The Joy of Hand Drawing
I have always enjoyed drawing by hand. Since I was a child, I have been drawing with pencils, pens, crayons, markers and other implements. The drawings would have been simple creations at first, but I forced myself to expand my abilities and the complexities. One reason I gravitated to architecture as a profession is because I liked drawing. I remember creating pencil and ink drawings in elementary school that won awards for excellence. When I moved on to UTA and the architecture program there, I loved the drawing and art related projects. In the architecture curriculum, we were assigned design problems, drawing classes and art like design exercises. We even were required to take what they called “Communication Skills” for no less than two years in the undergraduate program.
These classes developed my skills with hand drawings, orthographic drawings and color renderings. I think the name of the class says it all. In those days, to develop a building design and communicate that design to a client, you had to be able to create a visual display that people could understand in a single review session. This was and still is of paramount importance in the architecture profession.
So, the architecture profession has certainly changed over five decades. Most notably in how designs and drawings are created for presentations. The idea of creating a visual display that people could understand is still the goal. However, the way the presentation is created is now completed with computers, software and even artificial intelligence. I will utilize those in formal presentations and for marketing purposes. However, during the schematic phase and some later phases I still like to use hand drawings to convey my design ideas to the clients. I can easily create a hand drawn floor plan or façade elevation much faster than using a computer program. I believe the clients prefer this at times because I send them a personal creation of mine instead of a computer program product.
So, I use hand drawing to create preliminary plans and elevations all the time. If the clients agree to my concept in the hand drawn sketch or plan, I move on to the next step of having a computer version created by an associate that can do that much better than I can. I love to create floorplans using art paper and pencil. This works well to create a plan that is close but may need more refinement. I also utilize “cut and paste” methods a lot of time. I cut a new piece of paper and paste it over a portion of a floorplan sketch. I retain the acceptable portion but create a new piece that I want to be different or updated. I also do this on elevation studies. Once I have the plan or elevation close to what I am hoping to achieve, I usually introduce color into the drawing. This will assist me and the client to get a better feel for the concept elevation or plan. I love working in this manner to solve the design problem.
When we get to the construction drawing phase of a building, I still utilize hand drawings to a small degree. To convey my ideas about a wall section or roof detail, I just create a pencil drawing on sketch paper. I like doing this kind of hand drawing as well. The associate that I hand it over to is able to recreate the details in a software program that is used to make the actual construction plan set.
So, yes, I do think that hand drawn plans, elevations, details and renderings still have a place in 21st century architectural practice. I think it does give me a feeling of joy when I can create a nice-looking building elevation or floorplan sketch. I believe it maintains a sense of human artistry in the process and the final building product. Our built environment still needs to have a sense of human artistry in it even though we use computers and machines in the process. I love to create things. Hand drawings give the architect joy and a connection with the great architectural masters of the past.
Leave a Reply