Young Architect Guide: How to Craft a Powerful Project Narrative

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Whether written or verbal, the way architecture projects are described to an audience often comes together as an afterthought relative to the rest of the effort put into them. Particularly in an educational setting, where every minute leading up to a review tends to be maximized with work on graphic materials, it can’t be stressed enough that a significant amount of time should be dedicated to designing a project’s presentation narrative. A lack of investment in this area risks an unclear or ineffective communication of the project to its audience, nearly invalidating all the graphic work put into it.

Approaches to presentation vary from person to person and are often highly individualized. This allows a great deal of creative control over the way projects are introduced, but for someone who may not have much experience or formal training in storytelling or public speaking, it can be impossible to even begin this task without a road map.

To help shed some light on the details of this process, I’ve outlined a generally applicable method for describing architecture projects that has worked well for me and may be a good starting point for anyone looking to improve their skills in this area. It involves identifying and elucidating the key element of a project’s concept, adding a unique angle through which to frame it, then citing specific objects in the design that support the concept and angle.

Via Rhode Island School of Design

Concept

Before an architectural narrative can progress at all, this question must be answered: What is it? The answer should be completely encapsulated in a single, relatively simple sentence that can be understood by almost anyone, and this statement should begin the presentation.

To use a classic example, “this is a house” is beautifully clear in its reduction, and to that extent a good place to start, but needs some modifying details to become a fully formed concept. “This is a house for an architect” is a great leap forward in description but still doesn’t qualify the project enough to satisfy a curious audience. “This is a house for an architect who wants their home to be a live-work studio” states pretty much everything about the project that can fit into a single sentence without diving into overly specific details. Aim for this level of engagement in a project’s introduction and your audience will thank you for keeping it simple yet interesting.

Whether the concept is completely original or dictated to you by a professor or client, it should, for the sake of clarity, always be stated at the absolute beginning of a presentation. If not, you’ll probably be met with quizzical looks from an audience that has no idea what you’re talking about after only a few moments.

Bertrand Goldberg presents a model of Marina City; via Christian Narkiewicz-Laine

Angle

Almost immediately following a concise statement of concept should be an equally concise statement of angle. Angle answers a crucial second question: What does it do? It modifies the concept one step further to demonstrate exactly what is unique about your interpretation of it.

To return to the previous example: “The design of this house reflects a complete overlap of the architect’s work with their day-to-day life” is an angle statement. Or maybe your design reflects a strict life-work separation, which is also an angle statement. The opposite ways this statement can go illustrate the purpose of developing an angle: It’s your take on the concept of “architect’s live-work home,” and its application separates your project from every other architect’s live-work home ever made.

Angle is the opportunity to demonstrate your added value to the project, and it should be paired with concept right off the bat to clearly emphasize how your design meets, exceeds or goes against its mandate.

Bjarke Ingels has made many popular videos describing his firm’s work.

Object

Beyond concept and angle statements, the rest of your project narrative — which is the vast majority of it — should put forth numerous specific, physical examples from the project’s design that clearly support the claims made in your concept and angle statements. Each of these objects should be accompanied with visual support like a rendering, drawing or model that illustrates exactly how the concept and angle are proven true by the architecture you’ve designed.

To cite the running example: “the architect’s sleeping quarters are located directly beneath their drafting table” — with an image depicting this space in your design — is a powerful support object for a home that erases boundaries between life and work. Conversely, “this three-foot-thick concrete shear wall with no openings divides the living quarters from the working studio” would be an appropriate way to describe a home with a distinct life-work separation.

Your presentation should be full of objects that repeatedly drive home the ideas you introduced as concept and angle, but be careful not to go through them like a grocery list. Try grouping by theme, such as the type of activities they support, or by experience, like a “day in the life” narrative. When you’re done, make sure to give your audience a quick recap to remind them of your concept and angle and how you just proved them both and also to signal that the presentation is over.

As noted above, this is an approach to project narrative I’ve found to be effective in its organization. Feel free to use, modify or adapt it at will, just remember that its purpose is to ensure the clear communication of complex ideas in a simple and interesting manner. Work with this goal in mind, and you’ll almost always be rewarded with a satisfied audience.

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Architects: Research materials for your next project through Architizer. Manufacturers: Sign up now to learn how you can get seen by the world’s top architecture firms.