphic means; after
became an end in itself, an autonomous mode of
being deconstructed, the representations are
existence of architecture.
reconstructed following an analytical point of view,
within another medium or within a combination of
Nowadays, this period can be considered as a part of
medias. The transcription of the geometry embedded
architectural history. Through a few iconic drawings
in the original artifacts into new graphic spaces
and models (figurative and conceptual), an implicit
(linked to contemporary graphic devices like digital
architectural universe was settled. One can guess the
3D modeling, laser cutting, and 3D printing) helps
complex system overlaying the projects from traces
enlighten the projects, making explicit some of their
and incomplete evidence; however, the system has
complex geometrical mechanisms. However, this
scarcely been made explicit. By exposing the
transcription necessarily prompts interpretation,
components and the mechanisms carried out in the
especially because it blurs the boundaries between
graphic representations, and by understanding how
media. This interpretation stresses the generative
those representations take advantage of the features
potential of architectural analysis. It creates new
of the various projection systems they usually
graphic objects that describe the project they refer to,
combined, this interesting, ostentatious complexity
but it also creates new documents that diverge from
can be deciphered. Through the deconstruction of
the object they represent, even if they come from the
same architectural principles. By the presentation of a
1. In the 1990s, Morphosis started getting important commissions, few analytical documents, this article will also
and the interest slowly shifted from graphic representation to suggest a continuity between the design’s graphic
2. An extensive collection of conceptual documents dating from that
period can be found in Thom Mayne‘s book, Morphosis Tangents and
space and the graphic space of the analysis: The
Outtakes, published in 1993. graphic objects produced by both processes can be

