Abstract

This paper elaborates on the potential of articulating film storytelling representations in architectural education. Firstly, the paper discusses two significant features of education: its use as a social practice, and its communicational nature. Far from being a neutral process, the teaching-learning processes involve social beliefs, the representations the teacher wants to transmit, and the student's preconceived assumptions. Therefore, teaching and learning can also be understood as a communication phenomenon between the student and the teacher's representations. Secondly, the paper focuses on the role of representation in architectural education. It discusses the limitations encountered when using traditional architectural representations: such as in expressing subjectivity and emotion. Added to the difficulties the student faces when representing and expressing his or her own emotions in design, the student also faces the difficulty of bringing the emotions of the other, the subject of their creations, into the representation of space. Thirdly, this research reviews film representation as an expression of emotive space. Through the analysis of two film scenes (from Pride and Prejudice and Whisky), this paper shows how a film's storytelling presents a different way of representing emotionally perceived environments. These examples suggest how a film's storytelling could be used as a strategy to learn about and acknowledge others, their representations, and their experiencing of space. Narrative techniques implemented through filmic representation could contribute to learning and self-discovery. The paper demonstrates through the analysis of these two filmic scenes that the inclusion of a film representation of space could be introduced into architectural education in order to better apprehend: [1] empathy towards others, and [2] the emotive expression of space.