You know, you can really do whatever the fuck you want. There's still some people who mix hand drawing with photoshop etc.

Awesome, thanks Brut, did you go to Harvard?

I went to the open house at GSD and saw one guy diligently painting small, beautiful watercolors of buildings. I mean they were obviously for a project, not just random paintings. SO the answer is, yes.

hand drawing is a waste of time, effort and you back. I think it's irresponsible for schools to push hand drafting.

What? It's also an art form, and I feel like we often forget that representation can (should?) be an art form, not just a practical way of illustrating how things can look in the future. It really does seem that people who can draft skillfully by hand have an entirely different way of looking at built works, space, etc. Things designed on the computer look like they were designed on the computer, so we have built objects that look like computer drawings, which can work somtimes but can also be a little weird. Maybe making construction documents by hand is obsolete and inefficient, but all hand drawing is certainly not a waste!

I highly doubt that the GSD pushes hand drafting, but it's great that the option of representing by hand drawing is still there.

Well... some evidence of hand drawing here at the GSD:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ritchieyao/sets/72157594352871475/
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=125694211&context=set-72057594099737597&size=o
via
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/talk20-goes-to-boston.html

if i didn't get to draw with my hands several times a week, i'd go absolutely bonkers. so it's not a waste of time, it's an investment in my sanity.

I don't think representation is an artform. It is analytical. All the fetishism of representation as artform was drummed up by romantics and ludites within architectural faculties who were either not curious in new technologies or simply too lazy to update their thinking. Representations con only be beautiful if it's a representation of a beautiful design.


There's no such thing as autonomously beautiful architectural representation.

ok now i know that you're just trying to mess with us because that's asinine.

no I'm serious. Computers are just far more expeditious. And the speed it allows designers offers them more oportunity to make more design itterations, and that means better designs. Factor in information management systems like gis, servo controlled manufacturing tools, paramentrics ... etc. and you have a range of tools at our disposal that are so powerful and exciting that they just make the silly old architect clutching his pen, hunched over a mayline seem like such a laughably boring and dated figure.

walter pichler:

(img)http://www.lentos.at/img/Pichler_G4305_l.jpg width=418(/img)
(img)http://www.glw.at/data/lang-wien/Pichler300.jpg width=418(/img)
(img)http://www.kunstnet.at/thoman/picts/pichler2004_5b.jpg(/img)
(img)http://www.redworks.info/artistsnet/images_2003/Pichler.jpg width=418(/img)

?? computers aren't your friend are they?

wagner:


woods:


abraham:

i don't hate them. but i don't think they're enough.

ok - let's see wagner hasn't been practicing in a long time so I don't know how relevant he is to this discussion.

I'd deffinitely lump abraham and pichler in with the ludites.

Woods - I think he's more of a graphic novelist or something to that effect.

Anyway, these drawings aren't architectural representations. They're drawings. The have no relation to a built work - therefore they don't represent anything.

oh and also worth noting that none of those people have any affiliation with the GSD. Especially Wagner.

j-turn:
using computers 100% of the time is just as ridiculous as drawing by hand 100% of the time.

It is disapointing if a student does not know (or is not taught) which tool to use for each situation.

You speak of iterations..... what about iterations through different media? your arguement falls short there - switching media allowes you to work through an alternate process, thus the potential to influence even further. hand drawing, sketch, physical model, computers should all be included

should hand drafting be taught - yes!

should it be mandatory at an advanced level of studio - no, but those who have mastered one skill (no matter which) will have an advantage over those who have not.

now if you are arguing for the production of contract documents within a firm, you are correct, but i doubt anyone is debating you on that.

ah. i didn't know the conditions for examples of artful hand drawings needed to be so specific.

machado and silvetti use computer renderings and use computers for production, so definitely not luddites, and jorge teaches at gsd.

what is your def. of representation? - a floor plan?

common!- those drawings ARE representions, even if they are only representing a thought, a dream, an emotion

would you go as far as to say that a piece of literature is not a representation?

what is your ignorance a representation of?

<<Anyway, these drawings aren't architectural representations. They're drawings. The have no relation to a built work - therefore they don't represent anything.>>

Who cares? What? Of course they represent something. That is all they do.

