Architectural scenarios and sequential art: Comics as catalyst in architectural education between imagination and professional body requirements

This paper discusses the use of comics as a learning and teaching methodology in architecture in order to achieve key learning outcomes, professional body criteria and educational challenges by using sequential art and graphic narratives. Storytelling has always been an intrinsic part of architectural education and a valuable tool, alongside design artefacts, for architects to communicate with other disciplines, their clients and the public. In the last decade, the investigation of the links between architecture and comics is expanded and examines a variety of environments and explores different scales from the idea of the city to the examination of architectural history and tradition. The paper presents the development of projects in all stages of the architectural design process of a variety of student projects over three years in the Master in Architecture course. The paper presents the students’ learning process and engagement that occurred throughout given assignments, in order to support their understanding of place, function, conceptual approaches, environmental challenges and successful representation and communication. The paper argues that the introduction of sequential art and the new possibilities to visualise and materialise the imaginative is crucial for students at post-graduate level. It is a transformative tool that enables them, after a year in practice, to understand a complex process while re-discovering skills and re-learning the creative processes of architecture. Strong visuals combined with a contextualised narrative lead to a deeper understanding of the city and the human experience; demonstrating that the process of making comics is a cross-media learning strategy, always balancing things between dystopian futures and architectural happy ends.