On the Other Side of Mirror – A Workshop on Incorporating Geometry of Mirroring in Architectural Practice and Applied Arts

Abstract

The magic world of mirrors, their application, integration in interiors and exposure in exteriors, intrigues architectural designers and artists for a long time. Inspired with wide recent usages of mirrors in innovative architectural designs practice, as well as in arts, and grounded our understanding on well-known geometric/optic principles of mirroring, the authors conceptualized a Workshop that was offered to students of architecture, forestry and applied arts, as an extracurricular two-weeks activity. After briefly introducing a historical/chronological overview of mirrors application in architectural design practice and applied art, relevant theoretical aspects of mirroring were demonstrated on the Workshop. The participating students were offered two possibilities for integration of mirrors in their design-outcomes: to experiment with analogue models and digital/computing ones. For that reason, a large amount of small glass mirror parts was provided. Also, functional parametric families of digital mirrors (planar, concave and convex) were developed especially for the workshop and offered on-line. Particular foci of this paper are on both: the teaching methodology that was exclusively prepared for the Workshop, and specific usage of experimentation (to trigger unusual ideas and to utilize relevant familiar methods and procedural activities in the new – this context). In the discussion part of this study, a systematized overview of the Workshop results and its analysis from geometric and semantic point of view are given. The results are divided into: first interim critique, second interim critique and final submission. Through a generalization of conclusions, the lessons learned, namely, the level of subject-related geometric knowledge acquired from this unique teaching experience are reviewed, and an analysis of their possible applications in other pedagogic contexts related to geometry-teaching is presented.