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considered as different modes of existence for the
same architectural idea.
Conceptual Documents and Multi-Projective
Spaces
For each of the four projects, one single conceptual
document will be considered. The analysis of that
document – and its connection to the project it refers
to – will be based on the concept of a multi-projective
space.3 A multi-projective space can be defined as a
singular representational entity which gathers various
projection systems – plan, section, axonometric
drawing, oblique drawing, perspective – relating one
with the other in a same graphic space, on a shared
two-dimensional or three-dimensional support. A
multi-projective space combines fragments of
description of the same object. The relations among
those graphic fragments disclose an analytical
understanding or a new interpretation of the object. It
also suggests the geometrical realm it stems from.
The combination of several projection systems in a
single graphic entity, or multi-projective space, is
characteristic of Morphosis’ production in the second
part of the 1980s. The architects merged figures in
order to create conceptual drawings and models
demonstrating ostentatious complexity and great
consistency. On the one hand, the graphic objects
account for the complexity of the project itself in an
irreducible and mysterious way. They are not meant
to be understood easily. What is delightful is that
their meaning can’t be grasped at a glance; hours can
be spent gazing at their subtle details, trying to
connect them with details of the actual project. On
the other hand, and because of the great consistency
of the graphic objects, a lot of clues are given so they
can be deciphered, analyzed, deconstructed, and split
into their original graphic components. Therefore, in
this essay, a reverse design process will be
undertaken to unveil the architectural shapes
concealed in Morphosis’ conceptual documents.
What is at stake is to make explicit the dialogue that
exists between the projection systems – or, in other
words, to isolate the mechanical connections taking
place among those systems, turning them into a
coherent device, an autonomous machine of
architectural description.
To do so, the various projection systems composing a
multi-projective space will be isolated and the
geometry they describe will be translated into 3D
digital media. This first medium shift prompts a
codification shift, inducing a new understanding and
3. The definition of multi-projective space is specific to this essay and
is to be understood in an architectural context. It does not directly
refer to the mathematical definition of the term.
a new rendition of the item under study.4 Once
isolated and transposed in another medium, the
geometry of the various projection systems will be
confronted again, this time in a new graphic space. In
this reunion, the isolated components remain
independent, but the connections among them are
made completely explicit. This analytical
reconstruction of the components of the multi-
projective space in a new environment constitutes a
second medium shift. For each analyzed document,
this methodological approach results in graphic
documents sharing the same characteristics of scale,
codification, projection system, rendering, size, and
drawing options. This is allows for comparisons and
cross-reading among the various conceptual items in
a perfectly similar context. In some cases, additional
drawings or models complete the investigation.
Different Types of Multi-Projective Spaces
The multi-projective spaces that can be observed in
the objects under study can be sorted in two main
categories.
The first is the homogeneous multi-projective space.
This is the simplest case: the various projection
systems composing the document are explicitly
connected and the graphic space resulting from their
connexion does not exceed three spatial dimensions,
so it can be thoroughly described in homogeneous
Cartesian space. This is more likely to occur when
the conceptual document simply connects various
two-dimensional figures like orthographic
projections. Homogeneous multi-projective spaces
can be observed in two models that will be reviewed
further: the Malibu House and Reno House drodels.
The second is the heterogeneous multi-projective
space. In this case, the projection systems gathered in
the document cannot be entirely described in
homogeneous Cartesian space because they combine
several independent three-dimensional drawings that
define their own three-dimensional space, e.g.
axonometric views. Heterogeneous multi-projective
spaces can be separated in two sub categories:
• Explicit heterogeneous multi-projective
spaces. Projection systems, even if they
cannot coexist and be thoroughly defined in
homogeneous Cartesian space, are explicitly
connected by well-defined geometrical
relations. An example of an explicit
4. The shift from one medium to another always forces a change in
the way the geometry of the item is described. This is particularly true
when going from a two-dimensional medium, where information is
partial, to a three-dimensional medium, where information tends to
exhaustiveness. According to the medium shift, some information will
be removed and some other will be required to “fill the gaps.”
Therefore, missing information has to be found in other descriptions
of the object or invented.
p.2/10
 heterogeneous multi-projective space will be space. The purpose of the multi-projective space of
further analyzed in a section drawing of the the drodel comes out of a transgressive codification
Was House. shift: the codes of orthographic drawing are literally
• Implicit heterogeneous multi-projective conveyed in a wooden three-dimensional model so as
spaces. In this last category, projection to create architectural breakthrough.
systems cannot coexist in a homogeneous
Cartesian space nor be geometrically
connected one to the other. Yet they coexist
in a single graphic space, and they are meant
to compose one single meaningful document.
Their relation is therefore implicit. An
implicit heterogeneous multi-projective
space will be observed in the conceptual
drawing of the 6th Street House at the end of
this article.

Homogeneous Multi-Projective Spaces: Malibu

House & Reno House Drodels

The word, drodel, is a neologism coming from the

words, drawing and model. A drodel is an abstract
object linking the realms of those two media. It is
linked to an architectural project, from which it
borrows fragments of orthographic projections, and
to which it gives materiality. A drodel recomposes
those elements so as to recreate a new object,
offering a new understanding of the project as well as
demonstrating a certain autonomy (Fig. 2). Thom
Mayne describes drodels as “a method to resolve the
essential thrusts of the idea involving carving,
digging, subtracting, plan/section inversions,
repetitions, scale shifts . . . to help . . . synthesize the
whole concept of an architectural language which
was embedded within an interpretation of the specific
issues of the land.”5 Drodels are produced after the
Figure 2. Malibu House drodel (1986) and Reno House drodel
design of the project. They use the vocabulary and
(1987) – Morphosis.
the compositional patterns of the architectural object Photos: Tom Bonner – www.tombonnerphotography.com
to keep traces of design options that were not
possible in the initial project, as well as to discover Malibu House and Reno House drodels are analyzed
some new ones.6 Drodels are emblematic of to extract the architectonic elements composing the
Morphosis’ work in the second part of the 1980s. drodel from the architectural object, in order to reveal
They were produced for the Malibu House (unbuilt), their geometrical transformation and the way they are
located on a beach along the Pacific Coast Highway reorganized, and finally making explicit the multi-
and facing the ocean; for the Reno House (unbuilt), projective space contained in the drodel. The
located in the Nevada desert; and for the Crawford architectural object and its related drodel will be 3D
House (built, 1988), located in Montecito. modeled and represented in a common graphic space,
so they can appear connected. In a homogeneous
A drodel can be understood as a multi-projective isometric view, various stages are taking place
space: a graphic entity – in this case a model – between the project and the drodel to explain the
gathering and connecting various projection systems connection that occurs as follows (Fig. 3):
so as to produce a new coherent graphic universe. 1. The model of the project on its site.
This multi-projective space is also homogeneous; the 2. Architectonic fragments in the drodel
elements composing it – in this case orthographic identified and extracted from the model.
views – coexist in a three-dimensional Cartesian 3. Fragments are decomposed and deployed in
space. Orthographic views are extracted
5. Thom MAYNE, Dan HOFFMAN, and ORTON Fred, Morphosis from the fragments. Their manipulations
Tangents and Outtakes (London: Artemis Verlags AG, 1993), 10. (rotations, scale shifts, and so forth) as well
6. Thom Mayne, interview by Denis Derycke, Los Angeles
Morphosis Office, March 2, 2016. as their connections are made explicit.

