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. 

Bah Humbug to Earth Day!

by Maggie Flickinger

I’ve been told “Happy Earth Day” by about 30 entities today.  I say “entities” because only about 8 of these tidings came from my friends, family, and coworkers.  One sparked a discussion on how I slacked, not motivated enough to brave the spring downpours (and hail!) to ride my bike into the the studio this morning.  Another brought an observance of a jeweled ladybug navigating the remnants of that downpour across an achingly green new leaf.  Sadly, though, the majority of these “Happy Earth Day”s were glaring at me from my inbox, suffixed by “20% off today only” “free shipping on earth day” “giveaway today only!”

It seems that Earth Day, established in 1970 with the goal of being “…a national day of observance of environmental problems…” has gone the way of of capitalistic consumerism.  Perhaps as daily awareness of environmental issues is on the rise, the need for one day to focus on these issues lessens.  And perhaps that’s when marketing gurus seize the opportunity to co-opt the day for greenwashing campaigns.  I have two alternative ideas to put forth regarding my ideal version of Earth Day, both related to radical change – a jar to the system that becomes cause for pause:

First, wouldn’t it be wild to see an earth day ad campaign that said:

“Please don’t buy anything from us today.  Go outside instead!”