If the city is the theater of social life, then urban events might be considered as performances in which both people and buildings are players, interacting in a creative improvisation, which is not proscribed by a building program or designer’s intentions. How, then, can architects learn to design good partners that will enrich the city by playing well in the many small dramas of daily life? A series of exercises based in theater invites student architects to engage buildings and each other in playful explorations of space and movement. For example, in design studio students in pairs construct a third actor to participate with them in performances that address how architecture mediates between people. In a week-long workshop in Genoa, Italy, students make short videos that combine scenes with drawings to develop a narrative that plays on a simple architectural element – a door, wall, or steps. In large classes, student teams find and draw places of dramatic potential in the school of architecture building, which they interpret in ten-second videos. More advanced students develop drawing techniques to show the social life of buildings by adapting the classical “analytique” and contemporary graphic novel. All exercises draw on the principles of improvisation developed in theater in which the action emerges spontaneously through interaction. By bringing playacting into architectural education, the exercises subtly shift the task of design, away from visual composition and toward consideration of how buildings act. Design pedagogy that includes this kind spatial improvisation as part of the design process develops a human sensibility that contributes to the design of buildings for lively and sustainable cities.
