Murray, Shaun (2025) Ineffaceable illumination: changing the way, we see architecture. Design Ecologies, 14 (01):1. pp. 5-39. ISSN 2043-068X (Print), 2043-0698 (Online) (In Press)

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Abstract

This article explores Horror Geography as a conceptual and methodological framework in architectural design—one that examines the entangled relationship between human activity and the environment through emotional, ethical, and ecological lenses. Horror Geography attends to the affective, ethical, and ecological consequences of human intervention in the land, situating architectural drawing not as representation, but as a site of temporal, intuitive, and metaphysical engagement. Drawing on Henri Bergson’s philosophy of duration in his book Time and Free Will (2003) and the cinematic strategies of David Lynch, I propose a practice of architectural drawing that resists linear interpretation and embraces intuition, temporality, and metaphysical uncertainty. My approach challenges conventional design paradigms rooted in clarity, precision, and outcome-driven processes, advocating instead for models and drawings as speculative, durational, and interpretive tools. Conventional architectural discourse, often predicated on precision, legibility, and solutionism, struggles to engage with the slow violence of climate collapse, mass displacement, and systemic instability. This article frames architectural thinking not as a mode of resolution, but as a means of sense-making in conditions that exceed rational planning. I argue that architectural representation must evolve to reflect the lived, layered realities of occupation and change. This includes a critical examination of perspective as a spatial regime, drawing on epistemologist Giuseppe Longo’s critique of the Renaissance model’s enduring influence on contemporary computation and spatial logic (Longo and Montévil 2005). The article interrogates how Renaissance perspective—once a means of making the infinite visible—has calcified into a computational paradigm that resists the fluid, deformable spatialities of cognitive and biological systems. The article concludes by proposing alternative modes of spatial engagement through the pairing of objects in drawing and context—linking the virtual to the actual as a way of cultivating spatial relationships. This speculative design strategy repositions architecture as a dynamic, relational, and open-ended practice, capable of responding to the complex geographies of our time not through mastery, but through attentiveness, imagination, and embodied participation. I argue for an alternative practice rooted in speculative and affective modes of thinking—where models and drawings function less as resolved outcomes than as interpretive devices, akin to planchettes or Ouija boards, that invoke rather than represent. Within this frame, architecture becomes a durational process of sense-making amid uncertainty. Ultimately, Horror Geography invites a reorientation of architectural thought—from mastery to attunement, from object to process, and from certainty to speculation—offering a theoretical contribution toward more responsive, relational, and imaginative spatial futures.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Design Ecologies issue focusing on Horror Geography. - MP
Uncontrolled Keywords:	architecture, ecology, drawing, time, duration, speculation, practice, routine.
Subjects:	N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR N Fine Arts > NA Architecture N Fine Arts > NC Drawing Design Illustration
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences > School of Design and Creative Industries
Last Modified:	28 Oct 2025 14:27
URI:	https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/51314

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