One day I will teach this architecture class: Sketching without Sketching
Preamble: As always this is just a small piece of the bigger issues rolling around my head. Don’t worry; I’m working on about five or six more posts that all connect to this one. More to come.
Like most architects I daydream about teaching at a university. It sounds like so much fun. Alas, I have the wrong degree (BArch instead of MArch), so the battle to teach is unnecessarily steeper than it should be. Someday I might write a post about the various ways to become a professor of architecture (degree + lots of applications, becoming friends with local educators with power, get famous; note: no architecture license required). Fortunately there are other ways: writing endlessly via blogs in the hopes of making a difference; recording YouTube videos; giving talks to professional organizations; doing webinars; running user groups; mentoring; teaching online. This is the route I’m currently taking and it’s going surprisingly well. In fact, it looks likely I’ll be one of the lecturers for a forthcoming online Master of BIM course-more on that later this year.
But if by some chance I get the opportunity to teach a studio or lecture class in a traditional architecture school I know EXACTLY what I’d do. I even know the title of the class.
Sketching without Sketching
I was walking home the other day and saw a bunch of architecture students sketching building details. They were just as you’d imagine them. Standing or sitting, all staring up at some awning or facade. Holding a sketch pad in one hand, a pencil in the other. Each attempting to faithfully reproduce what they saw while also secretly trying to create a prettier image than their classmates. We’ve all been there. We’ve all done that. But why are we STILL doing that? This is 2014, not 1914. There are other ways.
Why weren’t these students holding tablets or laptops and building 3D models of those same things? Couldn’t that teach them more about the built environment? And then when they set the lighting wouldn’t that teach them more about how the sun and various light sources interact with the built forms and materials? Couldn’t that take them from feeling to knowing? Or more importantly shift their experience beyond just the visual? As they model and realize that the forms aren’t what they expected, might they then investigate why? Couldn’t modeling in 3D force a deeper understanding?
This is the class I want to teach: modeling and working in a digital environment directly from existing conditions like we all learned to do with a pencil. No measuring. Just looking at reality (or an image) and modeling what you think is there. Imagine having to model a skyscraper this way. To verify what you’ve modeled, you’d also need to set up cameras that represent your relationship to either your physical presence or the location of the photographer of the image you’re working from. It’d give you a better sense of your relationship to the building and allow you to verify that you are understanding what you see. Because this is the goal. It’s not about learning a particular software (this class would be agnostic-use Revit, ArchiCAD, SketchUp, Rhino, whatever you want), but about making sure you can read the make-up of a building. If you are drawing, you don’t need to understand what you’re looking at. You just need to make sure the lines and tone match what you see. If you are modeling the same thing, then you need to understand-or at lease be able to guesstimate-the relationships, thicknesses, and materiality of things. The tools at hand force you to linger longer on what things are.
If I had time when teaching this class, I’d go beyond this simple move of sketching by hand to sketching with BIM and 3D modeling software. I’d want to do a few classes on building physical models based on photographs or being on site. That’d be great too. And once again it’d teach the students something else about the built environment, design, and their relationship to what they are describing.
But before all that, I would start with my favorite kind of architectural documentation: 1D information. Imagine taking architecture students out to a site and telling them to write 500 or 1,000 or 10,000 words to describe their environment. How would they write enough description about a detail or building to allow someone who’s never been there to understand what they saw? What would they learn about a building by having to use only words? Could they write clearly enough to give themselves adequate information back in the studio to build a physical model, draw a sketch, or build something in a BIM software? I think that’s a fascinating proposition.
Or what about schedules? Send the students out and say schedule everything you can see on that building/detail/site. What would they come back with? An understanding of how many window types a project has? The materials used? The rough quantities of things? How to codify the landscaping? I think going on a scheduling field trip could be mind blowing.
What do you think? Am I crazy? What other on-site sketching methods should we explore in this theoretical class? Do you have connections at a university where I could teach? Maybe in Seattle? Let’s talk. And finally have you ever thought about describing your designs via writing without accompanying images? How’d that go? Leave a comment.
Here’s a rough draft of the class brief:
Sketching without Sketching
Architects are overly dependent on sketching with a pencil on paper. As a profession we elevate this method to the point where prominent architects publicly disparage others who think differently (1) (2). This class proposes that chaining architects to one tool for the purposes of environmental understanding and design generation is a fundamental flaw which is aiding in our decline as a profession. Over the semester we will read critical texts on architects’ relationship to their tools and explore how we can sketch without sketching-how everything other than pencil and paper can be used to understand the built environment and the design process.
In this class students will be required to work with 3D modeling and BIM software, physical models, and writing to describe and document their surroundings. We will also investigate and discuss the possibilities of other tools.