p.3/10
Figure 3. Malibu & Reno Houses: model to drodel connection and development of the manipulations potentially embedded in the
drodels.

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 Together, they demonstrate the architectural
operations virtually contained in the drodel.
4. The orthographic views extracted from the
fragments, after their manipulation, are given
materiality. They are reorganized in a new
graphic object so as to compose the drodel.
All the stages are represented in a similar way so they
appear connected: 3D rendering expresses the
materiality of the fragments line drawing exposes
their abstract expression and their manipulations;
dashed lines, axis lines, and architectural drawing
codification make explicit the movements and the
connections among the fragments and the stages.
This results in a didactical, investigative, and
sensitive graphic universe that render the
compositional drives potentially contained in a
drodel.
projection systems (Fig. 5): a vertical section (two
dimensions), a horizontal section in oblique view
(two dimensions), and an oblique view (three
dimensions). Together, they include seven spatial
dimensions on a same two-dimensional support.
Accordingly, they compose a heterogeneous multi-
projective space as seven dimensions, even if they
coexist in the same graphic space, cannot be
represented unaltered in Cartesian space. However,
the split of the drawing into its initial components
illustrates how those projection systems are explicitly
connected by a set of geometrical manipulations. The
drawing enters then in the category of explicit
heterogeneous multi-projective space.

To conclude this investigation, drodels were

reproduced in 3 mm (1/8”) MDF wood with a laser
cutter (Fig. 4). Materiality is essential to get a better
understanding of what a drodel is about because it
must quit the realm of image to truly exist. On the
other hand, the burn of the laser cutter stresses the
orthographic projections from which a drodel
originates. Consequently, it keeps those
reproductions in the domain of architectural analysis.

Explicit Heterogeneous Multi-Projective Space:

Was House Section 02

Since the very beginning until today, sections are

prevailing in Morphosis’ design process. Typically,
sections were conceived on a regular rhythm
allowing for exploring the project the same way a
CAT scan explores the human body. The Was House
(unbuilt) was meant to take place on a steep slope in
Los Angeles. A series of five sections were produced
following the five main transversal axis of the
project, separated by a 12-foot rhythm. Each section
drawing focuses on the architectonic fragments
located along its compositional axis and demonstrates
the same type of multi-projective space. Only the
Section 02 of the house will be analyzed within the
context of this research. The drawing gathers three
Figure 5. Was House – Section 02 – Morphosis (1988).
According to the methodological framework, the
various stages of the analysis are set up in the same
isometric view, and the decomposition proceeds as
follow (Fig. 6):
1. The original drawing of the Section 02,
including three projection systems and seven
spatial dimensions clearly identified by the
trihedrons on the right.
2. The vertical section: a two-dimensional

Figure 4. Malibu & Reno drodels reproductions, MDF wood and laser cut.

