One Sketch A Day Challenge

With the start of lectures on 16 March 2020 students and teachers alike were confronted with the extraordinary situation of reducing social contacts and public life to an absolutely necessary minimum. Under these conceivably unfavourable omens for the course "Analogue Representation", which is usually held outdoors in summer as an architectural drawing, the "One Sketch A Day Challenge" for the second semester of the Bachelor's programme in Interior Architecture began on 23 March. Paradoxically the severe restrictions offered optimal training conditions for drawing training at home.

Over the course of four weeks all 70 students and incoming students submitted one drawing a day to Moodle as a scan or photo on a given topic. The contributions were collected in the form of video reviews on the Vimeo channel of the Interior Architecture course. As a traditional YouTube alternative for creative content this platform offers high-quality video streaming without advertising.

During the phase of the corona-induced false start and unfulfilled zest for action at the expected start of the semester the initial reactions of the students were extremely positive. As the period of isolation progressed and the current situation began to have an effect - for example by supporting family businesses or by volunteering in crisis management - the daily challenge turned into excessive demands and an extension seemed unreasonable. After four weeks almost 2,000 drawings provide insights into an intensive but also stressful period of our students' lives. As a diary of daily drawing practice they document the joint visual contemplation of both concrete and abstract topics.