Manga Architecture – Developing Architectural Narratives

Bi-tonal and non-photorealistic architectural depictions can be employed to develop a narrative that engages the reader with both visual aspects and other emotional reactions. Using this story-telling approach to communicate architectural design is subsequently not only represented through its factual dimensions of length, width and height, materials, structure or technical details, but is extended to intangible sensorial realms, which gains special value for laypersons and professional alike. This paper presents how architects and laypersons develop a narrative of their architectural design proposals or concepts using a visualisation and story-telling tools that generates designs akin to Japanese cartoons or manga. Our paper presents the methodology, the instruments used and highlights on the base of representative samples of how narrative bitonal depictions of architecture contributes to the overall understanding of an architectural design and how non tangible factors aid the designers in their communication. Â