I did this model (in ArchiCAD 14) for a marketing project a number of years ago. We intentionally altered the design to highlight the windows, so it’s not an exact copy of the house (nor was it meant to be). But my first pass on the model was much more faithful. I think more people need this sort of experience.
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Abbie
ABSOLUTELY. I try to use it for forms now rather than cardboard models because lets face it, my cardboard models were never “quick”. ArchiCAD slabs, walls, and morph are quick and dirty. And bonus, you can do as many as you want next to each other to compare. Still want to sketch? Print it off and draw a “pretty” image over the top. Viola, a new form of schematic design. I would sign up for your class since I can not teach either 🙂
bobborson
I’m not really sure that you can label me as someone who disparages architects who don’t sketch. I did say that I’ve never met a good designer who didn’t sketch, but that’s not the same as saying that they don’t exist or precludes the possibility that you can become a good designer without having the ability to sketch.
If you want to make an inference from that article, you could assume that having the ability to sketch allows you to sit in front of the client in real time and make design revisions on paper that the client can respond to – I haven’t seen that happen digitally yet, and certainly not with BIM. You could then further conclude that if one has the ability to sit in front of the client and sketch, that they are in front of the client rather than in front of a monitor in the back room.
At my last firm, I was good/fast enough at SketchUp that I could make modifications to the model in front of the client … but I was the guy working on the model at those moments, not the guy talking to the client.
I would also disagree (strongly) that we as a profession are overly dependent on sketching with a pencil on paper. All I have to do is look around my own office and see that 75% of the people working here turn to the computer and Revit without ever thinking about sketching their idea out first. In this case, I am the relic, holding on to a skill that few architects have anymore.
Jared Banks
Bob, thanks for the reply (always honored when you drop by the site). The link was about that one comment towards the end (which has given me some ideas for some personal challenges I will write about later; meant to write about them first, but it’s too big of a topic and I’m still working out my thoughts). That comment really unsettled me because I felt a lot of readers would infer that you have not met a good non-sketching designer because there isn’t one (otherwise why bring up that point?). In general, I don’t think it was necessary for the larger argument the post was making and in some ways detracts from your thesis.
Real time changes in front of clients are definitely necessary and something myself and many, many others have been doing with BIM (ArchiCAD specifically) for years and years, so it is more than possible. The problem is we often confuse a particular program with BIM and assume its limitations are the limitations of BIM. Which isn’t good.
The inferences you suggest are interesting because I don’t disagree with where people get to be based on sketching ability-and that’s hurting us. But I want to shift this general viewpoint to be media agnostic. And to help us all see that everything you wrote about in your article could be done (and should be done) with all sorts of tools.
Eduardo
We will need to get together to discuss this, can’t crash KCC, projects!. As someone that has been teaching CAD and BIM for the last 14 years I have gone from enthusiasm to realist and back again multiple times. My basic point is that Architecture is senior to the tool you use to document it, be it pencil, legos 😉 , newsprint etc. Exposure to the different tools is necessary so that comparisons can be made and understood.
BTW at some schools B.ARCH+License = M.ARCH without license you would only be limited to teaching only undergrad courses without the March or the PHD, anyway the license will eventually be needed.
Jared Banks
Eduardo, would love to talk with you more about this later in the summer. We’ll all miss you at the KCC, but maybe the next GSNA big event (2015 is my guess)? It’ll be good to finally meet in person. And yes architecture before tool! I could see this course as having a comparative component as well. Good to understand strengths, weaknesses, etc.
Steve Nickel
Hello everyone above…
From here, we don’t relate to this combat between pencil/paper, and 3D modeling/BIM.
They both have their place. And, in the opinion of at least one of our clients: there is nothing like an “architecty” (i.e. hand produced) drawing.
Steve Nickel
Lake Wobegon, Minnesota
Alicia
I want to take this class RIGHT NOW, even with my fancy MArch degree in my pocket. Pretty sure I would learn more about the process of how a building came together than I ever did in studio/graduate class. Yes, it’s a jab to my overly theoretical education. However theory-heavy my education may have been this post does bring me back to our history classes and the early architectural travelers who went to Greece and Italy. They sketched down all that they could and then brought the information back to share with those who had never seen such architectural works. No photographs could be taken, the ‘architect’ of that time had to rely completely on representation and description of the written word.
Jared Banks
It would be just like that. Every so often in all my pro-technology/let’s disrupt the status quo writing my extremely heavy art history background appears. I really should have taken that one remaining class to get the second major! Anyways, exactly. This concept is very much rooted in tradition and theories of how to understand what other practitioners have done before us.
