I spend a lot of time thinking about architects and their tools. Why? Because architects struggle to separate themselves from their tools. We see this regularly with job postings that stress software knowledge over process understanding. I find those postings extremely frustrating because it cuts out applicants with the wrong product names on their resume, limiting the potential hiring pool by the wrong criteria. That mindset is disappointing, but I don’t think it’s holding back our profession like the worse offenders of the self/tool confusion are. These offenders (as exemplified by Michael Graves and his shameful ramblings in the New York Times from last year) use the subtle argument which is spoken as “Nothing beats sketching with pencil and trace!”  They make some good points. The pencil is an amazing, powerful tool that has served architects and artists well for countless generations. One could argue that the way a pencil becomes invisible in the hand of a master puts it in the category of perfected tools. CAD and BIM have not reached this state of wholeness and ease of invisibility. But they will. HOWEVER architects who claim the superiority of the pencil-and sketching with it-are actually pointing to a larger issue and the reverence they place on their preferred tool is misplaced. What these architects are really saying, though I imagine most don’t quite get, is that the pencil is a tool that provides both speed and haptic feedback in a way that other available tools do not.

Architects are sensitive designers. They feel their designs as more real than the images they create. The tactile feedback architects receive by holding a pencil is stronger than other media they have available to them. This feedback helps them better sense and intuit their designs.

But it’s a false connection. It’s not the design the architect is feeling, but the design process-the motion of the pencil in their hand. There is a disconnect between what is actually created, the act of creation, and the original internalized idea. Through training, luck, or something else, these three align in the best designs, but I don’t believe there’s any deeper connection between the three through the use of the pencil.

While many of our modern tools offer a variety of benefits over the pencil, these digital wonders fail when it comes to haptics, often spectacularly. We see this with both the previous and current generation of digital interface options. Every click of the mouse and every tap of the keyboard is the same. There is no gentle click or hard click. It’s just single or double-click. Left click or right click. We see this dullness of interaction with touchscreens as well. Our smart phones give the best example. The least satisfying thing to do on a touchscreen phone is dial a phone number. On earlier cellphones with buttons, we could feel our way around the phone. With rotary phones we had the pleasure of the dial. Now our phones are just flat, smooth wastelands. Our senses are dulled. We once used touch, sight, and even sound to make phone calls. Now we just have sight since our touch sense is so dulled and there are no series of beeps, boops, or clicks because we’re not actually selecting a string of numbers.

Haptic Tools

What architects need and want are not better pencils, but better haptic tools. Tools that give them better tactile feedback. Which would be better: a pencil on trace or some interface that allowed you to feel brick or grass or metal when you modeled it. Not just texture, but smell and warmth (because why stop at one additional sense). If it’s a movable material, you could push it or drag your fingers through it. What would buildings look like if you could run your hand across the surface while designing it?

Pause for a moment and imagine this tool. A tool where you are not sketching gray lines on paper, but where you are sketching fully sensible materials. Your napkin sketch isn’t about a quick doodle made enticing by adding smoke coming out of the chimney; it’s about letting your client touch and feel the digital approximation of Douglas fir on the walls and slate title on the floor.

As architects we need to be aware of why the tools we love are worth loving. We need to go beyond saying Tool A is the best. We need to understand why Tool A is superior to other tools. And then apply those benefits elsewhere. We need to evaluate our current tools and ask “Why is this really so good? How could it be better?” Because while a pencil might actually be the best tool for expressing design intent today, it is not the best possible tool for expressing design. Nowhere near it. It has too many faults. And the pencil really isn’t getting any better. We have not yet reached the best tool for architectural design and production. For that we need to keep searching. For that we need to remember to not just think about old vs new, but about static vs improving and about available vs possible.

If you Want More on Haptic Feedback and Tools:

• How Adobe Built a Stylus Fit For the Cloud
• Wikipedia Article on Haptic Technology
• A great article on the Tools of the Future
• How Minority Report is leading us astray
• Google Glass and acting through not on a tool

I hinted at this topic back here in my post about Daft Punk teaching us about Digital vs Analog. Subscribe to my blog to read more of my wild ramblings on everything from BIM and Design to the Future of Architecture and Technology: Shoegnome on Facebook, Twitter, and the RSS feed.