ENCOUNTERING ECHOES: ECHOING ENCOUNTER
Following Rolf Hughes’ notion of exposition (2015) as the act of creating a field of encounter, this inaugural issue reframes exposition as a space of echoing—a resonance between the seen and unseen, the said and unsaid. To encounter is to come up against what resists assimilation—an idea, a material, a history, a theory, or another being. To echo is to let that encounter reverberate and transform. Between encountering and echoing lies an ethics of care, speculation, and reciprocity—a willingness to stay with what is incomplete, uncertain, or even misread.
In line with the Arts of the contact zone (Pratt 1991), encounters are never neutral; they unfold in zones of tension, translation, and transformation. Similarly, Studio Note treats encounter and echo as creative and critical forces that shape our practices, pedagogies, and therefore our identities.
We invite contributions that explore encountering and echoing as speculative and performative acts of research.
Studio Note Journal Nº 1
Editors-in-Chief | Alphabetic Order:
Niloofar Amini
Gareth Jones
Jorge Valdovinos
Laura Yuile
Associate Editors | Alphabetic Order:
Eman AlHabashneh
Francesca Brunetti
Ruehl Muller
Mohammed Ali Sharieff
Raynal Somiah
Yvan Tina
Zihong Yue
Typeset in:
Editorial Team
Copy Editing:
Editorial Team
Proof Reading:
Editorial Team
Design:
Editorial Team
Published by:
University for the Creative Arts | ICI
Publication location:
Farnham, Surrey, UK
Xiamen, Fujian Province, China
Online publication date:
Summer 2026
ISSN: 2978-8080 (Print)
E-ISSN: 2978-8099 (Online)
studionote@uca.ac.uk
www.studionotejournal.org
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When Place Interrupts the Drawing
Daksha Raghavendra Dhodapkar - dakshadhodapkar22@gmail.com
Design rarely announces its’ turning points. They arrive quietly — without theory, without intention — and only later reveal that something fundamental has shifted. During my internship, on a day of relentless rain, I found myself working from the back seat of a car parked along a roadside in Hyderabad. What seemed like an inconvenience became an interruption — not just of routine, but of thought. Until that afternoon, my days followed a predictable rhythm: screen, references, software, revisions. My field of vision was rectangular, backlit, controlled. The project I was developing carried the language I had grown comfortable with — sharp lines, defined edges, modern restraint. But that afternoon, through the rain-streaked windshield, stood Golconda Fort (Fig.1). It was not framed for admiration. It simply existed — weathered, massive, unapologetic. Its walls were thick not for aesthetic effect but for survival. Its voids were deliberate. Its arches were structural before they were graceful. In its erosion, there was memory. In its mass, there was patience.
As I worked, my drawing began to shift — not consciously, not strategically. The straight lines softened. Angles gave way to curves. Materials grew heavier in my imagination. Openings thickened. Scale deepened. I did not decide to redesign; the transformation unfolded subtly. Only when I stepped back did I realize that the fort had entered the project — not as imitation, but as influence. If I had not analysed the fort, not measured it, not researched it — how had it altered my thinking?
was embodied.
Today, architecture is increasingly mediated by screens. We gather inspiration globally, collapsing contexts into aesthetic samples. Yet architecture cannot exist only as a composition of references. It must emerge from attention — from noticing how light shifts across stone, how scale alters perception, and how material presence shapes experience. When place interrupts the drawing, it does not demand imitation; it demands awareness. Perhaps the most meaningful transformations in architectural practice occur not when we search for inspiration, but when we allow ourselves to be interrupted by what is already there.