Edward Duncan

University of Auckland

This week SAANZ speaks to master photographer Edward Duncan about his thesis, which concerns the visual representation of architecture through varying media and how this affects and influences our design methods. Using an iterative process of switching between digital and analogue, Edward uses photography and modelling in order to investigate the parameters of representation within the architectural process.

SANNZ: In short, what is your thesis about?

ED: The first part is about our dependence on representation of architecture to experience and learn about [architecture] itself, how this affects us when we design, and how it’s different to experiencing a building in person. The second part is using the Alpine study tour from earlier this year as a project vehicle for investigating the experience and documentation of the previous points. This part relates our study tour to the Grand Tour, the journey that wealthy Britons did through early modern Europe, mainly to Renaissance Italy, and which produced a large amount of hugely influential drawings that precipitated the Classical Revival and a whole lot of associated architecture (especially Palladian) in Britain and America. The third part is creating architecture using investigative models, and drawing from this material to explore all of those previous parts, like the effect of this media on how we design.

SANNZ: Why do you think it’s so hard to talk about your own thesis?

ED: Because you know your work the best and therefore you know it’s weaknesses and even though theoretically it should be easy to talk about it because you can avoid talking about those weaknesses, sometimes you get impostor syndrome and think “what the f**k am I doing in a masters program? I don’t feel like I’m qualified to be here.” Partly it’s the fact that it’s self directed and it’s so personal because, even if you feel the content itself isn’t personal, you set the direction.

SANNZ: What inspired you to choose this topic?

ED: Because I love photography and this is a way of using photography as a mode of investigation, and because I’m also really interested in how media affects how we think in general, whether it’s the news or ArchDaily or whatever else.

SANNZ: Tell me about your supervisor and why you chose to work with them?

ED: I’ve got Chris Barton and he’s fantastic, I had him in 4th year for an architectural criticism paper where we discussed and argued about different works of architecture, a sort of architectural debate. He’s very supportive, even when neither you nor him are sure where you’re going.

SAANZ: How do you feel about having to pursue ONE topic for the whole year?

ED: A year is both a blessing and a curse because it means you can go overseas and take your time working out what you want to do and you feel like you have all the time in the world - and then you realise you actually don’t.

SANNZ: When tackling a design, what is your approach?

ED: Usually it involves reading and research to start off with, then writing stuff down and drawing and then inevitably it ends up on the computer whether it’s collage or Illustrator or Rhino. But it always comes back out at some point, hand drawing is always better to get ideas down. The design here is all about the process, it’s photographing and sketching the building and then reinvestigating those models and photographing them, turning them into digital models and then creating further models from the digitisation. It’s looking at how the constant back and forth between the digital and analogue effects that representation.

SAANZ: And when you put those models together, is it just because they look good aesthetically or is there a method to it?

ED: Some of them are less about trying to formally represent buildings and more about the images displayed on them, usually these ones are existing buildings but made with varying degrees of accuracy from photos or Google Maps and analysing the result of that. There’s imagery impressed on these that recalls the visit, like a hand blown up to be the size of the wall, feeling the surface of the building. And then there are the ones which everyone finds the most interesting, which are the crazy collages of random (or not) bits cut out and glued together that sometimes make very little conventional architectural sense. And that is the part that is trying to work out why we design in the way we do, with respect to photos and media.

SAANZ: How do you feel the University of Auckland Architecture school has set you up for industry?

ED: I think it’s helped immensely, and I always think the debate of whether or not the school has prepared you for industry doesn’t go in the direction it should. We’re not here for them to teach us Revit or whatever, we’re are at a school to learn how to think, not to learn a set of applicable skills but a way of understanding the built environment, and the world.

SAANZ: Do you think you’re going to use this design method that you have explored/ created in the future?

ED: Possibly, I mean it makes interesting stuff. I think I’ll always be conscious of it, or at least the thinking behind it, but then the way I see it is that your thesis is just the latest thing you’ve done, it’s not the most important thing you’ve done. Maybe it is. But it doesn’t have to be.

SAANZ: Listen to whilst doing work?

ED: I used to listen to a lot of podcasts but they’re difficult to listen to while you’re writing, and flicking between writing and design a lot means that I tend to not listen to nearly as many as I used to. Music? Anything that is not in the Top 40. Or death metal.

SAANZ: What about Lorde?

ED: Yeah she’s cool.

SAANZ: But she’s in the top 40.

ED: Shit.

SAANZ: What have been some fruitful moments in your thesis?

ED: Going overseas on the Alpine tour, definitely. But there are no ‘aha’  moments as such. Just a long slog. Actually nah, there have been some, though I think the ‘aha moment’ thing is a bit of a myth. Usually when you have an ‘aha’ moment you say ‘oh yes!’ and then later realise it’s not as intelligent as it seemed at 2 in the morning.

SAANZ: What are you going to miss the most about the Architecture school when you leave?

ED: The people! Seeing everyone, every day.