New start date: July 6
〰️
Register by July 3
〰️
New start date: July 6 〰️ Register by July 3 〰️
The Domesticity of Scale
the Park as a Room and the room as a park
Summer Virtual Design Studio
6 JULY - 16 AUGUST
Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed
13:00 - 16:15 (Riyadh Time)
Led by Zaid Kashef Alghata
A 72-hour intensive in spatial and environmental design, focused on sectional drawing, diagramming, and smart workflows that integrate AI, 3D modeling, and digital representation
—not just learning tools, but how to think with them.
IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS EMAIL ZAID@HOUSEOFZKA.COM
Course Introduction
This six-week design studio explores how architecture and landscape can overlap and transform one another. Instead of seeing buildings and parks as separate types of space, the course asks: what happens when a park works like a room, and a room works like a park? Students will work with simple architectural plans, taking their shapes, patterns, and organizational rules, and using them as starting points to create entirely new environments filled with both terrain and pavilions.
Students will study how basic design elements—such as figures, fields, grids, and circulation paths—can be extracted from real building plans and expanded into larger landscapes. These drawings won’t just be copied; they will be projected, manipulated, and reassembled into new design proposals where buildings and landscapes merge.
By the end of the course, students will learn to use drawing and modeling not only to describe spaces but to invent them—moving between scales, combining ideas from architecture and landscape, and using simple digital tools to turn drawings into fully imagined environments.
“Architecture operates at the intersection of multiple systems, each with its own scale and logic.”
— Stan Allen, Practice: Architecture, Technique and Representation
Course Abstract
The Domesticity of Scale situates architectural drawing as both generator and manipulator of scale. Architectural plans, typically instruments of enclosure, become tools of territorial projection. Students begin by dissecting historical precedents, isolating their compositional structures—figures, fields, grids, and boundaries—through analytic tracing. These extractions serve not as representations of buildings, but as compositional DNA for speculative landscapes.
Using projection systems, computational manipulations, and AI-based tools, these diagrams mutate into artificial terrains. The course occupies the unstable zone where pavilions emerge as embedded spatial acts within synthetic environments. Each pavilion is less a discrete object and more a spatial intensification within a constructed field condition.
Throughout the course, representational translation—not formal invention—becomes the operative methodology. Students repeatedly cycle between drawing, projection, modeling, and rendering, testing how representational systems structure both architecture and environment.
Agadir Convention Center, OMA, 1990
Agadir as Landscape, Sissi Wang, 2020
"Architecture is not simply a matter of organizing space, but of organizing our understanding of space."
— Mark Wigley, The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida’s Haunt
Learning Objectives
By the end of this studio, participants will:
Analyze architectural plans as systems of compositional logic (figure, field, grid, circulation).
Translate 2D diagrams into 3D terrains using projection-based and AI-based manipulations.
Develop hybrid workflows combining analytic drawing, projection geometry, and digital terrain modeling.
Design pavilion-scale interventions that activate artificial terrains as part of larger spatial fields.
Generate visual narratives combining drawings, renders, animations, and environmental simulations.
Engage architectural history and theory as active design instruments, not as passive references.
Parc de la Villette, Bernard Tschumi, 1982
Parc de la Villette, Bernard Tschumi, 1982
“Architectural drawings are not just ways of representing buildings; they are ways of making architecture possible.”
— Robin Evans, Translations from Drawing to Building and Other Essays
Course Outline:
(subject to change)
WEEK 1: Plan Dissection & Diagram Drawing
WEEK 2: Projection and Scale Transformation
WEEK 3: Terrain Building and Surface Design
mid-course review
WEEK 4: Pavilion Design and Placement
WEEK 5: Scene Details and Atmosphere
WEEK 6: Final Drawings, Renders, and Presentation
final review
Projections, Milagros Huang, 2023
Abstract Render, Milagros Huang, 2023
Course Tools & Access
Platform: All sessions are held on Zoom. A link will be shared prior to the start date.
Software: No prior Rhino experience is required. We’ll guide you through it, curiosity and commitment what matters most.
Note: Participants should have Rhino 3D, Illustrator, and Photoshop installed.
Learning Structure
Format: Each session includes a mix of lectures, discussions, and one-on-one feedback.
Additional Support: To ensure everyone receives support, optional office hours will be offered on weekends by appointment, first come, first served.
Workload: Class time includes project development, but additional independent work is encouraged for deeper exploration.
Certification & Eligibility
Certificate: Participants will receive a certificate of completion.
Who Can Join: Open to anyone with spatial design experience—architecture, interior design, or similar fields—ideally at first, second, or third year.
Schedule & Sessions
Class Time: Each session runs for 3 hours and includes a 15-minute break midway.
Reviews: Mid-term and final reviews will be held on weekends to avoid interfering with class hours. Attendance is optional but strongly encouraged.
Studio Culture
Participation: Webcam use is not mandatory but is encouraged during group discussions and feedback sessions to maintain a strong studio dynamic.
Community: Design work is completed individually, with a shared WhatsApp group available for questions, ideas, and ongoing support.
