CHAOTIC ATELIER 2023 Edition – JOÃO PESSOA/Paraíba/Brasil: Drawings and Collages as a Creative Way of Expressing Ideas

This article reports the educational experience of the elective course “Ateliê Ca(ó)tico” – Cha(o)tic Atelier – offered in the bachelor’s degree of Architecture and Urbanism of UFRN (Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte). The methodological procedures of this course emphasise the observation and the techniques for representation using drawings and collages. In this sense, the practice of urban perception and the act of “being present in the place”, as a way of (re)cognising the space undergoing intervention, was encouraged. The activity was performed in the city of João Pessoa in Paraíba and initially consisted of trips to the City Centre and Varadouro neighbourhoods because of their important heritage acquis. Also, these neighbourhoods present issues with neglect of properties and cultural appropriation of public spaces. After that, a synthesis panel was built; this panel guided the elaboration of proposals to the defined areas focusing on the visual and physical integration between Varadouro and the City Centre, and proposals for the usage of the selected buildings considering the habitational demand and sociocultural appropriation of the area. Regarding the construction of panels, it could be confirmed that the means of artisanal representation – using drawings and collages in both phases of perception and proposal elaboration – contributed deeply to the embodiment of the intentions of this project, thus stimulating creativity along the process.