Jared Banks
Speaking of Sketching with BIM…Bjarke Ingels Group on why they chose ArchiCAD over Revit http://www.graphisoft.com/users/case_studies/BIG_BIM_for_the_concept_arch.html
carmen perez garcia
Jared, I would like to invite you and some of your friends to submit a program for my chapter’s fall conference on this topic. I think it would be an interesting one that might generate interesting audience participation. We will select our programs this coming Tuesday, so you would need to hurry. You may access our Call for Programs form at http://www.lrgvaia.org/httpevents-constantcontact-comregistereventllrsbyn8dcaboeidka07e99qyedtd70aca9b/. We take great pride in that our programs are of superior quality, and we never fail to generate interesting discussions. Our keynote speaker this year will be Dr. Maureen Clemmons, who has done interesting research on the possibility of the Egyptian pyramids having been built with wind power (kites); very compelling!
Jared Banks
Thanks! I’ll check it out and see if I can pull something together in time.
Will Gerstmyer
Jared,
What time frames are you talking about? The way we learned site sketching was: 1 minute, 5 minute, 20 minute, hour. Throw in a bottle of wine and each sitting is 2 hours. The teaching there was how to capture “everything” with what time was available, be it a silhouette, concept, massing, openings, proportion or time to do details. You re-create, in many ways, the process of the original designer (without as much back-tracking as this was more of linear discovery) and where they encountered dilemma’s to the rule-bases they invented for this or that corner, or bay or framing device. I have written extensively about diagramming and won’t go into it here, but the reflecting back on the sketching teaches many of the salient points about conveying ideas with diagram, and I think the two are inseparable. Diagrams being, of course, the most efficient and fastest way to get to the heart of design, even for us hand-sketchers.
Even with rudimentary “loose” sketches and diagrams that augment my words now, I find myself many times faster at visioning which allows a great edge if you are collaborating or leading a discussion with a design team – (“he who holds the pen creates the design” if one is Machiavelian about it), and I just don’t see that happening with the computer.
If you are talking about the ability to generate the work above in relatively short order, then I think you have the potential to take a tool to the street – perhaps even to learn the same lessons (although I think the passport to diagramming is still a bit of a stretch). So how fast are you/can you be? Thanks, Will:
Jared Banks
Will, great addition to this conversation. I’m not sure I have answers for you at the moment. One of the follow up posts I have in the works is about slowness in design and how we tend to reward speed for speeds sake. We work on deadlines and often on an hourly basis, but good design ideas and speed are not necessarily directly correlated. That said do not discount digital technology just because you haven’t seen the lead designer sitting at the computer leading the changes. It does happen and will happen more.
Speed comes from practice. I think these exercises might have a time component, but that doesn’t really interest me at the moment. What matters more is the development of process and discovery. Sketching by hand is a mature art. Sketching in BIM (or in writing for architects) is not. So testing and discussing and sharing what works is critical. After running the class a few times it might make sense to start limiting the sketch experience based on time, but I’d rather have the discussion be about tactics and strategies to improve the fluid, artistic, design focused, loose implementation of these tools. Remember we’re not trying to replicate the hand sketch. That’s a losing proposition. We are trying to discover the BIM based sketch of the 21st century.
The relationship to the diagram is a great one. But again I think the first phase would not focus on that. I would love the class to lead to that. But diagraming and leveraging the power of BIM to aid client communications is a whole class in itself (and another passion of mine). Maybe that’s the second semester of the class. Part 1: sketching without sketching. part 2: improving client communications with BIM. Or something like that. thanks!
Will Gerstmyer
Jared,
I am still a fan of both tools, for the positives they bring. Sketching with pen in indispensable to the (forever-) growing architect. I agree with you that gaining facility with looser computer tools will be part of the future, but disagree that the pen sketching class is not – by a long way – the best way to begin learning architecture and training a DESIGNER. If you know you will not be one of the 10% that lead design firms, then focusing on computer tools is just fine. For everyone else that aim higher, then bypassing the pen is a huge mistake. I hope you find a place to teach your courses, as there is room for exploration of the topic, and the crucible of teaching will teach you a lot. But by no means – if resources are tight – should an institution not teach hand sketching as there are centuries of proven worth there.
* Until the computer can “approximate” (ie, fudge) lines and planes, it will be behind. – Nothing I’ve seen attempted can get near what is gained by “almost” getting it right with that first pass of pen, the line the brain initiates, subconsciously or not.
* You misread me, as I did not say “speed” is for speed’s sake, but rather to EFFICIENTLY run through a great number of partis or options to determine where to spend more time in exploration. – Nothing I’ve seen is even within the ballpark of allowing this kind of exploration, hence, the unwittingly slow uncovering of ideas drawn by computer only reveal a fraction of the ideas and these half-baked ideas are pushed through to being the final project.
* I am not talking about pencil. Pencil allows erasing. Teaching through gaining confidence with a tool where every mark counts is an important art, one that builds one’s appreciation of SCALE. – Nothing I’ve seen from computer savvy design people show me much sense of scale and almost always shows a complete lack of understanding of scale.
