Chapter 8
From sketch to plan making and documentary
investigation
Sketching may on occasion be supplemented by drawing
quick plans or sections. The sketch is a useful and
enjoyable tool, but there are occasions when more
analytical drawings are required. Although a sketch can
indicate the position of a doorway relative to the rest of
the façade, it cannot show the importance of the door
with regard to the plan of the building. Here you will have
to resort to preparing drawings of a more technical
nature.
As with sketching, there are a few useful tips to bear
in mind. If you are going to measure the subject, get
someone else to hold the end of the tape measure, and
preferably a third person to read out the dimensions. Your
task will then be that of drawing and recording the
measurements. Any plan prepared in this way should
have the sketch plan, section or elevation drawn at the
same time as the measurements are taken, and ideally at
the same scale.
Height often poses a problem, but you can triangulate
the subject or alternatively use a staircase (if you have
access to the interior) to take a vertical measure.
Sometimes you can count the number of brick courses,
assuming they are laid at four courses per foot. If these
fail, then it is possible to take an informed guess on the
basis of 9 feet (2.7m) per storey for an ordinary house
(allowing for the type of construction) and 15 feet (4.4m)
for a grander building.
The sketch plan does not have to be dimensionally
accurate to contain useful information. The fact that the
building is square in plan, or that a city street is the same
width as the height of houses enclosing it, is more
important than mere dimensions. You may be able to
pace out the dimensions of the building, on the
assumption that your step is about 3 feet (0.9m), or
determine the height of doors by your reach.
Approximate plans are used to supplement the
sketched information and to help bring some aspect of
the design into clearer focus. After all, you are sketching
to learn about the built environment, and learning does
require a disciplined approach. With townscape sketches,
a quickly drawn plan of the figure-ground (the relationship
between the solids of buildings and the voids of streets
and spaces) helps explain the geometry or pattern evident
in your view. It may also encourage you to draw from
another point in the street, thereby helping you to reach a
real understanding of the often complex spatial
interactions in an urban scene.
Assuming you have prepared a sketch and
supplemented this with a plan or section, then you may
decide to take your investigation further.64 Understanding architecture through drawing