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 figure which contains an implicit depth if
one consider the various background
elements represented in the plane of the
section.
3. The horizontal section: a two-dimensional
figure which contains no implicit height in
its actual state. The term horizontal section is
preferred to the term plan, for the reason that
only cut elements are represented in this part
of the drawing. No implicit height is
suggested by the projection of any other
elements in the section plane (e.g., floor
tiles). The implicit height arises when the
elements of the horizontal section are
combined with the ones located in the plane
of the vertical section. Therefore, a third
dimension turns up, and the volume of the
project is virtually contained by the
association of those two projection systems.
4. The oblique drawing of the architectonic
fragments located along the compositional
axis; those fragments have been manipulated
by a series of geometric transformations
(translation, scale shift, and rotation) so they
appear prominent and detached from the rest
of the whole drawing.
5. The various projection systems put together
in a common Cartesian space, showing how
they exist side-by-side. This coexistence – or
this synchronicity – does not take place in
the impossible overlapping of the spatial
dimensions of the projection systems, but in
their explicit mechanical connection. A
graphic algorithm demonstrates how the
three projection systems and their seven
spatial dimensions are permanently
connected by two geometric operations (Fig.
7, projection shifts 1 & 2) that could apply to
every single coordinate of the geometry of
the project.

Figure 6. Was House Section 02: drawing decomposition into Figure 7. Was House Section 02: one architectonic fragment
separate projection systems. represented simultaneously in the various projection systems of
the drawing.
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Such an explicit heterogeneous multi-projective
space is typical of Morphosis’ complex architectural
universe wherein independent systems telescope and
overlap, get in connection, generate unexpected
forms by their collision, while also remaining
autonomous and clearly traceable.

Implicit Heterogeneous Multi-Projective Space:

6th Street House Conceptual Drawing

6th Street House casts a light on another paramount

aspect of Morphosis’ work: fragments. The 6th Street
House project (unbuilt) is a remodeling of a small
bungalow located in the urban fabric of Ocean Park
in Santa Monica. Placed on a massive base, the
project is made of a main cubic volume protected
from its environment by multiple architectonic layers.
Eleven sculptural fragments are inserted in the
project. Also known as Dead Tech, they recall a
world of ancient heavy machinery from which
original functions have been long forgotten. They
now have a domestic, rhetorical, or structural
function, and their encounter in the space of the
project seems completely fortuitous.

Now part of the New York MoMA collection,7 an

iconic conceptual drawing puts those fragments in the
same graphic space, where they confront each other,
devoid of the context of the project hosting them
(Fig. 8). Each fragment is represented in its own
oblique projection system, forbidding simultaneous
existence in homogeneous Cartesian space. The
fragments’ positions in the space of the drawing
globally coincide with the fragments’ positions in the
plan of the project, which suggests that the drawing
represents a top view of the fragments. It is no longer
possible to identify some geometrical hinges linking
the projection systems like in the Was House Section
02. Speaking of 6th Street drawing, Thom Mayne
explains that he stopped trying to connect the
fragments and their projection systems in order to
stress their autonomy and their unexpected
confrontation. “Chance” and “willingness” are the
terms he uses to describe the way fragments meet in a
conceptual area which is beyond Cartesian space.8

The fragments coexist in a graphic space which is not

homogeneous but heterogeneous. Their geometrical
connection cannot be illustrated explicitly, and is
consequently implicit. Therefore, one can observe in
the 6th Street House conceptual drawing the last listed
category: the implicit heterogeneous multi-projective
space.

7. The collection of works related to the 6th Street House project is Figure 8. 6th Street House – conceptual drawing: outline version
split between New York MoMA and San Francisco MoMA.
(1988) and serigraph version (1990) – Morphosis.
8. Thom Mayne, interview by Denis Derycke, Los Angeles
Morphosis Office, March 2, 2016.

