Doctoral student’s colonia settlers sketch shown at New York exhibit

A sketch by Texas A&M [Ph.D. architecture] (http://dept.arch.tamu.edu/graduate/phd/) student Bara Safarova depicting the imaginary arrival of settlers to a new colonia was part of [Sketch. 2013] (http://www.d3space.org/sketch/) , an exhibit investigating the role sketches play in design communication shown at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center campus in New York.

The piece is from Safarova’s master’s thesis project at London Metropolitan University, which included an instruction manual for residents in the Las Lomas colonia to create sidewalks and beautify neighborhoods by making and installing paving slabs with distinctive colors and patterns.

Colonias are housing developments on the Texas side of the U.S.-Mexico border that often lack basic necessities such as electricity, water or sewer systems.

The sketch, one of a series that Sarafova created during research trips to Las Lomas, was selected from among 1500 submissions for the exhibit, which was on display Feb. 21 – March 20, 2013 at the Center Gallery in Fordham University’s Lincoln Center campus.

Sketching, said the exhibit’s organizers, is a fundamental, time-tested tool of design communication that’s been profoundly transformed by a proliferation of diverse methodologies and emerging technologies.

The exhibit offered a forum to reflect upon the transformative forces impacting sketching in the design process by revisiting the use of classical approaches while engaging with new technologies that have expanded the contemporary opportunities of sketching as a generator of concepts.