Is Drawing Dead?

by Maggie Flickinger

Going on now and running through Saturday, Yale School of Architecture is holding an intriguing symposium titled, “Is Drawing Dead?” While the architectural profession was established with hand drawing as a foundation for communicating design ideas, today many architects rarely put pen to paper. In the face of rapid progression and adoption of digital drafting, modeling, and rendering tools, hand crafted mapping of space, volume, and scale has been relegated to a romantic anachronism – or at worst, obsolete. Yet, as rumblings of a post-digital age foment, a return to the hand’s value is spreading: as slow food gains traction, why not slow architecture?

At our studio, trays of jumbled colored pencils and a veritable riot of Prismacolors lie beside our computer keyboards and mouses. Sheets of trace paper crumple and layer, building a tangible memory of design evolution. Microns, Maylines, charcoal, Sharpies, Sign Pens, and even the humble #2: these are tools of our trade. In a studio that encourages drawing, it remains an indefatigable tool for quick communication, conveyance of emotion, and evocation of experience. One reason for this is that drawing is simply common. Each and every person in the world, regardless of training, knows the capability of picking up a pencil and making an idea known. When an architect presents ideas in hand drawings, the communication tool is commonly held: inherently relatable, approachable, and understandable to all. When an architect presents ideas in digital renderings, that common ground is lost. The tool itself is precious, and at times intimidating.

As we move through a design, we inevitably transition to the digital realm and see value there for technical drawings and interprofessional communication.  Prior to that, the value of the hand lies across the spectrum of process.

Below, each studio member shares one of their hand drawings, along with musings on why hand drawing is – assuredly and decidedly – not dead.

"My design process has always utilized overlay sketching to facilitate the evolution - and mind mapping - of an idea. Yellow trace, color pencil, and felt tips provide a record of plan development as well as notated suggestions of action & spirit" - DAVID

"Drawing by hand is strangely similar to smell as a mnemonic trigger. By looking at this sketch I recall my thought process in detail, in part because it is still visible in the drawing process but also because I have a strong physical memory of doing the drawing." - NICOLE

"A quick section sketch can illustrate the basic site responses and construction systems." - SAM

"The intention here is to show the building's relationship to the landscape, so capturing the depth and feel of the landscape - the big Colorado sky, the distant views across the bluff - was critical. Hand rendering is arguably a more successful medium than digital to convey the subtleties in value, contrast, and texture necessary to illustrate this vision." - LAURA

"On-site communication to yourself, the contractor, the fabricator and the client. Not to say a computer couldn't do it!" - NATHAN

“I used a casual, sketchy style to quickly convey whimsy & color, allowing a client to imagine the actual feel of experiencing this outdoor space.” - MAGGIE

"The contrast between dark and light can be quickly conveyed with charcoal." - AMY

"In Dushanbe, Tajikistan, hand drawing on trace was essential in providing overnight design evolution of the Friendship Center. Meeting with the Mayor the following morning, quick evocative drawings conveyed the design while internet and a print shop were nonexistent. The irony is that we were designing a gift that was a cybercafe!" - DAVID

"This drawing helped a client visualize and approve a construction detail, while the process of hand drawing the detail helped to solidify the constructability in my mind." - GREG

 

Data + Graphics = Expanding Understanding

by Maggie Flickinger

Had the pleasure of attending Ignite Boulder 13 last week.  Outside of the much appreciated excuse to dress to the “Winter Ball” theme, and of course the happy run-ins with some TEDx & Ignite friends, I also particularly enjoyed Sterling White’s spark: Visual Storytelling with Beautiful Data.  I’m also a strong appreciator of “beautiful data” as a counterpoint to the cliche excel pie chart or bar graph.  When we expand our scope to complex issues with myriad data points, such visualization tools simply don’t suffice.  And this is where infographics enters the scene.  Entire careers are dedicated to infographics, there are multiple software programs to ease its utilization, and authors & visualization theoreticians such as Edward Tufte expound upon the principles of visualizing data.  The rules are simple: the result must not stray from an accurate depiction of real data, but must also make complex or multi-faceted issues visually accessible through clarity, storytelling, patternfinding, and (hopefully!) aesthetic appeal.  It’s this marriage of left & right brain that attracts me to infographics & data visualization.