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Within the context of this analysis, one way to
explore the projections systems embedded in
the drawing is to represent – in an isometric space –
each fragment sliding along its projection lines and
accurately projected in the drawing’s plane (Fig. 9).
This underlines the unifying aspect of the drawing,
which is metaphorically similar to the way the project
gathers the disparate fragments (Fig. 10).
Figure 9. 6th Street House conceptual drawing: oblique
projection systems of a few fragments represented in a
Cartesian space.
Figure 10. 6th Street House: fragments actual position in the
project.
Another analytical approach, less rational but more
sensitive and more explorative, is to consider literally
the materiality of the fragments and their spatial
relation exactly as represented in the drawing. Such
an idea of materiality can be observed in the
serigraph version of the drawing (Fig. 8), where the
fragments show texture and substance, and where
some sort of shadow tracing suggests their exposition
to the sunlight. The only possibility for the fragments
to coexist in a common Cartesian space and to reach
materiality is to be distorted so as to match their
projection in the drawing. An algorithm was written9
in order to deform each fragment (previously 3D
modeled) according to its corresponding oblique
projection. Those new fragments were organized in a
3D space so as to match their position in the drawing
as well as their position in the space of the project.
The final step to reach materiality was to turn this
digital 3D model into a physical model (Fig. 11a and
11b). Fragments were 3D printed and hung up in the
air by Plexiglas blades fixed on a wooden base
covered by a solid gray plate. The implicit space
virtually contained in the original drawing – as well
as the fragments – become then tangible. The space
of the drawing is literally projected in the space of
the architectural object and offers a very dynamic
rendition of the fragments’ geometry and their spatial
relations. If the model is observed exactly from the
top, the original drawing turns up again, but with an
increased sensation of depth, with true materiality
(Fig. 12).
Figure 11a. 3D printed model exploring the Cartesian space
potentially contained in the 6th Street House conceptual
drawing.
9. The algorithm was developed in Python by Assistant Professor
Michel Lefèvre and Teaching Assistant, Arthur Lachard.
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Figure 11b. Close up views of the 3D printed model of the 6th Street House conceptual drawing.

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Figure 12. Top view of the 3D printed model compared to the 6th Street House conceptual drawing.
Off course, this first-degree exploration of an implicit
heterogeneous multi-projective space puts aside the
richness and the multiplicity of the spatial dimensions
contained in the original drawing. The model only
investigates a concealed aspect of this very rich
document. It proceeds exactly the same as
Morphosis’ conceptual artifacts do when they
transpose the codes and the techniques of projection
systems from one medium to another in order to
discover new things. For this reason, this model
evokes a connection between design and analysis;
both processes intend to give existence to the same
architectural idea through graphic rhetoric.
Conclusion
The deployment of the graphic operations virtually
contained in the multi-projective spaces of
Morphosis’ conceptual documents gives body to an
architectural thought intensively based on graphic
means. The graphic spaces of any architectural
design gathers various projection systems, and
includes projection lines, construction lines, rhythms,
axis, dashed lines, patterns, grids, and so on. Those
unstable and ephemeral graphic spaces that are meant
to vanish and to be supplanted by the architectural
object in a regular design process, are brought in
front of the stage in Morphosis’ projects. What comes
out is an ostentatious complexity embodied in the
projects as well as in the conceptual documents.
Those drawings and models embed such a richness
and such a high level of consistency that they
naturally call for analysis. Like a musical score, they
are a pretext for sensitive rendition, for the
production of singular graphic documents that
demonstrate as much as they explore or offer
interpretation.
Bibliography
Cook, Peter, and George Rand. Morphosis: Buildings
and Projects. New-York: Rizzoli, 1989.
Mayne, Thom, Dan Hoffman, and Orton Fred.
Morphosis Tangents and Outtakes. London: Artemis
Verlags AG, 1993.
Mayne, Thom. Sixth Street House. Cambridge MA:
Harvard University Graduate School of Design,
1989.
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