Ugh, this sort of architectural chauvinism is a huge pet peeve of mine. (Not as in gender-based chauvinism, but the chauvinism of elevating feasible architectural designs over other types of creative practice.)

By your argument, the only representations of buildings that "count" would be photographs and videos/films. A computer model is also merely a 2-D model of 3-D space. Computer programs just havethe added capability of allowing people to rotate and fly-through, take screenshots, make little movies, sometimes mill things or make 3-D prints. They can be more convenient and expedient, but that isn't always a virtue. There's a washed sameness that can happen with computer-based design, I think - so that designs can end up being limited by the skills of renderers, or the capabilities of a program to show detail and the style in which the program inclines one to output, rather than by the needs of the people who are going to be using the program, or by imagination.

As far as efficiency goes, some computer renderings probably take longer to accomplish than some hand-drawings. I suppose it would depend on the skill of the person with a particular tool, but I can definitely imagine that there are people for whom it's much easier and faster to hand-draw representations of built works.

No, I don't really have any qualms about boldly declaring that I retain a romantic, luddite streak. But anyone who looked in my closet for five seconds would be able to ascertain that. :)

the only thing not worth doing on a computer is model making - only because digital model making is either expensive or crappy - depending on which way you go. But in time ...

Seriously, there's nothing you can draw by hand that you can't draw by computer. And the inverse of that statement isn't true.

I used to think that sketching was the one thing that you still needed hands for, but since then I've gotten much more comphy with rhino and I can use it quite fluidly as a sketching tool. Anyway, I've also learned that sketching is overrated because most architects i encounter these days are terrrible sketchers, and it becomes a tool for obfuscation and confusion rather than communication and development.

balderdash.

<<Seriously, there's nothing you can draw by hand that you can't draw by computer. And the inverse of that statement isn't true. >>

Hypothetically, that might be true. A computer shouldn't be more limiting than a paper and pigment. But the fact is that most people who are drawing on the computer absolutely do NOT have the skills to draw some things digitally that other, skillful artists can do by hand. Some renderers do, but they're rare, and they're the top of the rendering profession. Most people in practice just get to a certain point of skill and don't take it beyond that. Also, the computer drawings just don't lend themselves to have certain "looks." Like you'll get a certain type of line with a certain type of pen that you can't get with any other type of pen... you'll get a certain appearance with a computer program, and have a hard time breaking out of the representational restrictions that the computer program has encoded into itself. At a certain point, it's up to the user to input specifics, and at that point, if it's more efficient to output by hand, then output it by hand.

Then there's the fact that, sometimes, literal one-to-one translations from 2-D to built are not the purpose of a particular rendering/drawing. The assumption of an indexical relationship as the only valid purpose for a drawing is a very robotic way of approaching the design process.

And no, you can't typically draw spinny 3-D computer-style movies by hand. Well, rather, you absolutely can, if you are skilled enough and have the budget/facilities. But again it's an issue of practicality, and obviously the arhitectural projects of the world cannot support the vintage Disney method.

I don't think Steven or I hate computers at all.. did you think we were posting to Archinect via telegraph? :) This is somehow hearkening back to the thread WonderK posted, and the issues it brought up of people not really respecting older people (& by extension, older skills) in the profession, which I do think is sad. It's just a computer, not a god. Eventually these computers we use will be obsolete, too - I seriously think that someday we'll all be tweaking little holograms or something. And also still drawing with pen and ink right alongside that.

Ambiguity is an important property of hand-drawing that is more difficult to work with on a computer. A computer insists on knowing precisely where each intersection and control vertex is. When drawing by hand, it is possible to keep a figure in a suspended state: neither plan nor section; or neither solid or void. This kind of ambiguous drawing is very useful to me.

You have a slightly bizarre set of prejudices, j. You argue against fetishising physical representations, and yet you fetishise a 'final' physical object by saying that representation doesn't matter, the design does. Isn't that a bit of a conflict?

I just went to Art Dyson's Web Page to see if he had any of his fantastic Rendering on his site, just one which I will post. Seems his office has gone digital and now the drama has been lost. I saw an exhibit of his drawings in Chicago about seven years ago and I really have a hard time believe you can evoke the same feeling with a computer generated drawing.
[ing]http://www.arthurdyson.com/walson1_1.jpg[/.img]

no no I'm not fetishizing the final building. In architecture, representational tools are a means to an end. Their role is to be a tool and too be as transparent as possible. They are produced in sets because a single 2-d drawing is innadequate to describe a 3-d construct. They must use codes and convention to make up for their limitations.

