Most architectural design projects begin with three fundamental tools: proformas, sketches, and moodboards.

— Proformas: These establish the basic return on investment (ROI) and form the basis for project management budgets and timelines.

— Sketches: Designers use sketches to experiment with form and composition. This process ultimately leads to the creation of a comprehensive drawing set, which can include drawings, physical models, 3D models, and AI studies.

— Moodboards: Moodboards enable designers to explore materials and aesthetics. They eventually become the specification set, with examples such as collage boards, sample boards, renderings and digital videos.

When dynamic, time-based concepts are introduced in placemaking, the design intent is often discussed among project stakeholders by describing key moments of experience. However, the three basic architectural tools lack a fundamental mechanism to capture, iterate and define these critical moments. This limitation extends to the digital media, building functions, interactivity, and other elements required to realize these ephemeral experiences.

What is missing is a consistent method, a “red thread” for conceiving, identifying, and exploring the importance of ephemeral moments. There is a need to capture the integration of digital systems and the essence of time across very real architectural hardware systems and the accompanying digital media.

Storyboarding, however useful it is for exploring single moments, is actually quite poor as an architectural documentation method, because it only documents visual intention, and not the actual subtext, nor what the various technologies all need to do to produce that moment.

Musicians use musical notation to document their fleeting ideas during composition. This notation succinctly records the ephemeral interplay of multiple elements in a consistent format that collaborators can reference and build upon.

By analogy, architectural projects would benefit from a new form of documentation inspired by musical notation. This system would represent time horizontally (left to right) and capture both intangible intentions and tangible digital functions vertically (top to bottom).

This starts as a very useful gameboard brainstorming tool to start defining and capturing key ephemeral moments. It is focused on the occupant experience, demanding that the reality of creating those ephemeral moments is scoped properly. Those individually tagged moments can then go into more traditional data table formats.

The goal is to enable consultants, project managers, suppliers, and operators involved in construction projects to identify critical ephemeral moments, understand their intended purpose, and accurately scope, install, and maintain them.

Your thoughts?

This approach is closely related to show control systems. Any best practices or references for effectively implementing such documentation are welcome.

HERE’S A PDF OF THE CHART:

HERE’S A PNG OF THE EXAMPLE: