without abstraction or inspiration (although it is often
sadly the case), rather it serves to remind society that
designers solve both visual and functional problems
through the medium of drawing. Their drawings contain
the genes that allow future objects to be designed, made
or built. In this sense the freehand drawings of architects
and designers are not only anchored in the context of the
present but contain the fertile possibility of the future.
To help architects understand form certain con-
ventions have been developed. These include ortho-
graphic projection and perspective drawing, both of which
have had their potential greatly amplified by computer-
aided design (CAD) graphics. The combination of two- and
three-dimensional drawing techniques means that a
typical architect or product designer employs a mixture of
plan, section, elevation, axonometric and perspective
drawings to communicate their intentions. Increasingly
these are all packaged into a CAD programme using
AutoCAD, ArchiCAD or similar graphics software. What
this book is mainly concerned with, however, is the stage
before formal drawing begins – those preliminary
sketches often made in the field or studio that help to
develop visual awareness. These early sketches, placed
for convenience in a sketchbook, allow precedent to be
understood, methods of construction to be analysed,
relationships in space or time to be assessed, and much
more. For the designer the sketch is less an experimental
beginning based upon abstract concepts (although this
may be the case in the work of Zaha Hadid and Frank
Gehry), and more the critical examination of a building,
place, landscape or programme.
The architect generally builds his or her designs upon
precedent. Even the best architects learn from the
example of other architects’ buildings, and often from
their own. Many cultivate an awareness not just of
contemporary precedent but historic examples too.
Certain architects also seek to understand and exploit
types of precedent drawn from outside the world of the
built environment. For example, Norman Foster admits
to being influenced by the design of airport hangars and
the aircraft themselves, whilst Santiago Calatrava is
inspired by structures and designs found in nature,
especially the shape and construction of bones. In both
examples, sketches are used to learn about physical,
material and visual properties – ideas that then migrate
into their architecture.
Design is ultimately about solving problems. The
future exists as an imaginative idea within the mind of the
architect. Translating this concept into a building requires
drawings. The problems to be solved are functional,
technological, environmental and social. How sketches
and more formal drawings are employed by architects
varies but generally speaking sketching occurs at the
beginning of the process, with two-dimensional drawings
(such as plans) being utilised more towards the end. The
first sketch made is instrumental and tells us a great deal
about how a designer thinks. If the early design sketch
takes the form of a section, the final building will be quite
different had it been a plan. Likewise, had the first sketch
been of a historic building of similar type, or of the
structure of the landscape, or of some abstract but
related concept, the final design again would have
proceeded in a quite different fashion. For example, the
architect Will Alsop often begins his design process with
a painting that embodies some of the abstract ideas that
more formal drawing may eliminate. His paintings are
colourful, joyful and rich in design potential. Another
architect, Edward Cullinan, carefully draws the visual
relationship between his site and the wider city or
landscape. In the process he discovers new ways of
solving the design problem – ways that subtly stitch the
new building into the wider scene. With Cullinan, as with
Foster, the focus and tension in these early sketches
informs the whole design process.12 Understanding architecture through drawing