The moment you start fetishizing them as artful works or beautiful objects, you introduce cataracts into that all import intentional transparency, and really you gut them of purpose.

Ambiguity has no place i architectural representation. An architectural drawing that is ambiguous is a failure.

To all of you who claim to love architectural representation; your love is gutting these drawing of their raison d'etre - their gensis and life purpose. You are sucking them dry of their agency for a few wiffs of aesthetic enertainment.

I would disagree.

When you say representation is only a means to an end (a building), you are saying that a building is a real thing (to which your desire is attached), and the drawing is an unreal thing. That's what I mean by fetishising.

Drawing isn't transparent. It is more like a kind of screen. Each screen has its own filtering properties. To imagine that a digital representation is any less of a screen than any other kind of representation seems faulty to me.

Ambiguity is an important part of designing (well it is for me). Of course, I'm not suggesting that all drawings should be ambiguous. Contractors don't really appreciate that. I'm thinking particularly of conceptual sketching. It isn't about ambiguity for the sake of entertainment. Its about making the drawing do some work. When I make sketches for something, I am trying things out, and I want to get something in return from the image: some insight into what I am proposing which goes further than what I consciously put into the drawing. If the drawing tells me nothing other than what I already knew, it is a waste of time.

To conceive of representation as simply transparent doesn't allow room to discover things as you work.

Just so we're straight, I don't particularly like froofy drawings that don't mean anything either. A representation has to do something.

lol.

ok not out loud cuz not that funny, but i am certainly grinning.

in a kinda john kerry immitation, i find myself agreeing with both j-turn and steve and susan.

there are a few guys in my old firm who i see are still drafting by hand ocassionally, but i would not call them efficient in terms of production. in fact very much the opposite, though they do draft very nicely. the craftsmanship in their dwgs is remarkable...and beside the point of construction, which is what we are about in the end. we put pictures of completed buildings up on the wall, we put dwgs in the archive.

as far as skills go however, i think drafting is not much different by computer as by hand. i still start with center lines, and work out, adding information as i go. that didn't change with the media (although i wish it would; i'm still waiting for a real revolution to take place on that end).

sketching is something else from production dwg though. i sketch in c4d (not rhino) for complex shapes that really i can't get at by hand in any reasonable mount of time. lately i do this more regularly, though mostly for projects related to art installations than for architecture (sadly). this may change in the future. but for now the rest of my work is defined by relationships between spaces, and for that, as an architect trying to plan a building, all i need is pen and paper. and doing it on a computer would get in the way, because it does require more precision than i need or want, and it locks a person into a limited direction set too early (which is alright in some cases). this may be my failing, but i doubt it.

my sketches on the other hand often are composed of three or more ideas for a building in a single image, with various options for stair locations, or places where landscape enters house/connects with building, whatever, layered on all at once. i keep track of what goes with what in my head, and later extract the information to explain to others (cuz my sketches are in the end an enorous mess of one iteration drawn over another, with sections, details, plans and perspectives usually sharing the same space). same goes for physical models. they are lively and messy and only make sense to me as a tool for design.

in these cases however representation is not a goal. design development is. and perhaps that distinction is getting lost a bit in discussion above. when it comes to presenting information to others it doesn't matter what the medium is, cuz it is at that point just about salesmanship and personal taste.

i have to admit that i doubt i will ever use a mayline again. it is a tool with no use for me now. and really for those folks old enough to rememebr carrying around your mini-mayline so you could be portable, isn't a laptop infinitely better?

and we all know that computer models are never ambiguous...

right.

i know for one that i can go through about ten iterations in hand
sketches before you could get one complete computer model...
and noone is sitting around a computer at a cafe drawing up different
ideas..or maybe they are?

to ignore hand sketching is as ignorant as ignoring the relevance/
need for computers.

there is a thought process that is allowed to happen through a good
hand sketch that is not available through the computer..

and to say that pichler is a ludite is laughable...especially since firms
like morphosis have him listed as one of their major influences.
his drawings very much relate to built work as many of his drawings
and paintings have become actual buildings.

