Lost in Translation

This project investigates how translation between orthographic and perspectival systems can become a generative method of architectural design, rather than a generic custom or representational afterthought. Beginning with measured perspective and a calibrated drawing instrument, the work tests how plan and perspective can be brought into a reciprocal relationship through repeated acts of translation. As the research develops, Bridgeport and CNC milling become modes of inquiry, where toolpath, cutter movement, and material subtraction begin to shape spatial and architectural decisions directly. The prosthetics and orthotics clinic on the medical campus provides a programme through which these questions become architecturally specific, allowing space, construction, structure, memory, and perception to emerge through iterative movement between drawing, making, scanning, and redrawing. The project concludes that translation is not a gap to be overcome, but a speculative and productive space in which architecture can be discovered, tested, and made.

Assembling the 1:50 Model: Logics of Machine and Man
Each component was machined, fitted, and adjusted by hand, testing how orthographic acts of milling produce perspectival spatial consequences. The model operates as both design object and research instrument at the scale of construction.

1:50 Sectional Fragment Model
The complete 1:50 model showing the CNC-machined base with five Bridgeport and CNC-milled ash fragments. The base establishes a ground logic of orthographic subtraction, while the fragments test how multi-faceted milling produce spatial complexity beyond single-axis cutting.

Learning from Constructed Reality
By redrawing the made fragments at 1:1 and feeding that visual language back into the plans, the project tests the gap between intended design and constructed reality, learning from the adjustments and thicknesses that only appear once architecture has been made.

Architectural Consequence and Proposal: Long Section
The long section at 1:50 showing the heavy monolithic structure opened, lit, drained, and grounded. The drawing tests how atmosphere and construction are developed from the generative section cut of the model.

Constructing a Knowledge of Space in Time
A progression from opaque matter to nearly full transparency, drawing on Bergson’s idea that perception is shaped by memory. Photogrammetric scan traces persist within the image as remembered pieces of the architecture.