As a design and visualization elective, this course considers design through visualization, where the process of revealing something hidden or making something indistinct visible, is the larger objective. The seminar examines material qualities as potent design tools that have the potential to awaken our spaces: transparency, flatness, reflection and blurriness. Studying affect through aperture, we further question “visualization” as the act of seeing through an optical instrument, looking closely at these four qualities from the perspective of a camera lens and an architectural framing device, such as a window or threshold. The first part of the semester focuses on lectures and discussions, referencing historical and theoretical precedents drawn from art and architecture. Essays, such as Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky’s “Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal,” Beatriz Colomina’s “Double Exposure: Alteration to a Suburban House” or Gertrud Koch’s “The Richter-Scale of Blur,” are paired with short, photographic exercises. We borrow techniques such as seriality and long exposure from Luisa Lambri, Hiroya Kawabata, Uta Barth and Hiroshi Sugimoto, observing and capturing material nuance in our everyday environments. In the second part of the semester, students working in pairs build upon their initial ideas and propose an aperture design. Through material manipulation, layering and experimentation, we workshop a 1:1 translation, which may be a sample section or larger mock-up depending on the project scope, and create a static shot video to document the piece. In this way, the course aims to reimagine the subject and method buildings are conventionally portrayed, as well as inform how we can construct architecture with a heightened sense of awareness, reflecting on what comes before and after affects.