* There is much history (not a dead thing, but living once you re-discover or uncover what the architect was intending) that will be closed off to you if you do not appreciate the method they used to design it, and sketch it yourself (to reverse engineer it). Lines that need fore-thought impose a different set of design principles, unique to each designer but over a long period of study become familiar to the student. – Nothing I have seen in the computer educated students suggest they have much of a clue about the greats other than what can be found in a book. Contrary to popular belief, 98% of the “heroes” that are alive today will have no impact on the trajectory of architecture.
* Concerning content, or WHY any architect, in any time period, produced what he/she did, there is always the question of significance (this is why Gehry will not stand the test of time). To make lasting significant statements in art, one has to understand what aspect of the immortal human condition is worth commenting on. In fact, it is entirely possible that a whole generation is going through the gates so caught up in the gaining of technological skills that they have built no capacity for learning what makes Shakespeare or Brunelleschi or the Kimball Art Museum so timeless. For not only do the best have something to say, they say it from many viewpoints and so leave it to the viewer and their context to sort out the enduring meaning of the questions for themselves. This is poetry, and the (vast) rest of it is merely prose.
All my best to you, Will
Jared Banks
Much to think about. But this just reinforces why a class/book/discourse of the value of sketching with computers is so necessary. Focusing on computer skills is for people who won’t lead. A generation without capacity to understand history…
These are bold statements which concern me. Maybe design and architectural thought needs to be done the same way it always has been done. I don’t know. And none of us do because we have such huge prejudices against different ways. So when I rail against sketching (by pen, pencil, or whatever), it’s not because great things haven’t or won’t continue to be done that way. It’s not because it isn’t efficient or fun or whatever. It’s because by continuing to reinforce that one method we are clueless to the values and capabilities of other methods. Even long time ArchiCAD and Revit users still revert to old methods. Not because it is better (it might be) but because it is familiar known and comfortable. That is fine on an individual basis. But until we explore and figure out if/why/how tool A is required whereas tool B is just for the non-greats, then I remain unconvinced that we as a profession our not hurting ourselves.
So pause for a moment and change focus. Don’t think about how a computer program can’t sketch like a pen. Think about how we could harness the power of BIM etc to sketch in new different ways. How can we bring the same thought and looseness to that. We are not talking about lines but about masses or materials or thermal properties or I don’t know what. Do not discount this because it is different or unrefined or hard.
Jared Banks
I should add that I do feel confident that the long term answer is a hybrid solution. But for that solution to be effective it must be a hybrid of equal methods. And clearly as a profession we do not see all our tools with equal design merit. Until we reach that enlightenment (or at least are clearly on the path) I need to maintain my hard line position and remind people (like I state in my course description) that we have a problem.
Jared Banks
I don’t need a cellphone because Louis Kahn was a great architect without one: https://shoegnome.com/2013/11/15/neither-mies-nor-corb-used-bim/
Another post from last year on this topic you all might find interesting.
Jason Smith
Hi Jared
Sketching, the fluid movement of hand and pencil to create………..what pleasure.
Sketching, Is it about capturing a moment of art or a technical drawing?
When I was studying it was more about getting down on paper as quickly as possible. The pencil was the tool of choice. The aim of sketching an existing situation is about composition, light, shade (colour), texture, its a snap shot from the point of view of the author.
Sketching a construction detail on the other hand takes more than what you can see and feel. You need construction knowledge and the ability to sketch. Its a technical drawing i.e. no feeling.
I agree Jared that these can be done on a tablet as a digital sketch. Then taken it into Archicad or similar to develop what has been captured from the sketch.
If you look at sketching of a design of a floor plan. My preference is still the pencil (yes I’m old school). Archicad restricts my thought process (could be left and right brain fighting) or I’m just conditioned to doing it that way. Modelling in AC switches on my detail brain. I may occasional quickly draw up a detail on paper before modelling. There is always drawing up a detail or situation for other employees to model. Its much easier that writing out instructions on what to model.
Maybe if students were to use digital media to sketch (conditioned to not use the pencil) then possibly the pencil may disappear. After all once you have learnt to use a tool is hard to un-learn it.
Before you can model well you need to have good construction knowledge. I do think this maybe the stumbling block to Sketching without Sketching.
Betty Nickel
Thank you Jason Smith…
We pretty much agree with everything you say above. Especially about starting a floor plan in pencil, then going to AC. And, drawing up other details or situations before modeling. We wouldn’t call this “old school” though. In our humble opinion, pencil and paper will be gone about the time coffee over the breakfast table disappears.
Betty Nickel in Colorado
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Richard
How can i study Architect since i did this in Senior high.. But now i want to further it
Jared Banks
Is there a local university, community college, or other school that offers classes? That might be a good next step if you aren’t ready to apply to a professional degree program.