Envision Article - the end of drawing

Miguel,
I read your article and what intrigued me was your reference
to the "master mason". Were you referring to the use of scale
masonry models as a design tool ?

I am familiar with the early practice of making reduced scale
masonry models of proposed buildings yet I know little about
the details of how these models were really used.
I wonder if you might care to illucidate a little about how these
models were actually used.
Were they used to "design", or were they used only as presentation
devices, or perhaps to test structure ?

You seem to imply that CAAD is potentially a way of recreating
this early form of design and design evaluation.

I came to Archicad after thirty years of drawing and drafting
with pencil, paper, and straight edge.
I took to the virtual building like a duck to water.
It seemed so natural to model rather than draw and almost
immediately I was learning GDL because I needed to "make things".

I notice that what I depend on AC for is calculation. If I had to do
a perspective the old way it would take me forever but AC can do it
in an instant, which allows me to get to what I am really interested in
which is the form not doing calculations.

Is your thesis related to this ability of machines to get us
through this calculation bottleneck ?

Thank you,
Peter Devlin

Peter

First of all, let me thank you for taking your time, the feedback I get to this first article is very important for the second one.

The way I see the mason figure, in the particular Virtual Building context, is related to the ability to return to construction.

Before the renaissance, architects (they were not even called that) where this guys who spend all the time at the building location, trying to figure out how to get the work done. They knew a LOT about building techniques, and seldom used drawing to help them imagine the solutions.

Sometimes they used work models. This models where done primarily to test solutions, but also to communicate with their coworkers and clients (sounds familiar?).

renaissance architects, in their hurry to leave the (dirty) construction site, invented a whole new vocabulary to be able to transmit their architectural ideas.

Elevations and sections live to our day.

But by doing this, they tied drawing and designing completely together, to a point it is nowadays impossible to know where one starts and another ends.

My main point is this: Should architects be slaves to drawing, or is there another (and maybe better) way of thinking and expressing architecture?

If there is one, I do not doubt it will be trough computers.

It seems ironic to me (kind off, anyway) that we come full circle. Trying to get away from the construction site, inventing this whole new profession, we will end up building again. only this time, it will be in the virtual world. Which, viruses notwithstanding, is a cleaner one

Miguel,
Thank you for replying.
Everything you say seems intuitively right to me.
I had not put these ideas into words like you have.

You ask:
"Should architects be slaves to drawing, or is there another (and maybe better) way of thinking and expressing architecture? "

I've been worrying about whether I am becoming a slave
to my cad program

Thank you,
Peter Devlin

Peter wrote:

I've been worrying about whether I am becoming a slave
to my cad program

Cad, refrigerators, automobiles, toilets, television, cellular phones, you name it.

The way I see it, unlike these gizmos, we are also slave to pencil but do not realize it. To us, drawing is as natural as breathing. But if you think of it, there must be other ways of imagining architecture, without having to depend on drawing.

Vitruvius wrote:
The narrative is the building. And the technical process is really only the anecdote to that narrative.

Truer words have never been spoken
But I am not really that much interested in the technical process per se, but on how it could change the "thinking" process, the creative process.

After having perfected my sketching technique for 30 odd years, I still feel that it doesn´t get me there. Things that appear at the end of my pencil are not similar to the things that go on inside my head (fortunately, as my shrink would put it).

To me, sculpture is much closer to architecture than drawing, so it stands to reason that the creative process in sculpture should be much closer to the one in architecture than simple two dimensional doodles.

And if you could build a system that emulates reality as closely as possible, you would be able to BUILD (sorry about the shouting), and not just squiggle.

And building is, after all, what it is all about.
So, I don't think technology is irrelevant. I could almost venture that some years from now, architecture will be a case study in how the computer age changed our working habits.

I could be wrong, of course. wouldn't be the first time

Gracias for your interest, ejrolon

ejrolon wrote:
1) There is a difference between doing regular flat dwg's and the old mason built model and in using a VB is that you can integrate the best things of the two previous methods. For example pre-building the model gives us all the info as to the 3d relationship of the architectural solution. Having the immediate feedback of the 2d abstraction of the models gives us the ability to evaluate the design solution as it pertains to it's proportions, site limits, code regulations, etc.

No doubt. We will be/are Super master masons. Maybe Hypermasons?
We can build infinite (time allowing) solutions, and test them, artistically and technically.

ejrolon wrote:
2) Using a VB as a basis for an architectural solution also implies possible changes to the way construction documents are developed. There is no economic or time limitation for not including 3d views/details of the project within the CD's.

More. In a not so distant future (10 years, 20 years?) we will cease to have 2d representation, as we know it. The VB information will transit from our computer to the builders computer, to the building machines and the "intelligent" construction elements. This already happens, at an early stage, with Frank Gehry´s work. This means, technical 2d drawings (either paper or digital) will become irrelevant.

ejrolon wrote:
3) The VB gives also the benefit of how the client understands the solution. At this point for certain projects I prepare multiple animations, still images and slide shows for the client, create a DVD and give it to the client to browse at it's leisure. Since I already have a established procedure for this changes do not slow down the project.

This is where I want to get a step ahead (maybe a big step).
VB as we know it is a weak simulation of a (apparently) small building rotating on your 17" inches display (or 30", if you are a successful canadian illustrator).What I imagine is a immersive virtual enviroment, where you manipulate your 3d model as if it where a real building.
Look around you. You are probably in a room, which could be a virtual representation. Now extend your arm, click on the wall, click on the height icon, and double the height of your room. Now click on the other wall, click on the window icon, and put a window there. Adjust its height.
This scenario is, as far as I see it, quite within our reach. Software is there, hardware is there, computers keep evolving according to Moore's law, graphic processors are getting more and more powerful. its all a matter of power. We will get there, probably in the next 10 years.
This way of doing architecture will turn drafting obsolete, as well as getting us nearer to the client. he/she will be able to really interact with the developing projects.

ejrolon wrote:
4) Since I teach at an Arch School I have had to re-evaluate the curriculum taking in consideration the VB approach (though the 1st and 2nd year students use SketchUp and the upper classmen I am moving to AC). The way I explain what I am trying to do in the faculty meetings is that the changes in software can give us the option to reevaluate the design process and the presentation of the final design solution. In this scenario the regular floorplans, elevs, etc. are a result of the 3D solution from which we then reevaluate the 3d design solution.

As I also teach at an architecture university, this questions are foremost in my mind: Are we preparing this soon to be architects to deal with the present, or with (their) future? What will their future be like? How will they do architecture?
From what I have seen, most of the architecture students still get taught as I did, 20 years ago. Thinking trough the pencil.

ejrolon wrote:
With the VB concept we can clarify that the solution to an architectural problem does not have to be established by doing 2d abstractions of it but by developing the complete solution using the 3D and 2D tools at our disposal. IMO what should be meant by saying "the end of drawing" is in reality the end (evolution?) of traditional drawing and design procedures, be it by hand or by using flatland software, and the beginning of intelligent digital drawing and the changes in architectural practice that it will entail.

Hope this helps

Yes, that is it. And the next question is, of course, what kind of architecture will be done this way? More of the same, only better, or something fundamentally different, as it started 600 years ago, when architects left the building site and developed ideas sitting (or standing) at a table?