Some are thought provoking without the use of any copy, such as the recently published world map of Facebook connections (top) or Eric Fischer’s series of “Locals & Tourist” maps, which uses Flickr’s geotagging feature to map where locals (blue) take photos versus tourists (red) (bottom, San Francisco):

Fashionable Geekery

by Maggie Flickinger

In honor of yesterday’s Embrace Your Inner Geek Day, I’d like to share Douglas Coupland’s new fashion line, developed with Canadian lifestyle brand Roots. That’s right, hallowed tech geek author Coupland (best known for the 1991 classic, Generation X), has forayed into fashion. But will his satiric, spot-on cultural commentary translate to a more immediate, transient medium? Turns out this geek was formally trained in the fine arts, and takes a refreshingly simplistic view on cross-medium creativity:

“It’s…of a moment and very very Pop. So you can’t expect it to do what a book does. It tingles a different region of the brain where books don’t dare go—a region I enjoy having tingled. So it’s almost an urge more than anything else.”

(For the rest of his interview with AIGA, click here)

But, what does it look like, you’re wondering!

Gentrification = Demolition?

by Maggie Flickinger

Here in Denver, as in any built environment, we have a slow churning of development (despite the recent downturn) exemplified by historic neighborhoods passing through the throes of gentrification.  Lincoln Park loses historic worker’s housing to make way for ticky tacky, Colfax waves goodbye to a taqueria and hello to a gastropub.  The merits and detractions of gentrification (euphemism: revitalization) a varied and often the viewpoint depends on the socioeconomic “status” of those sharing their perspective.

By and large, however, gentrification is a process controlled by the willingness of a neighborhood’s current owners to sell, move, leave, and generally make way for new development.  If a block digs in its heels and no “for-sale” signs go up, the neighborhood remains the same.  Our municipalities rarely enact eminent domain statutes and when they do, they’re regularly controlled by public process requirements.

Not so in China.  A few years ago, stories of large-scale razing of traditional and historic neighborhoods in China surfaced, and pictures such as this depicting a holdout in a neighborhood following eminent domain “reform” laws (circa late 2007, later demolished) popularly illustrated the plight:

More currently, I stumbled on a blog today with a series of incredible rollover images using Google Earth to capture the large scale of this demolition. 

Solar Bungalow: Artfully Green

by Maggie Flickinger

Barrett Studio is often associated with biomorphic, organic designs that blend tactile, hand-crafted architecture with modern design and detailing. But another of our sustainability principles is being a good neighbor, and as such we’ve designed several homes that display more of a traditional connotation of home.

Nestled in a historic Boulder neighborhood, the Solar Bungalow is an example of this. Designed as a traditional “house of rooms,” this bungalow blends in with contextually relevant exterior materials & architectural language such as brick, battered walls, and generous porches. The detailing is the divergence, with crisp lines and simply elegant material palette throughout the interior. Modernizing a vernacular language translates into a livable home that accounts for today’s patterns, rather than simply being a facsimile of its predecessors.  

One of those patterns is sustainability.  In this home, that means small, solar, and simple.  A 950 square footprint easily meets site setback requirements, but building into the slope allows the home to live larger than it looks.  Passive solar & daylighting is controlled by window size, orientation, and louvered shades.  Active solar comes via a 2.5KW system roof mounted to the detached garage & office.  

Organic, flowing contemporary homes can be timeless expressions of green, but this home is certainly not trendy.  When designing with sustainable and ecophilic principles at the forefront, it is important to remember that green can come in all shapes and styles!

Please see Colorado Homes & Lifestyles’ article for more information on this gem, including Interior Design by Ryan Batch of Boulder’s DWR.

click thumbnails below for image gallery | interior photos courtesy Colorado Homes & Lifestyles
 

Faded Dreams at Arcosanti

by Maggie Flickinger

Recently, I set off on a southwest road trip, and in later posts you’ll read about my impressions of Las Vegas and the Hoover Dam Bypass.  Here though, I’d like to share some photos I took of Arcosanti – that fabled gem in the dusty desert north of Scottsdale, Arizona.  Like many of you, I recall learning about Paolo Soleri and Arcology in Architectural History courses…here, something was happening…change was afoot!  So when I realized the line on our map could take us right past the site of the only developed and inhabited Arcology, Arcosanti, I naturally foisted a visit upon my begrudging parter.

Internet research told the story of a declining population, an increasingly absentee visionary leader (Soleri is still an active architect at 93, but spends much of his time at Cosanti, in neighboring Scottsdale), and a project path erring from the original vision.  The visit itself was marred by a cavalier tour guide who obviously had little knowledge of or respect for Soleri’s vision – he said that the idea of a fully built Arcology was “a joke” around Arcosanti.  Indeed, work has markedly slowed in the past several years, with the most significant project being a swimming pool (not in the original plans).  In the model below, the dark chipboard in the foreground is built, the white chipboard the remaining vision.  Planned for 5,000 inhabitants, the current incarnation houses between 30 and 40 residents.