How to add narrative to your architecture project

All architecture tells a story. Your portfolio should make that story legible. By taking notes from other storytellers we can create an engaging narrative, transforming a collection of drawings into a compelling argument.

Both film makers and writers follow the same basic 5 act story structure: Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Resolution. This framework is a powerful tool for organising your work. Let’s break each down and view them under an architectural lens.

Exposition / Context

This is where you introduce your character, the “protagonist” of your portfolio. This character establishes the conditions of the project and is either the Site, User, or Myth:

The Site- The physical site can be the driving force of your project. Each site has its own personality with constraints and opportunities. By focusing on geographical elements such as climate, topography, access, existing fabric, you can form a building that enriches the site’s character.
The User- These are the people occupying the building. The users will inform the needs and routines that your design will support. By engaging with their lives you can design an architecture that responds to behavior.
The Myth- The character can be more metaphorical. It emerges from abstract ideas such as social issues, local mythology, culture, or histories. When these ideas are grounded in physical conditions such as water, decay, temperature, wind, the conceptual becomes spatial rather than just surface decoration.

You only need one main character, it’s more important to have clarity than complexity. However, you can add the others as minor side characters if relevant.

In your portfolio this will be the first pages: Site plans and protagonist introductions.

Rising Action / Desires

This is introducing the desires of the protagonist, it defines what environmental or social condition requires intervention, and what is at stake if nothing happens? By defining what is at risk, you create narrative tension in your story. Without stakes, there is no reason for your project to exist.
Ask yourself:

• Does the site need to be preserved or changed to be saved?
• How are the users being suppressed?
• Is there heritage or culture being erased?

In your portfolio, this will be the emotive pages usually of wider context issues before technical resolution. For example, site photos showing neglect in the area, quotes from users, data on social exclusion, diagrams of fragmented accessibility, graphs of increasing floods, collages of social issues etc.
These pages answer the question: Why does this matter?

Climax / Conflict

This is the measurable obstacle your building needs to overcome to become the hero of the story. It’s the technical reality of the project with negatives such as pollution, flooding, inaccessibility, politics, societal norms etc.

If Rising Action explains why the situation is unacceptable, Climax explains what makes solving it difficult. You need to show specifically what is preventing the transformation, how these attributes are causing harm to your character thus why your project is necessary.

In the portfolio, these are the site analysis pages. They are the difficulties on your site which you’re going to transform. This can be expressed through overlays on your site plans and street elevations. These drawings should make the barrier visible and undeniable. Consequently they answer the question: What is stopping improvement?

Falling Action / Design Response

Falling action is your response to the climax. It’s the part of your portfolio in which you show how your interventions directly address the identified conflict. Finally, the tension is being released as you walk us through the development of key design elements.

In your portfolio this will look like massing evolutions, structural logic, environmental systems etc. All of which show how the crisis is being averted. Each drawing in this section should feel like a direct response to the conflict previously established.

Resolution / Spatial Outcome

This is the resolution to the story where you show everyone happily walking off into the sunset. Show the transformation that your journey created. That you turned the enemy of flooding into an unlikely friend with water gardens. Perhaps you slayed the left over coal mines by turning them into new civic chambers.

These are your final drawings, they are read at a slower pace where we can appreciate all the little details that went into the making of this final story.

Final Tips

Story blurb: Writing a small thesis, one or two sentences long, will help you clarify your project. An example is “my project happening in X does Y by doing Z”. Written out could be “My project in the flood prone industrial estate transforms the disenfranchised site and its population into a civic grassroots organisation by turning water into infrastructure rather than threat.”. Returning to this statement when you’re lost can help you get back on track.

Page order: Set out your pages to follow the structure above. If you think of your portfolio like a book with chapters, your pages should flow into each other. For this, practicing pin-up speeches will help you identify where your story gets lost or goes in circles. In addition, this article will help you identify what pages are needed.

Language: Write like an architect not a brochure. Avoid the buzzwordy generic claims like “the building creates a dynamic urban experience”. Be precise and emotive with cause and effect “A recessed ground floor creates a shaded public threshold, inviting pedestrians into a semi-open courtyard that extends the sidewalk into the site.”

A portfolio without narrative is just an aesthetic folly. By providing a story with context, conflict, and resolution you get an architectural form that’s engaged with the world.

Thank you for reading!
If this helped, you can read more tutorials here
Let me know down below if you have any questions about the narrative arc 🙂