Why would architects write computer programs? Why would architects draw? This studio suggests one answer to both of those questions: architecture thrives within media that extend the capacity of the individual human author while simultaneously limiting, filtering or structuring the domain of inquiry. Drawing and writing computer programs—“coding” for short—require mastery of instruments, deployment of knowledge, and definition of line. As a result, coding and drawing are transformative. They can transform our ideas in the pursuit of architecture, certainly. But they can also transform architecture, thereby allowing us to cultivate ideas in the pursuit of new architecture. To begin this studio, students design a coded line-based representational system specific to one portion of an existing built work of architecture. Lines will be taxed to perform in multiple ways. It is expected that many hundred lines of code, many thousands of lines on paper, and multiple weeks of research, experimentation and critique will be required investment for the reward of a drawing that is simultaneously pictorial, analytic, projected, formal, atmospheric, and measured. Gradually, students wean themselves off of the building as referent and begin to identify and refine salient features, problems, and ambiguities in the drawing. Finally, students work in reverse. Drawing will leads to a construct, which will be interpreted as the portion of a building, which be extended in self-evident terms into a resolved architectural proposition for a built project in the landscape. Read more about the studio on the course website.