Guys this has been great. Your comments have been helpful.
j-turn, I have noticed that most people who jump on the computer full time and don't draw by hand at all, did not do very well in design,
and they use the software to do the design for them. Of course, Architecture is a heuristic process. To me it seems like a part of the understanding of space and structure is lost when the mouse replaces the pencil, or the knife. It looks like the computer has made everything faster and more efficient, maybe not better design.
I'm with you Steven Ward and Susan.

VIVA LEBBEUS WOODS!!!

Oh, dear. We're gutting and sucking dry the poor, poor drawings of their raison d'etre. STOP THE INSANITY!! Arrest me! :D

Now, see, I'm definitely with whomever it was above that said this has to be a troll posting. I thought that this particular breed of bullheaded, bombastic conservativism was the dinosaur that we'd rather focus upon shooing out of the profession.

Sure, for some representational images of architecture, their existence is a means to the end of a built design. But that is not the purpose of all representational images of architecture. If this isn't a troll posting for hoots, it's disturbing that you can't see that multiple purposes for a skill set can exist simultaneously and all contribute value in their own ways. It can't surprise anyone that someone who thinks and reasons in this way (if input does not match extant database, DOES NOT COMPUTE!) would also grasp at straws in order to twist such a limitation into the ultimate virtue, and thus seek to obliterate the merits of everything but the computer.

It's quite enjoyable to fetishize images of things, including images of buildings, as artful works and beautiful objects. Try it! The pleasantness of looking at things you like looking at is enough of a purpose in itself, why do they all need to have more of a use? Such representations may not be useful in getting something built, and they may not have the "all important transparence" (seriously? hahah!) but that isn't their "raison d'etre." Whiffs of aesthetic entertainment do, indeed, have souls & lifespans of their own. Sometimes, longer than certain buildings. There is a value in the speculative, imaginative and fanciful, and these things hardly detract from the tangible. Or, physical reality and materiality aren't enough, on their own, to satisfy the mind. But that is treading philosophical waters, hm.

I'd also like to remind the reading public that I am certainly not arguing against computer-based design. I love the computers. I don't love the idea that the computer ought to be the only drawing tool or that other media are obsolete.

As someone who isn't particularly skilled at or inclined toward hand-drawing myself, it could've been tempting for me to side with j-turn (hm, is that what is going on here?) in order to try to headbutt my particular computer-based skill set to the top, if I didn't revel in, and envy, other people's drawings so much. Hyperdraw, I hope to see you keeping it alive!

Very much Susan Surface, as I said in my posting I want to mix the 2 tools together.
I am sure I will enjoy. I guess I got a bit scared when I went to Columbia several weeks ago, and I asked one of the students in the Architecture builiding ( It now looks like a comp. science lab) if he used a mayline at all. His reponse was; "there just isn't room for one."
I thought this guy is in one of the most powerful universities and he can't make room for a Gdamn drafting desk???!!!!! Also, everything looked like origami and blobs, which I am tired of seeing in architecture; except for Neil Denari blobs. If I didn't like the computer, the I would not have job in Arch. and I would not be e-mailing everyone bitching about it.

the only thing computers and drawing have done away with is the tedium of noting and hatching. that is the only back breaking and mind numbing part of the process. trying to get perfect text and hatch patterns produced effieciently cannot be done by hand anymore.

hand drawing as tool dead? let me guess, you don't have a sketchbook, moleskine and you lug around a mac and stylus when you sketch on the street. okay, right.

I like to use both computer and hand. Sometimes I get locked up on the computer and bust out the Mayline. When that stops working, I go back to CAD and Rhino and back and forth. This semester I've drafted by hand because it just seems to flow, then draw them in CAD, take it into Rhino, manipulate it, model, back into CAD, sketch, back and forth. It's been a really good mix of media. One semester I built quick models in Rhino to get the weird angles, plotted the lines, overlayed hand drawing with more detail, did some Photoshop and made drawings that really impressed everyone. This is from the lover of VRay.

up til this week susan hasn't been around in a while. now i realize that i've missed her.

