Revive Quality Architecture with Hand Drawn Design
"I was talking to an architect friend of mine about this topic, he's been in the field for over 30 years, so before CAD really took on. He mentioned that one of the saddest things to happen to architecture in the last 20 or so years this over-reliance on computer programs to design architecture. Before, an architect would just take out some paper, and just like draw. Like free-hand draw with a ruler. And he said you'd get these beautiful designs that would just look aesthetically pleasing but were also architectually sound. Because now, people just go to the computer because it's fast. ... you draw a line, it tells you how many studs you need, everything's done. It limits creativity. He says our architecture has suffered as a result of that."That's the host of the "Art of Manliness" podcast talking to book author David Sax.
David Sax replied:
"I interviewed someone at Google named John Scigga. He created this course for teaching other designers and employees at Google: "How to draw on paper"... He explained to me why: because software creates a bias. It will always steer you in a direction of what it wants you to do, or what's going to be easiest or most standardized. That's because the nature of software is to standardize things ... On paper you really only have to move within the physical bounds of the page. ... And so at Google, and many ad firms and architectural firms, the idea is, when you're working on an idea for the first stage, don't go to the computer first... Imperfection is actually the goal."This exchange reminded me of an article I read weeks ago by "Never Trumper" columnist Ross Douthout on an architecture proposal brought by the stopped-clock-is-right-twice-per-day Trump administration. Douthout's article pointed to another article that I just slurped up straight into my semi-conscious, and created a filter through which nearly every office building and domicile now disappoints me.
That second article which everyone should read so they can join me in my newfound architecture snobbery is called "Why You Hate Contemporary Architecture: and if you don't, why you should" in the journal Current Affairs.
Ask the average citizen today not just why the image below is hideous, but whether it is. Few will answer correctly as most will be afraid to take a stand.
Let's try to brainstorm. For one, the facade of the building atop this post looks as if a skilled architect or designer spent much time with pencil and paper creating it, as if she was doodling while watching a movie, then perfected that doodle.
Illustrator Lynda Barry told an interviewer that drawing with her hand is instructive to her, that the drawing on the paper feeds information back to her hand about what to draw next.
This work by AJ Fish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