All I know is, the kids in my school who jumped on the CAD bandwagon as soon as they could and had no inking experince whatsoever all have crap CAD drawings because they have no concept of lineweight. Me on the otherhand, am a total AutoCAD newb with less than a year of experience and already I draw way better then they do.

acad, photoshop, and hand rendering on trace originally 3' x 7'- nothin special but it was fun to make

forget it

Rhino+Hand drafting+Photoshop

what happens at umich (thinking of specific cases as i write)
1. some people use computers to visualize and nothing else, everything else with models and drawing. no development with 3d apps.
2. some sketch A LOT with autocad, and then produce drawings and 3d renders later on.
3. some use 3d apps to resolve things that are hard to visualize in paper. models used in design development extensively.
4. others draw and model with very little use of computer models.
5. i don't think there's anyone that works like me here, but i use physical models sparringly, only when it is harder to create the shape in rhino, or cinema 4 d and then pull out a render that will tell me more. i push out 15+ renders a day just testing out thought iterations just because i feel i can work much faster and in my computer than with chipboard or bristol. i sketch like crazy though.


in the end, the professors rarely show any preference for either as long as you are putting your concept across in an understandable manner.

okay and in response to a few comments up there...


nothing can compare to sketching. ever. there is no faster way of getting thoughts flowing and there is no faster way of trapping those flowing thoughts. if you don't sketch out your ideas, you are truly letting a lot of them fly by.

model work, good stuff, as long as you don't spend twenty hours wresting a material that is not suited for your particular form. then you run the risk of getting tired and succumbing to the materials push (scoring chipboard instead of using wire to hold it when it's curved, succumbing to the ease of striking a straight line with a ruler when you know that's not what you originally wanted.)

3d apps, same as model work. you have to be certain you aren't being driven by the software, just like you have to be sure not to succumb to "cardboard model inventiveness" (serra?)

but there are two separate discussions here
one concerns the education and no one can deny the value of learning and using hand drawing/drafting in school

but at some point I agree with j-turn, it just becomes fetishistic to fall for the representation. sure you need those sketchy rendering to sell something to a client but I dread those images because I don't need to see a trembling line to understand myself.
everyone is different, though.

hyperdraw, there is much love for hand drawings in most schools now so you'll do fine

Like this, WEare?

Wow. I'm pissed that I'm coming to this thread so late in the game, but I still want to play. I can think of at least three things that hand drawing develops that working with a mouse and a screen do not: 1) critical observation skills and learning to see and understand scale, proportion, light, shadow, texture. 2) developing and fine tuning the kinesthetic connection between your eyes and your hand- the fluidity of the experience and the instantaneous feedback received through the physical act of sketching or drawing does not translate to the computer. 3) the opportunity for random, happy accidents- the specificity and precision of the computer as a tool often locks one into one method or approach. Some lack of control in drawing, using charcoal, washes, etc, can often push your work in new, unanticipated and fruitful directions.

Some of these above points may possibly be negated by using a tablet as an input tool to a graphics program, but I can't see computer-based sketching ever perfectly replicating the physical experience of pencil on paper. I was kind of surprised to find that no one uses tablets in schools (I didn't see any in my visits, at least).

It's interesting that someone mentioned Morphosis- I saw Thom Mayne lecture at the Cooper Union earlier this week, and he drove the presentation from his tablet PC. He would doodle annotations and explanatory gestures onto the screen as he was explaining, which made for a much richer experience for the audience than if he were just trying to verbally explain the work. Beyond the presentational bonuses of his interaction with the tablet, I think that his being able to draw his thoughts out on the screen in real time allowed him to speak about the work in a more engaged way.

At the end of the day, despite the tremendous power and time-saving benefits that computers have, we shouldn't lose our connection to our humanity and our connection to the physical world.

Yipes. Studying for the GREs has made me write everything like an essay response. "Drawing by hand is dead and serves no useful purpose. All rendering should be done on computers." Analyze and present your perspective on this topic. You will have 45 minutes to craft a response.

This is actually good training. thanks, guys.

Hyperdraw, you didn't see the maylines scattered throughout the first year studios at the GSAPP? They can come in handy for our required drawing course, in which you are free to draw by hand as much as you'd like.

It doesn't seem like you took a close look at the work being done here. Maybe I'm biased, because I'm in a (the?) "origami" studio and my project now looks like a piranha made out of slap bracelets. But it's twice as deadly.

Seeing beyond what things "look like" is usually rewarding.